Vettel wins in Korea; Red Bull takes constructor's title

YEONGAM, South Korea- R.I.S.- Midway through the first lap, Sebastian Vettel passed pole sitter Lewis Hamilton and took control of the race, winning his 10th grand prix of the season by 11 seconds over the Englishman Sunday at the Grand Prix of Korea at Yeongam. Mark Webber took third to give Team Red Bull their second consecutive constructor’s championship.

"Fantastic; a very nice day today and very special for the team.” Commented Vettel. “Winning the Constructors' means a lot. It was a phenomenal race, we had so much pace and it was so much fun out there. I knew overtaking Lewis near the start would be difficult and I nearly went off under braking, but he was very fair and it was important for us to get track position. Then I wasn't too comfortable to be honest, there was a lot of head wind and it was difficult to get away. I could see the car behind getting bigger in the mirrors and it was tough to break the tow, but we did it. It's nice to win the Championship today with a fastest lap - it's no points, but it's nice to have.”

The race began with very light precipitation, but not enough to change to rain tires. But Vettel nearly took the lead from Hamilton right at the start, but the German fought hard, and managed to pass Hamilton before the start of the second lap. By the ninth lap, the weather began to change and the sun began to shine through for the rest of the race. But for Vitaly Petrov, the weather was not a factor, but his late braking move. When on the 14th lap, the Russian accomplished this maneuver, only to strike Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes back wing and put both cars out of the race, and employing the safety car for the only time in the race for only a couple of laps.

Vettel was never a problem and only gave the lead up once for a pit stop, 20 laps from the end. But the current world champion regained the lead laps later when Fernando Alonso had to pit his Ferrari. Jenson Button finished in fourth after a huge battle with Hamilton and Webber. Alonso could not keep up with Button and took fifth, while Felipe Massa was sixth. Jaime Alguasuari finished his best of his career with seventh, while Nico Rosberg took eighth. Sebastian Buemi finished ninth, while Paul Di Resta took the last point position. Hamilton though, had to really fight for his second place, but he felt glad about where he finished.

"This was one of my strongest races of the season.” He said. “There was so much pressure from Mark [Webber] behind and it would have been so easy to make a mistake, lock up or go wide - but I'm really satisfied that I didn't do so once. I believe that withstanding pressure is the mark of a world champion, and I think I showed that in today's race. Our car started off reasonably well, but the front-end dropped away through the race. By the end, all the switches in the cockpit that could help me were adjusted to the maximum! The differential and front wing were at the maximum possible, and there was still nothing I could do.”

Webber was also impressed with having to really battle with the McLaren driver.

"The battle with Lewis was pretty intense. “stated Webber.” I was frustrated that we followed him out of the pit lane, so I risked quite a bit to try and pass him on the out lap, before he got settled in. It's not easy to pass a driver of Lewis' caliber. I tried some moves and it was a good battle as our cars had weaknesses and strengths in different areas of the lap, so trying to get the move done wasn't particularly easy. I enjoyed it, but I would have liked to have got that extra position, which I think performance-wise we deserved, but McLaren did a good job and Lewis drove well. There were loads of positives today, it was a good start for me and I got a good result.”

Afterwards, Vettel expressed his happiness about winning another constructor’s title.

“It's difficult for everyone to imagine what winning the Championship means for the factory.” He stated. “It's a boost and not just for those here at the track - it's much more than that. There is so much going on behind the scenes, every day of the year. It's down to the whole team to build two competitive cars and we push it to the limits on track. It was a lot of pressure off the shoulders today when I crossed the line. People now expect us to take it easy, but we are here to win and do our best. We had a chance to win today and we took it."

With both titles won, it is all for nothing as there are three more races remaining, beginning with the inaugural Grand Prix of India in two weeks.

Mark Gero

A 12 year veteran writer who has covered race weekends for RIS for three years. Also did the same for motorsport.com.For the last two years, I have been a member of AARWBA.

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Volume 2011, Issue 10, Posted 5:33 PM, 10.16.2011