Speculation amounted around whether or not this race was going to happen.
Although facing adverse set-backs and stringent quality checks, the Koreans have managed to pull it off nicely. All the teams and their driver’s eyes were scrutinising the track, not to fail it for being under developed, but to merely learn the nature of the circuit and how to tackle its combination of fast straights and winding corners. The weather was good, probably as good as it could have been to start the weekend and get all the cars out on the track to begin first practice. Each driver gingerly made their way out of the pit lane and crawled up to speed as reports of various patches of dust were announced, which threated the grip of the car to the tarmac. Still, even the tarmac wasn’t playing as nicely as it could have as patches of oil made its way to the surface, being so freshly laid I think this was anticipated, although I hope it doesn’t play a fundamental part in the outcome of the race. McLaren and Lewis Hamilton spent the majority of first practice tied up in the pits as they changed out the rear wing of his car, and to great success as he then proceeded to set the fastest lap for the first sessions practice. Red Bull and Ferrari, however, weren’t to show off their cars brute power until the second round of practice where Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso both set fantastic laps of 1:37.942 and 1:38.132 respectively with Lewis Hamilton trailing behind them very closely with a 1:38.279. After the practices the drivers and their teams raised concerns with the officials with regard to the track because of the entry to the pit lane being on a blind corner possibly causing interruption to the race. Final practice and Qualifying showed that Red Bull are putting in some seriously big effort and that their cars are well suited to this track. Sebastian Vettel made a fantastic qualifying time and jumped ahead of his teammate Mark Webber for tomorrow’s race. I can’t wait to find out what happens; McLaren have got their hands full considering they need to win the last 3 races to have any hope of winning the championship title. It looks like an impossible feat considering Red Bull and Ferrari are both looking pretty hot for it at the moment but only time will tell.