Malaysian Grand Prix 2012 - Report

Fernando Alonso took a wholly unexpected victory in a rain-affected Malaysian Grand Prix as Sergio Perez took an incredible second position for Sauber in a near-faultless performance. Pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton took the final podium position as his teammate Jenson Button experienced a disastrous afternoon in the sister McLaren.

Hamilton once again held the edge over teammate Button during qualifying, taking a second straight pole position by a margin of a tenth-and-a-half in spite of locking a brake at the final corner on his best lap. Lining up in third was Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes in his best qualifying position since his comeback, ahead of the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel. Kimi Raikkonen qualified in fifth place but was obliged to start from tenth place after a penalty was applied for a change of his Lotus’s gearbox.

With the rain having materialised by the race start, almost the entire field began the race on intermediate tyres. As the lights went out, Hamilton atoned for his poor getaway at Melbourne by leading the field from Button, who tried to no avail to move around the outside of his teammate. Romain Grosjean made an excellent start from seventh on the grid to briefly hold third as the pack rounded the first two corners, though Webber and Schumacher both passed the Frenchman through the flat-out turn 3. Grosjean thus ducked to the right to try and recover at least his one of his lost positions, but succeeded only in tipping Schumacher into a spin. Both men would continue having lost numerous positions, though Grosjean’s race would end with a trip to the gravel on lap 4.

In the meantime, Vettel benefited from the shenanigans ahead to move into fourth behind his teammate Webber and the two McLarens. Fernando Alonso inherited fifth having started from eighth on the grid, Nico Rosberg holding his grid position of sixth. Sergio Perez took the decision to pit his Sauber from seventh place at the end of the opening lap, taking on a set of full wet tyres as the rain became ever more intense. It soon became apparent that the full wets would be a necessity, Button and Alonso making the plunge at the end of lap 4 with Hamilton, Webber, Vettel and Rosberg doing likewise a lap later.

Hamilton narrowly maintained his lead over Button, with Perez moving up into a superb third position as a reward for his earlier gamble. Behind the Mexican were Webber, Alonso and the yet-to-stop Jean-Eric Vergne, though the Frenchman soon conceded the position to Vettel. However, the Safety Car was deployed on lap 7 as a result of the worsening conditions, and amid complaints among the drivers on the pit-to-car radio of their cars aquaplaning, the red flags were shown on lap 9. Vergne thus in effect benefited from a ‘free’ switch to the full wets, while it is worth noting that HRT’s Narain Karthikeyan took the restart in a barely believable tenth position having begun the race on full wets.

The race re-commenced on lap 10 under the Safety Car for three laps, at which point Hamilton proceeded to get away from Perez, Alonso, Webber and Vettel as Button followed the Safety Car back into the pits, opting to switch to intermediate tyres in light of the improving track conditions. Hamilton, Webber, Alonso and Massa followed suit the following lap, leaving Perez to lead a lap for the first time in his fledgling F1 career prior to pitting at the end of that lap. Incredibly, Perez emerged in the lead from Alonso and Hamilton, who suffered a poor pit-stop, though Alonso swept into the lead immediately with the help of his up-to-temperature tyres.

Alonso and Perez proceeded to cruise away from the rest of the pack, Hamilton pulling away from Rosberg in fourth position albeit unable to close the gap to the two Hispanic drivers ahead. Vettel was in fifth place at this stage ahead of Raikkonen and Webber, Rosberg and Raikkonen both making significant gains by joining Button, who lost considerable time when he had to pit for a fresh nose after colliding with a yet-to-stop Karthikeyan, with an early switch to intermediates. Rosberg was nonetheless soon finding himself vulnerable to his pursuers, Vettel, Raikkonen and Webber all making their way past the Mercedes in consecutive laps. Meanwhile, to the disbelief of onlookers, Perez was beginning to reel in race-leader Alonso.

The 22-year old began to post fastest lap after fastest lap as the track continued to dry, Perez catching Alonso at a rate of almost a second per lap on average. The Sauber driver’s rampage was interrupted by making his switch to dry tyres a lap later than Alonso, costing him around five seconds. The Swiss team also interestingly chose to equip Perez’s car with the hard compound (prime) tyre, oppositely to Alonso whose Ferrari was making use of the medium compound (option). In spite of his ostensibly slower rubber though, Perez continued his seemingly irresistible charge when he re-joined the race, a maiden win looking distinctly within reach as he once again began to reduce Alonso’s advantage at a veritable rate of knots.

Alas, Perez’s efforts were to be in vain as he ran wide at turn 13 on lap 50, at which point he was just a second away from Alonso. It was nonetheless an extraordinary performance from Perez, who duly crossed the line just two seconds adrift of Alonso come the chequered flag six laps later; the Spaniard taking his 28^th career victory and a surprise championship lead. Hamilton just had no response to either Alonso or Perez, forced to settle for third position for a second consecutive race. Webber finished in fourth position, helped by a combination of switching to dry tyres a lap sooner than Raikkonen, who finished fifth, and a late puncture for teammate Vettel (precipitated by contact with a lapped Karthikeyan) which dropped him outside of the points in eleventh place.

Bruno Senna recovered from a minor collision with Williams teammate Pastor Maldonado which necessitated a change of front wing at the end of the first lap to finish in an excellent sixth place following a number of finely executed overtaking manoeuvres as the track dried. Maldonado was also on course for a creditable tenth position on the penultimate lap prior to engine failure. Seventh place went to Paul di Resta in a solid effort for Force India, ahead of Vergne and the second Force India car of Nico Hulkenberg. Rounding out the points was an embattled Schumacher, who suffered dearly from tyre wear after his early coming together with Grosjean. Behind Vettel in eleventh place was the second Toro Rosso of Daniel Ricciardo, with Rosberg finishing a disastrous 13^th position as a result of the grave tyre wear issues that currently haunt the Mercedes team.

Button finished 14^th, his coming together with Karthikeyan exacerbated by a mysterious inability on the part of the Brit to warm his intermediate tyres. The embattled Massa finished in 15^th in another extremely lacklustre outing, ahead of the Caterham of Vitaly Petrov, the Marussia of Timo Glock, and the second Caterham of Heikki Kovalainen. Maldonado was ultimately classified nineteenth, ahead of Charles Pic in the second Marussia and the HRT duo of Pedro De La Rosa and Karthikeyan. The former's race was immediately compromised by stalling on the grid and a subsequent penalty for team personnel being on the grid too late before the start of the race, whilst the latter was handed a 20-second penalty for being deemed culpable for the late contact with Vettel. Besides Grosjean, the only other retirement was Perez's Sauber teammate Kamui Kobayashi, who succumbed to a brake problem having never looked like scoring points all race.

Needless to say, it was Perez who utterly stole the show in a scintillating race. Rumours are already circulating that he could be in line to replace Massa as soon as the next race at China – whilst they may be somewhat far-fetched, Perez’s role as the leading member of the Ferrari young driver scheme makes him the prime contender to take the beleaguered Brazilian’s seat as soon as such a time that Ferrari runs out of patience with him. If he can’t dramatically improve his form as a matter of urgency, Massa could find that that moment arrives sooner than he thinks.