Malaysia Race Review: "Forza Ferrari!"

Sebastian Vettel stormed to his 40^th career win at the weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix, also marking the 222^nd victory for Ferrari. It was a welcome result and marked a significantly more entertaining race than Melbourne, 2 weeks previous.

Jubilant scenes as Vettel crossed the finish line

After Ferrari’s first first row start for two years, Vettel worked his tyres to the optimum and over threw the Mercedes dominance of the last 21 grand prix to take an 8.5 second win over Hamilton and Rosberg. Vettel’s teammate Raikkonen crept under the radar as he recorded an astonishing fourth place finish having qualified 11^th place and received a puncture in the opening laps.

As observed in Friday’s practice, Ferrari had made immense engine improvements having cashed in 22 of the 32 upgrade tokens available. As a result, the Ferraris recorded superior straight line performance to the Mercedes whilst limiting the damage of their lower downforce step up in the twisty second sector of the 3.5 mile lap.

Hamilton having converted his last 7 pole positions into wins would have had the added pressure of the sponsoring Petronas at their home race. However, the Silver Arrows’, having used an extra set of the faster option tyres in qualifying due to a conservative strategy, had only a scrubbed set that wouldn’t have made the remaining race distance. As a result the team’s poor strategy ultimately caused their own downfall.

The Malaysian Grand Prix featured action from the moment the 5 red lights went out. The first row of the grid shared 6 world titles and it showed as Lewis Hamilton got off to a strong start and lead into first corner. Close behind Vettel left minimal inches to spare when shutting the door on Nico Rosberg as he mounted a charge from a superior launch. However Rosberg ultimately lost the place when braking too conservatively into the first corner. Behind the leaders, Raikkonen dropped down to 14^th and then suffered a puncture just passed the pit lane. Luckily he did not have to retire from chassis damage despite driving a full lap with just three tyres following a small touch on his rear left from Sauber’s Felipe Nasr. Maldonado’s fate was similar as he received a puncture having been grazed by Bottas braking into turn 1. When he retired with 6 laps to go it marked 5/5 failed attempts to finish the Malaysian race, the same record as Melbourne.

The pursing train of cars behind Hamilton

Having made Q3 for the first time, Marcus Ericsson was high on confidence as he showed a continuation of his impressive overtaking ability having shut the door on Max Verstappen into turn 4. However, the confidence spilt over on lap 4 as Ericsson attempting to pass the Force India of Nico Hulkenburg under DRS, massively out braked himself into turn 1, lost the rear on the slippery run off tarmac and beached the car in the gravel thus wasting his impressive performance. This brought out the safety car. Mercedes reacted by double stopping their cars and switched to the harder compound. Hamilton re-joined the queue of cars in p6. In a decisive piece of strategy, Vettel stayed out taking the race lead but seemed to be disadvantaged by having to run a 2 stop race. But this was not to be the case as the James Allison Ferrari FS15-T at the hands of the 4 time world champion proved gentle on its tyres.

Beached: a wasted race for Ericsson but the following safety car made the race.

The Mercedes pair seemed rattled. Lewis appeared frustrated and frequently complained to his team over radio questioning their tactics and radio communication. Rosberg’s situation was more concerning though. Over the course of the race he seemed hesitant, out of the loop and short of confidence. He always claimed to have the mental edge over Hamilton but he appeared to not be focused or aware of the race around him. His racing was conservative also, as aforementioned he was reserved against Vettel into the first corner, he later lost out on the race restart as he was stuck behind Massa. Rosberg was evidently hesitant when driving wheel to wheel, a massive trait of Hamilton. Nico’s race seemed to be the work of Karma. Post Melbourne he smugly asked for Ferrari to close the gap to give the Mercedes a race and then jokingly offered Vettel a seat at the Mercedes debrief to pick up some tips. Those comments came back to haunt him far faster than he expected.

