F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone was mugged Wednesday outside the offices of Formula One Holdings, in central London.  The 80-year-old and Fabiana, his Brazilian lawyer-girlfriend (above left) were taken for jewelery and watches to the tune of  £200,000.  Darth Bernie suffered a minor head wound in the assault, which occurred mere weeks after he claimed that the attempted mugging of Jenson Button in Brazil was faked and the streets of London were more dangerous. 

"You have to remember we have a lot of problems in England, Oxford Street and places, and in New York people get mugged," Darth Bernie said of the Brazil incident.  "They look for victims, they look for anyone that looks like a soft touch and not too bright.  The people that look a bit soft and simple, they will always have a go at."

Ecclestone was treated and released from a local hospital, while his girlfriend was reportedly shaken by the whole event.  Police are looking for the four men that attacked them, as well as a getaway driver.  As of Friday, no arrests have been made and no identification has been forthcoming.  The Pond is happy to suggest some potential culprits:

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Abu Dhabi:

Lap 1, Vitantonio (Unemployed) Liuzzi and Slappy (Slappy) Schumacher come together.

Post-Race, HWMNBN (right) shows his true colors by berating Vitaly Petrov for not letting him by.  You want to know why the Ferrari driver is called "He Who Must Not Be Named" here on The Pond?  That's it, right there.

Petrov reacts by holding his hands up in a "what did you expect?" motion, which is better than what I'd do.

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So here we are at the final Quals session of the 2010 F1 season, and undoubtedly the the most important of the year.  Four men, all needing the pole to give them the best possible shot at winning the Driver's Championship, but only one can do it.  Can McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, needing a win and a miracle, claim the pole that he needs so desperately?  Could Red Bull's Seb Vettel join the six others who have claimed 10 poles in a season... all of whom went on to win the Driver's Championship?  Would it be Mark Webber, the Red Bull driver who led the Championship until a horrible mistake at Korea snatched it from him?  Or did Ferrari's HWMNBN, the points leader in the Championship, stamp his authority over Sunday's race early?  Let's take a look at the provisional grid for Sunday's 2010 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi:

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Hamilton.
Vettel.
HWMNBN.
Webber.

That's how the timesheet read at the end of Friday's Second Practice.  Fitting as those are the four men still in the running for the Driver's Championship at this, the last race of the 2010 F1 season.  Of course, there's nothing to be read into these results as it's practically impossible to figure out what each team was trying to do. The only thing we can figure is that the teams were running full fuel at the end of the session, trying to figure out how the extra 300lbs would affect the tires and brakes around the circuit as night fell.

Another thing that can be figured out is that the McLaren of Hamilton is running a variant of its Japanese GP rear wing, one that sure seems to have increased the car's pace.  His teammate Jenson Button, wasn't running the same wing, as his was held up in transport somewhere, and was over a second slower as a result.  Now, whether or not it'll be enough for Hamilton to win the race is another question.

And he must do so if he wants any chance at all of winning the Championship.  Even with that, he needs the biggest of miracles.  For a quick rundown on who needs to do what, go to this post over at F1fanatic.  Intriguingly, this is the first time F1 has had four drivers still in contention in the last race of the year.  Even more intriguingly, it's possible that we could have three drivers all end up with the same number of points!  If Vettel wins, Webber comes in second, and HWMNBN finishes in 5th, all three will have 256 points.  In that case, Seb Vettel would win the Driver's Championship.  He'd have the same number of wins, 2nd and 3rd place finishes as HWMNBN, but one more 4th.  Amazing, and not all that unlikely.  Still, it's all in the hands of the Ferrari driver.  If he wins or finishes 2nd, he's the Champion no matter what anybody else does.

The track ran well today, billiard-table smooth and still as Tilkeish as ever.  Amazingly, there was a huge downpour before P1 today, which washed what little rubber the GP2 guys laid down away.  Still, by P2 it was back to being bone dry, but hot and humid.  That could take a toll on the cars and their worn engines, to say the least.  Supposedly the big four are all to use low-mileage engines, but that's what they said about Vettel's engine at Korea and we all know how that ended up.  And to be honest, it might be the most beautiful layout in Formula 1 when the sun starts going down.

