Yeongam, 12 October

The 2012 edition of the Korean Grand Prix is possibly the first time that all the drivers and teams will be able to develop a real understanding of the Korea International Circuit. The first time we came here, in 2010, the event was virtually a washout with constant heavy rain, while last year, there was more rain on the Friday, so it was hard to get a clear picture of the challenges of this venue. In addition, unlike the majority of circuits on the F1 calendar, it runs anti-clockwise and today, drivers and engineers had to contend with the fact that the surface is very dirty. That is also the case at other tracks, when we go to Budapest and Montreal for example, but the lack of running at this venue from one year to the next accentuates the phenomenon. For the morning session today, all 24 highly sophisticated Formula 1 cars were effectively doing a job of cleaning up the track. For the drivers and engineers, it means it is very difficult to evaluate how much progress in terms of car performance and lap time is coming from the changes made to the cars and how much comes from the level of grip gradually increasing during the course of the day. If, like Scuderia Ferrari, you are also trying to evaluate the effect of new aerodynamic components and other updates, then dissecting the results and reading all the data becomes an extremely complex exercise.


Today, the men in red feel they have dealt with all these imponderables with a degree of success, while also handling the regular job of comparing the two types of tyre brought here by Pirelli. Although you might not know it just from looking at the circuit, the original concept for the track was that it was to be a street circuit, running round a marina. However, that part of the project has not materialised and what we have is a city track without a city! Nevertheless, the Pirelli tyres here are the “traditional” ones for street circuits, namely the Soft and Supersoft. The three hours of free practice ended with Red Bull, the dominant force just a few days ago in Japan, again on top of the time sheet, with Sebastian Vettel ahead of Mark Webber. Fernando was third at the wheel of his F2012, followed by Jenson Button in the McLaren and Michael Schumacher fifth in the Mercedes. The German was just under a tenth of a second quicker than Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari. The Brazilian completed 53 laps today, which is just two short of Sunday’s race distance, while the Spanish Ferrari man did 49. One more hour tomorrow morning to improve the F2012 based on tonight’s data assessment and then it will be the all-important qualifying session in the afternoon.