The Formula One Korean Grand Prix (F1) race is ready to meet its six hundred million fans worldwide as its third edition kicks off on October 12 at the Korea International Circuit in Yeongam, South Jeolla Province, a southern area of Korea.

Two practice runs will be held this Friday, and the third one will start on Saturday, followed by the qualifying race. The final race is scheduled to start at 3 p.m. on Sunday.

The winner of F1 will be determined after drivers get through 20 races. The Korean Grand Prix is the 16th among the races in the ongoing F1 season.

Drivers will do 55 laps on the 5.615-kilometer Korea International Circuit. Sebastian Vettel of Germany was the winner of last year’s race, and he won the title in 1 hour, 38 minutes and 1.994 seconds.

The race champion is awarded 25 points, the runner-up earns 18 points, 15 points for the third-place and so forth. Last year, Vettel had 122 points in the final drivers’ standings.

Fernando Alonso of Spain, the 2010 Korean Grand Prix winner, is in the top position so far, garnering 194 points. Vettel is following him closely with 190 points. Kimi Raikkonen is 33 points behind Vettel in third, so it seems that this year’s battle for the top could be between Vettel and Alonso.

The competition is not only for each driver but also for teams. For the constructor’s championship, twelve teams also compete. Red Bull-Renault is on top with 324 points gained by Vettel and Mark Webber, followed by McLaren-Mercedes with 283. Ferrari is third with 263.

Meanwhile, Korean pop sensation Psy, who is the promotional ambassador for the Korean Grand Prix, will perform his hit song “Gangnam Style” after the final race.

People with a three-day pass or the one-day ticket for the final on Sunday will be able to attend the Psy’s performance regardless of their seating zone. Since Psy’s “Gangnam Style” has gone viral worldwide, organizers of the race are expecting that his performance will attract more people to visit to Yeongam to see the race.

Even one of the F1 drivers is excited to see Psy’s performance. Nico Rosberg, a driver of Mercedes and winner of this year’s Chinese Grand Prix, said “I enjoy the circuit a lot, and I am excited to get to Korea after following the new Gangnam craze on the Internet in the last few months. When I have some time away from the car and engineering meetings, I’m definitely looking forward to his performance this weekend.

Image Courtesy of  CHEN WS / Shutterstock.com

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McLaren driver Jenson Button gained a victory in the opening round of the 2012 Formula One World Championship in Melbourne on Sunday. Button took the lead from teammate Lewis Hamilton at the start and never looked back. Hamilton later dropped to third where he finished, with double world champion Sebastian Vettel coming second in his Red Bull.

There was much anticipation about the opening Grand Prix of the season as it became apparent in qualifying that Red Bull wouldn’t have it all their own way in 2012. Pole sitter Hamilton got away poorly and dropped behind his fellow Englishman Button, whilst Vettel and Fernando Alonso both made progress through the field early on. But it was an unfortunate start for Romain Grosjean, the French driver got a poor start from third on the grid, and his race was over on lap two as his suspension buckled after a collision with Pastor Maldonado.

Two-thirds of the German contingent joined Grosjean on the sidelines before lap 10, Nico Hulkenberg retired after a collision early on, whilst Michael Schumacher, who had been running third, retired after his Mercedes gearbox failed. As the first round of pitstops ensued, Hamilton found himself stuck behind the Sauber of Sergio Perez, meaning Button had a clear run at the front and was able to pull away from his team-mate.

The frantic opening calmed down as the order took shape and the field spread out between the first and second stops. Button held his lead, but Hamilton was being charged down by Vettel, Alonso and Mark Webber. Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa had also made charges up the field and found themselves battling for the lower points positions.

But the race turned on lap 37 when Vitaly Petrov pulled up on the pit-straight when his Caterham stuttered to a halt, meaning the Safety Car made its first appearance. This helped Sebastien Vettel pop up in front of Hamilton and in to second.

Once the race restarted, Heikki Kovaleinen compounded a poor day for Caterham as he pulled off in to retirement, and two more joined him soon after when Brazilian duo Bruno Senna and Felipe Massa tangled in turn four, damaging both cars and ending both their runs. As the race entered its final ten laps, Button was comfortable out front, but Hamilton was coming under major pressure from Mark Webber, whilst being unable to put pressure on the other Red Bull in front of him.