As we learned last year, there's not many overtaking opportunities around the Yas Marina Circuit, so qualifying will be of paramount importance.  Quals is Saturday morning, and I'll have a writeup as soon after I wake up as possible.  See you then!

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And so it comes to this, the final race of the season.  In many ways, this is the way it should be.  While we're unlikely to have the championship come down to the final turn of the final lap like it did in 2008, one race for all the marbles just feels right.

And the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi will be the venue.  Let's take a look at the track map:

 Dominated by two long straights and a third of not-insignificant length, you'd think the McLarens with their high top-end speed would own this place, and it may in fact work out that way, but I'd not bet on it.  Most of the turns are low-gear, low-speed, which would play into the Red Bulls' hands, but I'd not bet on that, either.  No, the easy way to wager would be on the Ferrari, just because of its balance between handling and grunt.  Since that's the easy way, however, I'm not going to take it: HRT will own the victory after a hideous blimp accident clears the way for them.

Bridgestone is bringing their super-soft and medium compounds, just like last year.  Drivers say it combines the best of modern circuits with the best of Monaco-style street circuits, which sounds like Korea's mission statement actually.  If we have a race like Korea this weekend, I'll be happy... not expecting it, though.  The main excitement last year was provided by rookie Kamui Kobayashi passing Driver's World Champion Jenson Button into Turn 8, then the processional began and the race turned dull.  The most interesting part of the circuit is the pitlane, which goes through a tunnel under Turn 1 as it rejoins the track.  It didn't cause any problems last year, but more than a couple of cars got squirrely there.  One bump into the wall and we've got major headaches.

Well, we'll be seeing it all unveil live on SPEED!, beginning with Friday's 2nd Practice from 6am to 740am.  Quals is Saturday from 6am to 730am.  Then, finally, we see the second-ever Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi on Sunday, from 530am to 8am.  There'll be a replay from 230pm to 5pm that afternoon.  And then we're done for the year... and I have to admit to some relief.

In a completely unrelated topic, I'm going to toot my own horn here for a second.  During last year's F1U! for the GP of Abu Dhabi, I said this:

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  It's hard to think that Red Bull won't be favored to win the 2010 championship.  They probably have the best car on the grid, one of the best drivers in Seb Vettel (and teammate Mark Webber ain't exactly chopped liver, either), came in second in the constructor's championship (and Vettel finished second in the driver's championship), and had their fourth 1-2 finish of the season today.  Not bad for a team that hadn't won a race before this year!

Perhaps not a prediction that went particularly far out on a limb, but there you go.

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Pundits always say that rain is the great equalizer in Formula 1.  Guess what the weather was doing at the Autodromo Juan Carlos Pace during Qualifying today?  Let's take a look at the provisional grid for Sunday's Grand Prix of Brazil:

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Friday's second practice was pretty much what you'd expect: Red Bulls up front and everybody else wondering if they could mount James Bond-like gadgets to their cars, and trying to figure out how much pace they'd lose with a couple of Sidewinder launch rails attached to their sidepods.

HWMNBN and Felipe Massa both showed good speeds, though both had their troubles.  The points leader had his engine die in P1, and the Brazilian had a clutch failure in P2.  Neither should suffer a penalty for their breakdowns however since they came on Friday.  Indeed, the team claimed that they weren't at all surprised by HWMNBN's breakdown as it was a well-worn race engine that they expected to have go boom.  That actually makes good sense... why put any more miles on the engine they intend to use on Sunday than they have to? 

On the other hand, McLaren may as well not bother to show up at Abu Dhabi next week; both Hamilton and Button were a second or more off the pace.  If they wind up with that sort of pace at Quals, they'll probably be DOA on Sunday, and both drivers need to win to have any chance for a comeback in the championship.

All is not wine and roses in the Red Bull camp, though.  As predicted some races ago, the tension between Mark Webber and Seb Vettel is showing through at a particularly ugly time.  Mark Webber said on Thursday that he believed that the team thought his drive for a championship was "an inconvenience.  I wasn't supposed to be in the chase at all."  His body language was reportedly that of someone under a ton of stress, full of slumping and sighs.  He did get a dig in though: "For different reasons here and there, Seb's never led the Championship and I have."  Vettel in a later interview with a German TV channel said "if Mark needs help then he should take the medical car."    

