grumpyf1

There was barely time to catch a lungful of exhaust fumes between the Japanese and Korean races, but it allowed enough of a gap for Peter Sauber, now 69, to formally hand of the reigns of his team to Monisha Kaltenbourn, making her the first female Team Principal in a notoriously male-dominated world. Korea again supplied a race that seemed to have been dropped into a field from the sky at random, without time to tell anyone where it was, so devoid of atmosphere (and punters) was it’s slot on the calendar. Q1 saw Senna out again (and an even greater likelihood of him losing his seat at the end of the season), whilst Hamilton and Alonso barely squeaked through. Vergne parked his Toro Roso towards the end of Q2, wrecking several flying laps for his fellow competitors, notably Button, who would up a despondent 11th, whilst any chance of the title sailed off into the sunset. Perez and Kobayashi failed to make the cut too, leaving only Hulkenberg as the surprise in the final 10. ...

Odd one, the Korean GP, isn't it? Good track, which the drivers seem to like, but the place just looks deserted. I guess that's what happens when you drop a GP track in the middle of nowhere and hope people will turn up. Or maybe it was the absence of EJ from the BBC team - I hear he's banned as his shirts incite capitalist yearnings. Once again, practice made it seem likely that someone other than a Red Bull would be on pole. This time it was actually true, though. It certainly looked like Lewis Hamilton, but the strange, subdued, non-smiling chap that got out of the car and proceeded to display little in the way of emotion throughout interviews afterwards seemed pretty far removed from the Hamilton we normally see. This one was the F1 equivalent of Windows Safe Mode - it worked, but with a lot of the functionality removed... but also the errors. Hail RoboHamilton! HamBot got away well from the grid too, but was robbed of the lead by Vettel within a couple of cor...

It would be fair to say that the Korean Grand Prix was... slippery. Even before it was wet. A bit like the model train sequence in Wallace & Grommit, where Grommit is furiously laying the track ahead of the train, the circuit seemed to still be going up as everyone arrived, but the only real problem this presented was the nice, new, slippery tarmac. Qualifying went pretty much according to plan for the Big 5, with the exception of Button, who seemed strangely off the pace and unable to get heat into his tyres. His weekend (and title defence) was about to get a whole lot worse than a lowly 7th on the grid, too. Rosberg & Massa were 5th and 6th, with Vettel, Webber, Alonso and Hamilton at the sharp end. The moment Jake Humphrey walked out of the McLaren garage on to the track at the start of the BBC's coverage and you could see it was wet, it was obvious we were in for fun and games. And that's what we got. With Red Bull able to win the Constructor's Championshi...