2014 Formula One Malaysian GP: Perfect ending for the home team

Race two of the 2014 season began in Sepang under the specter of rain. Friday had already seen heavy showers at 4 p.m., while on Saturday, rain made another appearance and delayed the start of the 4 p.m. session. Understandably, everyone and their cousin’s cousin were expecting rain to make its presence felt on race day.

 

As the cars exited the pit lane to take their place on the starting grid, people were already giddy of the outcome of the weather forecast. As the track temperature rose to 50 degrees, all in attendance were visibly sweaty and expectant of rain jumbling up the results.

 

When the five lights went out, Hamilton in his Mercedes AMG Petronas led the field into turn one. From second on the grid, Sebastian Vettel in his RB10 was gobbled up by a fast starting Nico Rosberg, also in a Mercedes. Daniel Ricciardo followed his team-mate, while Kimi Raikkonen on board his Ferrari tangled up with the front wing of rookie Magnussen in his McLaren, causing a puncture. This prompted a pitstop to replace the Ferrari’s tires. Kimi rejoined the race in 18th while the rest of the field ran away.

 

Hamilton kept the power down to keep his teammate Rosberg at bay, and, as early as lap 5, Lewis was 4.3 seconds in front. Never threathened, he just kept increasing the lead, even coming out in front of his rivals after his pitstops. The Mercedes were so dominant, that even before the race was over, there were talks of a Mercedes championship for 2014.

 

Meanwhile, Sebastian was having a race against Ricciardo and the rest of the field. Not wanting a repeat of Australia , Sebastian muscled his RB10 to maintain his position.

 

Lap 11 saw Ferrari blink first and bring in Fernando Alonso, placing him on options. Others then followed. On lap 14 Vettel dove in for his options and exited behind the Williams of Bottas. As expected Sebastian fought it out with the Finn and took him after a few corners. The Mercedes drivers came in for their first scheduled stops on lap 15 and 16. Nico Rosberg was first to be brought in. Both Mercs had decent stops and quickly assumed their place on the leaderboard.

 

The ever stoic Finn, Raikkonen, began his fight back from the end of the grid to try to make his way up to the front on lap 17. But in the end, he managed only 12^th place.

 

In case viewers missed it, there is now a new stat that’s provided by the teams: fuel used can now be shown on screen. By lap 19, an average of 30% of the fuel on board the Mercedes of Hamilton was already used. This showed that the Mercedes, even with its huge speed advantage could easily make it to the end of the race without fear of running out of fuel before lap 56.

 

As the front-runners made their third stop for tires, everyone’s focus shifted to the race between Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, both of the Williams-Mercedes Racing team. Massa was visibly slower than Bottas and was ordered to move over and not hinder him in anyway, as the team believed that Bottas could take the fight to Jenson Button in his McLaren for 6th spot. But Massa would have none of it and decided to ignore the order, and raced on till the flag, finishing ahead of Bottas.

 

As the leaders crossed the finish line, Hamilton took top spot on the podium with Rosberg in second, while Vettel in his Red Bull took the last step of the podium. During the awarding ceremony, Nico thanked the whole country of Malaysia and their title sponsor Petronas for supporting them in their quest for the championship.

 

Rosberg now leads the championship standings with 43 points while Lewis with his win in Sepang now stands at 25, and Alonso follows with 24 points. Button and Magnussen round up the top five with 23 and 20 points respectively.

 

The next race will be Bahrain on April 6. After that, the F1 community heads over to Shanghai for the China GP on April 20.