Not good news for the Austrian team.  It's clear that neither driver is willing to help the other if and when it comes down to that.  Indeed, Webber was asked what he'd do if things broke poorly for him this race and suddenly Vettel had a better chance to win the Championship.  His response, after a long pause, was telling: "I'd need to think a lot further about that."

Meanwhile over in the Ferrari camp, Felipe Massa has stated that he'll do whatever he can do to help HWMNBN win the championship.  HWMNBN, on the other hand, has said that he'd be perfectly happy to have his teammate win at his home race.  "It'll take 25 points off the guys following me," which is just as good as a win for the Spaniard.  Of course, the specter of Massa pulling over to let his teammate by looms over the team, to the point where a Brazilian official has said that Massa lets HWMNBN by, he'll have Massa arrested for violating sportsmanship laws.  Must be election time in Saõ Paolo.

Quals late Saturday morning, with the report coming sometime after that.

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From the new track at Korea, we find ourselves hurled over 11000 miles to Saõ Paulo, Brazil, home of the Brazilian Grand Prix... and let's get it out of the way now: that's a lot of Grand Prix.

Let's get something else out of the way: I do not like this track.  Let's look at the map...

I admit that my dislike of the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace rather sets me apart from many fans and most of the drivers, but I have never been fond of the site of the Grand Prix of Brazil.  Indeed, now that the French Grand Prix has gone by the wayside (and good riddance to bad rubbish), only the nightmare of boredom that is Hungary is higher on my antipathy list. 

Which is strange, because the Brazilian Grand Prix has coughed up some stunning races in recent years.  Consider 2007, when Lewis Hamilton lost the Driver's Championship to Kimi Raikkonen by throwing his car off-track trying to make a pass he didn't need.  Or perhaps 2008, when Hamilton redeemed himself on the last turn of the last lap, passing Timo Glockenspiel's Toyota to win the Driver's Championship by one point over hometown favorite Felipe Massa, who had won the race.  Or even 2009, which had the longest quals session in F1 history due to torrential rains (and coincidentally saw the arrival of Racey the Owl) and the dual championships for rookie team BrawnGP and Jenson Button, with Massa, recovering from his horrible accident, waving the checkered flag.

Despite all this, I despise this circuit.  More commonly known by the name Interlagos, meaning "Between The Lakes" in Portugese, the course is built, well, between two man-made lakes that provide water to the sprawling metropolis that is Saõ Paulo.  These lakes have caused the circuit to wrinkle over the years, to the point where even after a resurfacing in 2007, it was easily the bumpiest track in F1.  I don't like that.  The pit-in is positioned so that the racing line through Turn 15 goes through it, and it always looks like cars are going to smash head-on into the pit wall at 160mph.  I don't like that.  I don't like the pit lane itself, the longest in F1.  But most of all, I don't like the whole atmosphere of Interlagos.  Even on the sunniest days it feels dull and gray.  Watching the race often feels like a chore because of this.  The whole layout seems uninspired to my eyes as well.

As mentioned before though, most of the drivers love Interlagos.  The elevation change (down, from Turn 2 to the exit of Turn 3, then up, from around Turn 13 to the slightly banked Turn 15) gives them a sense of going somewhere, the fast parts are fast without being dangerously so, and the twisty bits are challenging without being ridiculous.  So they say.  I just hate it all.  It's a visceral, emotional hate, with no logic behind it.  I admit it, and can't help it.

That all being said, it's looking like Brazil is going to serve up another whopper of a race this Sunday.  HWMNBN could in theory wrap up the Driver's Championship.  Red Bull could lock down the Constructor's Championship.  Or everything could go the way of Korea and we'll have a scenario where we'll have four or five drivers all within range of the Championship going into Abu Dhabi.  No matter how you look at it, or how much you like (or dislike) the track, the GP of Brazil will almost certainly be the most important race of the year.

