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Mercedes has been fined €10,000 for an unsafe release of Michael Schumacher during Q3 in Korea.

Schumacher pulled out of his garage into the fast lane while Lewis Hamilton was approaching, forcing the McLaren driver to take the inside line to avoid him.

Both drivers played down the incident, although the FIA decided that the team was culpable.

“I noticed only when suddenly it got a bit noisy around me,” said Schumacher. “Because with the cockpit sides you don’t really see much of what happens on your left. It was one of those misunderstandings that can happen. The pit lane is wide enough, so I guess no big deal.

“Everyone’s trying to get out as soon as possible and that’s what they did,” said Hamilton. “He wasn’t in my way, I was just able to get by him.”

Mark Webber surprised team mate Sebastian Vettel and earned his first genuine pole of the year with a superb performance in Korea.

Webber inherited the top spot in Monaco – where he won – after Michael Schumacher’s grid penalty was taken into account.

The Aussie admitted that it had not been an easy session.

“We had a few plates spinning, to be honest, with some little background issues that we were managing as best we could on the lap,” said Webber. “But the lap was very good, apart from Turn 15, I made a mistake there, so probably got in OK but the exit wasn’t great but apart from that it worked well. I think I got 11 and 12 as good as I could get.

“So, yeah, take the rough with the smooth. I think it was a tight session, I think, for all of us – up and down, scrubbed tyres, new tyres. Fernando did a pretty solid lap time on the scrubbed at some point there. So that’s just the way it is. With the old Pirellis, things can move around quite a bit.”

Webber was hampered by a software issue that cost him priceless track time in FP3.

“We didn’t get to run anywhere near as much as we would have liked to in P3, so our information on the option was limited. So there was a bit of catch-up going on for sure.

“After my first run on the option in Q2, I had not the best sector two and three for balance issues and also some other things that Ciaron was working on to get the car to finish the lap better – so that’s what we focussed on in Q3. And got the job done.”

He agreed that the team had made good progress since the August break: “We have been making small developments at each Grand Prix, that’s the way it is. If you look at where the car is from Spa, obviously it’s a different aero package for Spa and Monza, but to where it is now, the base of the car for sure is probably a decent step but it’s always… every Grand Prix, we try to just put little bits on the car to help.

“At some Grands Prix we don’t put anything on, we miss and at the next one we catch up a bit more, and also, you have to bear in mind that it’s circuit-specific as well. You have to understand what each track needs and those type of things, so the last two venues have probably been pretty good for us in terms of layout, especially the last one.

“Yeah, happy drivers are drivers at the front so when you’re towards the front it makes you satisfied but we can still improve the car, there are always areas to improve. That’s what we’ve got to keep working on.”

After a frustrating qualifying session in Japan Felipe Massa earned a solid sixth place in Korea, although he was 0.3s off team mate Fernando Alonso.

Nevertheless the Brazilian was pleased with the outcome after failing to get out of Q2 in Suzuka.

“I think it was more or less OK,” said Massa. “Sure it was not really a perfect lap, I made some little mistakes in a few corners, but anyway it would not be much better than how it was, maybe one or two positions better, not more than that.

“But anyway I’m looking forward to the race, the race is what counts, so I hope we can have a more competitive race compared to what we had in qualifying. We saw two teams quicker than us, so now we need to concentrate on the race.”

Massa hopes to gain some ground at the start: “The start here, corner one, is a bit tight, but I’m looking forward to that, and also for the pace. It’s important to have a good pace in the race, and I think that can be quite important for us to recover some positions.”

Fernando Alonso says he’s surprised to be fourth on the grid in Korea in amongst his title rivals, having expected to be worse off.

Alonso starts alongside Lewis Hamilton on the second row.

“I think it was fine, at the end of the day we’re in a position that is better than Suzuka, seven days ago, and we have to be more or less happy,” said the Spaniard. “

Obviously our main competitors Red Bull start first and second, which again shows us how strong they are at this moment, so we need to do a perfect race tomorrow and try to maximise our points.

“I was thinking it would be a little bit worse to be honest, because we were sixth and 11^th in Suzuka, we have exactly the same car, and we are fourth and sixth here, so it’s something that’s a little bit better, and we seem to be a little bit more competitive, also on the long run yesterday. A little bit more confidence for tomorrow’s race, but we know that it’s going to be tough.”

Alonso is optimistic about Ferrari’s form in the race: “Sunday is normally a little bit better for us, Saturday is the pure performance of the cars, and obviously we are fighting with a car that did first positions all weekend, first in Q1, first in Q2 and first and second in Q3.

