Sebastian Vettel produced a dominant drive this morning, in the heat of Kuala Lumpur to finally claim a long awaited first victory of the season. He led home team-mate Mark Webber in the searing conditions, as Red Bull Racing finally overcame their bugging reliability issues to claim a processional 1-2 finish. Vettel’s win moved him to equal third in the championship standings, as the Milton Keynes based team took full advantage of Ferrari and McLaren’s technology blunders yesterday in qualifying, which left them fighting a losing battle from the rear of the grid.
Starting third, Sebastian made the best start in Malaysia, charging past Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes, then taking the initiative at Turn 1, as pole man Webber left the door wide open for the canny German to inherit the lead and control of the race. The Aussie stayed right on the tail of his team-mate until the pitstops, when a sticky wheel gun cost him vital time and with it, the final chance to leapfrog his dominant team-mate. Rosberg had a rather lonely race, but did what he needed to, registering Mercedes first rostrum of the season. Once again, he had the measure of his team-mate Michael Schumacher all weekend, as the seven-time world champion’s nightmare comeback continued, retiring early on with a wheel nut issue.
Schumacher wasn’t the only main driver failing to finish, as previous world championship leader Fernando Alonso parked his Ferrari on the grass with two laps to go, having suffered a dramatic engine failure. Alonso struggled all day, with a problematic downshift issue and the failure occurred when he tried an ambitious pass on Jenson Button for a lowly eighth place. Felipe Massa inherited the championship lead with a seventh place finish, one place ahead of Button and one place behind Lewis Hamilton. For both Ferrari and McLaren, their race was managed by high levels of tyre wear and if they don’t invest in better technology in reading the weather and upgrading their car, Red Bull will wipe the floor with them this season.
Although the expected rain threatened to fall, it never materialised, meaning we saw a true form of the lack of overtaking once the race settled into a normal pattern. Renault’s Robert Kubica produced another sterling effort, to bring his underpowered chassis home in fourth spot, whilst Adrian Sutil kept out of trouble to record a fifth place result, his first points of the season. There were also breakthrough results for the feisty Jaime Alguesuari and Nico Hulkenberg, both finishing in the points with ninth and tenth respectively, their first in their career. Finally, both Hispania’s finished and there was also a first finish against the odds for Virgin Racing, in the hands of Brazilian Lucas di Grassi, who bought his car home in a safe and secure fourteenth place.
With three winners in three races, F1 2010 is proving to be as competitive as initially predicted, but finally Red Bull Racing proved their do have speed and reliability. Sebastian Vettel has laid down his marker and the others must keep up in the development race to stop them from taking firm control in the coming races.
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