Malaysian GP 2011 - Sepang

[Mr Alcatraz]

Its alonso talking, doesnt that explain it fully?

They were summoned by the Stewards he is expected to answer any questions they ask Einstein

[Fil]

The Renaults were mighty off the line.
Petrov was unfortunate to not have ended up 2nd - he had a better start than Nick and was momentarily in front of him before being over cautious turning into T1, and even more so in T2.

Anyone have any info on Nick's first pitstop? He lost a number of positions due to that.

[WhiteBlue]

Quite an entertaining race with rain threatening at least twice to screw up the tyre stops. The tyres worked pretty much as advertised but I'm still not a fan of this artificial action element. After ten laps the track was covered in tyre debris and that had a negative impact on the ability to fight through a sequence of corners.

Fantastic job by Seb Vettel and Red Bull resulting in a convincing victory. When Seb needed to pass he passed and by conserving his tyres he kept open all the options. Red Bull obviously need to do more work on KERS with over heating probably one of the issues. Mark was unlucky to hjave a KERS failure right from the start but this is just the other side of the medal and compensation for 2010 when he had all the good luck with the car holding together. He showed a very determined fight back which was nice to see.

McLaren could have made more out of their strong pace if Lewis had a better tyre conservation as his team mate demonstrated. Well done Jenson for a mature drive to second place. He obviously mastered the tyres better than his more exciting team mate.

Nick Heidfeld finally came good in the Renault which was partly owed to the rocket starts the car was capable of. The KERS and DRS system worked well and reliably which helped both drivers to drag the team up to third fastest on race pace. Great defensive driving in the last laps by Nick against Webber. KERS really made the difference here and helped him compensate the DRS that was doing a great job to help passes in this race. Petrov drove an impressive race until he lost it on old tyres and took off over a bump while coming back on the circuit. Renault need to fix the steering wheels more robustly because normal driver actions even when the c ar gets airborne should not make the mechanism fail. It looked dangerous when Vitaly was crossing the track without any steering control.

Although Ferrari had some good race pace they managed to throw some of the advantage away with bad tyre stops, particularly with Massa's. Alonso did it all for himself by running into Hamilton's rear wheel and lost a potential podium place. Other than this he drove a fine race but other drivers made no mistakes and so it was another bad day for Maranello.

Sauber had a good day with Kobayashi and showed good pace and some good race actions.

Mercedes was a disappointment. They simply aren't where they are supposed to be according to their resources.
Williams disappointed as well. This may have some backlash on their shares price tomorrow.

[manchild]

Quote of the race?
RB Team Radio to Vettel: “Do NOT use KERS!!!”
My girlfriend (not even watching the race): “Was he swearing at him???”

[raymondu999]

WOW!! Amazing race. Alonso was slightly impatient though. I think he would've nabbed Hambo in the end. Button was just so calm and collected and drove so consistently. It's boring, but hey. Kobayashi? Repassing Webber twice and passing Schum on the exit of 1. Awesome.

What happened to Hambo and Webbs though? I mean, both doing 4 stops while Button and Vettel did 3? :s

[andrew]

Poor tyres management I think for Hamilton and Webber.

[zeph]

Webber: don't know what's wrong with him, but he better get it sorted out quick, or we'll see Vettel make it 2 WDC in a row by September..

I thought he recovered well from a lousy start.

[Tamburello]

Webber was unlucky with his KERS system and then stuck in traffic, trying to push, but naturally when you are close to a car the tyres go off, so it was a double whammy for him. He fought to get to 4th and could have probably taken 3rd if the race was a lap longer...

[djos]

Webber: don't know what's wrong with him, but he better get it sorted out quick, or we'll see Vettel make it 2 WDC in a row by September..

Man of the race: Vettel of course. Like him or not, he delivered again. Can't wait to see him having to fight people on the track for a change..

Marks KERS was dead from before the race started, hardly his fault and to fight back to 4th and almost get on the podium without it while 4 stopping the race is a bloody brilliant effort!

Try paying attention to what is going on in the race next time!!

Good win by Vettel tho and decent drives by Nick and Jensen.

PS. I still hate KERS, it's a big green washing joke perpetrated by Mad MAx on F1, at least DRS contributes to the race even if it is a little contrived.

[scarlet]

Is it just me, or was there more to Hamilton's tyre woes. Even after his third stop for the second set of hard tyres, Webber was harassing him like crazy on much older tyres and Button just pulled away.

Hamilton went onto hards after second pitstop, his pace after was ok (just under 1 second a lap slower than Vettel who went onto softs, as expected). Then, for whatever reason (maybe defending position from Webber looking at where he came out) Macca pit Hamilton earlier than everyone else. You'd expect the hards to last longer so this is very suprising, and compounded by bad stop so Button got ahead.

Even worse, he went onto hards AGAIN. Very suprising as they are much slower than the softs. Possibly due to none left, he might have ruined a set in quali.

The key thing was that on this set he went significantly slower than he did on his first hard stint even though the fuel burnt down. Almost 2 seconds a lap slower on average throughout the stint. This was where Button pulled out 20 odd seconds easily (might have been on softs though).

Then Alonso hits him damaging his diffuser costing even more laptime. Lack of downforce ruins tyres quicker so Lewis went off and had to pit a fourth time 3 laps from the end.

[andartop]

Didn't mean to blame Webber personally, but Championship wise he's got the larger points gap to his team mate within the top 5 teams, he was outpaced in quali in both races, and seems to need an extra pit stop. When was the last time he won a race? Regardless of the reasons why, all I want is someone to stop Vettel from running away with it, and who better for the job than his team mate???

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

On this race Webber couldn't do anything, his kers was dead so what are you talking about ?

And for Melbourne his car had a problem since the start of the weekend.

[kemalcan]

I don't agree that tyres put artificial effect on racing. If they were strong and there were less pit stops it still would be artificial thing "why are they so durable". Tyres are same for every team and driver so there is no excuse about being fake races. Save the tyres or beat them up. It's your choice and we call it strategy.

[raymondu999]

On this race Webber couldn't do anything, his kers was dead so what are you talking about ?

And for Melbourne his car had a problem since the start of the weekend.

Actually RBR said it started sometime in the race. But that's beside the point. Andartop is just saying that he doesn't want Vettel to have his own "Schumacheresque era"

[andrew]

It is artifical as passing should be done on the track, not in the pitlane with the aid of tyres with a ridiculously high rate of degredation.