2013 Malaysian Grand Prix Review

Welcome to Sepang, The host of the 2nd GP this season.. Lets take a look at how the weekend panned out..

In Friday Practice Lotus looked really strong along with Red Bull with each of them leading Practice 1 and 2, but Practice 3 Team Lotus's pace was no where to be seen and it was Vettel on top again with Lewis right behind him.. But as Qualifying started Red Bull didn't look very strong in Q1 and that's when the rain started coming down.. We were looking at a wet Q2 and  Q3..  Eventually it was Vettel who came out on top to prove once again that no team can beat Vettel and Red Bull over a Qualifying lap.. Massa out performed his team mate Alonso once again and the duo took 2nd and 3rd positions on the grid..

Race:

With rain earlier in the day the track was damp in a few areas so everyone started on inters.. The 5 red lights came on and then they go off to start the second race this season.. Alonso and Webber had a great start, Alonso up to 2nd and Webber in 4th.. Into the downhill turn 2 Alonso's front wing touched Vettel's car and had quite a lot of damage.. Webber took advantage of this situation and gave Alonso a tough fight.. With sparks flying Alonso managed to stay ahead of Webber and everyone expected him to pit but shockingly he didn't, and this cost him dearly as his front wing came off on the pit straight and he went off into the gravel and thats it race over for Alonso.. Not a good way to celebrate your 200th GP in F1..

This pushed Webber up to 2nd behind Vettel.. Massa fell back to 7th in the early parts of the race and the team of Hamilton and Rosberg moved up to 3rd and 4th.. Button's Mclaren showed good pace and moved up to 5th..

With a drying track Vettel decided to pit for slicks on lap 6.. A risky move which eventually paid off.. Over the next two laps most of the cars pit for slicks and Webber had a great in lap and came out on top.. After the first round of pit stops the running order was Webber, Vettel, Hamilton, Rosberg and Button.. Hamilton came into the McLaren pit box before realizing he moved to Mercedes this year.. Want to move back to McLaren already Lewis? ;)

Lotus was consistent through out the race with Kimi and Grosjean showing good pace but nothing like what they showed in Friday practice.. Massa in the sole remaining Ferrari had good race pace but not enough to over take anyone..

Force India were let down with slow pit stops both times with the problem being on the front left tire.. It went from bad to worse when Di Resta eventually retired on lap 24 and Sutil falling back to last place and later retiring on lap 28..

After the second round of pit stops it was the same order up front with Webber leading Vettel, Hamilton and Rosberg.. Mercedes looked very strong and were consistently catching the Bulls every lap.. Vettel was now close enough to use DRS on Webber.. The action was getting hotter and hotter just like the weather at Sepang..

And on lap 33 the 3rd round of pit stops started Webber pit first along with Rosberg and was later followed by Hamilton the next lap followed by Vettel.. Hamilton had a great out lap and managed to get ahead of Vettel.. And in all this we had Button leading the race, who would've expected to see McLaren on top at any point in the race.. Button eventually came in two laps later and a bad stop which cost him dearly and pushing him down to 14.. Hulkenburg and Raikkonen came out of the pits side by side and continued to fight for 8th and 9th places..

Mercedes told Hamilton that he needs to save fuel and we saw Vettel over take him right after that for 2nd place.. Rosberg was right on Hamilton's tail.. A little behind them Raikkonen finally went past Hulkenburg for 8th place..

10 laps after the last pit stop Hamilton came in again... How many pit stops are we going to see today... He was followed in by Vettel and Rosberg.. Webber came in a lap after them.. 4th pit stop for the leading pack..  Webber comes out right in front of Vettel and has to fight to hold on to 1st position but for how long... Behind them Hamilton moves up to 3rd by over taking Rosberg on the pit straight but on the same lap Rosberg uses DRS to take back his position..

Vettel used DRS to take on Webber but he held on for two corners but then Vettel muscled past him to take 1st and Vettel's engineer said "This is silly Seb, Come on!" Haha! Red Bull were hoping not to see a repeat from Turkey in 2010..

Raikkonen then over took Perez and Massa on lap 49 to take 6th but Massa powered back up to take 6th on his new set of tires.. Massa closed in on Grosjean for 5th with those on a 3 stop race struggling to maintain their tires.. Ricciardo retired with 3 laps to go.. Not a good start to his season with 2 retirements in two races..

Ross Brawn kept telling Rosberg to fall back to avoid a clash between him and Hamilton.. McLaren brought in Button and decided to end his race 2 laps from the end.. Perez pitting 2 laps from the end.. Not a good race for them either..

