Rain leaves teams guessing

Friday practice in Korea gave the teams plenty of chance for some wet weather running.

The first session saw teams struggling for lap times with HRT's Narian Karthikeyan and Daniel Ricciardo being the busiest drivers, completing 14 laps each, while a number of drivers didn't even complete a timed lap.

Neither Kovalainen or Button completed a lap, as did neither driver for Ferrari and Renault.

Double World Champion Sebastian Vettel completed 8 laps but surprisingly found himself slower than seven-time former champion Michael Schumacher's Mercedes.

The gap was just 0.056 seconds and while Vettel would have been disappointed to be behind his compatriot, there was more disappointment to come in the second practice session.

Free Practice Two offered a lot more running time for drivers, with every car getting out on track.

Nico Rosberg completed the least laps with 18, whilst Paul di Resta completed 32 laps.

The conditions best suited McLaren with both Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button topping the timing charts.

Remarkably the gap between Hamilton and Vettel was virtually two seconds.

Vettel played down the gap, perhaps indicating that different fuel loads or tyres played a factor in the times.

“It was an interesting day. For Saturday and Sunday the weather forecast is dry, so whatever we learned today might not be worth a lot this weekend, although we can use it for future races when it’s damp or wet.' Vettel told formula1.com.

'Unfortunately the track didn’t dry out at all today, so we didn’t get a chance to try the slick tyres, so we’ll find out in the race I guess. It’s a tough track for tyres here, even though you have a long straight, there’s hardly any rest after that, so it’s not easy. The car feels okay though and that’s important.”

Lewis Hamilton added: 'Today’s times don’t really give us a relevant read on pace and set-up, particularly as I hear that the weather will be better for the next two days. Still, if it rains on Sunday then I think we’re in a good position - which is a positive.

Jenson Button agreed with his team-mate when he said: “Our car was quick in today’s conditions - but it’s difficult to say how it will be in the dry. I hope it’ll be the same: it’d be nice to have the same gap back to the cars behind, but that’s unlikely.