“So they have a strong car, it’s the strongest point from them, but we have a team. In the race there is the start, there is the strategy, the tyre management, etc, and on that aspect, I think we are the strongest.”

Jenson Button is optimistic about McLaren’s prospects for the Korean GP weekend, despite Red Bull’s ominously fast pace in FP2 today.

Button finished the afternoon session in fourth place, but he was almost 0.4s off Sebastian Vettel. However the McLaren race pace looked good.

“We’ve made progress definitely from this morning,” he said. “I wasn’t entirely happy. But also this morning was mostly testing new parts, making sure everything was working correctly, it wasn’t about set-up work. This afternoon on the low fuel and the high fuel we’ve made good progress. Still not quick enough, but I feel that we’re going in the right direction.”

Button was impressed by the pace of the Red Bulls.

“I think they are going to be very difficult to beat in qualifying. They seem to have that strength back. Our race pace today seemed to be competitive, over one lap we’re still lacking, so it’s an area we need to work on. As I said the direction that we’ve gone with the car and the adjustments we made are positive, so there’s still more to come.

“At the moment it doesn’t look like we are as quick as the Red Bulls, but it’s only practice. Our race pace feels good, forgetting the lap times, our consistency is good.”

Jenson admitted he hadn’t found the best compromise for the track’s mixed character: “Not yet, if you have a look we’re very slow in a straight line in sector one, we’re about 8kph down. It’s a tricky one to know which direction to go with that and how much downforce to run for the rest of the circuit.”

Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber topped the times in Korea on Friday, suggesting that Red Bull is already well set for a repeat of last weekend in Japan, when they swept the front row.

However long run form was less clear cut, and Vettel cautioned that there was still some work to do.

“I think we can be quite happy,” said Vettel. “It looks extremely tight. I’m not happy with every run we had today, the track was changing quite a lot this morning, so it was better than expected. This afternoon to start with it was quite slippery, but then I think it got a little better. All-in-all the car felt alright. Now we see what can we do for tomorrow. I think we have to improve ourselves to much the others.”

“We had a pretty good programme set out, and most of it managed to get the most out of it,” said Webber. “We have a look at where we can improve tonight, because in areas it’s always a compromise. The track is about top speed in the first sector and the last bit is twisty in terms of rhythm, it’s a little bit like Budapest, and you need downforce there.”

Regarding the typically dusty surface he said: “I was surprised that the track was as good as it was, we’ve had worse. The track will change, but it’s not our first Grand Prix, so we’re ready for that. Hopefully we’ll stay ahead of the game, and have a smooth run again tomorrow. The most important thing is a smooth run on Sunday. We had similar runs in Suzuka, but only one of us got the job done.”

Lewis Hamilton says that his Suzuka weekend was compromised by a damper-related failure that McLaren did not discover until after the race.

Hamilton struggled in qualifying and again in the race, although by the end of it he was a little happier with the balance of the car. Nevertheless by then the damage had been done to his chances.

“Hopefully it will be a better weekend this weekend,” he said today. “We struggled a little bit and didn’t get the result we wanted in both Singapore and also Suzuka. At the end of the race I said I felt something was wrong throughout the weekend.

“We found that we had a couple of mechanical problems in the car from qualifying through to the race in the last race, which is positive for me to know, because I thought I felt something. Hopefully for me this weekend should be better and we should be back on the pace.”

Elaborating on the problem he added: “It was something in the rear dampers, and basically it knocked out the balance in a certain way. The set-up change I made should have been the right one, but the effect, it didn’t actually work. It’s difficult to see that until they’ve figured it in the data.”

Meanwhile Hamilton says he’s far from out of the championship battle, and has high hopes for this weekend, having been on pole in 2011.

“It’s still up for grabs, it’s obviously a little bit tougher for us, a little bit closer for Sebastian and Fernando. But still 125 points available, so I’m going to try to grab every single one. I’m still in it to win it. It’s theoretically still possible, so I’ll keep pushing. Even when it’s not theoretically possible, I’ll still keep pushing, to get up as high as possible.

“The Red Bulls have been pretty quick here in the past so I anticipate that they will be very quick here this weekend. I think the Lotus would be quick here I would have thought, they’ve been pretty good in a lot of places, but still yet to win a race. Hopefully we’ll be very strong this year, as we were last year – we got pole last year, and I’m hoping that can be repeated.”

