Michael Schumacher led the way on Friday in a washed out first practice session for this weekend’s second Korean Grand Prix. As continuous showers curtailed running, the Mercedes finished on top from World Champion Sebastian Vettel and Paul di Resta, with more rain likely for this afternoon’s second session.
As a direct result of the weather, mirroring the conditions witnessed at the new venue last year, there was only a small amount of running on offer for the first hour of the 90-minute period, with Lewis Hamilton venturing out more than most as McLaren trialled a selection of new components. Ferrari were planning to run a new front wing with Fernando Alonso, although the Italian team plus Renault, Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus and Japanese Grand Prix winner Jenson Button elected not to set lap times.
With Karun Chandhok taking Jarno Trulli’s Lotus cockpit for one session, Toro Rosso welcomed Formula Renault 3.5 runner-up Jean Éric Vergne, who became the first Frenchman to drive on a Formula 1 weekend since Romain Grosjean in 2009 and ended the session 13th quickest in Jaime Alguersuari’s car.
After Hamilton posted the first lap times, Sébastien Buemi sat atop the timesheets for almost 25 minutes before Adrian Sutil, Vettel and Schumacher all took turns on P1 during the final minute, with the seven-time title winner’s eventual best lap time being 2:02.784. Surprisingly for the conditions, there were few spins, with the session’s largest moments being rotations for Paul di Resta and the aforementioned Chandhok at Turns 16 and 10, respectively.
At Turn 17, the inside wall has been moved further inwards in order to improve visibility at the pit lane entrance, although it was further down the pit lane entry loop where both Kamui Kobayashi and Schumacher ran wide – with the latter grazing the Armco barrier – upon their returns to the garages at the end of the session.
With Vettel just 56 thousandths of a second slower than Schumacher to cement second spot, the Force Indias and Buemi completed the top five from Kobayashi, Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Sergio Pérez and the second Red Bull of Mark Webber, who crashed here last year. As usual, each driver is allocated four sets of Intermediate tyres and three sets of Wets per race weekend.
Practice 2 begins at 2pm local time (BST +8) and can also be tracked via the GPUpdate.net live report
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  M. Schumacher | Mercedes | 02:02.784 | 10 |
| 2. | S. Vettel | Red Bull | 02:02.840 | 8 |
| 3. | P. di Resta | Force India | 02:02.912 | 12 |
| 4. | A. Sutil | Force India | 02:03.141 | 12 |
| 5. | S. Buemi | Toro Rosso | 02:03.182 | 9 |
| 6. | K. Kobayashi | Sauber | 02:03.292 | 13 |
| 7. | L. Hamilton | McLaren | 02:03.391 | 6 |
| 8. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 02:04.311 | 12 |
| 9. | S. Perez | Sauber | 02:04.797 | 8 |
| 10. | M. Webber | Red Bull | 02:05.183 | 5 |
| Full results | ||||
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