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Vettel Edges Out Lotus Pair To Win In Korea

YEONGAM, South Korea- An intense start, followed by two periods of safety cars and a threat from two Lotus drivers did not deter Sebastian Vettel from winning the Korean Grand Prix Sunday as the German took his fourth victory in a row and closed in even closer to his fourth world driving championship. Kimi Raikkonen finished in second and Romain Grosjean took third.

“It was a long race today, but it’s really great to win.” Said Vettel about this particular victory. “The start was crucial, it’s always tricky here as you’re nervous about the long straight when you start from pole. Fortunately we had good traction off the line and I had a strong exit out of the first corner. We kept the lead and tried to control the race from there. I think Mercedes had more range than us today, but we were able to win which is great.”

Vettel in his normal style, took the lead from the start, while other drivers behind were tensely fighting for higher grid positions. Vettel pitted on lap 11 and shortly regained the lead, never losing the top position afterwards. The race became littered with excitement just after lap 27 when Paul Di Resta spun his Force India entry, and a lap later Nico Rosberg attempted to pass his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton and suddenly found out that his front wing had collapsed, which spewed sparks all over the track. Rosberg came in for a replacement nose, and lost valuable time to stay atop the grid.

Three laps later, the first of two safety cars came out when on lap 31, McLaren’s Sergio Perez had his front right tire come apart, throwing chunks of rubber onto the middle of the track. The safety car was only out for a few laps, but when the grid was racing again, Adrian Sutil struck Mark Webber, setting the former’s car on fire and bringing quickly the second safety car out for another seven laps. It was the chance of both Raikkkonen and Grosjean to catch Vettel, but as the race restarted for the second time, Vettel simply moved away from the two Lotus drivers to take his fourth straight win and his 34th of his career.

As for the rest of the grid, Nico Hulkenberg fought off a threat all afternoon by Hamilton and took fourth, while Fernando Alonso, Rosberg and Jenson Button all finished seconds behind in sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively.

Felipe Massa took ninth, while Perez recovered from his stint and took the last point position.

Vettel, as he always has, thanked the members of his team, and realized that there is still a lot of work to do.

“It was a very strong performance from the whole team and I’m happy”. He said. “Were just focusing on continuing to take one step at a time and trying to get the best out of the car at every single race.”

Vettel now increases his championship lead to 77 points over Alonso with the next race only a week away at the famed Suzuka circuit in Japan.

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