F1 2012 — A Retrospective Part 3: Malaysia
By: Declan Harte
Tags: F1 2012, Sport, Formula 1, F1, Nostalgia

Qualifying

Just as in Australia the race before, McLaren sealed a one-two qualifying result with Hamilton sat on pole position once again. There was just one tenth separating the two British drivers, but Romain Grosjean was unable to repeat his performance from Melbourne so it was Michael Schumacher and Mark Webber who made up the second row of the grid.

The two old guns both out-qualified their teammates for the second race in a row. Webber was finally showing the pace on Saturday to compete with his two time champion teammate Sebastian Vettel, but was he able to learn from his mistakes on the opening lap in Australia?

Vettel once again qualified sixth but was in fifth place on the grid. This time there was just four tenths between the German and pole, and it must be noted that he completed his qualifying lap on the harder compound which he was set to start the race on. Rosberg only managed seventh on the grid and was .3s off Schumacher.

Kimi Raikkonen finished Saturday in fifth place, a much improved qualifying performance over his comeback event at Albert Park, but a gearbox change on Friday meant he dropped down to 10th. His teammate Grosjean was just .024s off Vettel for seventh.

Fernando Alonso’s qualifying was called by Sky’s Martin Brundle as “great” which, considering he put the car in ninth but moved up to eighth, really says a lot about the expectations around Ferrari at the early stages of this season.

His teammate, Felipe Massa, was the subject of rumour and speculation in between Australia and Malaysia, with ninth on the grid Sergio Perez tipped as a potential replacement. Massa qualified in 12th.

Pre-race

It was intermediates for everyone on the grid to start with. Everyone but for the two HRTs, who are starting their first Grand Prix of the season.

It was raining in Malaysia, the scene of the last incomplete Formula One event in 2009 where Button was declared the winner of a suspended race finish.

The rain wasn’t as heavy in 2012, but it’s never straightforward in that kind of weather. Pace tends to be less important in these conditions, strategy can be the deciding factor in who wins a rain affected Grand Prix.

Vettel’s hard tyres were presumably tossed out the window that morning, that gamble obviously did not pay off.

As the cars took off for the formation lap, it had stopped raining. Brundle was wondering if any car may take the chance of coming into the pit lane before the race even began.

Sky continued with their formation lap interviews, this time Alonso was called upon to answer for his qualifying pace to which he claimed that eighth “was the best that we can do” in the Ferrari.

Button was happy enough to come second, of course he won from that position in Australia so he had every reason to be.

“I don’t think we’re going to be long on these tyres,” claimed Rob Smedley, the race engineer of Massa.

Race

Lights out in Malaysia and away they went. This time Hamilton fended off Button for the lead of the race into the long run before Turn One. It was Grosjean who started spectacularly and moved into third place out of Turn Two ahead of Schumacher and Webber in fourth and fifth.

Webber passed both of them and into third heading into Turn Three, but Grosjean and Schumacher collided! Schumacher did a full 360 degree spin and got going again from the back of the field.

There was a lot of spray behind the cars as the rain got heavier as they progressed through the track. Vettel moved into fourth and Alonso, again with a good first lap, was in fifth.

As they came towards the end of the lap, the rain eased off. Difficult circumstances to drive in with differing track conditions from corner to corner. Brundle pointed out that this opening lap is the first that these cars did on this track in the wet, so drivers were learning as they drove.

At the end of that first lap, Perez was the only driver to come into the pits for a set of wet tyres. Bruno Senna also came in, but that was for a new front wing after sustaining damage at some point during the lap.

As they started lap two, Button was informed that it is “raining very hard in the pit lane” and was asked how his tyres are, to which he responded they are “ok for now.”

The replays that followed showed that Grosjean tapped Schumacher from behind, which left both of them sat at the back of the grid. Meanwhile, on track, the two McLarens began pulling away from Webber in third.

By lap three, it became quite wet out on the track and on the fourth lap it was Massa who entered the pits for a set of wet tyres. While this was happening, Grosjean ended up in the gravel, signalling the end of his race, a second DNF of the season.

Button, from second, was next into the pits on lap five with Alonso right behind as everyone was now looking to change to the wet tyres.

By the end of lap six almost everyone had come in for the tyre change. Red Bull were the only ones to risk a double stack with their drivers, but everything went off without a hitch.

At the end of the pit stop phase, Perez moved up to third. His early pit stop paid dividends at this stage of the race.

At lap seven, the Safety Car (SC) was deployed as Sky momentarily lost picture. They were apparently affected by a strike of lightning near the track. The rain was really pouring down at this stage.

On lap nine, the race was red flagged with cars barely able to stay on the track even under the SC. Rain was expected to last for another 30 minutes. Calling the red flag proved itself to be the correct call.

The only car to stay on the intermediate tyres was Jean-Eric Vergne who benefited by moving up to seventh place. Narain Karthikeyan in the HRT also moved up into 10th, their strategy to start on the wet tyres also worked out in their favour.

