Sebastian Vettel awakens even fickle fans

AT least least Lewis Hamilton managed to keep both eyes open as he picked his way through the debris and ash of this most unpredictable of predictable grands prix.

Sebastian Vettel

AT least least Lewis Hamilton managed to keep both eyes open as he picked his way through the debris and ash of this most unpredictable of predictable grands prix.

The driver who confessed he slept through one era of German dominance candidly wrote off the outcome of the Korean Grand Prix yesterday - a 7am start in the UK - as a race that would have his family at home in Hertfordshire pulling the duvet over their heads.

Simply replace the Michael Schumacher snoozefest for the age of Sebastian Vettel. Schumacher was the steamroller of seven world titles, 91 victories and a sneering arrogance that propelled more Formula One television viewers into Sunday afternoon gardening sessions than Alan Titchmarsh.

Now here is Vettel, with three world titles at the age of 26 and 34 victories, including Korea, to make him fourth in the all-time winners' list.

It is, as they say, deja vu, enough to send a grown man back to bed with a well-known hot drink, that could become a leading sponsor of this championship - Horlicks.

"I feel for the fans because I remember when Michael Schumacher was winning," Hamilton said, a trifle wearily, after the race. "Waking up in the morning to watch the start of the race, then going to sleep and waking up when it ended because I already knew what would happen. I am pretty sure a lot of people were doing that - at least in my family."

Plenty will say that this was a race of great entertainment and there was all the fun of the fair here in muggy Mokpo. It is an escapable fact, though, that the winner is as predictable as a kebab on a Friday-night pub crawl.

The young pretender to Schumacher's throne has one hand on a fourth world title after another dominant victory from gun to tape. That is four wins in four and a stonking great championship lead of 77 points over Fernando Alonso, his nearest - in fact, only - challenger for the title.

The sparse group of locals who turned up to wander around the echoing grandstands even applauded Vettel at the end. Shows what they know. Perhaps it was just that the Mokopokians - or whatever they be called - enjoyed the live show, although they should be told that the bit when Vettel was led briefly by a lumbering off-road vehicle was not part of the race.

Just when you think it is safe in F1 to have 40 winks, along comes another irresistible eye-opener. The scene was this: Vettel was leading the procession until mid-race when Sergio Perez dived hard into the hairpin before the back straight and flat-spotted his front right tyre.

As he accelerated to top speed, the Pirelli burst spectacularly, flinging a fat ribbon of rubber over the back of his McLaren and into the path of Mark Webber's Red Bull. Webber picked up a puncture as a result, deepening the poor humour that appears to be enveloping the end of his career.

"Pirelli will put the puncture of Perez down to a lock-up, but the reason the drivers are locking up is because there is no tread left," he said. "That is how it is. The drivers aren't super important. It is what other people want."

If Webber was animated, the inertia among the track marshals when the safety car emerged was jaw-dropping as they gazed out at the mass of rubber strewn across the track without any sign that they knew what to do.

Yet there was more - and involving the increasingly hapless Webber again. At the restart, Webber was immediately in contact with Adrian Sutil's Force India. While Sutil was forced to retire, Webber ploughed on, but his oil system was punctured. The result was a fierce fire that engulfed his Red Bull. Webber had time to stand and gaze at his car, a bit like the marshals who appeared to be admiring the growing inferno.

By the time Webber had hitched a lift home on a scooter, the cars were racing again. Unfortunately, a fire truck was trolling to the Webber scene and had only made it to the first corner by the time Vettel arrived with his cohort of rivals, much to the bemusement of all concerned. Fortunately, Vettel and his fellow drivers worked out on their own that a grey 4x4 with a local number plate was neither a rival nor another safety car.

An exasperated Vicky Chandhok, president of the India Motor Sport Federation, which hosts F1 later this month, said on Twitter: "Unbelievable to see the state of marshalling in Korea. Come on . . . shocking."

Red Bull examine the remains of Webber's charred car today.

Twice then, Vettel's lead was pulled back and twice he went away, leaving the rest to rage. Alonso kicked off the weekend moaning about the Pirelli rubber, complaining it would barely last three miles of hard driving. His estimate of distance may have been wide of the mark but not his assessment of the tyres for this race.

Hamilton started this grand prix alongside pole-sitter Vettel but lost his second position on the first lap to the Lotus of Romain Grosjean.

Then it was a fight to keep his Mercedes on rubber good enough to stay in the race.

It was a near thing and, by the mid-point, Hamilton's complaints to his pits culminated with: "When are you going to call me in, man? These tyres are f*****." They were, too. Hamilton's race was fatally compromised and he spent the final laps chasing the astonishingly revived Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg, who put on, arguably, the drive of the day to take fourth.

It was a two-tier race after the intervention of the trundling fire truck: Vettel led the twin Lotus cars, with Kimi Raikkonen jumping Grosjean for second place, then came the road train led by Hulkenberg, Hamilton, Alonso and Nico Rosberg, Hamilton's team-mate, followed by Jenson Button's McLaren.
That was the finishing order of few surprises. Not that it mattered to the millions who had swapped Formula One for forty more winks under a comfy duvet - including Hamilton's family.

The Times