A third consecutive victory for Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel moved him ahead of Fernando Alonso in the World Championships despite the Ferrari driver’s damage-limiting third place. Pole-sitter, Mark Webber was sandwiched between them but once the Australian had lost his position to his team mate through the first series of straights, it was a largely uneventful race.

Red Bull recorded their second front-row lock-out in a row but this time it was Mark Webber’s turn to take the pole slot. The Australian’s time of 1 minute 37.242 was enough to edge out team mate Sebastian Vettel. Championship leader, Fernando Alonso lines up fourth, separated from the Red Bulls by Lewis Hamilton…

Located on the coast in Yeongam, a county in the southwest corner of South Korea, 400km from Seoul, the area is quite rural. That, however, is intended to change as a town grows up around the circuit – it’s certainly a strange way to go about building a street circuit.

After a solid first half of the year, Fernando Alonso’s luck has changed for the worst and two retirements since the summer break have seen his Championship lead cut to just four points. Perhaps more significantly, Red Bull are looking stronger and the momentum now seems to be with Sebastian Vettel in what appears to have boiled down to a two-horse race.

Sebastian Vettel celebrated clinching his second World championship a week ago in style with what turned out to be a comfortable victory after snatching the lead under braking into turn 4 of the first lap. Meanwhile, second placed Lewis Hamilton was more preoccupied with holding off Mark Webber in the closing stages…

Red Bull’s monopoly of the front of the grid came to a halt in Korea as McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton broke the Austrian outfit’s stranglehold which stretched back to last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix. A time of 1 minute 35.820s pushed out Sebastian Vettel by 0.222 seconds while Jenson Button lines up third a further tenth astray.