Hectic Korean Grand Prix gets above average rating

2013 Korean Grand Prix

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When the F1 circus took its fourth visit to Korea there was a strong threat of tropical storms homing in on the area at right about race time.

Fortunately for all concerned they failed to materialise and not only did the race go ahead it scored the highest rating from F1 Fanatic readers since the British Grand Prix in June. A score of 7.351 placed it seventh overall in 2013.

It was a real ‘race of two halves’: the first portion of the race left many thinking that we were set for another processional event with little to talk about save for the spectacular front wing failure experienced by Nico Rosberg.

But as often seems to be the case throw in a Safety Car or two and all of a sudden everything springs to life. Here’s what F1 Fanatic readers made of the race.

It was like a Hollywood scriptwriter had taken over. Sparky front wings, exploding tyres, flaming cars, unauthorised vehicles on track, and some tremendous dices. It had it all.

Except for a battle for the lead.

I think Vettel has a secret stash of half-seconds shoved up his sleeve that he can pull out whenever he wants. The man is phenomenal with his ability to build up a lead, seemingly at will. Great for him, not so great for us fans. Having the winner so predictable pulled my rating down.
@Aardvark

Poor race largely decided by tyres. Only Hulkenberg saved it, and the radio messages of Lotus to Grosjean.
@Caci99

Some good fights up and down the field, but long stints of nothing interesting.
@Prisoner-Monkeys

Nico Hulkenberg underlined his credentials as a top driver of the future with a superb drive to fourth place:

Hulk was incredible! Battling all race and defending from two world champions all race long with huge skill and maturity. Get that man a top drive now!

The top three was a bit dull (though Raikkonen’s pass on Grosjean was great) but fourth to seventh was amazing and the battle where Hamilton and Alonso overtook each other four times in two corners was fantastic.

The championship is dead but racing is alive…
@Infernojim

There was too much tyre saving in the first two stints, but overall it was a very good race. Lots of drama, awesome battle for fourth place and impressive performance by Hulkenberg.
@Yobo01

Although the track is classical Tilkedrome, races in this track always provide some wheel to wheel action. Fantastic battles all the way down the grid, except for first position.

And that drive from Hulkenberg – it was probably the best performance from any driver this year. He should be driving top team next year. I’m sure he’d beat Alonso in that Ferrari or Button in that McLaren.
@Osvaldas31

One especially memorable incident stood out during the race:

My favourite moment was when they deployed the Unsafety Car.
@Mazdachris

The twin DRS zones had some positive responses:

DRS was key today. If it had been implemented incorrectly (as it has been at most race circuits) then Hamilton would of had an easy pass on Hulkenberg. Instead we got a great battle with Hulkenberg successfully defending his position (a rarity in itself these days).
@Racectrl

DRS wasn’t overpowered and did the job it was supposed to do which is give a chance for overtaking rather than be the overtake and Nico Hulkenberg drove beautifully.

But I still don’t know what Mercedes were smoking when Hamilton was losing 1.5-2.5 seconds per lap and they chose not to pit him then Rosberg’s front wing failed which meant Hamilton had to stay out again
@Bezza695

@Hamilfan supplied a verdict on the race as a whole

I had to take this race with a pinch of salt as all of our possible predictions went wrong about the start. But what a scintillating race to say the least!

Just when I was thinking it was drifting away from boredom, a tyre blast set off a sequence of events starting from a puncture culminating in a four-way scrap for the midfield positions. While Vettel reigned supreme, Hulkenberg was absolutely fantastic and stubborn in his defence. Not a single quarter was given. I think we can as well change the concept of the big four as Hulkenberg pummels his way towards glory bit by bit.

I was a bit sad that Hamilton and Mercedes were not “on it” today. The Safety Car saved him a bit (remember he was passed by Webber, Grosjean and Hulkenberg). But what an eventful race!
@Hamilfan

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2013 Korean Grand Prix

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    42 comments on “Hectic Korean Grand Prix gets above average rating”

    1. F1 races are always exciting and all should get 10/10 :)

      1. @malik
        Actually, this race should get a 10/10. You know why?
        Reason: JEEP!!!!

        1. @Krichelle: Tell people who say they watch races till turn 1. They can miss a lot of fun :D

      2. @malik that is actually a very good comment: we always complain about the negative aspects of F1, but in the end most of us still watch it, so clearly there’s still something magical about it! I for one love the event of getting up at the early hours of the morning to watch the flyaway races live!

        1. @Max Jacobson: +1

        2. Well said!
          I could never not follow it, no matter how boring the races become. This season hasn’t been very good, but would that make me switch off? Not a chance. It would be like now not supporting a football team that you have nearly your whole life because they are struggling.

        3. @vettel1

          I love the event of getting up at the early hours of the morning

          I definitely wouldn’t want you for a roommate :-). Sorry, couldn’t pass the opportunity for a joke. I’m an owl.

          Incidentally, taping such races allows me to FF through commercials, which is a nice bonus. But it’s not easy to refrain from looking at F1F before watching it.

          1. That’s one of the advantages of F1 in Britain: no add breaks! :D

    2. Kimi in action.

    3. Belgian Grand Prix still last. :( Makes me sad but I will keep my avatar anyway.

      1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
        17th October 2013, 11:31

        Spain and Silverstone were much worse than Belgium.

        1. agree, strange ratings!

        2. Silverstone had exploding tyres. How is that unfun and unexciting?

          1. If I was looking for that kind of excitement, I would watch something other than F1.

          2. It’s exciting, but do you want to watch it, knowing that a tyre could explode at any moment, potentially severely injuring a driver? I don’t want to watch that thank you very much.

