2013 Korean GP: Team Preview

After Sebastian Vettel’s annihilation of hopes of his rivals catching up with him in driver’s Championship with three consecutive wins on the trot and a total of seven in the season, it seems just a matter of time before the three time World Champion gets a fourth one in the bag as well.

Adrian Newey,Chief Technical Officer at Red-Bull is the mastermind behind their success

Clearly he and his team have dominated the sport pretty much the whole season as some of the teams were struggling with tyre problems, car setups and reliability issues. All said and done Red-Bull and Vettel have truly taken the Formula One sport by storm. While Red-Bull need to thank their team(especially Adrian Newey) for designing a car that has been literally flying on circuits where they’ve had a poor showing in the past, Vettel too needs to be credited for his driving antics with a fourth consecutive title almost confirmed.

Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel remains favorite to win the Korean GP at Yeongam, South Korea

Vettel remains the favourite to win the race at South Korea, the home to the Gangnam style. And the stats add substance to his chances. Vettel has rather amusingly led all but 12 laps in the history of the Korean GP. That accounts for 92.7 per cent almost of the total laps run in the three editions. He won the race in 2011 and 2012 and closely lost to Fernando Alonso in 2010 due to a blown out engine. A technically challenging circuit with a mix of fast and slow corners, the KIC requires the drivers and teams to take tyre management quite seriously compared to some other circuits. The qualifying remains the key and if Vettel is on pole, he has a good enough chance of winning the race. Even though there have been talks doing the rounds of the Red-Bull car being illegal, Vettel is expected to snub all of it and if he wins at KIC his critics would be short of words to say the least. But the things might change for the German if the weather forecast is to be believed. A typhoon or rain might spoil his chances of scoring a third consecutive victory at the KIC.

Mark Webber

Mark Webber, the veteran Aussie, is in some trouble with a grid-penalty from Singapore

It was a heart-breaking race in Singapore for the soon to be retiring Aussie where he had to retire on the final lap due to engine failure after being in fourth place. To add insult to injury, he was reprimanded with a ten-place grid penalty for taking a lift to the pit lane from Alonso, the incident had almost had him run over by Lewis Hamilton. Webber has both happy and sad memories of Korea. He was on pole last year but lost out to his teammate at turn 1 and the Red-Bull’s finished with a 1/2 on the podium. In 2011 he started fourth on the grid and managed to reach the podium with third place. 2010 was an unforgettable race for the veteran driver as he spun out and collided with Nico Rosberg.

The accident proved costly for him and he lost his driver Championship lead to Alonso and ended up third at the end of the season. But things are different now, he’s a much more relaxed driver after deciding to move on from Forumla One and is trying to prove his worth even though his teammate steals the limelight. He has been able to keep pace with flying Vettel in the recent races. After all Red-Bull need him to get as many points as possible to cement the Constructor’s Championship. But a ten place grid-penalty has been a big-blow for Webber and he will have to put in an extraordinary drive to move ahead on the grid.

Red-Bull Performance Analysis at Korean GP