And SPEED will be there!  Live coverage of Friday's Second Practice goes from 11am to 1240pm.  Quals, on the other hand, are Saturday from 11am to 1230pm.

The Grand Prix of Brazil will come to us LIVE on Sunday, with coverage beginning at 830am, and the checkered flag dropping somewhere around 11am.  As usual, all times are Pond Central, and don't forget that you need to set your clocks back an hour when (if?) you go to bed on Saturday night as the US reverts to Standard Time.

Also as usual, the F1U! crew will be all over the race like an odd-toed ungulate on a blade of grass.  See you then!

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It's raining at the Korea International Circuit, 24 minutes before the lights go out.  Cars are spinning during the recon lap... we just saw a shot of Felipe Massa moving at maybe 40mph, on full wets, and still skidding sideways off-track.

Of course, the dust/dirt off-track is now mud.  Oy.

This might prove to be a nightmare race.  Fun, yes, but a nightmare.

Oh, and HWMNBN's engineers found a leaking waterpump in his Ferrari.  They're working replacing it right now.  They'll get it done, but will it hold together?  Yeesh.

UPDATE: There's a 10-minute delay to the start, and it'll begin behind the Safety Car.  Rain is supposed to stop in about an hour or so.  Hoo-hah.

UPDATE 2:  Lap 3, and the race is Red Flagged.  The cars have stopped on the grid, and we're halted until the the powers that be decide that the rain has stopped enough.  To be honest, even running behind the safety car must have been terrible.  HWMNBN called back to the pit wall, claiming that this was "the worst conditions (he's) ever driven under."  This race might just be called.

UPDATE 3:  The race will be resumed at 205am Pond Time!  They'll do one more lap under Safety Car conditions, and they must be on full wet tires (not that anybody would be silly enough to do anything else *coughferraricough*, of course), but then they'll be really running for the first time.  Now we're up against the setting sun, will they get it in before it gets too dark to race.

UPDATE 4:  Here we go, and Berndt Maylander leads them all into Turn 1... but we're racing again.

UPDATE 5:  Still behind the Safety Car.  The asphalt is to blame here; it's got a higher percentage of oily bitumen than normal, so the water is just floating on top of that.  Slappy just spun off.
 
UPDATE 6:  Lewis Hamilton just radioed in: "The track is good, improving all the time!"  The sun is to begin setting in about 40 minutes, or about 3am Pond Central time.  This is getting ridiculous.

UPDATE 7:  12 laps in, some parts of the track look okay, but the two long straights may as well be swimming pools.  Still, the Legendary Announce Team make a good point: "we've raced in worse."  Lucas di Grassi just set fast lap, with a blistering 2m36sec.  Still behind the Safety Car. 

UPDATE 8:  Hamilton: "Start the race."  McLaren Pit Wall: "We don't think other drivers have the same enthusiasm, Lewis."  How much fuel does Berndt Maylander have?

UPDATE 9:  Greengreengreen!  Real racing now on Lap 18.

UPDATE 10: Race over after three hours, with the last laps run in the dark.  No F1U! until after I get some sleep, but it was an... interesting... experience. 

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With overcast skies casting a dull flat light over the Korea International Circuit, the track looks quite different, but will it drive any differently?  That's what we're here to find out!  The provisional grid for the first ever Grand Prix of Korea:

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P2 was much like P1, just with more rubber on the track.  Lap times fell until about 10 minutes left in the session, when all the teams shifted from car setups to doing tire runs.  Remember how I said the simulators were forecasting 1:44 lap times?  Mark Webber topped the second practice session timesheets with a 1:37.942.  Real life is more realistic than simulators. 

Anyway, tire wear is going to be huge on Sunday.  Nobody expected this, but the option tires are practically falling apart after a few laps, suffering heavy heavy graining after just a couple of laps.  It's not just limited to one or two teams, with everybody from Red Bull to HRT having the problem.  Perversely, the tire wear is occurring because the circuit is so slippery.  Think of it like this.  Let's say (and I'm making numbers up here) that a F1 car travels four feet every time the tires make one full revolution.  That's on a normal circuit, like Silverstone or Monza, in the dry of course.  At Korea though, the track is so slippery that tires need to revolve 1-1/2 times to go four feet... obviously the tires will wear faster.  That's an exaggeration, but it gives you an idea of the problem.  It also doesn't help that the tires need to work harder to get through the turns, sliding more than at other places.