        3. @tophercheese21
          Why? Because of the tyres? That doesn’t change the fact that in both Spain and Silverstone, we actually had some excitement over the lead.

          1. @kingshark in Spain? Please, it was deadly boring: one of the worst exercises in tyre conservation I’ve seen. Really, Vettel being told not to fight Räikkönen, whom he should have been racing – as such giving away a very soft place whilst Alonso romped away?

            It lost all it’s excitement after the first two laps, when it was clear the tyres would be the dominant factor. And when the delaminations a stared, it looked like it might’ve turned into a farce.

            Spain wasn’t exciting, Silverstone maybe but the latter had me wishing it was stopped after the second failure illuminated the fact that it was downright dangerous to continue proceedings – from that point onwards it was no longer a race in my eyes.

            1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
              18th October 2013, 0:30

              Couldn’t have said it better myself.

            2. It is funny i started to watch F1 one because it was dangers, i saw the drivers as hero’s for getting in the cars. Today it all about savety. I remember the days when the engines exploded ,crashed,tyres exploding and the drivers just said after the race i had a bad day and it was part of racing. Now if a car brakes or the engine explodes or a tyre goes everyone one is up in arms about savety. I still believe if you want to drive a F1 car you have to understand that this might be your last day, just like the drivers of old and motogp. That is what made them hero’s and the ave. person like me and the rest of us can not do it.Don’t get me wrong i do not believe any one should die or get injured in the sport but i do believe that if you want to drive a F1 car that that the risk you take.

              Sorry for my bad English.

            3. You’re English is fine :)

              However, I don’t agree that F1 needs to be dangerous. Absolutely, I do not want it sanitised: the Tarmac runoffs for example are getting slightly ridiculous. But I don’t want to see unnecessary dangers, like tyres which are prone to failing. There is absolutely no need for that.

              Crashes are fine, I would I be lying if I said I didn’t think the occasional crash was exciting. But every effort should be made to reduce the potential for injury in that event, so track safety and car safety is absolutely paramount IMO.

      2. what a shame indeed, it was not so terrible! Spa won’t always be like the 1998 edition…

      3. @mike-dee Even more surprising is Bahrain at the top! It’s like backwards year :/

    4. Yes, the events turned this race into an above average viewing experience.

    5. Chris (@tophercheese21)
      17th October 2013, 11:18

      I’m still flabbergasted that the British GP scored 7.3

      1. @tophercheese21 I guess ppl get bored of many exploding tyres featuring in a race

      2. Yep. People clearly love dangerous tyre failures…

      3. It was sort of middle ground between the 1-4s from people who were shocked by how dangerous it was and the 8-10s from people who loved seeing hair raising spectacle.

        Lets just conclude, that remembering Dan Wheldon, and seeing de Villota pass away most likely as a result of her injuries as well as Sean Edwards being killed on track should remind us that safety should always come first.

      4. If I recall correctly, I gave it a one. The race was threatened with being stopped as it was verging on dangerous, says it all really.

        1. I’m with you. If the high rating is because there is a jeep on the track and a tyre explodes, then that’s a pretty sad state of affairs.

          1. I’m not sure that’s right. I mean, for sure I think these things shouldn’t happen. But when they do, I think it would be difficult to sincerely argue that it is actually boring.

            This is quite the logic puzzle.

            1. @mike it is never boring, absolutely. Excitement however doesn’t have to be positive: it would be exciting being involved in a hostage situation, but that doesn’t mean you’d want to be in one!

              That is why I would always argue that the British GP was the worst race this year: it was genuinely like a hostage situation – what was going to happen with the tyres next, would all the cars survive?

    6. Where are the driver of the weekend results?

    7. lol, bahrain is the only race i missed a bit of. couldnt watch 2nd half. great…

    8. I’m surprised the Hungarian Grand Prix is so high also: it was decent, but nothing spectacular. Germany at least was better IMO, and I’d also put China and Korea above it. In Hungary you just sensed that nobody was going to be able to overtake.

      1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
        17th October 2013, 19:24

        @vettel I feel suspicious about why you say it… but let’s communicate telepathically. About the British GP, well, I also agree with you. It was a weird feeling in my stomach, not the thrilliing one, a feeling like “stop this nonsense before someone gets hurt”. No funny feeling at all.

        1. @omarr-pepper I was shouting at my tv “this is ridiculous” with my family members in the room who were loving it, as not-so-dedicated F1 fans! So perhaps that was why it was rated highly.

          Hungary really does just go no further than it looked like a few good battles would materialise, but in the end nothing happened: it’s just an inherent characteristic of the circuit I think though, which is why I’d make changes to it personally!

    9. Korea got high points because of the racing at the end, 10 or so laps of real racing with no tyre maintenance or pit stop strategies, that was what people were remembering when they rated the race.

    10. too many NASCAR fans especting crashes, Korea was a classic.

    11. Belgium being the most boring race of the season and Bahrain the most exciting race of the season, if only someone had placed a bet on that. On top of that, take a look at the tracks Tilke (re)designed, not counting minor adjustments like at the Hungaroring. Of the 14 races so far, none of them are in the bottom 6 and in the top 8 only Australia and Hungary are not (re)designed by Tilke. We’ll see how this statistic evolves the last 5 races but so far it seems that his designs actually suit the cars of today. Or, the other way round, DRS and such actually work on a Tilke designed track.

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