italiaspeed.com: Scuderia Ferrari 2012

Sunday afternoon at the Korea International Circuit should be seen as a glass half full day for Scuderia Ferrari, because Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa delivered two perfect performances to finish third and fourth respectively in a grand prix dominated, as could be expected from qualifying, by Red Bull: Sebastian Vettel won with Mark Webber second. Also in the half full glass category is the fact that Scuderia Ferrari is now second in the Constructors’ championship, having overtaken McLaren. If one wanted to look at a half empty glass, then the fact the German Red Bull driver was first past the flag, means he now slips past the Spanish Ferrari driver to lead the Drivers’ classification, but only by six points. However, there are still one hundred more to play for.

When the lights went out, Webber did not get away that well from pole allowing Red Bull team mate Vettel to pull alongside and get ahead, while Fernando crossed swords with Hamilton, getting past to go third at the end of lap 1. Felipe had got the better of Raikkonen and went up one place to fifth. The yellow flags were already out as Kobayashi’s Sauber had collided with Button’s McLaren and Rosberg retired the Mercedes.

On lap 4, the two Red Bulls were separated by 1.3 seconds, with Fernando a further 1.7 down on the Australian, while maintaining an identical advantage over fourth placed Hamilton. Felipe was 0.8s behind the Englishman and had a second in hand over sixth placed Raikkonen in the Lotus. Behind them, the order was Hulkenberg, Grosjean, Perez and Schumacher tenth. After this group came, Di Resta, Senna, Maldonaldo, Vergne, Ricciardo, Kovalainen, Petrov, Glock, De La Rosa, and Karthikeyan, with Kobayashi 22nd and last. The Japanese driver was given a drive-through penalty for causing the collision with Button.

The gaps at the front were growing, Webber 2s down on leader Vettel, Fernando 3.2 off the second Red Bull, with a 1.8 lead over Hamilton’s McLaren, with Felipe 1.2 down on the Englishman. Raikkonen was still sixth, just over a second behind the Brazilian Ferrari man. On lap 13, the planned pit stops began: Hamilton, Hulkenberg, Grosjean, Schumacher, and Kovalainen all stopped and on lap 14, Webber, Massa, Raikkonen, Ricciardo and Senna pitted, followed by Petrov and Glock. It meant that Fernando was temporarily second and the Spaniard and Vettel both came in together on lap 15. Di Resta also brought the Force India in on this lap. The run of pit stops did not change the order of the top three, with the two Red Bulls heading Fernando, while Felipe was temporarily back down to sixth, because ahead of him, Perez had yet to change tyres in the Sauber. In fact Felipe did not have to wait for the tyre change, passing Perez on track on lap 18 to return to fifth place and again he had Raikkonen behind him, who had also passed the Mexican, clearly struggling with his tyres.

From lap 18 onwards, Felipe began to close on fourth placed Hamilton and was right up with him on lap 20, before shooting past the McLaren on lap 21 with a bold passing move and with a clear track ahead he began to close the gap to his Ferrari team-mate. Maldonaldo in the Williams was the last to pit from ninth on lap 21. Meanwhile, Hamilton and Raikkonen were having a world champions battle for fifth with some wheel to wheel action all around the Yeongam track. This certainly suited Felipe who was now over 7 seconds ahead of the duelling pair. At the front of the field, Fernando was staying in touch with the two Red Bulls and was only 1.4 behind Webber.

Hamilton was the first front runner to make a second stop, coming in on lap 26, which dropped him to eighth. By lap 29 Felipe was only 2.9 behind the other F2012 as he set a fastest race lap. Behind the Brazilian, it was still Raikkonen fifth, while Hulkenberg in the Force India was having a hard time holding off Grosjean in the Lotus as they battled for sixth, until the Frenchman made his second tyre stop on lap 31. Webber made his final stop on lap 32, as did Hulkenberg and Glock, followed by Schumacher and Senna. The Webber pit stop meant Fernando and Felipe were temporarily second and third, until the Spaniard made his final tyre change on lap 34, putting Felipe second behind Vettel. The German had badly locked his front wheels and immediately made his final stop on lap 35, followed down pit lane by Felipe. Raikkonen also brought the Lotus in on this lap. Again, the order had not changed after the second run of stops, at least for the front runners: Vettel 5.3 ahead of team-mate Webber, with Fernando 4.5 down on the Australian, with a 2.9 lead over Felipe, with 18 laps to go. However, the gap between the two F2012s came down dramatically to 1.4 on lap 37. One lap later, Vergne was the last top ten runner to make his second stop, bringing the Toro Rosso in from seventh.

Hamilton, Grosjean and Hulkenberg were having a thrilling three way dice for sixth and as they got tangled up with one another, the German Force India man made the most of it to slip past both the other two to take the position. As for the two Ferraris, the gap was now fluctuating between 2.2 to 1.5. On lap 42 Hamilton made an unexpected third stop. Over the final ten laps, the front runners all seemed to consolidate their positions with no particularly close gaps all the way to the chequered flag. Behind Felipe in fourth, Raikkonen brought the Lotus home fifth, followed by Hulkenberg, Grosjean, Vergne and Ricciardo with Hamilton, having got some artificial grass off the side of the track tangled in his car, picking up the final point for tenth.

