The Caterham F1 Team had a reasonably successful 2012 Korean Grand Prix. As such
Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen qualified nineteenth and twentieth, respectively, just
missing out on the second part of qualifying. However, both were promoted one position
thanks to Daniel Ricardo's penalty for having new transmission in his Toro Rosso. Petrov
started the race on super-soft tyres, then emerged from his pit stops on laps fourteen
and thirty-two with soft tyres. Kovalainen began on super-softs too, then pitted on laps
thirteen and thirty-three for the harder compound. During these pit stops, Caterham also
adjusted the cars' front wing flaps to improve their balance. Kovalainen continued to finish
seventeenth with a best lap of 1:44.955. Petrov, despite finishing sixteenth, only managed
1:15.013. Hardly fast compared to Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, who recorded 1:42.499 on
his way to first. But at least Caterham's cars were reliable and that is a solid building block.
Petrov said: "For me that was a good afternoon - probably the best result I could have had
today. The car was working well throughout the race and I had a good battle with Heikki
right from the flag. Today was really all about managing the gap to the Marussias, getting
through the first corner without any problems and from there making sure I looked after the
tyres.” Kovalainen added: "That was a pretty straightforward race that for us was really all
about making sure both cars finished clear of the teams behind us without any problems. I
had another good start and was ahead of my team mate through turn one after starting on
the super-softs. They started to go off relatively quickly, particularly the right front, which
we knew would probably be likely in the race so for both stops we opted for the softs and
they held up well for most of the afternoon. To be honest, it was a pretty quiet race for me.”
By Stephen Turvil
Mon, 15 Oct 2012
