Join me below the fold for the results of what was a very exciting and incident-filled race in Korea…

Sebastian Vettel wins again, tightens grip on potential fourth straight F1 Drivers’ Championship

On a highly technical track that the drivers all love but that has been built in the middle of nowhere and that fans do not attend in large numbers, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel avoided trouble and cruised to his stunning fourth-in-a-row Grand Prix victory at the Yeongam circuit. Once again starting from pole, the German dominator ran in clean air virtually the whole race barring two safety car periods and easily fended off his main challengers, the two Lotus-Renault’s of Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean, finishing over 4 seconds to the good. His main championship rivals, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, could do no better than 6th and 5th respectively after a brilliant drive by Sauber’s Niko Hulkenberg kept the two former world champions behind him until the checkered flag. The Sauber’s 4th place was due not only to the German Hulkenberg’s skill but also what appeared to be superior torque getting off the corners and onto the straights, as it consistently pulled away from all pursuers on the massive 200-mile-an-hour straight out of turn 2.

Pirelli’s tires were back under the microscope after seeming to put the failures at Silverstone in Round 8 behind them by changing the construction and returning to Kevlar belting. However, McLaren’s Sergio Perez had a particularly severe lock up coming off the start-finish straight into turn 2 on lap 31 and the right front subsequently delaminted and destroyed itself on the following long straight sending debris everywhere and bringing out the Safety Car. Red Bull driver Mark Webber’s awful luck continued, as after charging up from 13th (due to a 10-spot grid penalty for his unauthorized taxi ride at Singapore) and having a good shot at a top 10 finish, the Aussie promptly ran over Perez’s debris and had to pit for another tire change directly after he had just been in for the same service. The #2 Red Bull man was now out of the durable harder compound tires but in the end the strategy problems were moot, as on the restart Adrian Sutil’s Force India snapped wickedly while carrying a lot of speed into the approach to turn 3 and wound up plowing into Webber’s right side pod rear wing first. This was later determined to have smashed the oil radiator and Webber’s Red Bull immediately caught fire for the second race in a row leading to another long Safety Car period, as well as some on track chaos with confused marshals and a fire van deployed in what appeared to be a dangerously unannounced manner.  With one week to go before the Grand Prix of Japan at Suzuka, Webber’s mechanics and engineers will be up against it, as his chassis looked a total write off.

In the bigger picture, Vettel is now 77 points clear of Alonso in the Drivers’ Championship with 5 races to go (complete Drivers’ standings here). Should he win this year, Vettel would tie Alain Prost for 3rd all time with 4 Championships and equal Juan Manuel Fangio for consecutive titles with 4 in a row (Fangio had 5 titles overall). Michael Schumacher is the record holder in both those categories with 7 total Championships including 5 consecutive titles. Pretty rarefied air any way you slice it for the 26-year-old superstar.

Top 10 for the Korean Grand Prix:

Complete results here at Formula1.com.

Constructors’ standings here (hint: Red Bull’s running away with it).