F1 insider: Korea track woes
2010-10-23 07:28
Author: Dieter Rencken
It is obviously of major concern when a Grand Prix circuit cannot be inspected until 10 days before its inaugural event due to missing deadline after deadline, and one wonders exactly why the FIA allowed this situation to continue to the degree that not one of the five title contenders in the closest championship on record knew for sure whether the crucial third-last race would even go ahead until Friday evening.
How so, for the track had been approved last Tuesday? Well, with the final layer of the track’s surface only having been laid a fortnight ago, and the macadam thus being far from cured, there remained (justified) fears that it would break up under the stresses and strains of 24 cars pulling 4g through some of its faster sections.
After an opening day during which lap times improved - from first on Friday morning to fastest time of the same day - by a whopping 42 seconds, those fears have receded to the degree that it is 99% sure the race will go ahead without undue mishap, but still it was an exceedingly close thing, and a situation certainly not becoming of a world championship grand prix.
When the F1 circus arrived in dribs and drabs during the week - some from Europe, some from the Asian rim, where they whiled away time after that scintillating Japanese Grand Prix a fortnight ago – the Yeongam circuit resembled, in the words of a team PR staff member, ‘a bomb hole’. Despite over 1500 workers beavering away on double shifts for the two weeks, in many places it still does...
... and will still do so, for after the first day’s running, during which 1020 laps were run in total – about a full grand distance with an average finishing rate – the promoters were instructed by the FIA to undertake overnight alterations to two areas: the controversial Turn 16 left-hander and the final Turn 18 apex. In addition, the entire track surface needs to be scrubbed down due to the dust, dirt and stones littered across its surface after numerous driver excursions during both 90-minute sessions.
The place has many contradictions. For example, upon arrival at the circuit on Friday morning, massive queues met visitors and F1 personnel, yet the massive stands, with a rather optimistic capacity of 130 000, were empty to the degree that those in less popular areas had not a single spectator to keep them company. A surreal sight it certainly was to see a Ferrari speeding past 10 000 empty seats in official practice. So why the traffic jams? Simply due to absolute chaos reigning, with nobody knowing which parking areas lay where.
Simply not good enough
In the media centre contradictions reigned, too – for starters, Korean electronics giant LG is an F1 corporate sponsor, yet nobody seems to have told the media centre: banks of Samsung monitors abound above journalist desks.
Those who have been to Seoul tell of ultra-high speed (free) wifi internet connections found on virtually every corner, yet in Mokpo, where the circuit finds itself amid a harbour until recently controlled by the Korean mafia, the service proved to be the slowest and most unreliable on the entire F1 circuit, with staff constantly needing to change computer settings to find (slow) connections. Simply not good enough.
Then there is Mopko itself: due to its harbour, and siting on the most southerly part of the Korean peninsula, the town is a paradise for sailors craving the sort of horizontal refreshment provided by folding currency, and thus motels (known as ‘love hotels’) with rooms available for rental by the hour litter almost every street. The problem is, though, that no other reputable establishments exists for miles around, so when F1 came knocking for 2000-odd rooms all it found were such knock shops. Thus this report is reaching you from the Vivaldi Motel, which features condom slot machines and lubricant dispensers on every floor!
All of which is certainly not good enough for a world championship sporting event, and, again, one wonders what possessed F1 to sign this place in the first place. The £30m annually pocketed by Bernie Ecclestone for this event for the next seven years surely can’t have influenced the situation, could it?
But, back to Friday: Lewis Hamilton proved fastest in FP1, the McLaren driver circulating 0,081 seconds faster than Robert Kubica, whose Renault looked ‘on’ it all day. Third place went to Mercedes’s Nico Rosberg, who shaded Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel by 0,2 of a second, with Jenson Button fifth for McLaren.
Which told us something was seriously amiss with the order, for neither championship leader Mark Webber nor second-placed man Fernando Alonso featured in the top five, with the former placing seventh by the end of the 90-minute session and the 2005/6 champion languishing in 16th. Surely it would change after lunch.
“The track changed a lot”
It did: The two missing drivers were soon on top trading FTDs, with Webber eventually putting in a 1:37.942 hammer, almost five seconds up on his fastest FP1 lap. It shaded ‘Ferdi’s best by 0,190 seconds, the Ferrari driver still, though, comfortable with his day’s work.
‘The track changed a lot today, obviously it’s a new venue and it was slippery in P1. It started to get more sensible as the day went on, but it’s the same for everyone and we just have to keep chipping away, doing what we can with our programme and working with the car,’ commented Webber, who last week shrugged aside suggestions that he was title favourite. On today’s performance he certainly still is, particularly as he indicated his day had been about information gathering.
‘It was a positive day and the car ran well; there was a lot of information to gather, and we’ve done that pretty successfully...’
For his part Alonso seemed pretty satisfied, particularly with the circuit. ‘This track is nice to drive, very interesting with three sectors each different to the other,’ he said. ‘In the first one, you need a very good top speed, in the second there are fast corners, with the third one featuring slow turns: it will therefore be interesting to see what set-up choices the various teams will make for qualifying and the race.’
Hamilton, fourth in the title hunt, was next up, the Briton obviously benefitting from McLaren’s extremely efficient F-duct on the circuits many straights: ‘We look to be quick along the straights, and we seem to be competitive in the second and third sectors too, which is encouraging. The track is very fast – and you need a good car around here, which I feel we’ve got.’
If that was good news for the 2008 championship, the better news was that he did not crash as he did on opening day in Japan, which error arguably cost him the race and at least 10 vital points.
‘Today was spent evaluating some new developments we’d brought to this track,’ Lewis added. ‘The times suggest we look as competitive as the Red Bulls, but the Renaults and Ferraris also look quick – so qualifying might come down to which driver can pull the most time out of his quick lap.’
Button, fifth on the log, had a problem when the rear of his McLaren erupted in flames after the exhaust overheated, losing the reigning champion a chunk of track time, but the damage was not terminal.
‘I lost a little bit of time in the afternoon session, which was disappointing because I didn’t get to run with high fuel,’ he explained. ‘The car just overheated – so I jumped out in the pitlane because it started smoking, and we lost a bit of time tidying it up. Apart from that, it’s been a pretty good day,’ he said after ending fifth.
“I think we got a crash course in sliding around”
After a puncture destroyed Sebastian Vettel’s chances of a quick lap and screwed his tyre allocations, the German is hoping for a better Saturday, for he needs to get ahead of Alonso on the point’s log and within touching distance of team-mate Webber.
‘I think we got a crash course in sliding around and drifting today - it was good fun. The track time was more valuable this afternoon, but I had a puncture early on in FP2, which affected us. As a result we had to go on to the option early and the tyres weren’t too grateful for that. But, all in all, it wasn’t too bad,’ he said, aware a single slip will destroy his chances of becoming the sport’s youngest-ever champion.
So, what conclusions to draw from today? One, the circuit is sure to rubber in even more, with times likely to drop another two or seconds, although the work to the circuit will impact on overall lap times. Two, Webber, Alonso and Vettel are in devastating form, although, three, the McLarens twins cannot be discounted. All these variables point to an absolutely cracking qualifying session.
