[3] It was the sixteenth round of the 2011 Formula One season, the second running of the Korean Grand Prix, and the first race after Sebastian Vettel claimed the 2011 World Drivers' Championship.

Polesitter Hamilton broke Red Bull's streak of pole positions, which had started at the 2010 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and continued for another 15 races.

Prior to this race, the last time Red Bull failed to take pole was at the 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix, when Nico Hülkenberg, driving for Williams, was the polesitter.

Jenson Button, the winner in Japan, held an eight-point lead over Fernando Alonso, with Mark Webber a further eight points behind, and Lewis Hamilton another sixteen back in fifth place.

[11] Following the accident, Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa called for the pit exit to be reconfigured in future so as to prevent similar incidents from occurring.

[13] Lewis Hamilton stopped Red Bull's run of 16 consecutive pole positions by setting the fastest time in Saturday's qualifying session.

Sebastian Vettel was still on the front row of the grid because his final flying lap was not good enough to beat Hamilton's time but still left him in second position.

Nico Rosberg, Vitaly Petrov and the Force Indias of Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil completed the top ten, after all making the third part of qualifying.

Jaime Alguersuari and Sébastien Buemi did well to qualify an unusually high eleventh and thirteenth for the Toro Rosso team.

Kamui Kobayashi, Bruno Senna, Pastor Maldonado and Sergio Pérez were the other drivers who made it into Q2, filling spaces 14 to 17 on the grid in that order.

The three new teams completed the back of the grid; Heikki Kovalainen out-qualified Jarno Trulli at Lotus, Timo Glock was faster than Jérôme d'Ambrosio at Virgin and Daniel Ricciardo failed to set a lap time due to electrical problems, but would be allowed start twenty-fourth and behind HRT teammate, Vitantonio Liuzzi.

Button was fourth, and Alonso finished fifth, followed by Massa, Alguersuari, Rosberg, Buemi and di Resta, who completed the points scoring positions.