2011 Korean Grand Prix - Red Bull seal double success in Asia

DOMINANT: Vettel produced another flawless performance

RED Bull Racing secured the constructors championship in clinical fashion this morning at the Korean Grand Prix.  Newly crowned double champion Sebastian Vettel claimed his tenth victory of the season and Mark Webber’s third spot made sure that the Milton Keynes based team scored more points than their only rivals for this championship, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes.

     For the first time since the 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix, a Red Bull failed to qualify on pole position.  A rather subdued Lewis Hamilton produced a special lap to claim the top honours for McLaren.  However, Red Bull looked to be faster on raceday and from the moment Vettel charged into the lead on the fourth corner of the race, the outcome never really looked in doubt.  McLaren had looked seriously competitive again throughout the weekend, but both drivers lost out in a mad first lap.  Jenson Button was beaten up on the first circuit and got relegated from third on the grid to sixth at the end of it.  Button’s charge continued to be held back, when Mercedes GP managed to get Nico Rosberg briefly infront of the Brit in a pitstop race.

     In the early stages, Hamilton managed to hold onto Vettel, but the expected wear on the Pirelli tyres wasn’t as high as anticipated and once again, it was the Brit who wore out his tyres the most.  Not even a Safety Car period could halt Vettel’s charge after the first round of pitstops.  This was caused when Vitaly Petrov got into a fierce battle with Fernando Alonso down the longest straight in Formula One.  Both completely missed their braking point, but whilst Alonso realised trouble and took a wider route around the corner, Petrov clobbered straight into the back of the innocent Michael Schumacher.  Both cars were badly damaged and had to retire, with debris scattered across the circuit.  Petrov accepted responsibility for his misjudgement, but still incurs a five place grid penalty for the next race in India.

     As the race wore on, Webber became more of a factor in the reckoning.  He closed in on Hamilton and the pair had a couple of brilliant, clean dices.  Red Bull did miss a trick in pitting Webber at the same time as the McLaren, losing the opportunity to springboard Lewis via the ‘undercut.’  Although the leading cars were bunched together, no-one looked capable of pulling off an overtaking manoeuvre in frankly, a boring race that would have made anyone decide to go back to sleep for it’s early takeoff.  Fernando Alonso did produce the sound bite of the season, when he closed in on Button, but got a warning message about high fuel consumption.  He then said; “I give up, I give up.”  Perhaps it was a message of annoyance, having spent the first half of the race a forlorn figure, trapped behind the much slower Felipe Massa.

      Further back, Jaime Alguesuari passed Rosberg on the last lap to match his best ever career result of seventh place.  Sebastian Buemi brought his car home in ninth to secure some much-needed points for the Toro Rosso team, which sees them close up on Sauber in the championship.  Paul di Resta held off his team-mate Adrian Sutil to claim the final point for Force India.

     This season, it has belonged to one driver and one team.  Many congratulations to Red Bull Racing, the 2011 FIA Formula One Constructors Champions.