Sepang, Malaysia Formula 1 Grand Prix 2012

Red Bull Australia
Sepang, Malaysia Formula 1 Grand Prix 2012 - race report and results

Sepang, Malaysia Formula 1 Grand Prix 2012 - race report and results

by Tom Clarkson, 26/03/2012

You don’t have to spend long in Malaysia to understand the weather. It’s always baking hot and when it rains, it pours. As soon as you feel a spot of rain, you head for cover because you know it’s going to bucket down, and so it proved in Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix.

Drizzle prior to the start was quickly followed by torrential rain and the race was stopped after eight laps due to a waterlogged track. It led to an exciting and eventful race after the re-start, but the conditions were also frustrating. The teams – and Red Bull Racing in particular – still had lots of question marks regarding car set-up following Melbourne’s season-opener and they would have preferred a dry race to see how they stacked up.

But it wasn’t to be. If you survived the treacherous conditions early on, the remaining 48 laps after the re-start were like a game of chess. Huge amounts of time could be gained with strategy, depending on when you changed from full wet tyres to intermediates and then finally to dry tyres. Fernando Alonso executed these calls better than anyone else and duly won the race for Ferrari; Red Bull Racing had some misfortune and could get neither car onto the podium. Ditto the other Aussie, Daniel Ricciardo.

When rain stopped play after just 15 minutes of racing, the grid immediately resembled a campsite. The front-running teams quickly assembled bivouacs around each of their cars to keep their equipment and personnel dry, and everyone waited patiently for the re-start.

The opportunity to stay dry kept most drivers on the grid during the lull, but Jenson Button – who lives in Monaco and has a Japanese girlfriend – revealed the extent of his Englishness when he headed back to the McLaren hospitality area for a cup of tea, White, one sugar. When the race eventually re-started behind the Safety Car, the two McLarens were out front, with Mark Webber in third and world champion Seb Vettel sixth. Mark was the first driver to pit for intermediate tyres and frantic pitlane activity followed.

“After I pitted for inters,” says Mark, “I didn’t have much confidence in the car because I had very little rear grip. I felt much happier once I had dries on towards the end of the race, but it was a little too late by then.”

The call for slicks was a difficult one to make, and it was timed to perfection by Alonso and Sergio Perez in the Sauber. They were left comfortably at the front of the field as a result, and the Red Bulls were left to chase down Lewis Hamilton in third place. On the hard compound slick tyre, both Vettel and Webber flew. They were running fourth and fifth respectively, and both were gaining on Hamilton at an average of 0.5s per lap. But Vettel’s charge ended when he was hit by an HRT (the second front-runner, after Button, to be taken out of contention by the tail-end charlies) and he had to pit to replace a punctured tyre..

“I would have finished fourth today,” said Seb after the race. “Of course it’s frustrating not to score any points and we can only hope for better things when we go to China in three weeks.”

Webber inherited fourth from Vettel and finished the race 3s behind Hamilton. His charge continued even after the chequered flag had fallen because he then had to rush to the airport to catch a flight to Queensland.

“All things considered,” says Mark, “fourth place isn’t too bad. Everyone in the team is working really hard and Adrian [Newey, chief technical officer] knows where we need to improve the car. We’ll get our chance to shine.”

As for Daniel Ricciardo, he lost out when the conditions were at their worst early on. He fought back to 12th, just outside the points, and he set very competitive lap times when the track started to dry.

There were reasons to smile at Toro Rosso, however. This was Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne’s first taste of wet weather driving in F1 and he delighted everyone in the team by coming home eighth. The secret to his success was staying on the intermediate tyres during the first part of the race, which gave him a ‘free’ pitstop on the grid when the FIA decreed that all cars had to take the re-start on full-wet rubber.

There’s now a three-week break in the calendar ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix on 15 April. Plenty of time to improve the cars and then hopefully close the gap to Alonso at the top of the world championship table.