With a completely dry race, Vettel came home in 1st followed closely by Webber.. Hamilton in 3rd and Rosberg in 4th.. A great race for them.. A good race for Massa barring his initial stint, finally finishing in 5th.. Lotus finishing in 6th and 7th.. Expected more from them.. Perez set the fastest lap on the very last lap finishing in 9th..

The drivers looked exhausted  after such a long and tiring race.. Webber was in no mood to talk to Vettel before heading on to the podium..

So there it is Vettel, Webber and Hamilton the top three finishers for the 2013 Malaysia GP..  13th 1-2 for the Red Bull Racing team and 6th Podium finish for the Mercedes AMG team..

Non finishers from this race are- Alonso, Di Resta, Sutil, Maldanado, Ricciardo and Button.. The rest took the chequered flag.. A good race for the back markers who finished the race.. Bianchi again finished ahead of his team mate and the two Cateham's.. Good day at the office for him..

Webber thinks he should've won and Vettel says he isn't proud of his win.. And Hamilton thinks Rosberg should have been on the podium.. A lot of discussions will take place within these teams to sort out all these issues and they will be back out on track in less than 3 weeks for the Chinese Grand Prix.. See you all there :)



Results:

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	56		1	25
2	2	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	56	+4.2	5	18
3	10	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	56	+12.1	4	15
4	9	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	56	+12.6	6	12
5	4	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	56	+25.6	2	10
6	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	56	+35.5	11	8
7	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	56	+48.4	10	6
8	11	Nico Hülkenberg	Sauber-Ferrari	56	+53.0	12	4
9	6	Sergio Pérez	McLaren-Mercedes	56	+72.3	9	2
10	18	Jean-Éric Vergne	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	56	+87.1	17	1
11	17	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Renault	56	+88.6	18
12	12	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber-Ferrari	55	+1 Lap	14
13	22	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Cosworth	55	+1 Lap	19
14	20	Charles Pic	Caterham-Renault	55	+1 Lap	20
15	21	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham-Renault	55	+1 Lap	22
16	23	Max Chilton	Marussia-Cosworth	54	+2 Laps	21
17	5	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	53	+3 Laps	7
18	19	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	51	+5 Laps	13
Ret	16	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	45		16
Ret	15	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	27		8
Ret	14	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	22		15
Ret	3	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1	Front Wing	3

2013 Malaysian Grand Prix Preview

After an exciting race in the damp conditions in Melbourne which was won by Raikkonen, the teams have quickly packed up and moved to their next destination which is Sepang International circuit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.. This is the first of the 5 back-to-back races this season..

Sepang is radically different from Albert Park and is known for its long straights and  rough weather where we can see really high temperatures at point and a tropical storm the next, during the race weekend..

This weekend Pirelli are bringing their new PZero Orange Hard compound tires along with the PZero White Medium compound tires to deal with the rough surface of the track..






Looking forward to this weekend's race this is what people from the F1 paddock have to say,

This is what Pirelli's Motorsport Director Paul Hembery has to say about the race.. "We would describe Sepang as genuinely ‘extreme’, both in terms of weather and track surface. This means that it is one of the most demanding weekends for our tyres that we experience all year. The nomination we have for Malaysia is the same as last year, but the compounds themselves offer more performance and deliberately increased degradation this season. We’d expect three stops again but once more it’s likely to be weather that dominates the action. Even when it isn’t raining, the drivers can expect humidity in the region of 80% and ambient temperatures of more than 30 degrees centigrade.”





Paul Di Resta who finished 7th in last year's race says “You never know what to expect in Malaysia! It could rain, or it could be dry. Temperatures are going to be high, degradation is going to be high, but I think our car is going to suit the warm weather. We’ve had a reasonably strong performance for the last couple of years in Malaysia, so I think we should go there feeling quite optimistic. We have a few days to conquer the jet lag and hopefully be fighting fit. I think it is probably one of the most complete tracks of the season. It was the very first of the new generation tracks and it has nice flowing sections, some slow bits, as well as high-speed chicanes. I think it’s one of the better tracks on the calendar. Along with the next one in Shanghai, it’s one of the tracks I enjoy.”