This incredibly close championship battle now prepares to make its second visit to Greater Noida for the Indian Grand Prix in a fortnight’s time.

Stefano Domenicali: “This afternoon’s result was a great team effort and anyone who thinks that losing the lead in the Drivers’ championship might leave us discouraged is making a big mistake. We were well aware it would be a difficult weekend from every point of view. We were able to work very well, trying to make the most of the package we had, while avoiding making the slightest mistake. Fernando drove a great race at a particularly delicate point of the season, in which the stakes are very high: today’s third place is very important for the rest of the championship. He was gritty and at the same time judicious on the opening lap, which we all know is very important in deciding the final race result. Felipe followed up his great race in Suzuka with another one here, also on the attack right from the opening lap and then again at other key moments, like when he overtook Hamilton. His future? As my friend Laura Pausini (Italian pop singer) would say, “Wait and see...”Clearly, at the moment Red Bull might seem unbeatable in everyone’s eyes, but I can remember the same thing being said about McLaren on Sunday afternoon in Singapore: the wheel turns quickly this year...It is equally clear that we must make a step forward in performance to respond to the one made by Red Bull. We are well aware of that and we are working day and night to succeed. There are four races to go at the end of a fantastic and very uncertain season: we will not let up, not even for a second, you can be sure of that!”

Fernando Alonso: “It was a difficult race and, come the end of the weekend, I am happy with the way things went. I was starting from the dirty side of the track, we had doubts over tyre life and what would be the race pace of our rivals. With all these concerns, managing to get to the podium meant I could breathe a big sigh of relief. It’s true that Red Bull was quickest all weekend, but our aim was to be right behind them and we achieved that. It’s also true that I am no longer leading the championship, but being six points down does not mean much, just as it did not mean much being four points up going into this race. It is also very significant that we are back in second place in the Constructors’, as it means the team is on the case and that will be our strong point from now until the end of the season. Being in this position having pretty much skipped two races out of the last four says a lot. There are a hundred points up for grabs and everything will depend on how much we can improve over the coming races. Here we were much closer to the lead than we were in Singapore and nearer than in Suzuka, so we must continue in this direction. Vettel’s three wins in a row? Well, he and Red Bull have had three perfect weekends so congratulations for that, but when everything goes smoothly for so long, inevitably sooner or later something has to happen. We are right in the fight for the title with a car that has never been the fastest. It seems we are capable of doing something good too, don’t you think.”

Felipe Massa: “After Suzuka, this was another fantastic race for me. I managed to run at a great pace from start to finish. I expected that to a certain extent, because on Friday, I’d seen that over a long run, the car behaved very well. It’s true that you can never be certain about how things will go in the race, but everything went smoothly. I always managed to get a hundred percent out of the car and I am very pleased about that. It was important to pass Kimi and then Hamilton, because from then on, I was able to run at my pace. Towards the end, I closed on Fernando but attacking him was never even up for discussion: I know how important every single point is in the title fight. The whole team is doing its utmost to help Fernando and I am there for him, just as the team is and as it has been for me when I found myself in the same situation. In this second part of the season, I have probably understood the best way to drive this car on these tyres: now I’m enjoying myself and it’s a pleasure to make the most of everything I’ve got when sitting in the cockpit. Maybe there was also some pressure regarding my future coming into play: but at a certain point I told myself I should not think about it too much anymore and probably this approach helped. Now I feel stronger and when you enjoy what you are doing, it’s the best. In between here and India there’s a lot of work to do to improve the car, especially for qualifying. Let’s hope the updates will give us a little something extra, which could be decisive when it comes to the fight for the title.”

Pat Fry: “This Korean weekend saw us make the most of what we have right now. That can be seen as a positive in one sense, because it means we did a good job, without any mistakes in any area, from the strategy to the pit stops, from the optimisation of the car to the performance of the drivers. The downside is that doing our best was not enough to be the best, at least this time. That means we have to improve our performance level, especially in qualifying: clearly if you can start further forward you have a better chance of putting other cars under pressure, even if they are faster than us in terms of outright speed. That has to be our main objective over the next few days. Today the way we managed the race lived up to our expectations, with strategy based on tyre degradation. Fernando and Felipe both pitted twice, with Option-Prime-Prime the tyre sequence. We did our best but it was not enough to beat those who started on the front row, while our race pace was clearly superior to the rest of the field. We will have to do our utmost to be as well prepared as possible for the remaining four races in order to give our drivers a car with which they can always be in the fight for the top places. We have lost the lead in the Drivers’ classification but we have moved up one in the Constructors’. There is still everything to play for in this very open and fascinating championship. The hierarchy among the teams changes quickly, first one way then another this year and there is no reason why that cannot happen again now.”