We rate the drivers after the Korean GP

Red Bull-Renault RB9
Start: 1st
Finish: 1st
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 9

As usual, Vettel took pole. As usual, Vettel aced the first lap and broke out of DRS range. As usual, Vettel did not make mistakes. As usual, Vettel did a fine job whenever the safety car eliminated his lead. As usual, Vettel responded whenever the drive behind threatened to close the gap.

The extraordinary is now the ordinary for Vettel. Once again, while the car was superb, his execution was wonderful, although the track prevented him shining as much as in Singapore.

Red Bull-Renault RB9
Start: 13th
Finish: DNF
Strategy: retired (super-soft/medium/medium/super-soft)
Rating: 8

Webber would have headed to Korea fancying his chances but for the 10-place grid penalty. And his pace, particularly in the faster corners, was impressive.

He compromised his raw pace to run less rear wing and gain better top speed on the straights to allow him to pass and used it to good effect. But a puncture and Sutil robbed him of his chance of a good result. The misfortune shrouded the fact this was one of his best weekends on pace.

Ferrari F138
Start: 5th
Finish: 6th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 7

His time in Q3 was perhaps not perfect given that team-mate Massa was able to get closer to him than he had generally been, but it's difficult to argue that the Spaniard could have found the time needed to get onto the second row.

He showed good awareness to dodge the spinning Massa at Turn 3, but lost out a few times in battle and was never able to haul himself into podium contention while battling front-right tyre troubles.

Ferrari F138
Start: 6th
Finish: 9th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 6

Massa's raw pace looked to be around three-tenths off Alonso's until Q3, where he did a good job to close the deficit to just under two-tenths.

His race was ruined by a piece of poor racecraft at Turn 3 on the opening lap, failing to factor in that his bold late-braking bid to make up several places set him on a collision course with Rosberg, leading to Massa spinning in avoidance and almost taking out Alonso. Recovered well, but the damage was done.

McLaren-Mercedes MP4-28
Start: 11th
Finish: 8th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 7

Looked to have a tenth or two in hand over Perez until losing time on his final Q2 lap, which he blamed on encountering Raikkonen. Given he was only hundredths off making Q3 and his underlying pace, his claim that the Lotus cost him a tenth-and-a-half holds water.

Deserves credit for recovering from an early pitstop after suffering front-wing damage and a pit delay. It would be harsh to criticise him too much for losing a place to the faster Rosberg late on.

McLaren-Mercedes MP4-28
Start: 10th
Finish: 10th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 6

Perez had the kind of mixed weekend that neither significantly helped nor hindered his hopes of staying at McLaren. Seemed to lack around a tenth-and-a-half to Button, but sneaked ahead of his team-mate with a little help from traffic in qualifying.

As usual, his race pace was very similar to Button's and he had some lairy but incisive moments while dicing. Salvaged a point after his front-right tyre failure, which he played a part in causing with a big lock-up at Turn 1.

Lotus-Renault E21
Start: 9th
Finish: 2nd
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 8

In terms of bottom-line result, Raikkonen's weekend could not have been better given that Vettel was untouchable. But while the Finn's race performance was excellent, he did require the deployment of the safety car to help him up to second.

This was because of a very poor qualifying performance that puzzled the team, the Finn losing time in all three sectors. The tyres played their part, but as Grosjean was 1.3s faster, Raikkonen was fortunate that underperformance didn't compromise his result.

Lotus-Renault E21
Start: 3rd
Finish: 3rd
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 9

Grosjean's most consistently impressive run in F1 continued with an excellent weekend's work.

The only real downside to his performance was the small error during the brief period of green-flag racing between the two safety-car periods that allowed Raikkonen to pass him for second. But without the interruption of the safety car, he would never have been under threat for second in the first place. With Raikkonen leaving the team, Grosjean is seizing his opportunity superbly.

Mercedes F1 W04
Start: 4th
Finish: 7th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 7

Looked to have the legs of Hamilton until Q2, when his team-mate pulled out a couple of tenths of a second that left Rosberg two places behind. But Rosberg did seem better equipped to keep the troublesome front-right tyre under control, particularly the set used in the second stint.

A front-wing mounting problem while passing Hamilton for third cost him a possible podium. In the final stint, he didn't make much progress in recovery but did pick off Button late on.

Mercedes F1 W04
Start: 2nd
Finish: 5th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 7

Second on the grid was probably as good as it was going to get for any driver not in a Red Bull. Seemed to go too hard on his second set of tyres early on, killing the front-right, but despite dire pace actually did a very good job of minimising the losses while trying to make it to his third stop window.

Getting passed by Hulkenberg on lap 37 was costly as he couldn't get back past. Not perfect, but a decent showing.

Sauber-Ferrari C32
Start: 7th
Finish: 4th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 9

The quality of Hulkenberg's race performance cannot be overstated. The mental strength needed to keep Alonso and Hamilton behind for lap after lap, particularly knowing he had to leave the door open at Turn 1 to avoid making himself a sitting duck on the back straight, is immense. His outstanding racecraft was rewarded.

The only criticism is his Q3 lap was probably a tenth or two off where it should have been, hence the dropped point.