Winner of the first race Kimi raikkonen says  “Malaysia has been good and bad for me in the past; I’ve had a few bad races there but I’ve also won three times at the circuit including my first Grand Prix victory so it’s nice to go back to where it all began with my first win. For sure I will always remember that my first win came in the Malaysian Grand Prix in 2003. I would not say that circuit is more important for me - it’s not that special for me - but it’s quite a nice place to race at. I like it and the challenge is always at the highest level in the beginning of the year in the heat. It’s also one of those circuits where it usually rains sometime during the weekend. So you have to plan the programme with that possibility, too. It’s a difference place, it’s going to be much hotter there so it’s very difficult to say how the cars will feel, who will be fastest after having just one race. I think we have to do two or three races before we really know who is where and what’s going to happen. It’s probably going to rain again in Malaysia at some point but it will be a different circuit, different conditions. Our car worked well in Australia at least and usually - at least last year - in hot conditions it’s been good for us so hopefully it will turn out to be a good weekend.”


The best of the rookies according to me Jules Bianchi says  
“It has been nice to take a couple of days in Australia to really absorb the experience of my first Formula One race last weekend. There were quite a lot of new things to be faced with, including driving a race of that distance for the first time and bringing together everything that I had learned in the days before. This week I have had the chance to think everything through - what I have learned and where I need to go from here. I had a good debrief with my engineering team and I feel very comfortable, so now I start to think about Malaysia. I’ve done some work in the simulator and I think Sepang is a circuit I’m going to enjoy. I know the challenge it brings in terms of the heat and humidity, so I’m prepared for that. Although my debut went well, there are some areas that I need to work on and where I can improve - as you would expect - so this race we will have a little more time and experience to think about what we need to do to keep pushing forward. I’m hoping for another good performance in the race on Sunday of course.”




Reigning champion Sebastian Vettel says, 
“(Sepang is) an interesting track. After the first section, Turns 5, 6, 7 and 8 are very quick and fun. Turns 11 and 14 are similar - it's difficult to find the apex of those on every lap, especially as the tyres become worn. It's a very rewarding circuit for a driver to win at, as it's such a tough challenge with the heat and high-speed corners. It's rewarding, as it shows you have prepared well over the winter, so I guess my favourite memories are winning in 2010 and 2011. My tip for keeping cool in Malaysia? Don't stress, because you can't run away from the heat”



Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal at McLaren says 
“Clearly, our performance in Australia last weekend was not up to our high expectations - and we have been working tirelessly to bring additional performance to MP4-28. But the short turnaround between rounds one and two of the championship means that we’ll arrive in Malaysia with less scope to improve our fortunes. This weekend, however, will provide us with additional opportunities to understand our car’s behaviour and to increase our understanding of the package. Nonetheless, the Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix brings its own unique challenges; it’s one of the most physically demanding races of the year - for both the drivers and their machinery - and the race will be tough for all competitors. Both Jenson and Checo have gone well at this circuit in the past, and both put in excellent performances throughout the weekend in Australia, so I’m sure they’ll once again be pushing the car to its limit.”

This grand prix will be Caterham's home race and they will push to their maximum limit to score their first point.. This is what their new driver Charles Pic had to say,
“Malaysia will be the first Caterham F1 Team home race for me and I’m looking forward to what will be a very busy week, but one where I think we’ll see a lot of support and a Grand Prix that really pushes the physical preparations we’ve done over the winter. We have quite a few events that we’re doing in the build-up to the race itself and it’ll be great to meet the Malaysian fans, but once we’re in the car it’s back to work in one of the toughest challenges we have all year. The heat and the humidity make driving 56 laps on Sunday pretty difficult.”


With rain expected during different parts of the weekend we can be sure of an exciting race with the ever changing weather.. Managing tires will be top priority this weekend and we could see a lot of exciting pit-stops..

I expect Red Bull, Ferrari and Lotus to be on top again with Mercedes right on their tail.. McLaren may fall back again as they struggle to find answers on how to improve their car.. Lets wait and find out :)

 4 days until lights out for the start of the second GP of this season :)

2013 Australian Grand Prix Review

Finalllyyy after 11 car launches, weeks of testing, change in driver and management in various teams,  the F1 bandwagon landed in Melbourne for the beginning of another season.. The last of the V8 era..

Practice Sessions:
As expected Red Bull topped the time sheets in FP1 and FP2 proving never to believe what testing shows us. Ferrari, Mercedes and Lotus looked good whereas McLaren were slower than expected showing us that its going to be a tough season for them.

