Round 2 - Malaysia 2015 - Race

Greetings Internet, 

Finally, it has happened - we waited an entire season for this moment to befall us all. Williams threatened to deliver this result in Austria but a conservative strategy prevented Massa from capitalising on his pole position on the Red Bull owned circuit. In fact speaking of Red Bull, their equalisation complaints against Mercedes seem even more unfounded because today's result confirmed that it isn't just the two silver cars that and demolishing Christian Horner's team. I think that he might need to figure out why the theoretically slower junior team are also leaving them in the dust. There is a Renault problem, but it doesn't mean that there isn't a Red Bull problem at the same time..

One team who do not have a problem right now - unless you count coming under attack from Brazilians in blue and yellow cars as a problem - if Ferrari. Both Raikkonen and Vettel did very well today and one of those bright red machines achieved the seemingly impossible. However, I wouldn't quite start running down to the betting office to throw various quantities of money at the idea of that German bloke re-enacting those Red Bull seasons. I still rather think that the insane heat of the tropical environment delivered a specific set of conditions that influenced Mercedes' uncharacteristic downfall. Tyre management and extracting the performance out of the car in those extreme considtions are unique to the Malaysian GP. Come Shanghai in a fortnight's time I fear normal service will be resumed - although I would easily welcome a titanic battle between Ferrari and Mercedes every race weekend.

But aside from pointing out how pivotal the events of today have been I can't move on with proceedings until I make a few comments on the BBC, today was their first live race of 2015 and they seemed ill prepared for it. Both DC and Ben Edwards seemed to forget the rules of the sport - Coulthard questioned whether Mercedes would run "prime-prime-prime" in terms of tyres... When of course both compounds have to be used when there is no rain involved. Then Ben Edwards constantly reminded us that Raikkonen had more tyres than his rivals because he went out in Q2 yesterday. The problem with that argument is that no-one used dry tyres in Q1 - therefore he had no advantage at all in that respect. Then during the race, DC reminded us that a pit-lane penalty had to be taken within two laps of it being issued - but these pit penalties take place at the next scheduled pit stop, regardless of when that happens. But I think the biggest cock up of the day belongs to Suzy Perry - after three seasons she hasn't really got too much better, why Leigh McKenzie isn't doing that role is beyond me... But anyway back to Suzy - mentioned the unfortunate incident at the VLN Nordschleife race in which a Nissan GTR GT3 flipped after air got under the car and threw it into the air. The car ended up in a spectator area and one spectator was killed in the accident, but Suzy decided that the car was driven by Jann Mardenburg... whoever he is. Actual driver Jann Mardenbrough was uninjured in the incident.

The Race

For the first time this season all teams were represented on the grid - Manor had Roberto Mehri occupying a rather lonely back row. The second car belonging to Will Stevens couldn't make the grid after the problems that affected qualifying yesterday couldn't be corrected. So while we were still not a full strength, 19 cars is still the biggest grid in 2015. 

At the start Hamilton was unopposed on the route down to turn one, Rosberg almost pipped Vettel for second place - which might have precipitated a standard Mercedes canter off into the distance. But the German bloke out-braked a hesitant Rosberg to retain the place through turn one. Potentially the best start belonged to Pastor Maldonado who carved past the Toro Rossos as if they weren't there and passed Bottas round the outside of the first corner. Alas it was a short lived ascent, Bottas made the tiniest bit of contact with the right-rear of Pastor's Lotus causing a puncture. Other than that the opening few corners were far more well behaved than it was in Melbourne. It was also looking reasonable for Raikkonen, who hadn't been hit by anyone... which only lasted until the end of the first lap. Kimi was a touch wide in the final corner when considering a pass on Bottas - but Felipe Nasr put his front wing in a place it really didn't belong and cut Raikkonen's rear tyre down. It was the most inconveient place to pick up a puncture as it meant the Ferrari had to complete the entire lap on three wheels. For the second race in a row the Finn had been collected by the Brazilian, and this time Nasr had to pit for a new nosecone. 

The start had rearranged the positions outside of the top five a reasonable

amount, Bottas had lost ground, Raikkonen and Massa were now last and Hulkenberg was in front of Ericsson. Ericsson must have been feeling a little invincible after he eased Verstappen off the track in a lunge on the opening lap when he made another late braking effort against the Force India. Marcus left the braking a country mile too late in turn one and span the car embarrassingly into the gravel - one of the few places in modern F1 where we still have gravel. I thought that a team of marshals would have been able to push the Sauber the few feet to put it back in the race, but a recovery crane vehicle was brought onto the track. In light of Japan 2014, this means an immediate safety car deployment - which in turn forced a stream of pit-stops.

A few cars stayed out - none of which belonged to the Mercedes stable, thus importantly handing Vettel the lead of the race. Hulkenberg was promoted to second place, and for a brief period of time Roberto Mehri was inside the points in 10th place. I have no idea whether the Manor pitted or simply fell of the face of the earth but the next time the timing screen was displayed Mehri was back at the far end of the field. During the safety car period we heard several radio complaints about cars driving too slow, Raikkonen asked if he could just pass whoever it was in front of time because they were a long way off the recommended safety car lap time. Yet Maldonado got penalised for exceeding that recommended lap time with a ten second pit penalty... which Coulthard still figured had to be taken within two laps...