Sauber-Ferrari C32
Start: 8th
Finish: 11th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 6

With his qualifying problems now largely solved, as his second straight Q3 appearance showed, tyre management starting on rubber used in qualifying and racecraft is now the focus.

Dropping to 14th on the first lap was a consequence of Massa's spin, which Gutierrez can't be blamed for. He remained in the hunt for a point throughout the race, but seemed a little hard on his tyres and not quite as incisive in battle as he needed to be.

Force India-Mercedes VJM06
Start: 15th
Finish: DNF
Strategy: retired (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 4

A pretty dire weekend for the Scot, who never looked to have quite the same raw pace as Sutil and ended up 0.287s behind him in qualifying.

Plugged away in the race, although the pace of the Force India and the way it was using its tyres suggested he was on a hiding to nothing. Took responsibility for the mistake that put him into the wall after correcting a slide that spat him across the track. One to forget.

Force India-Mercedes VJM06
Start: 14th
Finish: 20th
Strategy: 3 stops (super-soft/medium/medium/super-soft)
Rating: 4

With the Force India increasingly struggling to contend for points, Sutil had a difficult weekend but could take solace from the fact he was able to outqualify di Resta by three-tenths.

Was innocent in the Turn 3 chaos that gave him front-wing damage, but after being given a second chance by the safety car, spinning on the brakes and backing into Webber, and then speeding in the pits, squandered the opportunity fate had given him. Like di Resta, his mistakes were costly.

Williams-Renault FW35
Start: 18th
Finish: 13th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 7

Maldonado underachieved in Q1, falling a third-of-a-second off his theoretical best although even then he wouldn't have made the cut.

Capitalised on the first-lap chaos to leap to ninth. Was still there at the second safety-car restart but the combination of an uncompetitive car and an attempt to do 32 laps on his final set of tyres - a legitimate gamble - meant he was doomed, slipping to 13th behind team-mate Bottas late on. Overall, a good battling performance in the circumstances.

Williams-Renault FW35
Start: 17th
Finish: 12th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 7

Yet another weekend during which Bottas looked like anything but a rookie. While Maldonado did seem to have a raw-pace advantage, it was the Finn who qualified as the lead Williams thanks to a smooth qualifying run.

His strategy in the race was very mature, avoiding getting drawn into wheel-to-wheel battles he couldn't win to be there when others hit trouble. This wasn't enough to score, but he did pass Maldonado, who was struggling with his tyres, late on.

Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR8
Start: 16th
Finish: 18th
Strategy: 3 stops (super-soft/medium/medium/medium)
Rating: 5

On a weekend in which Toro Rosso struggled badly for balance, Vergne proved unable to extract the same performance from the car as Ricciardo did. He ended up 0.364s slower than his team-mate in qualifying, which combined with an unremarkable first lap condemned him to a difficult afternoon.

Struggled with tyre degradation and ended up switching from a two-stop to a three-stop, never looking like emerging as a serious points contender before retiring with a braking problem late on.

Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR8
Start: 12th
Finish: 19th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/medium/super-soft)
Rating: 8

Came into the weekend with high hopes but found either the front end or the rear end of his Toro Rosso uncooperative throughout the weekend.

Probably should have made it into Q3, but an excellent first lap and fine first stint on the medium Pirellis set him up for a ninth place finish and two more points than the car really deserved before a front-left brake problem pitched him off the track late on. No reward for a fine showing in adversity.

Caterham-Renault CT03
Start: 19th
Finish: 14th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 6

There was little to choose between the two Caterham drivers on pure pace in qualifying, although it was Pic who won the battle by the narrowest of margins. He drove well in the race to take 14th place, managing to keep team-mate van der Garde at bay in the final stint.

On the downside, missing the weighbridge and a second yellow-flag offence of the season were unnecessary and have triggered an automatic 10-place penalty for Japan.

Caterham-Renault CT03
Start: 20th
Finish: 15th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 6

Just lost out to his team-mate in qualifying by seven-thousandths of a second. Like his team-mate, there were a few mistakes in the race, forcing Bianchi wide at the first corner and earning a drive-through and also speeding under the safety car. But beyond that, his race pace was good and without his drive-through would have beaten Pic.

After an up-and-down first half of the season, the Dutchman seems to have found consistency of pace but needs to cut out the run-ins with stewards.

Marussia-Cosworth MR-02
Start: 22nd
Finish: 16th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 6

Had the pleasure of watching Rodolfo Gonzalez shunt his car during FP1, fortunately damaging only the nose and the driver's pride. His qualifying lap was excellent, although he did impede Paul di Resta during the final sector on his warm-up lap attempting to keep ahead of him rather than letting him past, earning him a grid penalty.

Tyre-management demands shrouded his race pace, although he did show a glimpse of it late on while pursuing the Caterhams.

Marussia-Cosworth MR-02
Start: 21st
Finish: 17th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/medium)
Rating: 6

Pace relative to Bianchi was encouraging, albeit with the advantage of not sitting out FP1. Chilton was 0.172s faster than his team-mate on his first Q1 run, but amid traffic did not get the tyre warm-up right on his second run and failed to improve. Even so, ended up a respectable tenth-and-a-half off.

Had a solid enough race, albeit showing slightly weaker pace than Bianchi. Also incurred the wrath of the stewards for exceeding the permitted sector time under the safety car.