SEOUL, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel won the South Korean Grand Prix in Yeongam on Sunday to leapfrog Ferrari's Fernando Alonso in the Formula One championship driver's standings.
Vettel's 25th career victory, and third in a row for a season tally of four, propeled him past Alonso to the top of the standings on 215 points with the Spaniard, who finished third in the race, on 209 points. Finnish Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen is in distant third on 167.
With four races remaining on the 2012 calendar, Vettel is closer to a world title hat-trick.
"I'm very pleased. It's fantastic. The foundation was to have a good start. I wasn't sure but I had a good launch and managed to get past Mark," said the 25-year-old German.
"We have done another step and hopefully we can carry the momentum into the next races ... A lot can happen but we need to focus on ourselves."
Vettel's team-mate Mark Webber, who started in pole position, was second. It was Red Bull's first one-two finish of this season.
Alonso's fellow Ferrari driver Felipe Massa came fourth, followed by Raikkonen. Nico Hulkenberg (Force India), Romain Grosjean (Lotus), Jean-Eric Vergne, Daniel Ricciardo (both Toro Rosso) and Hamilton rounded out the top 10.