Speaking of turns, if there's going to be any wrecks on Sunday, look for them to occur at Turn 16.  It's a relatively simple left-hander, normally no problem, but the inside curb at Turn 16 is actually below track level.  This is completely the opposite of any curbing on any non-banked turn on any track anywhere.  If it was designed that way, then Hermann Tilke had to have been drunk at the time.  More likely however is that the track surface has settled.

Much like Swamp Castle in Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up."), Korea International Circuit was built on marshland, just barely over the level of the water table.  The marsh was drained, but it can't be the most stable terrain to build on.  As a result, this track is bumpy, much like the way Interlagos in Brazil is bumpy.  Not just at The Elephant, but all over the Korean layout there are rough patches (and a weird hill on the left side of one short straight.  Not all the way across, just on one side).  It appears likely that Turn 16 has sunk into the swamp, so to speak... and it's the cars that'll fall over.

Also, the drivers universally decry the pit entry at Turn 18.  It's a relatively fast turn, leading onto the front straight, but cars entering the pits have to slow waaaay down on the circuit before they get into the pit lane run-in, which is narrow and twisty.  I can easily see an accordion effect causing wrecks as someone slows up to go to the pits, the next car behind slowing to avoid him, and someone else plowing into that car.  Or someone needs to dodge a pit-bound car, and failing. 

All that being said, I find that I actually rather like this racetrack.  It has personality, unlike most Tilke layouts.  There's a lot of little elevation changes in the twisty part of the circuit, and of course there's The Elephant.  It looks like it'd be a lot of fun to drive on.  Is it going to be a good track to actually race on?  That, we won't know until Sunday... I can see it easily being a horrible F1 track.  But if you could just take a car, maybe a Lotus Evora, and go for a fun track day?  Korea International Circuit would be GREAT!

Quals at midnight, writeup'll be sometime Saturday.

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1:28:00 - Hello, and welcome to the first ever F1Update Liveblog!  We're looking at the first practice session for the new Korean Grand Prix.  We're two minutes in, and so far nobody has crashed!

1:25:45 - First radio transmission from the runners.  Toro Rosso's NKOTT called in and said "It's a very dirty track, very very slippery."  As expected, of course.  The place looks like the grand prix circuit in  Australia, just without any of the scenery and a lot of construction work around.

1:20:00 - After an initial flurry of activity, suddenly it looks like nobody is on track.  NKOTT just went into the pits, and his tires were just covered with dust.  Hideously so, like he went for a run in the desert or something.  Here, take a look:


1:16:00 - Kubica is on track, and every so often he's hitting dust puddles... including one right at the start/finish line.  Pitlane seems narrow-ish.

1:12:30 - Button out on track for the first time, looks like he's driving very gingerly.  Then again, everybody is.  And it's an installation lap, just to make sure everything's working.  I expect a lot of that for the first every now and again. 

1:09:43 - HRT takes to the field!  DJ DNF looks... well, slow.

1:06:47 - ...and DJ DNF becomes the first to go off-track.


1:02:30 - Looks like playtime is over, and the teams are starting to get down to the business of figuring this place out.  Gawd, but there's a lot of bare dirt visible...

0:58:05 - ...and Jarno Trulli becomes the second off of the day.  Getting quite a bit of traffic out there now, starting to see just how the track races.  Initial impression: poor, particularly through the "city" section.

0:52:52 - Felipe Massa becomes the third victim of the slippery track.  See, it's not just the crappy cars!  The Ferrari is actually one of the more stable runners out there, but Massa looked like he was ice skates.

49:50 - Who told HRT that "pigment-spill brown" was a good color?

46:08 - There's a strange little hillock at the end of the second straightaway, like they paved over an elephant or something.  Terrible place for it, right in the braking zone for the hairpin (I think.  It's hard to tell without a trackmap handy), and it's bumpy as all hell.  I could see an accident occurring there, even on a grippy track.

