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A dream weekend for Raikkonen, a bewildering one for Massa. (LAT photo) » More Photos
Having been out to lunch throughout the Melbourne weekend, Kimi Raikkonen reminded everyone why he is the reigning world champion with a dominant display to win in Kuala Lumpur.
On the occasion of the 10th running of the Malaysian Grand Prix, and five years to the day since taking his maiden F1 victory, Raikkonen clocked up his 75th career points finish in style, overcoming the challenge of first teammate Felipe Massa, then Robert Kubica to take his 16th career win, moving him level with Sir Stirling Moss in 13th place on the all-time list.
Kubica drove a strong race to finish second, netting BMW’s 75th podium as an engine supplier, and on a weekend where Peter Sauber was much in evidence in the paddock, he saw his BMW-owned team chalk up two significant milestones. In 251 previous grands prix stretching back over 15 years, the team had never scored back-to-back podium finishes, nor had it ever taken a fastest lap.
Nick Heidfeld’s 1:35.366 on the penultimate lap was the quickest of the whole race, although only 0.096sec separated the best race laps of Heidfeld, Raikkonen and Hamilton. Although only finishing sixth on Sunday, Heidfeld is tied on points for second place in the championship right now with Raikkonen, and may even have an outside title shot, proving a thorn in the side of the bigger teams in much the same way as Jordan’s Heinz-Harald Frentzen was in 1999.
The presence of Heikki Kovalainen on the bottom step of the podium made it just the second time two Finns have stood on the podium at the same time (following on from the same two drivers at Fuji last year). It extends McLaren’s run of podium finishes to 19 on the bounce, the best in team history.
A resurgent Toyota performance netted Jarno Trulli fourth place, his and the team’s best finish since he was fourth at the 2006 United States GP, 26 races ago. He was in with a serious sniff at a podium finish at one stage, which would end a run of exactly 50 starts since he was last there, at Barcelona in 2005. Combined with the victory of test driver of Kamui Kobayashi in the GP2 support race on Sunday morning, it was a good weekend for the until-now underachieving Japanese squad.
Hamilton's qualifying penalty forced him to mix it up with the midfielders. (LAT photo) » More Photos
Fifth-placed Lewis Hamilton was left to rue his penalty in qualifying, although clearly he didn’t cope with it as effectively as Kovalainen. McLaren has had a car in the top three on the grid at every race since Suzuka 2006, and Hamilton himself had only ever started one F1 race from outside the top four (after crashing in Q3 at the Nurburgring last year).
Red Bull Renault suffered a turbulent weekend, summoned before the stewards to confirm the structural integrity of its RB4 chassis, the team raced on as normal, with Mark Webber netting his first ever points at Sepang, despite five consecutive top 10 starts on this circuit.
The Adrian Newey-designed car may be fragile, but it was good enough to beat the works team, as Webber took the flag two seconds ahead of Fernando Alonso, who may well be driving a sub-standard car
Red Bull’s ability to build a car that can last a race distance was confirmed by David Coulthard’s ninth place, although this was the first time that the Scotsman had finished a Sepang race without actually scoring points in it. Tenth-placed Jenson Button once again appears to have a reliable machine, and he set the fourth-fastest lap of the race on the final tour, proving that the chassis has potential.
However, Honda must be troubled by the fact that it is the only engine supplier yet to score, despite all of the other manufacturers being in the points in both Melbourne and Sepang. Button’s teammate Rubens Barrichello fell foul of the pitlane regulations for the second successive weekend. After last week’s debacle, when he pitted while the pits were closed, took off with the fuel hose still attached and ran the red light, this week Barrichello was given a drive-through for speeding!
Williams had a rough race, starting with Rosberg's nose-job. (LAT photo) » More Photos
The Williams team came down to Earth with an unpleasant bump this weekend. Having began Friday in second place in the constructors’ championship, Nico Rosberg then missed Q3 for just the second time in the last nine races, while Kazuki Nakajima missed the cut in Q1.
Rosberg encountered more trouble on the opening lap when the 2005 GP2 champion managed to run into his compatriot Timo Glock, the 2007 GP2 champion, breaking the third Williams nose inside a week. A lapped 14th was the best that Nico could do for the rest of his day’s work, although he had more to cheer about than Glock, who dropped out after the collision. He and Adrian Sutil are two of the four men without a finish yet in the 2008 season. Force India’s Sutil has only managed 13 racing laps in two races so far, while being outqualified by Giancarlo Fisichella both times, so the only way is up.
Another of the drivers without a finish so far is another of the brigade of German drivers, Sebastian Vettel. However, the most futile weekend by far was suffered by Toro Rosso teammate Sebastien Bourdais.
Not only did he suffer an engine failure on his first out lap of Friday afternoon, he then failed to get out of Q1 and was pitched into retirement at the sixth corner of the race. If that were not bad enough, the stewards had already fined him more than $6,000 for breaking the speed limit twice within the first 12 minutes of Friday morning practice!
Ferrari would most likely have scored a 1-2 finish here -- the sixth 1-2 for a team in the 10 runnings of the Malaysian race -- had it not been for Felipe Massa inexplicably dropping the car into the gravel at mid-distance. It marked the first time that the polesitter for this race failed to score points on raceday, although on lap 11 Massa unknowingly led Ferrari’s 12,500th lap in championship history.
The next race can’t come soon enough for Massa, especially given that it is in Bahrain, the track on which he scored a crushing victory from the pole in 2007.
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