Further down the field, Pastor Maldonado was putting an impressive performance in, the Williams driver running sixth, pressing Alonso, but that all came to an agonizing end on the final lap when the Venezuelan hit the wall hard coming out of turn eight, finishing his race.

The drama wasn’t over there, the battle from 7th to 12th came down to the last two corners, Nico Rosberg and Kamui Kobayashi clashed on the final lap, damaging Rosberg’s car and putting him out of the points, Kimi Raikkonen jumped the Sauber, and out of the last corner Paul Di Resta dragged himself past Jean-Eric Vergne to steal the last point on the line. But it was Button celebrating the first win of the season, and he’ll be hoping his good form carries on this weekend in Malaysia.

Image Courtesy of   Pyshnyy Maxim Vjacheslavovich / Shutterstock.com

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The beginning of this Formula 1 season bears many similarities with the Brawn GP-dominated 2009 championship in which Ross Brawn’s team had won 5 of the 6 opening races. It looked a foregone conclusion back then: Brawn GP could have won the next few races and have basically secured victory in both the drivers and constructors championships with ease. Fortunately for the other teams, and most importantly the fans, resurgence from Red Bull Racing made the end of the 2009 season a much more closely fought affair.

So will Red Bull be so kind this year and make the rest of the season less predictable? It’s going to be a tall order for the other teams, but like we saw in 2009, the tables can quickly turn and the team who looked invincible can fall foul to reliability issues and the advances of their rivals. The former is probably less likely to impede Red Bull because, bar a few KERS issues, their reliability has been excellent. It will be up to the other teams to raise their game.

So what can the chasing pack do? Or more accurately: what can McLaren do? Fernando Alonso has already resigned Ferrari’s chances to that of a mathematical possibility. He believes unless Ferrari can win the next three races, with Red Bull failing to score, his team have already lost sight of championship victory.

McLaren, despite a 58 point gulf between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel and a 61 point gap in the constructor’s standings, are most likely to stage a comeback. We saw last weekend at Monaco how the speed of the Red Bulls was matched by McLaren, with Jenson Button clawing back seconds per lap towards the ends of the race only to fall foul to a monumentally inconvenient red flag deployment.

Its seems that despite formidable qualifying performances (Sebastian Vettel has started on pole position in all but the Spanish Grand Prix) the pace of the Red Bull cars can be matched by McLaren during a race. The superior tyre strategy of the McLaren team in Monaco meant Sebastian Vettel was exposed to attack from Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton has shown his capability to overtake Sebastian Vettel in race conditions as he did so during the closing laps of the Chinese Grand Prix in which he claimed victory .

The Red Bulls have been less than convincing off the line too: Button and Hamilton snatched the lead into turn one at China, Alonso laughed in the face of the Red Bull front row in Spain and Mark Webber has often lost track position at the first corner.  In the races that Vettel has dominated from the off (Australia, Malaysia and Turkey) he has led from the start and has had the opportunity to forge a comfortable cushion between him and the chasing cars. It seems that if the young World Champion is sitting in pole, his rivals must intervene at the first corner to force the Red Bull team into changing to a backup race strategy.

The technology gap between Red Bull and the other teams is also decreasing. Red Bull began the season with the fastest car no-doubt, their formidable speed at the front of the pack in Australia and Malaysia showed this, however their rivals have been adding new technological additions to their vehicles every race. There were no additions to the RB7 chassis in Monaco and Spain, could that be confidence in their machine or a window of opportunity for McLaren who have brought extensive technical modifications to the last few races?

There is still over half of the season to go and in theory the championship is still anyone’s for the taking. However, the fact remains that the man in front is the reigning World Champion, a supremely fast driver who is sitting in arguably still the fastest car on the grid. McLaren and Ferrari are going to have to pull something out in the next two races: Montreal and Valencia, both street circuits which will not allow the Red Bulls to stretch their legs on lots of open track. They will need to use every ounce of their racing expertise, not to mention some of the fortune which has favoured Sebastian Vettel this season to stay in the running.

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