VETTEL WINS INAUGURAL VIETNAM GRAND PRIX

Today was the day Formula One was to host the first ever Vietnam Grand Prix. Unfortunately due to a worldwide pandemic the race was postponed. So to replace the Grand Prix that may never happen in 2020 I have predicted the outcome...

To begin with I dissected the layout of the track working out each corner and finding a similar corner on another track. I then decided where each sector would start and finish (as I was unable to find the official sectors for the track).

Here I have outlined the three sectors of the track. Sector One is the start/finish straight - T9 | Sector Two is T10 - T14 and Sector Three is T15 - T22. After deciding on each sector I had to then look at each corner and find a similar one on a different track for example T7-9 is similar to T10 in Canada. Here is full breakdown of the corner similarity.

Once I had the full list of corners I then needed the times for each sector that corner is in on its respective track and find the qualifying (and in some cases practice three times) for that sector and track to come to the final result. To find a time for a drivers sector one time I took a time from Russia, Mexico and Canada, I then divided those times by three (amount of tracks), then for sector two I looked at times from Mexico, Baku, China, Singapore, Canada and Spa then divided that time by seven and then for sector three I looked at times from COTA and as it was just one sector I took that time and that was the drivers sector three time.

To give an example of the working out here is both Mercedes drivers sector times;

- Hamilton: S1: 20.36 / S2: 30.07 / S3: 32.32

- Bottas: S1: 20.56 / S2: 30.21 / S3: 32.02

I then did this for the rest of the grid. Once I had all the times I added all three together and was given a final time for each driver. As you can tell from the title Sebastian Vettel was the quickest with a final time of 1:22.490 which is around two tenths quicker that second place.

The final result is as follows;

1. Vettel - 1:22.490 -(26 points)*

2. Leclerc - 1:22.700 -(18 points)

3. Hamilton - 1:22.750 - (15 points)

4. Bottas - 1:22.790 - (12 points)

5. Verstappen - 1:22.870 - (10 points)

6. Sainz - 1:25.110 - (8 points)

7. Norris - 1:25.230 - (6 points)

8. Ricciardo - 1:25.650 - (4 points)

9. Albon - 1:26.680* - (2 points)

10. Gasly - 1:26.940* - (1 point)

11. Raikkonen - 1:27.290

12. Ocon - 1:27.380

13. Kvyat - 1:27.560

14. Magnussen - 1:28.450

15. Stroll - 1:28.900

16. Grosjean - 1:29.080

17. Giovinazzi - 1:29.470

18. Perez - 1:30.960

19. Russell - 1:33.220

20. Latifi - 1:35.880*

*Albon and Gasly switched mid season which means their times are not as accurate compared to if they had raced at only one team for 2019. Latifi didn't race in 2019 so I have used Kubica's times to come to a result for Latifi.

Vettel has 26 points as he would have taken the extra point for fastest lap.

So as it turns out the Hanoi street circuit is a good track for the Ferrari's and who knows maybe if the race had gone ahead we would have seen Ferrari take top spot on the podium.