Qualifying:
Qualifying day came and went but we didn't have our grid ready thanks to the heavy rain that flooded the circuit and resulted in Q2 and Q3 being postponed to Sunday morning.. And again Red Bull showed us their skill of hiding their best performance until the very last lap of qualy.. With improving conditions Vettel and Webber locked out the first row with Lewis, in a fast Merc behind them.. Massa outperformed his team mate Alonso to snatch 4th and Alosno behind him.. Behind them were Rosberg, Raikkonen, Grosjean, Di Resta and Button completing the Top 10 for the opening round of the 2013 season..

Race: 

17.00 Melbourne time.. The world was ready to witness one of the best parts of a race.. The Start! The grid cleared Turn 1 without any mishap barring Hulkenburg who didn't start the race because of Fuel System issue.  With Red Bulls at the front many expected them to run off at the front of the field but that wasn't the case. Webber had a bad start falling from 2nd to 7th. The Ferrari's looked mighty good giving Vettel a run for his money. Raikkonen showed us that Lotus was a handling well. Before the first set of pit-stops were done Hamilton and Rosberg were 1 and 2. Showing us that they have good pace...

Adrian Sutil in the Force India gave us good action leading the race till the 21st lap before he pit for the first time, starting in 12th with medium tires was the right choice made by the team.

At the half way mark we had 2 retirements in Maldonado who beached his car in the gravel at turn 1 and Rosberg with a electrical issue.

Raikkonen managed his tires well all throughout giving him a good chance to fight for the win later on.

With a few drops of rain spotted on a few areas of the track, the fans were kept on their toes if they could see a Wet finish to this race which could change the whole game altogether..

There were good battles between Alonso and Hamilton, Hamilton and Massa.. Webber had good pace later on in the race to overtake quite a few cars.

With 10 laps to go it was a battle between Raikkonen and Alonso for the win. This was surprising considering Red Bull's pace in qualifying. Lotus and Ferrari had more long runs in testing which helped them understand how the car performed under the stress of a race.

In the closing laps of the race, Hamilton closed up on Sutil in 5th.. A personal battle between them which was won this time by Hamilton. Sutil's stint on supersofts did not help him as he lost grip with 5 laps to go and lost places to Hamilton and Webber in a span of a few corners.

With the rain gods holding up and Alonso not having enough pace to catch up to Kimi, The Iceman went on to show us how good he is and continuing from where he left off last season, Raikkonen won the 2013 Australian Grand Prix in style.. Alonso finished in 2nd followed by Vettel..

Force India had a great start to their season with a double points finish.. Adrian showed us why he deserved his seat.. Lewis showed us he can perform well in his Mercedes..  Massa has improved greatly from last season..

The two Australian drivers had a disappointing outing with Webber finishing in 6th and Ricciardo retiring midway..

Biggest disappointment from the race were McLaren who finished in 9th and 11th.. They just didn't have any pace to show..

As for the back markers Caterham and Marussia, they had a good consistent race, more importantly they  finished the race which was key to give them confidence for the season..

The rookies didn't make any costly mistakes and all of them finished their debut race which is by far the most important thing to do on your debut..

This was Kimi's 20th career win and 2nd for Team Lotus.. Last time Kimi won here he went on to become the champion.. So will it be a repeat this year.. We will have to wait and find out..










Australia might not have shown us the full picture for this season.. But it does tell us that Ferrari and Lotus have good race pace, Red Bull isn't as good as they are in qualifying.. McLaren have a lot to improve... Mercedes look good with their race pace and need to avoid mechanical issues..

See you all at Sepang in less than a week :)

Results:

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	58		7	25
2	3	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	58	+12.4	5	18
3	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	58	+22.3	1	15
4	4	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	58	+33.5	4	12
5	10	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	58	+45.5	3	10
6	2	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	58	+46.8	2	8
7	15	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	58	+65.0	12	6
8	14	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	58	+68.4	9	4
9	5	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	58	+81.6	10	2
10	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	58	+82.7	8	1
11	6	Sergio Pérez	McLaren-Mercedes	58	+83.3	15
12	18	Jean-Éric Vergne	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	58	83.8	13
13	12	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber-Ferrari	57	+1 Lap	18
14	17	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Renault	57	+1 Lap	16
15	22	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Cosworth	57	+1 Lap	19
16	20	Charles Pic	Caterham-Renault	56	+2 Laps	22
17	23	Max Chilton	Marussia-Cosworth	56	+2 Laps	20
18	21	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham-Renault	56	+2 Laps	21
Ret	19	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	39		14
Ret	9	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	26	Electrical	6
Ret	16	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	24	Spun off	17
DNS	11	Nico Hülkenberg	Sauber-Ferrari	0	Fuel system	11