Sebastian Vettel stayed true to his word that there would be no let up in his pursuit for even more race victories this season despite having clinched his second straight title seven days ago as he delivered his 10th win of the year in the Korean Grand Prix to confirm Red Bull as constructors’ world champions.
Despite McLaren having been favourites for the race after dominating practice and then finally ending Red Bull’s stranglehold on pole position on Saturday, Vettel seized the lead from Lewis Hamilton on the first lap and then steadily built up leads either side of a lap-17 safety car before streaking away to win by 12 seconds in the final stint as the lead McLaren came under sustained attack from Mark Webber.
Hamilton had briefly threatened to challenge the world champion in the middle phase of the race but had to turn his attention to fending off the marauding second Red Bull from around the time of the second stops, the pair engaging in some thrilling hard, but fair, wheel-to-wheel racing for over 20 laps which involved several passes and re-passes.
The under-fire McLaren driver though was impressively resolute in defence and held onto the position by 0.4s, the kind of fillip he needed after a barrage of recent on-track difficulties and media criticism – Hamilton back on the podium for first time since the Nurburgring in mid-July
Team-mate Jenson Button’s five-race podium-finishing sequence, meanwhile, came to an end with fourth; last Sunday’s Suzuka winner’s afternoon compromised by a poor first lap which dropped him from third to sixth.
And while he typically battled back to finish just 2s behind the Hamilton/Webber duel, was really only able to keep a watching brief in the closing stages although it eked out his advantage over Fernando Alonso in second in the drivers’ championship to 10 points.
Alonso finished right on the Briton’s tail after showing strong late pace but was probably left feeling what might have been having spent the first two stints bottled up behind Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa, the Brazilian eventually finishing 10s back in sixth.
At the lights Hamilton had consolidated his hard-earned pole into the lead but, after fending off the sister McLaren of Button into the first turn, Vettel immediately stalked the race leader down the long straight to turn three.
Although the champion’s initial attempt to pass down the outside proved unsuccessful, his Red Bull showed impressive straight-line speed on the shorter run to the turn four hairpin allowing Vettel to pass the pole-sitter on the brakes on the inside.
In third Button, meanwhile, found himself swamped on all sides: first, Massa, very late on the brakes into turn three, moved ahead and then Webber – the Australian actually getting ahead of both drivers as the McLaren’s attempts to go back round the outside of the Ferrari at turn four only served to see him run slightly wide as he locked his brakes, which also slowed Massa on exit.
On the back foot, Button was then overtaken by the other Ferrari of Alonso, ensuring he ended the first lap down in sixth place.
By lap eight the second McLaren was already nine seconds off the lead as while the top two he had started behind quickly broke clear – Vettel steadily increasing his lead over Hamilton to 2.4s – Button was stuck behind the Ferraris in a developing queue behind Webber.
Around lap 12 though and it was Massa who suddenly dropped around 0.8s a lap from the Red Bull, putting right into the clutches of Alonso and Button while Rosberg had also suddenly emerged onto the back of the pack after impressively keeping pace in the normally slower Mercedes.
Unable to make any headway against the Ferraris on the track, McLaren brought Button into the pits for another set of super-softs in a bid to make the undercut, a move syndicated by Mercedes with Rosberg.
And Mercedes underlined why they have the best pit-stop record of the whole grid by getting their car marginally out ahead.
However, while Rosberg held a narrow advantage as the two cars drafted each other until the pit lane exit line, the German blew it by locking up as he turned left back onto the track which was all Button needed to nip back ahead.
The DRS zone soon came to Rosberg’s rescue though as, having naturally been within one second of McLaren on the exit of the first corner, was able to activate his wing down the long straight and breeze past Button.
However, his advantage was brief: on the next lap roles were reversed and Button could finally break free and set about putting some sector times in that would allow him to also jump Alonso, the squabbling McLaren/Mercedes pair having already passed Massa who stopped at the end of lap 14 alongside Webber, who held third after switching to the prime rubber.
With Hamilton stopping for another set of super-softs with a 4.7s deficit to Vettel on lap 15, the race leader followed suit a lap later, but things were soon neutralised as the safety car was called following a collision between Vitaly Petrov and Michael Schumacher.
Despite having run behind Petrov in ninth position during the first stint and several seconds adrift of the Massa train, an early stop had allowed Schumacher to jump Petrov and Alonso, whose lap 16 stop for the prime tyres had brought him out right into the path of his old title rival.
At the start of lap 16, Petrov, having engaged DRS down the straight to turn three, looked set to compound Alonso’s misery but, with his eyes fully trained on the Ferrari, appeared to forget there might be other cars in the braking zone and with a massive speed differential steamed into the back of the helpless Schumacher, wrecking the German’s rear suspension and breaking his own front wing.
Alonso, meanwhile, having taken to the run-off area to avoid the carnage, was only narrowly missed by the out-of-control Renault.
With bits of Mercedes and Renault littered across the corner, the safety car was immediately pressed into service; Schumacher parking up on the side of the track and Petrov soon himself retiring after nursing his R31 back to the pits.
Vettel’s near five-second advantage had therefore been wiped out almost as quickly as Schumacher’s Mercedes and on the resumption of green flag racing going into lap 21 was forced to do it all again.
At first though it seemed that things were not going to be as straightforward this time as Hamilton kept him very much in sight, Webber also staying in touch as the front three broke away from Button and company.
With the race leader’s advantage now growing behind 4s, Webber looked increasingly more threatening behind Hamilton as the stint progressed and the pair pitted simultaneously on lap 34.
They left in the same formation but on their out laps a slip by Hamilton into turn four gave Webber the momentum and the pair went wheel-to-wheel for several corners through the twisty middle sector, the Red Bull briefly ahead before the McLaren ran a wall of death around the outside of the corner to regain the position.
Thrilling though it was, their battle had only given Vettel the breathing space to sprint away yet again – by the time of his own out lap on lap 36 his lead was suddenly north of 8s, ensuring a relatively comfortable final stint to the flag and yet another victory.
Hamilton never got such briefing space and remained in DRS peril for much of this time ahead of Webber – although when the Australian did make his move again, with six laps to go, it came on the main straight as his British rival was wrong-footed passing Jarno Trulli’s lapped Lotus.
He completed the move on the brakes, but with Hamilton now the one with the DRS advantage heading onto the long straight, his brief advantage was negated as the McLaren simply drafted back past.
Had Webber stayed ahead beyond turn three it may well have been enough to settle to contest given he appeared to have the faster car, but didn’t get another chance to pass over the closing laps and had to settle for third.
Button had a Ferrari looming large in his mirrors in the closing laps, Alonso having finally jumped Massa after staying out longer during his third stint – incredibly even setting a fastest lap during this phase despite his prime tyres being well worn.
Rosberg, having been passed by the Ferraris after a turn-three lockout soon after the safety car, steadily dropped off the leading pace in keeping with Mercedes’ regular form and was passed by Jaime Alguersuari for seventh on the final lap, Toro Rosso capitalising on their stronger than normal qualifying performance as Sebastien Buemi also came home ninth.
Paul di Resta, meanwhile, kept up his recent good form by winning the intra-team Force India battle to beat Adrian Sutil to the final point by 3s.
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