At the restart we were left with an interesting scenario, Vettel was on his own in the lead while every car in the known universe was trapped in a train of cars behind Nico Hulkenberg's Force India. Nico's car is no where near as fast as it was last season and thus started backing the field up quite a lot. In terms of the final result - it would have been this phase that made life quite a bit more difficult for Mercedes. Both cars were mired a long way back in the Hulkenberg queue, Rosberg could and probably should have passed Massa on the restart, but like earlier he was hesitant and non-committal on the brakes and stayed behind the Williams. It took Rosberg another two laps to find a way past the Williams - while Hamilton was being more decisive in traffic - firstly passing Sainz round the outside of turn one. There were some arguments that Hamilton was making light work of the traffic and Rosberg should have been better - but Lewis was arguably fighting easier cars than Nico was, even so Rosberg let an early opportunity slip away back on the restart. 

This Hulkenberg train was now nine cars long as Raikkonen joined behind Vertappen and Nasr at the bottom end of the line. The longer the Mercedes drivers spent in this queue increased the risk of contact as frustrations continued to grow. Grosjean was finding it rather difficult to deal with the Force India despite having a faster car - but the most entertaining part of the train was the concentrated zone of Red Bull cars. Sainz, Kvyat and Ricciardo were sharing the same piece of road almost running two by two on the straight before the turn nine hairpin. There were some thought processes in the Red Bull consortium that Toro Rosso would fade behind them in the race, but that merely became wishful thinking as Sainz and Vertappen were very much in the same race as the main team. Within a few laps both Rosberg and Hamilton had broken free of the Hulkenberg train - Lewis having carved a sizeable advantage over his team-mate. It appeared that when faced with the same opponents in the traffic jam, the Briton made life a lot easier for himself than Rosberg did... however all the while Vettel was making ground in the lead of the race. 

Just before Raikkonen started to lose time behind Kvyat in the lowest placed of the four Red Bull liveried cars he brought the car into the pits for some new wheels. But on the following lap Hulkenberg pitted anyway releasing the rest of the train of cars - although that wouldn't have prevented the Red Bulls from holding up Raikkonen. Hulkenberg's stop didn't help Grosjean too much as both cars ended up behind each other after they both stopped. Vettel finally brought the Ferrari in a few laps later indicating that despite having a seemingly anomalous pace advantage they also were kinder on their tyres than their rivals. The stop did cycle Mercedes back through into the lead, as Sebastian rejoined in third place. On the fresher tyres Vettel was faster than the Mercedes pairing and started closing in on Rosberg for second place. As Nico could see Vettel appearing in his mirrors he started discussing various strategic permutations with his engineer. Asking "if he gets past me, he's won?"...in retrospect we can confirm that is true Nico, Vettel swiftly got past without any real sign of a defence making it all too easy... and we know how the race ended.

Rosberg pitted after being beaten by the Ferrari as Vettel started shredding

Hamilton's lead - the former Mercedes 1-2 was crumbling under the weight and force of Ferrari's resurgence. So as one team was on the ascendance, another was still facing the steep end of their recent decline - McLaren despite a brief fight with Force India again were down to one car. Fernando Alonso was told to retire the McLaren as that chassis fails once more to complete a race distance, at least Jenson's car was still on track. There were also ongoing difficulties for Red Bull, Ricciardo told the team he was experiencing understeer issues and it was these issues that forced him wide in turn seven - ultimately handing his place to Little Max Verstappen. Ricciardo then found himself under pressure from the second Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat, a battle that became ever more complex when they came upon Hulkenberg's Force India. Hulkenberg had already proved that he didn't fancy giving up any track position. In turn two that became a little problematic when all three cars had to avoid Valtteri Bottas who was leaving pits. At one point the Red Bulls and Hulkenberg were three wide in turn one. Hulkenberg was on the inside of turn two and promptly tipped Kvyat into a spin as the Russian and the German tried to share the same piece of track.

Hulkenberg was also handed a pit time penalty for the collision, but in the mean time before he had to serve that - he decided he wanted some more friends. So he started work on forming a new train of cars including Grosjean paying his second visit to a Force India led traffic jam. As Hulkenberg played trains with his

new friends it meant he and his friends were quite slow... which lead to a brilliant radio message from Jenson Button - "Something odd's happing here, we're catching cars.." because the McLaren was quicker than the queue of cars ahead. This lead to some frustrations within the queue itself and frustration followed by a desperate move never works out too well. And so Grosjean stepped up to the plate, as he made an audatious pass round the outside of Sergio Perez in turn 12, somewhere you don't usually make a pass. Romain almost made it, but on the exit of the corner they just touched wheels and Grosjean was turned around at some speed. Fortunately he didn't spin and collect the Mexican driver - neither car was damaged but Perez was handed a pit-lane penalty. Starting to get the idea that as soon as someone got anywhere near each other the stewards would start issuing penalties.

