After Seb Vettel clinched the Driver's Championship at Japan, one might be inclined to think there's nothing else to race for.  In NASCAR or the IRL, you'd be right.  However, this is Formula 1, which has always been a Constructor's marque.  Certainly it's nice to have the World Champion driving for you, but the Constructor's Championship is where the money is.  The financial difference between finishing first and finishing second is in the tens of millions of dollars.  So you betcha there's still something to drive for, and this weekend the F1 Circus heads to Yeongam, South Korea for the second Korean Grand Prix.  Let's take a look at the track map:

As you may remember, last year's inaugural race was mostly an aquatic affair, and when it finally stopped raining the track never dried and the sun went away.  It's hard to judge just exactly how this circuit runs, since we never saw any dry-weather racing the whole weekend.  In practice and Quals, the track surface proved to be both slippery and abrasive at the same time... and that was on the more durable Bridgestone tires.  With Pirelli bringing the soft and super-soft tires to the circuit, lord only knows how long the rubber will last. 

Of course, "lord only knows" also describes how the track'll ride this year.  In a move born out of desperation, the race organizers surfaced the track in a fast-curing asphalt that had a high oil percentage.  This guaranteed that the course would be ready for race weekend, but also guaranteed that the surface would be permanently greasy.  However, that was last year.  The track has had a year to weather in, and while I doubt it'll be great, it'll probably be better. 

One of the problems last year was that the heavy rain that fell had no way to drain.  The long straightaway is lined with concrete walls, and those walls contained the water like a swimming pool.  Everywhere else the problem was that the track is built on reclaimed swampland that's just a few feet above sea-level.  It was like pouring water on a sponge; it can absorb to some level, but after that it just can't take any more.  Fortunately, it looks like we're to have a dry race this year... maybe.  Who knows?

That reclaimed land also began settling almost as soon as the asphalt was put down, leading to a rather bumpy surface in some very uncomfortable places... mostly braking zones and the apices of turns, it seemed.  I doubt they could fix that, short of resurfacing the track... and they surely didn't do that.

So what this race preview comes down to is that we have no freakin' idea what the track will be like for this weekend's contest.  Let's not even think about what sort of effect DRS will have!  In any case, we'll find out thanks to the good folks at SPEED!  As usual, they'll be bringing us coverage of every session of the weekend!  Here's the lineup:

Thursday: Practice 1: 8p - 930p (streaming)
Friday: Practice 2: 12midnight - 140a (live), Practice 3: 9p - 10p (straming)
Saturday: Quals: 12midnight - 130a (live)
Sunday: 2011 Grand Prix of Korea: 1230a - 3a (live), 1030a - 1p (replay)

Along with the Legendary Announce Team, the F1 Update! crew will be all over the weekend as well!  Hope you'll join us, exclusively at The Pond*!



^{*no other place wants us.}

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:50 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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