Anywho, after a scintillating Australian offering we move straight on to the Malaysian Grand Prix in Kuala Lumpur. Anniversary fans will be pleased to learn this is the 15th Grand Prix in Malaysia, which has become synonymous with the second race of the season.
This is the first time we'll see Pirelli's new hard compound tyre, which has been painted orange this year instead of grey. This upsets me somewhat, as I'm mildly colour blind, and red and orange are two colours that blend together for me. However, Pirelli never put the Super Soft tyres on at the same race as the Hard tyre, so I don't think there'll be any confusion there.
On Friday Red Bull's Mark Webber was the fastest in session one, as he tried to put behind him the disappointment of Australia, where he had a woeful start. Australian victor Kimi Raikkonen topped the timing sessions in P2, however, indicating the Lotus' cracking performance in Melbourne was no false dawn.
Saturday morning arrived and the old status quo was reinstated with Vettel at the top in Practice 3, closely followed by Hamilton. Later on in Q1 though, the Red Bulls really struggled. They switched to the medium tyres late and languished 13th and 15th towards the end, with Vettel just scraping through in 15th. We lost both Marussias and Caterhams as you might expect. The 'Fall guys' were Half of Williams and Toro Rosso.
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| Webber left it very late to make it safely into Q2 |
Cars Eliminated after Q1
17 -Bottas
18 - Vergne
19 - Bianchi
20 - Pic
21 - Chilton
22 - van der Garde
Q2 brought with it a sprinkling of rain half-way through that later intesnsified. Most drivers got in a fast time, but Force India's Paul di Resta had two offs at the double-apex turns 7 & 8, spinning the car 480 degrees the second time.
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| Paul's Spin-and-a-half indicated it was too wet for Medium tyres |
11 - Grosjean
12 - Hulkenberg
13 - Ricciardo
14 - Gutierrez
15 - di Resta
16 - Maldonado
The rain only got worse in the 10-minute break and by the time Q3 arrived it was wet enough for intermediate tyres. All the usual suspects were in the hunt for Pole position, but as the cars went round in a train of 10, it was clear the car at the back, Vettel, was gaining an advantage, as his contemporaries were clearing the track of water ahead of him.
The final top 10
1 - Vettel
2 - Massa
3 - Alonso
4 - Hamilton
5 - Webber
6 - Rosberg
7 - Button
8 - Sutil
9 - Perez
10 - Raikkonen
Raikkonen did qualify 7th, but appeared to block Nico Rosberg in the final session, so took a 3-place grid drop to 10th, shifting Button, Sutil and Perez up a place. Felipe Massa out-qualified Alonso for the 4th time in a row, maintaining his apparent resurgence. All the top 10 drivers set their times on Inters. If the race had started dry, everyone could have picked whatever tyres they wanted, but more dampness on Sunday made Intermediate tyres the only option.
The sodden tarmac caught out many drivers on their installation laps, with Ricciardo damaging the underside of his car. At the start everyone got away cleanly, nobody made a particularly significant start, but Webber didn't make his customary free-fall through the pack either. At turn 2 Alonso gave a gentle kiss to the rear of Sebastian Vettel (Ooh Matron)'s car which was big enough to damage one of the pylons that hold the front wing. Incredibly, 'Nando limped round with the front wing dangling off and maintained second place until lap 2, where his Prancing horse lived up to its name and consumed the crippled wing, leaving him rudderless to avoid the gravel. Alonso was out.
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| As Stefano Domenicali put it, this 'kiss' was enough... |
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| ...to cause this damage... |
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| ... and this crash. |
That was not the only drama in the first round of stops. Ricciardo was unsafely released into the path of Charles Pic's Caterham and both broke their front wings. Being a few feet away from your pit box though, means a speedy change, and both drivers continued. Even more chaos occured. Force India opted to queue their drivers, but Sutil had an extremely tricky-to-fit rear left tyre, leaving di Resta stuck behind him for about twenty seconds. It was quite a turn around from the great pace in Albert Park.
On lap 14 Pastor Maldonado kept up his 100% success rate of 'incidents into the gravel' in 2013, breaking half of his front wing in the process. Raikkonen chased Perez relentlessly for four laps, finally getting the better of him on lap 16. Webber came in for Hard tyres on lap 20 after only 12 laps on them. This was a contrast to his team mate Vettel who managed to make his less-durable Medium tyres last longer.
Force India's day went from terrible to downright apocalyptic, when Sutil came in for a set of hard tyres. The left-front tyre would not seat on the rim properly and the German was sat in the pits for at least five minutes. Unorthodox techniques such as bashing the rims with hammers were employed, and he eventually got going again, but the team opted to retire both cars when they realised that two more stops for each would be just as troublesome.