If Rosberg appeared lacking motivation the Toro Rosso drivers were far from it. By finishing a superb 7^th place, Max Verstappen became the youngest ever points scorer at 17 years and 180 days old, some 2 years 144 days younger than the previous record holder and Red Bull counterpart Daniil Kvyat. Toro Rosso teammate Carlos Sainz Jr finished 8^th place meaning that both Toro Rossos beat both of their sister and usually superior Red Bulls. In truth it was a weekend for the Red Bulls to forget. Having changed brake supplier for 2015, it told as both Red Bulls billowed plumes of brake dust under heavy braking. Notably, Ricciardo was chased down by Verstappen before being squeezed out on lap 23 to take a fantastic move for 9^th place. This served well to highlight the talent of Verstappen and the weakness of the RB11. By half race distance the Red Bulls were 10 seconds behind Torro Rosso. Their 3 wins at Malaysia seemed distant. There was further calamity as Ricciardo was instructed to make way for the faster Kvyat into turn 1, however as Hulkenberg went wide to avoid the Williams of Bottas exiting pits he collided with Kvyat as the Force India was left no room and so spun the Red Bull. Both cars received little damage however, a subsequent and perhaps unfair 10 second penalty for Hulkenburg was the result. Toro Rosso upstaged Red Bull this weekend. Whatsmore, by using the same engines, Renault appeared to have a point, the engine they supply is not the only fault of the RB11, the chassis is not up to scratch either. Whilst team principal Christian Horner did praise the progress in driveability since Melbourne, Renault’s claim that they will offer the most drivable powertrain by Monaco seems a long way off.

The incident involving Kvyat and Hulkenburg

Malaysia saw improvement for the McLarens also. Alonso was running temporarily in a points scoring 9^th place in the MP4-30 before retiring on lap 21. Button jokingly commented on team radio that he was “surprised to be catching cars” during the race due to a midfield battle and congestion behind Hulkenberg. Post retirement, Alonso stated that he was pleasantly surprised at the pace of the McLaren. However on lap 41 Button reported a loss of power and ensured a double DNF for McLaren, but potential points could be on the horizon.

On lap 33 the battle between Perez and Grosjean boiled over when the Lotus on worn tyres tried to pass Perez on the outside of Turn 9, he then lost the back end in dramatic fashion with Perez doing well to avoid the out of control Lotus. Despite the touch, Grosjean kept the car out of the gravel. Grosjean relied on Perez to yield which is clearly not in nature of Perez as seen in his 2013 duel with Button at Bahrain. The outcome was another questionable penalty for Perez. Despite their documented improvements, Lotus once again didn’t impress.
Manor's sole car piloted by Merhi finished 3 laps down but still marked an achievement in itself.

Back at the front of the field, Ferrari really stretched their legs. The whole team operated at full capacity. The pit stops that plagued their Melbourne outing were hugely improved and they registered a 2.4 second stop at the critical first change for Vettel. Their car is clearly well developed from last season as Vettel racked up 17 laps on scrubbed medium tyres with full fuel. Although this was impart due to the safety car and running in clean air, Mercedes failed to match the grip and pace to make a two stop race work. This showed as on lap 24 Vettel slipstreamed Hamilton and combined DRS down the back straight to take Hamilton under braking, forcing the Mercedes driver to dive immediately into the pits attempting to undercut Vettel with a 3 stop strategy. Ferrari are now with more wins at Malaysia than any other team and recorded their first win for Ferrari since Alonso in 2013 at Spain. Equally as promising was Raikkonen who still matched Vettel’s pace whilst running in 3rd during the race.

Maranello out performing Stuttgart 

The race result means a new territory for Mercedes as they have to now defend their primacy as Ferrari unexpectedly win in just their second race. With a track temperature over 60 degrees Celsius, Mercedes could not get the medium tyres to work in the heat. Whatsmore they were running only the same lap times as 2014 unlike their much greater pace in Melbourne when compared to last season. It is the first time Mercedes have been beaten since the Belgian Grand Prix, so with a £27 million contract to Hamilton’s name, Toto Wolff, Paddy Lowe and Niki Lauda’s faith is placed in their man to ensure this remains little more than an anomaly. Hopefully, for the sport this isn’t the case and we can expect a title race for both championships.

Having made a bold and defiant career move, Vettel seemed refreshed after a poor last season and appeared to justify his early exit from Red Bull as he approached lapping them on lap 53. Despite being second best, Mercedes and Hamilton offered a commendable and very dignified response to Ferrari’s victory. Niki Lauda went as far to say that even running the same strategy, they couldn’t have pulled it off. It was in short, a fair win. Vettel answered many critiques with the fans who loathed his past domination, now cheering for his return to winning ways. Ferrari saw a welcome relief following last seasons’ worst performance for 21 years.

As the team radio jubilantly exclaimed, “Numero Uno is back!”