42:01 - Nope, it's the end of the looooooong straight.  Still a weird spot for it though.  Nico Rosberg went over it and almost looked like he was going to fly out of the cockpit.

41:07 - Gandalf Kobyashi just had an off... in the pit entry.  Oy.  Nah, this asphalt isn't slippery at all.

34:03 - The Elephant isn't the only elevation change on this track.  Actually, there's a surprising amount of little rolls and dips around the place... kinda nice, actually, and quite unexpected.  The Demon Tilke seems to prefer to scour the landscape down to a pool-table-like smoothness.

29:21 - The simulators were predicting a laptime of around 1m44s or thereabouts.  Jenson Button just did a 1:43.096... then put it in the dust.

27:14 - I must say, the feed has bee BUFFERING 22% n pretty good so far.

24:45 - If you can avoid looking anywhere but the track itself, the Korea International Circuit looks pretty good.  But then you see a camera shot of two piles of dirt and a crane...

23:33 - Yellow flag!

22:00 - Looks like Bruno Senna either had his rear suspension break on him, or it broke when this happened:

Pretty impressive high-speed spin... good thing there's a lot of run-off area there.  Bad news is that it's taking FOREVER for the marshalls to get it craned away.

17:31 - Yellow flag is gone after six minutes or so... at Monaco, the thing would have been back in the pitlane after that long.

14:33 - Nico Hulkenberg did a 1:42.678 for fast lap honors so far... then Rubens Barrichello, his teammate, did a 1:42.800 (I think it was, it flashed up so quick) for 2nd fastest.  Could Williams have FINALLY gotten it right, with three races left?  Or are they just looking good because nobody has a clue yet?

10:55 - Allskate, everybody allskate.  Place looks like I-90 near O'Hare on Friday afternoon.

4:16 - Button does a 1:41.940.  The sims are looking a little shabby...

0:44 - Hamilton pulls a 1:40.887.  Great googly moogly.

0:00 - I suspect I know what the drivers will say.  They'll be positive and upbeat, but I suspect in private they'll have some serious reservations about the circuit.  As for me, it looks like a great track to drive on, but to race?  Not so much.  Hamilton, Kubica, Rosberg, Vettel, Button, Slappy, Webber, Heidfeld, Hulkenberg and Barrichello are your top 10 for the first practice session fast laps.  I think that might be legit, in fact.  After all, you probably won't be sandbagging on this track; nobody knows the place!

I wonder about the attendance... look at this:

Yes, it's first practice, but the stands are empty.  Still, the four or five people who showed up got a decent show.

So, P2 in just about 2.5 hours, and I won't be liveblogging that... not even sure if I'm to watch it until tomorrow morning.  Hope you enjoyed this, the Pond's first ever LiveBlog, and stay tuned for more coverage later!

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While we're waiting for the First Practice session from Korea, which I intend to liveblog, here's a little something funny for ya.

What are these five drivers thinking, I wonder?

Hamilton: *snert*
HWMNBN:  I don't like being touched by men.
Mark Webber: I really need to find a loo...
Jenson Button: Look cool and professional... that's it... now!
Seb Vettel:  What's so funny?

Liveblogging will commence right around 8pm Central Pond Time.

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We have it on good authority that everything will be a-okay for the Grand Prix of Korea on Sunday.  Who says?  Why, a personage who has absolutely nothing riding on the way the track handles, has no vested interest in the success of the race:

Hermann Tilke.  Yes, the designer of the Korea International Circuit hisownbadself has come out saying that the race will be exciting.  Hully-gee, how could we have been so blind as to have ever thought that there'd be some problems with the race?

Tilke: "I think on Friday the track surface will be very, very slippery because it is brand new. That means you will probably see some spinning."   Gosh, ya think?  Thanks for the update, Mr Track Designer!  It's not like spinning and crashing in practice might be a problem or anything, though it would be exciting, in a NASCAR sort of way.

Tilke: "And, it will not be easy to find the set-up for Saturday and Sunday because the track will change a lot. That means some drivers will make the wrong set-up choice, because you are going to have to second guess what is the right way to go."  So expect an HRT to be on pole, because their car is so bad a screwed-up setup won't make a difference.  Still, that'd be exciting, I guess.