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| A disgruntled di Resta had to retire his VJM06 due to wheel nut problems. |
Vettel edged ever closer to his team mate. The disgruntled German did not sugar coat his intentions:
"Mark is too slow, get him out of the way."
But the team wanted to keep Webber ahead for the time being, because he had got his timing right earlier. Vettel was all over him from lap 25 until 31, when Mark went into the pits for more hard tyres. Seb swapped his rubbers two laps later but emerged not only behind Webber, but also Hamilton. This was not what he wanted to see. Webber passed Button who was yet to make his third stop, but at the end of the lap when Jenson came in, his front right wheel was not secured properly and this was only noticed half-way down the pitlane. The chubby mechanics legged it down the pitlane to fit the tyre and release him, but he was well down the order when they did.
A superb scrap emerged between both Red Bulls and Mercedes, with Webber leading Vettel, Hamilton and Rosberg. There was barely a second between each car, but even when they did break that 1-second barrier, DRS was not enough to overtake. This battle went to the pits, Hamilton coming in on Lap 42 for a set of scrubbed option tyres. On lap 44, Webber emerged from the pits side-by-side with Vettel. Mark had the inside line and kept the position, despite relentless pressure from the young German behind.
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| Webber leads his team mate, and the two Mercedes of Hamilton and Rosberg. |
Team orders were made legal for the start of the 2011 season, and Red Bull wanted Webber in front of Vettel due to the strategies the drivers had chosen. Vettel pitted early for dry tyres on lap 5 and was behind, which the team felt should happen later in the race. On lap 45, however, Sebastian's racer instinct got the better of him and he passed Webber at turn 4 on the outside.
Clearly, Mark, nor the rest of the team were expecting that and the Aussie made his feelings abundantly clear, showing his middle finger on the straight between turns 8 and 9 at 180mph.
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| It's barely visible, but if you see the replay in moving image, you can definitely see hand movement. |
"That's enough now Nico, I want to bring the cars home safely like this." - Ross Brawn, Mercedes' team principal.
Clearly Red Bull and Mercedes were dominant here and able to choose the positions in which their drivers finished, but behind a hard-charging Massa was on the move. On Lap 49 he relegated Sergio Perez to 8th, and then clinched 6th from Raikkonen on the final corner. Meanwhile, fellow South American Maldonado was having a troublesome time, and retired with KERS problems. Ricciardo retired with an exhaust problem just like in Australia, and Button joined him on the sidelines thanks to the tricky pit stop earlier which left him well out of the points.
Massa was still on the move, and moved up to 5th place at the expense of Grosjean with three laps to go. Sergio Perez' slightly down-beat debut season for McLaren continued. Nico Hulkenberg shifted the Mexican down to 9th, giving a good idea of how badly Sergio's tyres had grained. He had to stop again. The last-lap stop didn't relegate him any further, but compared to perhaps the fastest car on the grid last year, this is not what the Woking team are capable of, nor do they want to continue it.
The race concluded after 56 laps with Vettel just over 4 seconds ahead of his team mate. It's the first Red Bull 1-2 since Korea last year and re affirms them as the dominant form, after the slightly lower-key showing in Melbourne. In the cool-down room after the race emotions were anything but; Mark ignored Sebastian before remarking that there was a team order. On the podium, Webber made it public that he thinks Sebastian gets "protection" from the team. I will be writing a follow-up to this about my thoughts on team orders.
This is probably the strangest Grand Prix I've ever witnessed.
Lap Leaders
Vettel (1-5)
Webber (6-33)
Button (34-35)
Webber (36-46)
Vettel (46-56)
Finishing Positions
1. S Vettel, Red Bull
2. M Webber, Red Bull
3. L Hamilton, Mercedes
4. N Rosberg, Mercedes
5. F Massa, Ferrari
6. R Grosjean, Lotus
7. K Raikkonen. Lotus
8. N Hulkenberg, Sauber
9. S Perez, McLaren
10. JE Vergne, Toro Rosso
11. V Bottas, Williams
12. E Gutierrez, Sauber
13. J Bianchi, Marussia
14. C Pic, Caterham
15. G van der Garde, Caterham
16. M Chilton, Marussia
Out/Unclassified
J Button, McLaren (Retired)
D Riccardio, Toro Rosso (Exhaust)
P Maldonado, Williams (KERS Failure)
A Sutil, Force India (Wheel Nut)
P di Resta, Force India (Wheel Nut)
F Alonso, Ferrari (Crash Damage)
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