Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel claimed victory in Kuala Lumpur in controversial fashion after disobeying a direct team order to hold station while Mark Webber was leading the race. Much like the Australian has been told to do on a number of occasions when Vettel was leading and Webber was faster. Red Bull advisor Dr. Helmut Marko said when asked for his thoughts on Vettel disobeying team orders, “we don’t have #1 AND #2 drivers like Mercedes”, can anyone say hypocrisy? Vettel is clear favourite at Red Bull, you just have to look at Marko’s comments about Webber pre-season for evidence of that. I’m all for all-out-racing, but there has to be equality, Vettel saying sorry after the race means absolutely zero, it’s not like he accidentally overtook the Australian!
There was more controversy for the team that finished third and fourth, Lewis Hamilton lead an orchestrated finish ahead of team mate, Nico Rosberg, the German voicing his displeasure a number of times, pleading “Let me pass him, I’m much faster”, but the response that came back from team principle Ross Brawn was “negative, Lewis is being controlled as well”. Basically Mercedes screwed up and didn’t fuel Lewis’ car enough, Rosberg almost went into the back of Hamilton because Lewis was in such an extreme fuel saving mode! I believe this signals clear intent about who is #1 driver!
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa led a late charge to climb upto fifth place overtaking both Sergio Perez and Kimi Raikkonen along the way. Fernando Alonso went out of the race at the beginning of lap two, riding over his front wing, going straight into the gravel trap and out of the race. This could have been avoided if Alonso took to the pitlane for a new nose instead of continuing to start another lap, a bad decision from Ferrari and/or Alonso, some points would have been better than zero points!
Lotus didn’t have such a good weekend; being mired in the mid top 10; Romain Grosjean finishing in sixth ahead of his world champion team mate Raikkonen; it seems whatever magic touch the Finn had in Australia has vanished as he struggled and failed to keep Massa behind. Sauber driver Nico Hulkenberg snagged four points for eighth place ahead of McLaren’s Perez who dropped behind Hulkenberg after a late pit-stop. Final point went to STR’s Jean Eric Vergne, who earlier collided with the Caterham of Pic in the pit-lane, Toro Rosso were judged to have released Vergne unsafely!
McLaren’s Jenson Button could have claimed a fifth place finish if it weren’t for a problem with a misaligned wheel, being called to stop by the pit crew when they realised their mistake. Button pitted from third and came back out in fourteenth because of the pitlane screwup, Button later retired when it became apparent that there was no chance of points from the race. Button himself believes a podium was a possibility, personally I think that is a little too optimistic thinking, I don’t think the McLaren is fast enough to beat the Mercedes, but the McLaren was more competitive!
Force India had a nightmare with pit stops; they’re using a similar system to Mclaren on the wheels where the wheelnut is attached to the wheel. What happened is that the wheelnut stayed on the hub instead of coming off with the wheel, so they were attempting to add another nut on top of the nut already on the hub! The net result is that both Force India’s retired from the race!
A few personal comments about the race, first of all; what were Ferrari thinking? chancing their arm with a broken wing, we have seen it happen time and time again, the wing almost always ends up under he front wheels with the net result being no steering and very limited braking. The next time that Vettel is leading and Webber is immediately behind, I hope that Mark ignores the call to ‘hold station’ and then gives a meaningless apology post race; the gloves are off at Red Bull. Christian Horner compounded the insult to Mark by saying “There was no point giving the position back”. I’m sorry to say this Mark, but you will never win a world title while golden boy Vettel is in the team!
A lot of Lewis Hamilton fans gave Jenson Button a lot of stick for driving into the wrong pit box during the Chinese GP in 2011. It’s now time for us JB fans to have a gloat now; I expect a raft of excuses like, but ultimately he messed up, there is not excuse as there wasn’t for Jenson in 2011!
Top 10 finishing positions for the Malaysian Grand Prix:
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1. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) 1:38:56.681 2. Mark Webber (Red Bull) +4.200 3. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) +12.100 4. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) +12.600 5. Felipe Massa (Ferrari) +25.600 |
6. Romain Grosjean (Lotus) +35.500 7. Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus) +48.400 8. Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) +53.000 9. Sergio Perez (McLaren) +72.300 10. Jean Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) +87.100 |