Tilke: "After some practice the track will improve a lot, because they lay down their rubber, and that will produce some grip. But off the ideal line it will be very slippery - a big challenge for drivers."  In other words, expect a processional, because nobody will dare get off the driving line for fear of ending up somewhere around Jeju-teukbyeoljachido.  Exciting indeed... everybody loves a parade!

Tilke: "The main systems will work fine, but maybe here and there, there might be some small things that are not working."  Like asphalt coming up in foot-long chunks.  Or curbs turning into red-and-white painted gravel the first time a car bounces over them.  Or missing drain covers.  All of those things spell raw, unadulterated excitment with a capital 'E'!

Tilke: "And because the track is not tested, as it got ready very late, there will probably be a few surprises as well. But all the main things will be okay."  Everybody loves surprises, particularly someone driving a F1 car at 190mph!  I guess it's a good thing that there practically no grandstands, since otherwise they'd sell you the whole seat, but you'll only be using the edge.  I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it... I'm about to lose control, and I think I like it!

So there you have it!  Hermann Tilke assures us that Korea will be the bestest race on the calendar evar!!!1!11!!@!eleventy!!! 

And if you can't trust Hermann Tilke, who can you trust?  I mean, really?

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The F1 Circus pulls into a brand new venue this week, the Korean International Circuit at Yeongam.  There's been a terrible amount of hand wringing regarding the condition of the layout over the past month or so, but how will it really run?  We're about to find out!  Let's take a look at the track map:

A brand new course is always an exciting time for F1, as nobody has any idea what to expect.  While eyewitness reports from Yeongam are somewhat troubling, they're mostly referring to ancillary subjects though two things from reader David's forum are worry-making.  Missing drain covers, for example, remind me of the Chinese Grand Prix of 2005, when Juan Pablo Montoya lost out on a podium finish when a loose cover broke his car.  Failing curbs might do the same thing. 

Then there's the track surface itself.  Fresh asphalt is going to be slippery, which'll play hob with downforce levels.  Predictions have the teams setting their cars up like it was Suzuka, sacrificing top speed for grip.  Yeah, that long straight looks drool-worthy, but there's a lot of curves in the back half of the track and being fast there will pay off more in the long run.  Lord knows how the tires will respond... I'm assuming that Bridgestone will be conservative with compound choice here, perhaps bringing the hard and soft rubbers.  The teams have high-tech simulators, and have been "driving" around the layout for the past month, but there's only so much a sim can tell you.  Yes, you'll know the best line through the track and how long you'll be at full throttle, but until the cars take the track for the First Practice session, they won't know.

Fortunately, we've got SPEED and the Legendary Announce Team to guide us through the whole weekend.  The best news of all is that we'll be able to see that first practice session, Thursday night from 8pm to 930pm, on speedtv.com.  I'll be watching, for sure!  After that, coverage shifts to the network, with Second Practice coming from 1159pm to 140am Thursday night to Friday morning.  Thankfully, I've got Friday off from the Duck U Bookstore due to "Fall Break"!

Qualifying is Friday night, beginning at 1159pm and rolling until 130am Saturday morning.  Finally, the broadcast of the first-ever Grand Prix of Korea will begin at 1230am Sunday morning, going until 3am.  There will be a replay from 330pm to 6pm Sunday afternoon as well.

We'll probably be watching a F1 race taking place in a construction site, but it's a F1 race nevertheless!  Of course, F1Update!'ll be all over it all weekend, and we'll see you here then!

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After two days of inspections, Charlie Whiting, the FIA's Head Of All Things Technical, has given the Korean International Circuit a "satisfactory" grade in his report to the powers that be.  He walked the entire track, checking such things as curbing, asphalt smoothness, safety and runoff areas, facilities and the like, and proclaimed it suitable to be raced upon.

And he's probably right.  It just looks like a construction area.  All we really care about is the track itself, the rest of it is just for show... like Monaco.

