A torrential Malaysian Grand Prix. Something that has not happened in a while. Thank you to the FIA for moving the race later in the evening, which all of us know, a time when rain is expected. Almost unavoidable.
Congratulations are in order for Jenson Button, the other Briton, who won his second consecutive Grand Prix. Even with all the chaos ensues because of the rain, he still manage to come up top when the race was red flagged. At the start, he was overtook by Nico Rosberg who lead the pack for quite some laps. As we can see on the above lap chart, Button took the lead back on lap 17.
Equally impressive are the two world champions, Alonso and Raikkonen. They had wonderful start, passing a few cars each. Alonso passed 5 cars. Raikkonen initially was behind him but got hold off a few turns later before he got to see the back of the Reanult. Alonso had his R29 under the race pace, but he manage to hold off Kimi Raikkonen for some time before both Raikkonen and Webber secure the 5th and 6th place by overtaking him. Alonso, at one point ran wide off the track, managed to navigate the boundary of the gravel trap and ashtonishingly got back into contention. As good as he is, this could be the first time in recent memories a driver managed to out-trap the gravel trap!
The big gainer is Nick Heidfeld. With just one pit stop, he manage to cater the car for both wet tyres and fuel. The situation played into his hand when the race was stopped and later declared over. At first there was confusion that Heidfeld is the third place driver, but the FIA officials re-arranged the field in possibility of a restart.
Timo Glock, who did a splash and dash pit stop, gained the most strategically. This is because he simply don't have enough fuel to continue the race all the way. The race stopped means he can keep his third place. In accordance to FIA rules, all the drivers that finished in points will be only awarded half the point as they didn't run at least 75% of the race laps.
Malaysian GP also saw tyre strategy at its best as most drivers have to pit 3 times to change from slicks to intermediate, and then to full wet. Renault doesn't seem to have the advantage of superior accurateness in meteorological forecast like previous seasons anymore. Usually we can see that rival pit crews peeking at Renault weather forecast to decide when to call in the cars.
Astonishingly, Raikkonen was the quickest to change to full wet. Again, this is an example of Ferrari making error in strategy. Kimi was forced to run the full wet the entire 3 laps before it got to rain. And only one side of the track is wet! And even then most drivers are running on intermediate. The track was simply not ready for full wet. In the first few laps, the track surface temperature is about 50 degree Celcius. So you can imagine how his full wet Bridgestone Potenza must have deteriorated.
At the end Kimi was classified 14th, blatantly the last on the grid. When the race was red-flagged, he don't even have the patience to wait. While most of the other drivers are still in their cars waiting for a restart, he changed into his shorts and was seen eating ice-cream in the Ferrari motorhome. Even Malaysians don't eat ice-cream when it rains!
Maybe he knows or has been advised by somebody experienced that the race will not be restarted. Only if he has that advise on changing to wet tyres!
As predicted, the slick tyres did saw a few drivers spun out of the track quite dangerously although Nick Heidfeld later in the post race interview mentioned they were running at 50km/h at the most. I wonder what kind of incident will we see if it rains again in Shanghai, Spa-Francorchamps, or Nurburgring? In 2007 the German track saw eight cars forcefully 'parked' at Turn One, the Castrol S, including rookie Hamilton due to severe aquaplaning.
This emphasis more on the correct decision on what time is the most ideal to change to wet tyres. If the driver is far from the pitlane, he might not continue the race altogether. The cruise in wet on slicks will probably see drivers spun out or hit another car.
All in all, it was a shame the rain had force Charlie Whitting to stop the race. A hot Malaysian GP, always touted as the hottest race on the calendar, is better and more entertaining. A poker race like this one is also entertaining but on a more lower level. A wet race is good, but it is only good if they actually made it to the checquered flag.
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