Fernando Alonso says he has no plans have change his approach now that the title battle has closed up because he has been pushing hard all season.

The Spaniard’s lead in the championship has dwindled to just four points after his early retirement in Japan.

“I think we have been pushing from the first test in the winter, so nothing has changed in the last five races,” he said in Korea today. “We just need to keep doing the things we’ve been doing so far. I think it has nearly been a perfect championship for us at the moment, with good strategies, good starts, good approach to the races.

“Everything we had in our hands on Sunday, we maximised the points. We had one zero in Spa and one zero in Suzuka, but things completely outside of our team, so apart from that we don’t need to change too many things.

“We were fighting in all the races the maximum we can, approaching the races to maximise the points we have available. Sometimes we were on the podium, sometimes we were fourth, sometimes we were fifth and this will not change now. I don’t think we can over-drive or over-do what is available for us.”

Alonso said that he’d had his fair share of bad luck lately: “Now we have lost many points, in the last four races let’s say, because at Spa we had a DNF which we had nothing to do with. In Monza we had a Q3 problem, and started in tenth, and in Suzuka we had a puncture at the start, in the first corner.

“All these last four races, in which we lost a lot points, I think are just some unlucky situations. Things normally change, they go up and down. Hopefully our bad run will finish and we will start a run of good runs until the end.”
He added that there wasn’t much new on the F2012 for this weekend.
“Not many updates, obviously it has been only four days from Suzuka to here so we will try to set up the car as best we can for this race, this layout. But, I remain reasonably confident that we will be competitive.

“We’ve been more or less competitive in the last eight, 10 races – maybe not the fastest but always in position to fight for podiums etcetera. I think here will be no different.”

Sebastian Vettel is hoping to carry the momentum he gained from winning the past two races into Korea, where he triumphed last year after passing Lewis Hamilton on the first lap.

Vettel has achieved two wins and a second in the four races since the summer break.

“We obviously come here on a high and we try to produce the momentum to have another very strong result here,” he said. “We know that this circuit should be quite good for us. Historically we have been competitive here. The two years we have been racing here before, I think we always had a very good car, so try again.

“In the end I think it’s the nature of the track that maybe we used to like in the last two years. We should be reasonably competitive but then again, this year I think it has been very unpredictable and you don’t know what happens so it could be the case here.

“We have to try our best to get another strong result. If you look at the layout, for sure you start off with a lot of straights and then you finish off with corners. It looks a little strange compared to other places because usually it’s a bit more of a mix. But here you get the straights first and then the corners.”

Vettel added that he didn’t discount Hamilton, despite the McLaren man falling behind in the title battle over the past couple of races.

“I think they are still fighting for the championship. I think that is their target, or has to be their target. I think if you look at the races we had after the summer break, so far, I think if you summed them up, in average, I think McLaren was the most competitive car.

“They are the ones which will be very competitive, no matter where we go, at least that’s what the last couple of races showed. I think they still have a very good chance.”

Romain Grosjean said today that he’s doing his best to avoid the sort of controversial incident that has blighted his season with Lotus.

After being banned from the Italian GP after the Belgian GP crash he was once again in the wars in Japan, landing a 10 second stop and go after a clash with Mark Webber at the first corner.

“Mark came to see me and I completely understand that he was unhappy,” said the Franco-Swiss driver. “The only thing I could say was to apologise and that’s what I did. I’m clearly conscious of the risk at the start, I’m working on changing on quite a lot of things but work doesn’t come from one day to the other one.

“There is a process going on. I said I was very sorry. I’m not stupid and I’m conscious of the risk. And hopefully by now it will be a different and I will not make the mistake of focusing on the wrong targets.”

Grosjean said he would try to keep out of trouble this weekend.

“Not having any contact on the first lap, that’s clearly one of the objectives. I’d say there’s work in progress and it takes a bit of time but yeah, it’s a cycle as well: things have been going bad, and the more it goes bad… I’m conscious of the risk at the start. The Spa accident was quite impressive and I was the first one to be happy that Fernando had nothing [ie was not injured].

“I paid the price as well for my mistake. In the team we spoke quite a lot; they are not happy, I am not happy the way we have been going through the first laps. There are 550 people working at Enstone to give us the best car and if you ruin everything in the first 100m it’s not good. I’m conscious of all of that and will try to take as many precautions as possible to go through the first lap – and then normally in the race we are OK.”

Webber meanwhile said the matter was closed: “Yeah, absolutely. I went to see Romain, we had a discussion about it and that was that.”