Sebastian Vettel led the final hour of practice ahead of qualifying for the Korean Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver was the only person to lap the Korea International Circuit in less than 1’38, and team mate Mark Webber made it a one-two for Red Bull.
The pair moved to the top of the times in the final ten minutes of the session when the drivers switched to super-soft tyres. Prior to that Lewis Hamilton had been quickest on the medium compound.
However he was held up in traffic during his final run and ended up fourth-fastest behind team mate Nico Rosberg.
As yesterday the Ferraris and Lotuses were next. Fernando Alonso was fifth-fastest and Felipe Massa improved to seventh on super-softs having been some way off the pace on the medium compound.
Nico Hulkenberg put his Sauber in the top ten ahead of Jenson Button’s McLaren.
Combined practice times
| Pos | Driver | Car | FP1 | FP2 | FP3 | Fri/Sat diff | Total laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1’39.667 | 1’38.781 | 1’37.881 | -0.9 | 67 |
| 2 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1’39.816 | 1’38.844 | 1’38.018 | -0.826 | 71 |
| 3 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’40.117 | 1’38.797 | 1’38.318 | -0.479 | 68 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’39.630 | 1’38.673 | 1’38.332 | -0.341 | 66 |
| 5 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1’40.374 | 1’39.444 | 1’38.486 | -0.958 | 62 |
| 6 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Renault | 1’40.396 | 1’39.226 | 1’38.701 | -0.525 | 72 |
| 7 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1’40.880 | 1’39.114 | 1’38.816 | -0.298 | 57 |
| 8 | Kimi Raikkonen | Lotus-Renault | 1’40.677 | 1’39.757 | 1’38.857 | -0.9 | 65 |
| 9 | Nico Hulkenberg | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’40.899 | 1’40.210 | 1’38.961 | -1.249 | 70 |
| 10 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 1’40.215 | 1’39.774 | 1’39.114 | -0.66 | 65 |
| 11 | Esteban Gutierrez | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’41.626 | 1’40.186 | 1’39.128 | -1.058 | 69 |
| 12 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams-Renault | 1’41.482 | 1’41.117 | 1’39.196 | -1.921 | 73 |
| 13 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1’41.432 | 1’40.006 | 1’39.204 | -0.802 | 69 |
| 14 | Sergio Perez | McLaren | 1’40.860 | 1’40.152 | 1’39.274 | -0.878 | 66 |
| 15 | Daniel Ricciardo | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’42.043 | 1’40.552 | 1’39.327 | -1.225 | 61 |
| 16 | Paul di Resta | Force India-Mercedes | 1’40.007 | 1’39.371 | -0.636 | 53 | |
| 17 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’41.924 | 1’40.446 | 1’39.665 | -0.781 | 64 |
| 18 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams-Renault | 1’42.002 | 1’41.289 | 1’40.128 | -1.161 | 71 |
| 19 | Charles Pic | Caterham-Renault | 1’43.660 | 1’42.798 | 1’41.360 | -1.438 | 74 |
| 20 | Giedo van der Garde | Caterham-Renault | 1’43.883 | 1’42.461 | 1’41.614 | -0.847 | 75 |
| 21 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia-Cosworth | 1’43.108 | 1’41.646 | -1.462 | 45 | |
| 22 | Max Chilton | Marussia-Cosworth | 1’44.100 | 1’43.441 | 1’42.267 | -1.174 | 60 |
| 23 | James Calado | Force India-Mercedes | 1’43.008 | 21 | |||
| 24 | Rodolfo Gonzalez | Marussia-Cosworth | 1’46.810 | 10 |
2013 Korean Grand Prix
Image ?é?® Red Bull/Getty
Malik (@)
5th October 2013, 4:16
Hamilton found traffic on his final run on supersofts, otherwise he would have been the fastest
iAltair (@)
5th October 2013, 4:23
How do you even know?
Dizzy
5th October 2013, 5:03
Actually he didn’t, I watched his final/fastest lap on sky’s onboard feed & he had a completely clean lap.
Dizzy
5th October 2013, 5:06
To elaborate a bit, He made a small mistake in turn 1 & missed the apex on his 1st lap on the SuperSofts & immediately backed off & coasted round the lap to save tyres.
On his next lap (which was his final & fastest lap) he made no mistake & encountered no traffic.
BasCB (@bascb)
5th October 2013, 5:49
Yeah, it was his mistake in the first lap, I guess that in the second lap his tyres were already going off though, so they might be a tad closer to RBR than it looks now.
@HoHum (@hohum)
5th October 2013, 4:22
Webber is looking pretty racy on a low drag/downforce set-up.