F1: Korea's first qualifying ends in dust up

The Korean Yeongam circuit is not a typical Herman Tilke track - but it does have something in common with the Abu Dhabi circuit - Tilke has tried to make the pit lane entry and exit a feature that can have an impact on the race.

But, even during free practice, it was becoming obvious that impact is exactly what might result.

Pit lane design flaws

As cars slow for the pit-lane entry - on the exit from Turn 17, they are hidden from following cars behind a tall concrete wall. Incidents almost resulting in collisions were evident during practice. Therefore, even before qualifying began, the stewards had briefed drivers, saying that, in order to keep up their entry speed, they could start the pit lane entry on the "wrong" side of the white line.

That causes its own problems: the entry has a 90 degree corner in it, just a few car lengths off the track. And the pit lane is even more dusty than the track proper, simply because the cars aren't sweeping it as much. That problem will increase not decrease during the race as the grip from the racing line disappears as the drivers stand on the brakes.

The pit lane is also likely to prove problematic on exit. The white line is very close to the track proper. Unlike most tracks where the traffic lights are perhaps 100 metres from the track, in Yeongam it's more like 20 metres. That means that the cars are a long way from racing speed when they rejoin. And they rejoin in between Turns 1 and 2, right into the racing line of what is, in effect, a double-apex corner.

Pit lane design aside, the layout of the track is a fascinating mix of street circuit and modern race track. And it has the longest straight in Formula 1. It's a long track - 5.621 km. To keep race distance under the magic 200 miles (yes, we know it's mixing measurements), that means 55 laps giving a total of 309.155 km, according to the FIA.

Missing Turn 18

In P1, Michael Schumacher started a trend of straight-lining Turn 18 from the exit of Turn 17. He rode the kerbs so far that his right tyres were almost on the kerbs and his left wheels were far into the dirt. As others followed, the dust began to kick up more and more - starting to dig a ditch inside the kerb.

Perhaps the stewards had a word about that for in qualifying, drivers rode the kerb but stayed off the dirt. Even so, to get the straightest line possible, drivers were sticking as close to the Turn 17 wall as they could - making any kind of visual on the pit-lane entrance impossible.

Clearly, the pit lane needs to be redesigned: entry needs to come off Turn 16. But that means using up land reserved for other purposes. Tilke's tunnel vision for Abu Dhabi would work here, allowing re-entry to the track on the left which is off the racing line after Turn 2. That would involve some major - and very expensive - work. An alternative would be to extend the pit lane so as to rejoin further along the long straight leading to Turn 3 as cars move left for set up. That would, however, spoil the prospect of derring-do dives out of the slipstream. We can expect some side-by-side racing on that straight as the power merchants out-accelerate cars that rely on handling to give them an advantage in the twiddly bits.

Switch-back camber

There are no chicanes as such: but there are some almost kart-track like sequences. A particularly challenging area is the change of camber at Turns 11 and 12. Positive banking in Turn 11 (left) turns into a sharply off-camber Turn 12 (right) which unweights the car and slings it sideways as lateral grip reduces. Several drivers have found themselves in the run-off area at that point.

Graining tyres and dust

The track surface is very grippy: so much so that tyres are graining badly. But that grip is being negated by a significant dust problem. And the additional lateral movements are making the tyres grain even more.

The track is, literally, in the middle of a building site. The dust is creating tiny marbles on which the cars are sliding around. that's aggravating the graining. Aside from blown dust, the fact that run-off areas have not been properly finished means that any excursion drags dust onto the track. But dust is also visible in what at first seem like bizarre striations from one side of the track to the other. But closer inspection shows that it's where there are crossing points and rather than loose dust, it's sand-like dust embedded into the track surface since it's been laid and as construction and other equipment has moved around the circuit.

The "corrugations" that we said were a likely feature of the newly laid track are already apparent, especially on the approach to Turn 1: cars under braking are pushing up the tarmac and are bucking and diving as they set up for the sharp left turn.

Some drivers also reported, during this morning's free practice, that the tarmac was lifting in Turn 18, the one that yesterday they were, effectively, cutting.

In the morning practice, the oils that we mentioned in a previous article had come back to the surface. This is causing some concern as there is now a weather forecast that there may be light showers tomorrow shortly before or in the early stages of the race. Add a greasy surface to the mix of bumps and dust and there is every chance that the first Korean Grand Prix will turn into a lottery.

Except for one thing: qualifying threw up only one surprise - Rosberg is in the top seven. If he had not driven so far ahead of expectations, the top six would be the usual suspects: Vettel, Webber, Alonso, Hamilton, Rosberg, Massa, Button with a time difference from pole to seventh of 1.2 seconds. In fact, qualifying was not, by the standards of recent races, a close-run thing.

The fact that the track is improving lap by lap is proved by the fact that all the top ten were faster in Q3 than in Q2 - not usually the case.

Massa and Rosberg's positions may well seal the fate of McLaren's Jenson Button: fifth in the Championship he needs a win and the Ferrari and Mercedes will be in his way from the outset. Whilst he should be able to outpace them between turns two and three, much will depend on exactly where on the race track they place their cars: as they will be racing each other, there is little chance Button will have space to pass either of them, much less both despite having a significantly higher top speed. And Button is very unhappy with the front grip of the car: he complains the he can't get it to turn in.

Tyre strategy will be decided on the hoof. How the tyres stand up is still not known: there is seemingly not as much difference between the prime and options as was first expected, particularly after they have both done three or four laps. So the option will give one or perhaps two laps boost. That might mean that, if degradation becomes a factor, that teams might choose to run two sets of soft and one prime - or to run the option for either a very short first stint or a very long first stint.

No safety car?

There is, it seems, little chance of the result being decided by a strategy dedicated by safety car intervention. So long as there are no collisions as a result of the pit lane issues, it seems that the most impressive part of the track design is that cars that leave the track don't hit anything. So far, except for a minor brushing of the wall at Turn 17, there have been no accidents. Although Senna's car caused a yellow flag yesterday, that was due (apparently) to component failure. That's unlike to be a big problem because the kerbs are not so high as to rip car parts off. And the only red flag so far has been due to a spinning car that stalled in the middle of the track.

Will it be good?

So what does the first Korean Grand Prix hold? There's one thing we can say: it's not going to be boring and it's not all going to be over in the first three corners.

Hamilton, starting from the second row, stands a chance of out-dragging the Red Bulls into Turn 3 on the first lap - but only if Alonso doesn't get in his way - which, of course, he fully intends to do.