Adam Cooper F1

Fernando Alonso says that Ferrari didn’t have its usual race pace in Korea, and admits he already realised after practice that it would be a tough weekend.

For once Alonso didn’t gain places during the race, starting and finishing sixth, behind Nico Hulkenberg and Lewis Hamilton.

“Normally on Sunday we have a good pace, but here also on Sunday we didn’t have the performance we expected,” he said. “We saw on Friday a little bit, the long runs were not as good as other Grands Prix, and we knew that maybe the race was tough, and unfortunately we confirmed this feeling today. We were not so good at the start, in Turn 3 we lost a position to Nico, and then we were all the race behind Hulkenberg, which obviously also doesn’t help the tyres. We didn’t have the pace, but hopefully in Suzuka we can come back to a better one and fight for the podium again.”

Fernando had a lucky escape on the first lap, when he was nearly hit by a spinning Felipe Massa.

“It was close, obviously we arrived there everybody attacking. Felipe lost the control a little bit, but we were able to avoid a collision. I don’t know if I had a chance to attack Nico in Turn 4, I doubt, so I don’t think the race changed too much for me. Felipe recovered some positions and arrived ninth, so it’s important for the constructors’ championship as well. As I said we need to recover form in Suzuka.”

Alonso appears resigned to the pace of Red Bull: “It’s no surprise any more, so more or less you know it’s not frustrating or surprising you on Sunday. You know this on Thursday before you arrive to the Grand Prix. The place Webber overtook me in Turn 6, you need to have another category car, because it’s impossible to do Turn 4 and 5 behind another car and be side-by-side – this is a super performance. And they deserve it, they are the best ones at the moment, they are winning everything, and we have to do better.”

Kimi Raikkonen enjoyed another good run to the podium in Korea, the Finn turning ninth on the grid into second place at the flag.

Crucially he got ahead of Lotus team mate Romain Grosjean just after the first safety car restart, and after that the Frenchman was not able to find a way back past. Meanwhile the team opted not to ask Kimi to move over despite his pursuer being potentially faster.

“It’s not ideal to start so behind and not having maybe the best weekend,” said Raikkonen. “Bit similar to the last race really, but the car was a bit better in the race. Still not ideal, a little bit too much understeer, and I lost one place or two places at the start and then got them back in corner three.

“And then I was able to pass people and then sat behind them again after the pitstop. I had more speed but I couldn’t get past, and then we decided to stop a bit earlier, and when the safety car came for whatever it was, five laps or something, obviously it helped a little bit for us to close the gap in the front.

“Romain made a mistake and I managed to pass him and just didn’t have enough speed at the end and not enough tyres were left compared to them, because they stopped later. It was good fun but I would rather start in the front and finish in the front. It would have made our life a bit easier.”

Raikkonen said that even without the safety car periods he would probably have gone to the end on that set of tyres.

“We would probably have tried it, or looked at some point at how the tyres [were lasting]. Without the safety car we gained a lot of time and lap places if we’d stopped earlier in the last pit stops, so who knows? In the end we didn’t stop again now. You can always say that if but it makes no difference. You have to react and do what you think is the right thing, and sometimes certain things help you. My front tyre was pretty done in the end, but we finished the race in a pretty good position. We would probably try to run until then anyhow.

“It maybe helped a bit in the end because my front tyre was in quite a bad way, it kind of ran out of the rubber in the end. So I couldn’t go much longer any more – but obviously that’s the part of racing. Sometimes it helps you a bit.”

Regarding Vettel’s pace he said: “Let’s put it this way: even it we would have started behind him, we still don’t have the speed of him. Not far off from him in the race with a little bit from all the tyres but I mean it’s so difficult to overtake if you’re not massively faster. So, I think that was pretty OK, what we did today.”

As usual it may have looked easy from the outside, but Sebastian Vettel insists that he had to work hard to lodge a fourth straight Grand Prix win in Korea.

Vettel clearly met the challenge of keeping his tyres alive, but his first job was to stay in front on the first lap.

“It’s always tricky here because the way to the first corner is quite short but then you have two big straight lines,” said Vettel. “To be the first car is the worse because you have no tow. I had a good start and could focus on the first corner.

“I had a very good exit and was able to get a couple of metres between myself and Lewis and then I think Lewis was in more trouble with Romain from behind into Turn Three and I obviously benefit from that and had a little bit of cushion and again for the next straight and then kept the lead – which I think was crucial. After that I tried to build a gap and keep it quite consistent. I knew that on the soft tyres it will be tricky and yeah, obviously with the safety car later on it got quite busy.”

Vettel’s life was made harder by the safety car, which cost him the 5s margin he had established.

“Kimi pitted a couple of laps before that so his tyres were a little bit older but obviously took quite a long time before the safety car came back in and then there was another safety. So I think in terms of tyre age it was no problem. Obviously the cars get lighter towards the end, so fortunately we didn’t have to challenge the absolute maximum out of the tyres, because I think the Lotuses were probably a little bit better in terms of endurance. So, I think the speed was there and in the end obviously I tried to build up a little bit of a gap to Kimi and keep it quite consistent.”

As usual Vettel insisted that he’s not looking at the points just yet.

“I’m trying not to think about it to be honest. I’m trying to focus more on the present I think we obviously had the incredible chance, I think two years ago, to do so. We did it but I think there are still a lot of points to get, even though it looks very good for us. There’s still a chance for Fernando, I think, so we have to stay on top of our game but to be honest, I think I said on the podium, we’re just having a good time.

“We enjoy the fact that the team is working very well. The car is working… It’s on the edge to be honest, more so than you would probably think from the outside, but it’s obviously nice when you get the results like Singapore or this weekend. To be honest with you, I don’t really care. I look forward to Japan because it’s one of the nicest tracks of the whole season.”

Nico Hulkenberg was the star of the Korean GP, the Sauber driver taking a superb fourth place after holding off Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso in the closing laps.

Hulkenberg kickstarted his great afternoon by getting up to fifth on the first lap.

“We started seventh but if anything we were looking more to the rear to defend rather than attacking,” he said. “I think it was an almost perfect race for us. We put everything together, we grabbed the opportunities.

“It was tough, really tough, and long and demanding really. I couldn’t really afford any kind of mistake. It was one of these days where we weren’t really expecting that much, but when the opportunity came, we grabbed it. Good passing, the strategy worked out fine.”

Hulkenberg admitted he was worried that his tyres would go off before the end of the race.

“I think the safety car helped us a bit there, both safety cars. On the other hand it brought everybody back together, and my worry at the time was that if we’d fallen off like bananas five laps to the end then I had everybody on my tail. I was worried that all the effort would be for nothing in the end. I think one of the keys today was good traction, and we had a very good top speed, which made the others not get past me.

“I’m very pleased, very happy, it’s a mega result for us, best one of the year actually. So a great team effort.”

Regarding next weekend’s race in Japan he said: “It’s a different circuit. Obviously it’s a high speed track with a lot of flowing corners. It will be difficult – don’t expect this to happen every week now! We’re going to try, but I wouldn’t expect it.”

Jules Bianchi was given a three-place grid penalty for impeding Paul Di Resta in Q1 in Korea – and the FIA stewards decided to throw in a reprimand for good measure.

The penalty only drops the Frenchman from 21^st to 22^nd, behind team mate Max Chilton, while his second reprimand of the year means that he is now at risk of an equally meaningless 10-place drop should he earn a third reprimand.

The stewards noted that the Marussia driver “was given a radio warning of the approach of car 14 (on a fast lap) but decided to stay on line to start his own lap. The Stewards consider that car 22 could safely have allowed car 14 to pass before starting his flying lap.”