It's amazing what ISN'T there, however.  For their track simulation, the creators of the new F1 2010 video game had access to the same CAD blueprints that the builders used.  Here's the result:

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The skies above Suzuka are reported to be sunny and clear, and the Quals for the 2010 Grand Prix of Japan went off without a hitch!  Here's the provisional grid:

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While we're waiting for Quals to run, here's this:

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Best looking of the entries for the Great Suzuka Pit Lane Boat Race.  Also the slowest, which isn't all that surprising considering Switzerland's naval status (the America's Cup not withstanding). 

News from Suzuka is good.  Looks like there's only light rain in the area, though with four or five hours to go, that can change.  Right now however, there's no doubt that Lewis Hamilton is seriously thinking about drowning himself.  He'll be taking a five-spot grid penalty for a gearbox change.  Seems there was a little bit more damage than the team thought after his little encounter with the wall.  It's amazing how fast one's view of a driver's chances can change... right now, Hamilton is pretty much being given up for dead by everybody, yet he's still in third place in the Driver's Championship.  Wacky.

In one other bit of news, they've finally laid asphalt at the Korea International Circuit, host of the first Grand Prix of Korea in two weeks.  Unfortunately, it was laid down on Friday, and it takes time for asphalt to cure.  For everyday use by streetcars, bus traffic and trucks, it's only a short time.  For the stresses a F1 car will put on the asphalt, however, it's substantially longer... longer than they've got.  A couple-three years ago, the surface at Montreal was literally being ripped up by the high-downforce cars in the curves.  They patched the track in time for the race, but then the patches tore up.  Fortunately, no cars were damaged by the chunking, but it could have been a disaster if someone had driven into one of the... call them 'potholes'... at speed.  F1 Tech Honcho Charlie Whiting is scheduled to inspect the track on Monday, after which a decision on the race will be made.

You realize that, in theory, we might go six weeks between F1 races?  If they cancel Korea, and Japan is washed out, that's exactly what'll be happening... unless they reschedule Suzuka and move Korea to, say, the Mt Fuji circuit.  Bring back the Pacific GP!

Back after qual results are up!

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According to the Legendary Announce Team, the rains came a couple of hours after Friday's second practice... and hasn't stopped since.  In between then and now, it's either bucketed down or poured.  As the cameras went live for Quals, the session was delayed for 30 minutes, with an announcement on what was going to be done at that point in 20.  Saturday's practice session was for all intents and purposes a washout.

The weather is supposed to break sometime in the night Suzuka time.

UPDATE @ 1218am:  The safety car went out on track, and it was having problems.  The big problem is that Suzuka actually has elevation changes, so the water flows downhill, towards the start/finish line.  Degner in particular is a swamp, but many places have deep standing (or worse, flowing) water.  The full wet tires are incredible pumps, blowing water out of their deep treads in prodigious amounts, but when the puddles are deeper than the tread depth they may as well as just be slicks... and that's the situation we're in.  The FIA just announced that there's no decision as of yet, and there'll be another announcement around 1am Pond Central time.  This isn't going to end well.

UPDATE @ 1237am: SPEED is replaying Practice 2.  Realistically, there's no way they can do quals today.  This isn't the first time this has happened.  In 2004, quals were hit by a tropical storm, the track was evacuated, and they ran the session on Sunday morning.  So what happens if they decide not to run quals?  The rules say if multiple drivers fail to set a time, their qualifying position will be the order in which they tried to set a lap, and then the order in which they left the pits. Failing that, car number order will be used to decide grid positions.  Since nobody could try to set a time, and nobody left the pit lane, it'd go by car number, which means that Jenson Button would be on pole with his teammate second... but don't expect that to happen.

UPDATE @ 1am:  Another 30 minutes have been added to the announcement time.  It's still pouring at Suzuka, and it's starting to get awfully dark.

UPDATE @ 105am: We have racing!  Okay, it's in the pit lane, but still...



UPDATE @ 130am:  Qualifying has officially been postponed until 10am Sunday Japan time.  That's approximately 6pm Pond Time, and SPEED will not be doing live coverage.  Instead, they'll be running it at 11pm, right before race coverage.  We'll be bringing qual results when they happen!

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