The red flag meant that Vergne was allowed to switch to the wet tyres without losing any places, a massive gain for the Frenchman who was 12th before the pit window.

That’s one busy paddock.

Red Flag

The last time the race was red flagged due to weather was in Canada in 2011, a race in which Button showed off his skills in these conditions to win, passing Vettel on the final lap. Well, he was in second when this race was stopped so it was a good chance to prove that again.

“A lot of people think [Vergne] is a very special talent,” said David Croft while he and Brundle discussed his seventh place position. This was his rookie season. Toro Rosso replaced both of their drivers for 2012. Out went Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Algesuari and in came Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo. The Aussie was down in 17th place when the red flag was pulled out.

Just to recap, the top ten at this stage went as follows: Hamilton, Button, Perez, Webber, Alonso, Vettel, Vergne, Massa, Rosberg and Karthikeyan.

The cars all had gazebos over them this year, those weren’t available in Canada 2011. The rainfall at this point was extremely heavy. Apparently they had to inspect the technical regulations to check if the gazebos were within the spirit of the sport, which is fantastic. Imagine they decided it wasn’t, how pedantic would they have to be?

It was a very understandable decision to red flag the race, particularly when they were expecting it to be a relatively short spell of heavy rain.

Brundle claimed at one stage that he didn’t like the look of half points on the standings, which is a pretty fair call, they do look pretty annoying. The 2009 standings always looked wrong in some way.

The last sector became like a lake, according to some of the drivers. That doesn’t sound ideal, does it?

A 13 minute warning was given that racing would resume behind the SC when suddenly a wild Valterri Bottas appeared. He was a test driver for Williams that season.

Alonso and Vettel were shown discussing something under an umbrella as Ted Kravtiz gave a weather update.

It’s a wonder what they were saying to each other, probably both in agreement that they’ve no idea how Alonso was ahead of the German — here’s a hint, it was because of the double stack in the pit lane and the extra lap Alonso had on the wet tyres.

The race restarted under the Safety Car.

Race Restart

The SC came into the pits on lap 13 so the race went back underway. Hamilton backed up the pack, as was his right as the leader, which put Button under pressure from Perez but it didn’t matter because Button was already into the pits again for a fresh set of intermediate tyres.

A number of cars peeled into the pits, including Rosberg and Raikkonen. Meanwhile, Alonso passed Webber around the outside of Turn One, a beautiful sweeping move to get by the Red Bull.

Webber was then immediately put under pressure by his teammate. Vettel got by Webber into Turn Four but Webber had great traction out of the corner and swept around the outside of Vettel in Turn Five.

On lap 14, Hamilton led the train into the pits. In came the Briton, Alonso and Webber, but Perez and Vettel opted to stay out. A bold move. Perez inherited the race lead.

Hamilton had a slow stop! “An awful stop,” was the claim from Brundle, he reckoned it was the rear jack-man who made the crucial error and by the time they were ready to let Hamilton go, he was held up by a stream of cars pouring into the pit lane.

This allowed Alonso to go through ahead of the McLaren, and in fact he got ahead of both McLarens in the pit stop phase, remarkable. Button must have had a slow out-lap, but not too slow because he also jumped ahead of Hamilton. They were seventh, eighth and ninth at this point, with the six cars in front yet to come in for intermediates.

The drama doesn’t stop there, a radio message is played to Vettel telling him his radio wasn’t working, which perhaps explained why he’d not been into the pits yet.

All the while, the live picture showed Button messing up an overtake on the HRT and tearing his front wing! He was so used to lapping Karthikeyan he must have forgotten that he was actually behind him! Button is forced to come in for another stop, what a disaster for McLaren.

Perez and Vettel joined Button in the pits, they came out in second and fifth. Meanwhile, Button moved right to the back of the grid, his race needed a miracle to recover from that mistake.

Alonso took the lead of the race, from Perez, with Hamilton in third, Rosberg in fourth and Vettel fifth. Raikkonen, Webber, Massa, Paul Di Resta and Vergne rounded out the top 10 in that order.

On lap 20, DRS was enabled, a sign that the track was drying out at this stage.

One lap later, Hamilton was on the radio asking where he was losing time to Alonso and Perez. “Middle and third sector,” was the reply… er…

Lap 22 and Button was complaining of issues with his rear and his front tyres. There are no other tyres, Jenson. McLaren really turned this win around into a defeat in impressive fashion. It all rested on Hamilton, who had a lot to do to gain on the front two. The gap to Alonso at this point was 11.6s.

Perez was bearing down on Alonso, hunting down a shot at his first ever F1 race win.

Lap 23, Vettel overtook Rosberg for fourth and one lap later and it was Raikkonen’s turn to overtake the German. He used DRS to get ahead of the Mercedes on the main straight into Turn One for fifth place.

Lap 27, Massa ran wide into Turn Nine. He out-braked himself and dropped down to 10th place. His mistake allowed Vergne to pass once he was back on track. Massa had been gaining on Rosberg who slipped to seventh. One lap later, Massa pitted for another set of inters.

