Vettel leads Korean GP from start to finish

F1 Grand Prix, GP Korea, Korean International Circuit

Sebastian Vettel took the lead ahead of turn 1, never to give it away again and went on to win the Korean GP in controlled fashion. Mark Webber ran the entire race in second place and set the race's fastest lap. Fernando Alonso finished third, ahead of Felipe Massa.

Mark Webber start the Korean GP from pole, ahead of Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso, Raikkonen, Massa, Grosjean, Hulkenberg, Rosberg and Schumacher. On 11th place is Button, and just like the two Sauber cars behind him they are opting to start on the harder, yellow prime tyres. The top 10 is of course starting on their qualifying tyres, the Pirelli supersoft red tyres.

Ricciardo meanwwhile starts from 21st after a 5-place demotion due to a gearbox penalty. Charles Pic starts from the back as he takes a 10-place engine penalty. He is the first this season to take an engine penalty, having used up all 8 allocated Cosworth engines.

As the lights go out, Vettel immediately takes the lead into turn 1 and managed to fend off Webber in the next corners. After turn 2 the drag race kicks off on the straight towards turrn 1. Alonso also goes side by side with Hamilton and takes the advantage, while Hamilton only nearly manages to stay ahead of Raikkonen in the next series of corners.

Jenson Button is then kicked out of the race as Kobayashi overshoots the braking zone into turn 3 and breaks the McLaren's front right suspension. One lap later Rosberg is also out as his Mercedes car was touched by Kobayashi as well, likely causing damage to the car's cooling system. The Sauber driver himself returned to the pitlane with a broken front wing and a punctured left rear tyre.

On the start of lap 6, the positions are VET WEB ALO HAM MAS RAI HUL GRO PER SCH DIR SEN MAL VER RIC KOV PET GLO DLR PIC KAR KOB.

15 minutes after start, race control announces a drive-through penalty for Kamui Kobayashi.

By lap 9, Rosberg's car is finally cleared from the side of the track, immediately triggering DRS to be re-enabled.

On this first stint of the race, Hulkenberg is struggling with massive understeer to keep Grosjean at bay, while his teammate at Force India, Di Resta has Ricciardo, Senna and Schumacher right on his tail.

On lap 13 Hamilton is the first to make a regular stop, followed by Hulkenberg and Grosjean. Massa pits one lap later, as wel as Raikkonen. Massa keeps his advantage. Alonso pits one lap later and rejoins just ahead of Pérez, having to use all his KERS power to defend the position. Hamilton though came much closer than before the stop and passes Pérez in turn 4, keeping close to Alonso.

One lap later Massa also passes Pérez, with Raikkonen the next to have a go. The difference between new and 18-lap old prime tyres is massive.

By lap 20, Pedro De La Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi are both out of their cars, having come back to the pitlane just before that. De La Rosa likely struggled with a technical issue while for Kobayashi the race was effectively over after his incident in turn 3.

On lap 20 Hamilton reports an issue and subsequently starts struggling to keep up with Alonso. In fact the next lap, Massa easily passes with DRS wide open. Hamilton is actually losing 2 seconds a lap and gets company of Raikkonen towards the end of lap 22.

On lap 24 Hamilton gets passed by the Lotus on the straight ahead of turn 3, only to use KERS to re-pass ahead of turn 4.

Meanwhile Webber is struggling with front tyre graining and sees Alonso come to within a second. However, by lap 27 the situation for Webber seems to improve again, slowly increasing his advantage to Alonso.

On lap 27 Hamilton again pits and changes to another set of prime tyres. Another lap later Hamilton notes the car has become more nervous with the early stop seeming bringing a solution to nothing. On lap 31 Hamilton is running in 8th place, 7 seconds behind Hulkenberg and Grosjean who are fighting fiercely for 6th. Grosjean is lacking an extra bit of topspeed to get past the Force India.

On lap 32, Grosjean then pits, with Webber doing the same one lap later. Hulkenberg pitted as well in a reaction to Grosjean's pitstop, but the Frenchman finally got past the Force India driver and immediately showed how much quicker his Lotus actually is.

On lap 34 Alonso pits and rejoins a few seconds behind Webber.

Seconds later Vettel locks up his front right tyre voilently and is called into the box immediately to not take any risks. Grosjean on the other hand went wide through turn 17 and through the grass on turn 18, throwing a lot of dust on the track but maintaining his advantage to Hulkenberg. The Frenchman likely pushed a little bit too hard

On lap 40, Grosjean attempts to pass Hamilton in turn 3, but got pushed wide. Hulkenberg though got back on the battling two and immediately attempts to have a go into turn 4, take the outside of both cars and effectively passing them. Grosjean will surely not be happy to see all his work being undone in just 2 corners.

On lap 43 Hamilton makes his third stop, switching to the super soft tyres for the final 11 laps. He rejoins the track in 10th place, just behind Vergne.

In the next laps, the worries about the tyres are increasing, not least for Red Bull.

Hamilton meanwhile has picked up a massive piece of astroturf that came loose in the runoff area of turn 11. It's flapping around on his right sidepod, an unprecedented sight in Formula One. No harm was done though and Hamilton managed to continue to the end, even though Sergio Pérez came close to take the final point away from the McLaren driver.