At the front Vettel had assumed the lead, after passing Hamilton as the Mercedes headed for the pits. The other Ferrari was also making remarkable ground considering Raikkonen was last by lap two - the Finn just retook 6th place from Little Max, and the Williams ahead of him still had a pit-stop to make. So on balance Kimi was on target for a net 4th place. As Hamilton rejoined he started to get grumpy, and as always grumpy drivers are hilarious. We already had grumpy Grosjean he and Perez made friends. Hamilton's complaint was that the team had put the wrong tyres on the car - when in fact the team had installed the most strategically relevant tyres. Because Mercedes used the other set of softer tyres in qualifying instead - when they didn't really need to. His complaints continued when he asked his engineer to stop talking to him in the middle of a corner. It that wasn't enough the team left the radio open when they were discussing strategy options with each other on the pitwall and Hamilton got really confused. We started this weekend pointing out that certain teams complain when losing... here we had Hamilton getting all bothered as someone had the audacity to be in front. Meanwhile Rosberg in third place spent most of the time asking his team what was happening in the race... Coulthard offered the idea that someone should send him a copy of the race highlights on DVD just to shut him up.

Because Vettel had started to get a little bored out in the lead he irrationally to sing... however the German bloke's rendition of that non-existent hit song "Blug Flag - Blue Flag" will not be winning any Karaoke awards... Sebastian's questionable vocals were in response to a request for more blue flags to encourage Hulkenberg and Grosjean to move out of the way when being lapped. The Mercedes team calculated that Hamilton would catch Vettel with five laps to go - but I think Toto and the gang need to go out and buy new calculators because that maths was well off. Neither Rosberg nor Hamilton had enough of a pace advantage to erase the 11s lead Vettel had. Behind the top three Raikkonen had moved into a rather lonely fourth - but a couple of intra-team battles were emerging. Bottas was catching Massa for 5th and both pairs of Red Bull team mates were running in formation... the junior team several seconds further ahead of the main squad. At the moment Sainz was the lead Red Bull sponsored car but Verstappen was closing in quickly. In the end Carlos didn't fight too hard as Little Max moved into 7th place. The Williams battle was a lot closer, Massa didn't want to give up - and he eased over and nudged Bottas wide in turn one. But it was a futile defence as Valtteri swept around the outside of Felipe in the high speed turn five.

Things at the front remained stable all the way to the end of the race, Vettel scored a landmark and seemingly impossible victory - to finally topple the mighty Mercedes. The two Mercedes cars retained second and third but were defeated today. Raikkonen finished in fourth place, behind him it was all two by two Williams, Toro Rosso and Red Bull all lined up in order, and in each case it was the younger team-mate that lead the paring. While neither McLaren finished the second race of the season - Roberto Merhri did finish albeit three laps down.

The Bonus Points Championship

Todays event was a considerably improvement on Australia, with many more cars involved and a lot more on track action, and that means it is time for the bonus points.

25pts - Kimi Raikkonen - From last on lap two all the way up to fourth place deserves many many points
18pts - Sebastian Vettel - Beating the Mercedes, nuff said
15pts - Max Verstappen - The lead Red Bull sponsored car, beating the main team in its entirety
12pts - Roberto Merhri - The first race for the Manor car, and he brought it home
10pts - Lewis Hamilton - Easily the best Mercedes in the traffic following the early safety car intervention
8pts - Nico Hulkenberg - Scores points for collecting the most cars in his train of friends over the course of the day
6pts - Valtteri Bottas - Has to have some points for his penultimate lap pass on Felipe Massa on the outside of turn 5
4pts - Romain Grosjean - That overtaking effort certainly required at least one brave pill and would have been worth more points if it had worked
2pts - Daniil Kvyat - Two points as the Russian repeats his team-mate's Malaysian advantage and became the top main team Red Bull driver
1pt - Jenson Button - Scores the final point for his amusing bewilderment that the McLaren was actually catching cars, before unfortunately retiring

-2pts - BBC - For being a bit pants today
-2pts - The Stewards - A little overkill on the penalty calls today weren't we
-1pt - Lewis Hamilton - Stop being so grumpy, one race does not ruin your entire season
-1pt - Marcus Ericsson - That was also a bit pants

Looking ahead to China

From the blistering heat and humidity to the generally cooler realm of Shanghai, while the track is very similar in design and construction the conditions may be worlds apart. It will be the ultimate test of whether the Ferrari pace is a unique result of the high temperatures on this configuration of circuit. A similar circuit type with less heat may see Mercedes storm back to the front, but if Ferrari can hang on then we might be on for a very interesting season with battles occuring on a race by race basis.

Also as we saw Ferrari and Mercedes demolish anything Renault has to offer Horner will have to ask the FIA to equalise everyone just to make up the ground. There was a mild cooling off period in the arguments between Renualt and the Red Bull organisation during the race, but I think we might hear more from them in the fortnight before the Chinese GP.