oppa gangnam style?

Korean Grand Prix this last weekend.

As I was talking about last Friday the race is held at a time that means it's on pretty damn early here in the UK.  That’s a bit of a mixed bag - it means I can record it and watch it when I want in the morning or afternoon.  However, it also means that I have to be careful not to overhear the result and I also have to be weary in case the race over-runs: it’s been wet the last two years.

I thought the race itself was okay.  There was quite a lot of overtaking, though a lot of it was due to the DRS.  I mean, sometimes it just provided a bit of help, but other times the entire overtake was due to the DRS, which is a bit artificial, but it wasn’t so bad that the person couldn’t fight back - that’s when the DRS is bad.

Unfortunately, Lewis and Jenson had bad races.  Jenson got hit by Kobayashi on the first lap (he also hit Rosberg at the same time and was given a penalty).  To be honest, both of the Saubers were weirdly over the top - Kobayashi’s accident was almost of the same style as Grosjean’s recent problems - way too eager, trying to win the whole race on the first lap.  And Perez seemed to be displaying a weird level of inexperience, given he has been quite calm and sensible so far.  It’s like he’s trying to prove himself, even though he's already signed for McLaren.

Anyway, Jenson hadn’t qualified well and then got taken out, so a poor race.  Lewis qualified well, but apparently he had a suspension failure quite early in the race. He tried to fight, but it was clear he was a bit of a lame duck.  Then a few laps from the end after he’d had to take a new set of tyres and was trying to claw a few places back he ran over a bit of AstroTurf and took it with him!

Apparently they’d only just stuck it down the night before, which is pretty poor - you shouldn’t be sticking things to the track between qualifying and race unless it's an absolute necessity.

It was a great race for Red Bull, though.  They took the front row in qualifying and after a swap at the start; they never looked in doubt of finishing anything other than first and second.  It puts Vettel in the lead in the championship, some six points ahead of Alonso, who finished third, followed by a resurgent Massa.

Clearly the updates Red Bull made recently have just given them that little edge and with Vettel just in a position to pounce in the championship and a little bad luck on Alonso’s part then it’s something of a turn-around.

A two week gap now until the next race, which is a bit of a relief to be honest - holiday followed by two weekends filled with Grand Prix's has meant I’ve felt like I’ve not stopped in weeks.  Particularly since I’ve been horribly busy at work too.