It’s only a week since the FIA told us we’re officially going to South Korea. Luiz Razia has already written his tips on how to get the best from the circuit.

A new track, a new challenge for everybody and the most exciting thing is that it looks amazing. It’ll be very difficult to decide which configuration to use on the car because you want low drag for the long straights and high downforce for the very high-speed section of the circuit.

A lap of Yeongam with Luiz Razia

So, here we go on a flying lap, the first corner is really slow and easy to go wide onto the grass, take it easy, the important thing is to brake as late as possible and try to get onto the power on the exit through turn 2 really quickly. After a long straight we approach the 3rd corner, again it’s really slow speed, so the important thing here is to concentrate on braking and power application, we probably will see cars like McLaren, Ferrari and Renault be very quick in this first sector because of the long straights.

On the run up to turn 4 we reach 7th gear, it’s a slow corner to the left, but it’s really important to prepare for corners 5 and 6, they are sequence of corners so it’s really important to get a rhythm and not to lose time between them, it’s very easy to lose time in the slower parts of the circuit, because the amount of time you spend in these corners is much more than in the fast ones.

Now we start the best section of the circuit, turn 7 and 8 is like a big “S” and flat out, followed by turn 9 and 10 arriving almost straight away. Turn 9 we take in 5th gear with a minimum speed of 200km, than comes a tricky braking area for turn 10 as you need to get back to the left to have the optimum line for this 3rd gear corner.

Approaching turn 11 and 12, here you need to focus on getting a very smooth line and not overdriving, otherwise you’ll find yourself in a very bad position to turn in for 12. They are both really fast corners but difficult as well, as you want to carry a lot speed through turn 11, but turn 12 is just few meters away from the exit of 11.

Turn 13 is an almost flat corner in 5th gear heading to the final section of the circuit. Turn 14, 15 and 16 are medium-speed corners, but all of them are in sequence, so the secret of having a nice “rhythm” here is really important.

The last tip is when you are on the apex of turn 15, it’s crucial to have a very good exit out of it, as you will be on full throttle all the way until the finish line, hopefully to finish off a very nice hot lap.

It will be very interesting to see how the track improves during the weekend, as everybody knows they just finished the circuit 10 days ago.