Malaysian F1 GP: The talking points

Malaysia once again produced a fascinating Grand Prix which, as always, raised many interesting things to talk about. Here is a run down.

Vettel looking unstoppable

Sebastian Vettel once again controlled this race from the beginning. He was helped by Nick Heidfeld’s comparative lack of race pace, which held up Hamilton before the first stop, enabling him to build the lead that he would maintain throughout the race.

After the second stop it looked like Hamilton and Alonso may trouble him, but they were never really in the game – Vettel’s pace and tyre management was a class above the rest.

He didn’t have things as easy as he did in Melbourne; he had to work hard to look after his tyres while managing the gap and his KERS system only worked in parts of the race, but he never looked like being headed.

Another supreme performance.

KERS is important but only on the first lap… if you are in a Red Bull

While Vettel was not troubled by his KERS failing, Webber paid the price off the line. He made a tardy start but when the rest of the pack pressed their KERS button, he was absolutely monstered on the run to turn one, falling from third to ninth.

He did recover as the race progressed and managed to set a series of fastest laps in his charge back through the field. The suggestions during the Australian Grand Prix that Red Bull have some clever start-only KERS system, while perhaps a little off the mark, might actually be worth Red Bull looking into.

DRS: Still not sure

We got a better view of how DRS is working at Sepang. It certainly seemed to allow some cars to get close enough to fight for a position, negating the impact of dirty air behind the car, without making the pass too easy.

In other situations, Petrov on Kobyashi for example, some cars just blew straight past others.

This may have been to do with the comparative speed of the two cars, so we really need to reserve our judgment a little longer. It definitely isn’t all bad.

Tyres are playing into Button’s hands, Hamilton struggling

In the final section of the race we saw Hamilton struggling with tyre wear, while Button cruised two seconds a lap faster than his teammate to second place, making his tyres last longer than anyone else in the process.

In Australia, Hamilton was keen to point out how well he had managed his tyres, but with the very low levels of degradation I wonder if that was representative of his improvement or he just got lucky.

He complained after the race that the team had consistently stopped too early, however team boss Martin Whitmarsh suggested that they responded to Hamilton’s assessment of the tyre wear.

If this becomes a trend as it was last year, Hamilton’s campaign may be over before it begins.

Button on the other hand looked in great touch from the second stint onwards. If he can continue to find that balance he may well be a contender, unfortunately the fact that his pace is so reliant on obtaining the perfect set up means it is reasonably unlikely to happen.

Ferrari is getting closer

Ferrari were off the pace in practice and qualifying but looked a much improved unit in race pace. Had Alonso not run into the back of Hamilton on lap 46, he would likely have finished third.

As it worked out he took an extra stop, which dropped him down to seventh, one place behind his teammate Filepe Massa. Ferrari clearly still have work to do and Massa was again outclassed by Alonso, but the signs are positive.

Mercedes and Williams are still nowhere

Both Williams’ once again retired with mechanical failures and the Mercedes’ spent the day unable to seriously challenge anyone. Schumacher made a good start jumping from 11th to seventh, but was unable to maintain the pace of the front-runners.

Nico Rosberg’s day never really got going, after he fell from ninth to 13th on the first lap. During the race he only ever managed to get as high at P11 and finished the day in a lacklustre 12th.

No doubt both teams will be looking forward to getting next week’s Chinese Grand Prix over and done with so they can return to Europe and assess what has gone wrong.

So close for HRT…

After climbing the mountain and successfully qualifying for the race, in the final stages of races it looked like they would even manage to have one car finish.

Unfortunately things did not go according to the script and Tonio Liuzzi’s sole remaining HRT retired 10 laps from the end for ‘safety reasons’.