F.1 – GP Korea: THE POINT…by Gian Carlo Minardi

The Korean GP was marked by the Red Bull’ flag. At this point some powerful harpoons are needed to follow them. Two powers are emerging, with Red Bull and Ferrari leading the group. Massa has confirmed he got out from the deep crisis, but the Ferrari team will have to make something up.
From free practices to race, the Red Bull imposed its supremacy. They didn’t have any problem and handled tyres very well, imposing a pace that was so hard to beat by anyone. Alonso and Massa took a great advantage of their potential, however rivals proved to be an edge over.
Ferrari got the second place inside the World Championship, but that is not the main goal for the team, as they want Fernando to win the Driver World Championship. At the moment, I find it hard for the Italian team to find a right solution to balance the technical gap with Red Bull Team in terms of speed performances. The two zeros, which were due to external faults, now weigh heavily on the Italian Team. What is more in India ( where a GP will be run in 2 weeks ) there will be some customs problems, so it will be so hard to get an important car structural updating. Hard GP to Hamilton who was in trouble since the beginning of the race because of tyres consumption. The McLaren is losing its strength and it’s not a threat to the Austrian Team. They could hold the balance of power , but at the moment, they’re out of fight. Unfortunately Button was put out of action after few metres, whereas Hamilton will have to get at least the third place occupied by a high-performing Raikkonen, who continues to grab points. It is hard for the team to have a good performance on soft and super-soft tyres. If they use hard tyres, they’ll probably regain their competitiveness.
A very important fifth place for Lotus and Raikkonen. We don’t have to forget that they’re not the most competitive ones among top teams in terms of budget. The Finnish driver took advantage of his car’ new structural updating and confirmed himself as the third power of the Championship.
After getting onto the podium seven days ago, Sauber had a hard weekend in Korea. The Swiss Team tried to set an extreme strategy but bad luck was at its side. Koba was immediately involved in an accident and lost several positions , whereas Perez tried to fight until the last lap to score a point over Hamilton. The two Toro Rosso had a good performance as they were able to get into the score zone , after taking a hard start. I’m glad to see three drivers on the podium who started their career in Faenza, some of them were part of the Minardi Team (Alonso and Webber ) and Vettel was a driver of the Toro Rosso Team. The Force India, along with the Swiss team are 2012 racing season real discovery. In the last few GP they were in the top 10 and, although the teams have problems, they can take advantage of their technical potential.
Mercedes will have to roll up its sleeves. Rosberg got immediately out and Schumacher’ 13th place is a proof that the German Team still have so much to do. No doubt market operations are a sign of growth. Unfortunately the spirit is so bad and even Hamilton’ declarations ( he says it will be so hard to win a GP) leave us hopeless. It seems to me that the Englishman doesn’t have much confidence on the programme.
Gian Carlo Minardi