I didn´t sleep well last night but I was happy to get up and watch the qualifying, which took place quite early in the morning Finnish time. After all the free practice sessions it seemed that the pace that Red Bull had found already in Japan was still there at Yeongam circuit. So I was confident that Vettel was the number one candidate to conquer pole today.
In Q1 the biggest surprise was that both Alonso and Hamilton seemed to be struggling and lacking pace! Alonso was 16th fastest and Hamilton 17th. Although there was some tyre tactics involved and both of the drivers wanted to save tyres for the other two sessions to come. But nevertheless, these two top names were pretty close to have been eliminated already in the first session! Vettel topped the charts in Q1 so I knew the German would be there to fight for the pole!
Sebastian was the fastest man on the track also in Q2. Both Ferrari drivers seemed to have found more pace as well as Hamilton in his McLaren. Hamilton´s team-mate Button instead was eliminated in Q2 and qualified 11th! He might have been able to make his way through in to the final session without the yellow flags caused by Toro Rosso´s Ricciardo. The Australian had a gear box failure and had to stop his car on the track. Sauber seemed to be lacking pace at the Yeongam circuit and both Perez and Kobayashi were eliminated in Q2.
The battle for pole was between the Red Bull duo. In his first attempt Sebastian set the initial fastest lap time but at the end of the session his team-mate Webber was able to snatch the pole position to himself! There were only 74 thousandths of a second that separated the Red Bull drivers. Sebastian had some kind of an issue with Massa when he was starting his second run. Sebastian assumed that Massa was going to box that lap but he didn´t so the German had to slow down slightly which obviously wasn´t ideal in terms of his last run. But after the qualifying Vettel didn´t want to blame it on Massa for not clinching the pole today. Webber was simply able to pull off a better lap today. Hamilton qualified 3rd and Alonso 4th. Kimi managed to get a maximum out of his E20 today and he will start from the 3rd row ( P5) tomorrow. The Iceman sandwiched the Ferrari drivers as Massa will start in P6.
Lotus has brought an exhaust upgrade to Kimi´s car for this weekend and I really hope it will bring some extra race pace for tomorrow´s race. Luckily his team-mate Grosjean starts behind him as I´m not 100 % convinced that the Frenchman would make it through to the first corners without crashing to anybody this time either... He cannot afford making any more mistakes though! It´s also interesting to see what will happen between the Red Bull drivers tomorrow. Webber has never been too eager to help his team-mate in the championship battle so I wouldn´t be surprised at all if the team allowed Webber to win the race tomorrow! Of course, in terms of sportsmanship and fair play, that would be the only right decision to be made but... As a passionate Vettel fan I do hope that Sebastian will win the race tomorrow! If he can take the victory without the help from his team-mate, that´s better but I certainly wouldn´t mind Webber making it a bit easier for Seb to overtake him...
I will see the start tomorrow but not the whole race! I´ll be attending a zumba marathon event arranged by my twin sister and I have to leave home when the race is still on... I know I´ll be a nervous wreck at the zumba class not knowing how Sebastian and Kimi are doing on the track! I just hope that dancing to Gangnam Style will ease my nervousness, hahaha ;) I´ll record the rest of the race and watch it when I come home. It´s my birthday tomorrow and I absolutely can´t think of an any better birthday present than Sebastian winning the Korean Grand Prix!!
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