Yeongam, 14 October

This afternoon at the Korea International Circuit should be seen as a glass half full day for Scuderia Ferrari, because Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa delivered two perfect performances to finish third and fourth respectively in a grand prix dominated, as could be expected from qualifying, by Red Bull: Sebastian Vettel won with Mark Webber second. Also in the half full glass category is the fact that Scuderia Ferrari is now second in the Constructors’ championship, having overtaken McLaren. If one wanted to look at a half empty glass, then the fact the German Red Bull driver was first past the flag, means he now slips past the Spanish Ferrari driver to lead the Drivers’ classification, but only by six points. However, there are still one hundred more to play for.

When the lights went out, Webber did not get away that well from pole allowing Red Bull team mate Vettel to pull alongside and get ahead, while Fernando crossed swords with Hamilton, getting past to go third at the end of lap 1. Felipe had got the better of Raikkonen and went up one place to fifth. The yellow flags were already out as Kobayashi’s Sauber had collided with Button’s McLaren and Rosberg retired the Mercedes.

On lap 4, the two Red Bulls were separated by 1.3 seconds, with Fernando a further 1.7 down on the Australian, while maintaining an identical advantage over fourth placed Hamilton. Felipe was 0.8s behind the Englishman and had a second in hand over sixth placed Raikkonen in the Lotus. Behind them, the order was Hulkenberg, Grosjean, Perez and Schumacher tenth. After this group came, Di Resta, Senna, Maldonaldo, Vergne, Ricciardo, Kovalainen, Petrov, Glock, De La Rosa, and Karthikeyan, with Kobayashi 22nd and last. The Japanese driver was given a drive-through penalty for causing the collision with Button.

The gaps at the front were growing, Webber 2s down on leader Vettel, Fernando 3.2 off the second Red Bull, with a 1.8 lead over Hamilton’s McLaren, with Felipe 1.2 down on the Englishman. Raikkonen was still sixth, just over a second behind the Brazilian Ferrari man. On lap 13, the planned pit stops began: Hamilton, Hulkenberg, Grosjean, Schumacher, and Kovalainen all stopped and on lap 14, Webber, Massa, Raikkonen, Ricciardo and Senna pitted, followed by Petrov and Glock. It meant that Fernando was temporarily second and the Spaniard and Vettel both came in together on lap 15. Di Resta also brought the Force India in on this lap. The run of pit stops did not change the order of the top three, with the two Red Bulls heading Fernando, while Felipe was temporarily back down to sixth, because ahead of him, Perez had yet to change tyres in the Sauber. In fact Felipe did not have to wait for the tyre change, passing Perez on track on lap 18 to return to fifth place and again he had Raikkonen behind him, who had also passed the Mexican, clearly struggling with his tyres.

From lap 18 onwards, Felipe began to close on fourth placed Hamilton and was right up with him on lap 20, before shooting past the McLaren on lap 21 with a bold passing move and with a clear track ahead he began to close the gap to his Ferrari team-mate. Maldonaldo in the Williams was the last to pit from ninth on lap 21. Meanwhile, Hamilton and Raikkonen were having a world champions battle for fifth with some wheel to wheel action all around the Yeongam track. This certainly suited Felipe who was now over 7 seconds ahead of the duelling pair. At the front of the field, Fernando was staying in touch with the two Red Bulls and was only 1.4 behind Webber.

Hamilton was the first front runner to make a second stop, coming in on lap 26, which dropped him to eighth. By lap 29 Felipe was only 2.9 behind the other F2012 as he set a fastest race lap. Behind the Brazilian, it was still Raikkonen fifth, while Hulkenberg in the Force India was having a hard time holding off Grosjean in the Lotus as they battled for sixth, until the Frenchman made his second tyre stop on lap 31. Webber made his final stop on lap 32, as did Hulkenberg and Glock, followed by Schumacher and Senna. The Webber pit stop meant Fernando and Felipe were temporarily second and third, until the Spaniard made his final tyre change on lap 34, putting Felipe second behind Vettel. The German had badly locked his front wheels and immediately made his final stop on lap 35, followed down pit lane by Felipe. Raikkonen also brought the Lotus in on this lap. Again, the order had not changed after the second run of stops, at least for the front runners: Vettel 5.3 ahead of team-mate Webber, with Fernando 4.5 down on the Australian, with a 2.9 lead over Felipe, with 18 laps to go. However, the gap between the two F2012s came down dramatically to 1.4 on lap 37. One lap later, Vergne was the last top ten runner to make his second stop, bringing the Toro Rosso in from seventh.

Hamilton, Grosjean and Hulkenberg were having a thrilling three way dice for sixth and as they got tangled up with one another, the German Force India man made the most of it to slip past both the other two to take the position. As for the two Ferraris, the gap was now fluctuating between 2.2 to 1.5. On lap 42 Hamilton made an unexpected third stop. Over the final ten laps, the front runners all seemed to consolidate their positions with no particularly close gaps all the way to the chequered flag. Behind Felipe in fourth, Raikkonen brought the Lotus home fifth, followed by Hulkenberg, Grosjean, Vergne and Ricciardo with Hamilton, having got some artificial grass off the side of the track tangled in his car, picking up the final point for tenth.

This incredibly close championship battle now prepares to make its second visit to Greater Noida for the Indian Grand Prix in a fortnight’s time.