The Mercedes was struggling with overheating tyres according to Kravitz. That explained Rosberg’s drop down the order.

The following 10 laps saw Button move up to 16th place, overtaking Massa along the way. But most importantly, Perez became the fastest man on track. The gap between the Mexican and Alonso went from 7.4s to 3.9s. Another lap later and it’s down to 3.1s!

Lap 38, Ricciardo was the first to go into the pits for medium compound tyres, they obviously thought the track was completely dry at that point. However, one lap later, Button was warned of more rain to come. This was one of many radio messages over this 10 lap period that warned of more rain heading their way.

Lap 40, the gap between Alonso and Perez was .9s. Perez hovered around the DRS range. There were 17 laps left, but neither had come in for dry tyres.

Lap 41, now Alonso came into the pit lane, but Perez opted to stay out again! Brundle was confused at this strategy call, thinking that this might even put him under pressure from Hamilton who was 11s behind before this phase.

However, Hamilton also stayed out the extra lap which nullified that risk for Sauber. But the gap to Alonso was now 7.8s. All that hard work was undone, back to square one. Interestingly, Perez did change to the hard tyres when Alonso swapped for the mediums.

The Red Bull came alive on the slick tyres, making good use of their natural race pace. Perez was still gaining on the Ferrari, within three laps the gap was back down to 3.9s. A gripping finale was awaiting.

With 10 laps remaining, the gap was down to 1.6s, Perez was “steaming back at the Ferrari.” His race engineer was giving him words of encouragement: “You are doing very well, you are very quick,” told Marco Schuepbach.

Vettel suffered a left rear puncture from a collision with Karthikeyan — he’s a magnet to these here. Vettel moved across him when lapping him and misjudged it, completely his own fault, an uncharacteristic mistake. Back into the pits he had to go.

Meanwhile, back out in front, Perez had cut the gap down to .5s, firmly in DRS range at this stage.

“Checo [Perez’s nickname] be careful, we need this position, we need this position,” was the warning over the radio. Brundle was not impressed: “Ohhh, that’s the same caution that left him out an extra lap! Go for bold,” was Brundle’s advice.

Alonso celebrating an unexpected result for Ferrari.

Perez went for bold… but it cost him! He ran wide at Turn 14 and the gap was back up to 5.2s with only six laps to go. The live feed actually missed the moment as they had cut to the picture inside the tense Sauber garage. An unfortunate moment for Sky, and an unfortunate moment for Perez. The chance for his first ever F1 win was gone.

“That’s a shame,” was the verdict from Brundle, who himself was having a great performance on commentary.

That was the end of the high drama at Malaysia, Alonso brought the car home for a big big win for Ferrari. “Alonso just never gives up,” declared Croft as the Spaniard crossed the line.

Perez eased his Sauber home in second, with Hamilton quietly taking another third place. Webber finished in fourth again as well but there was another last lap DNF for Pastor Maldonado, this time with an engine problem. This moved Schumacher up into 10th, a respectable finish considering where Grosjean spun him to on the opening lap.

The final standings were as follows:

Championship Standings (Top Five) Following Round 2

Post-race

My archive stopped during the anthems so not as much post-race reaction here. The focus was most obviously on Ferrari and Perez. It was a much needed result for the Scuderia, their pre-season was such a disaster that taking advantage of a chaotic race was really their best hope for a race win.

Damon Hill summed up the victory well during the champagne ceremony saying “you would never have put any prediction on that result coming to fruition.”

A well earned first podium in Perez’s F1 career.

Driver in Focus

(This is a section where I will focus on one aspect of the race, whether it be a driver, an overtake, a strategy decision, etc. Basically, it’s my personal version of picking a moment of the day)

It was the first podium of Sergio Perez’s F1 career and he was desperately unfortunate not to make it a first win. Remarkably, this result put Perez above Vettel in the championship standings, which highlighted just how big a result this was for Sauber and how poor a race Vettel had.

Sauber’s best result in 2011 was a fifth place result in Monaco from Kamui Kobayashi, who himself had a very quiet Malaysia 2012. Perez earned 14 points in his rookie season the year prior, but was now already onto 22 points from just two races, showing why he was being linked with a move to Ferrari for 2013.

This was truly a breakout season for Checo, with this performance being the standout one that earned him a reputation as one of the most solid and dependable drivers on the grid.

He had a disappointing 2013 season, but the way he bounced back to have an immensely creditable and respectable seven seasons with Force India/Racing Point was incredibly impressive.

Race Verdict

Australia had a lot of tight midfield action that left the positions of second to tenth quite open, but first was a foregone conclusion almost from the off. Meanwhile this race had everything.

The fight at the front between Alonso and Perez was incredibly gripping even despite knowing the outcome. The chaos and drama of the wet weather was very exciting.

Some might argue that wet weather brings artificial drama because it is such a wildcard, but adapting to the circumstances is what separates the best from the rest and changing weather conditions is the most extreme of unpredictable circumstances.

The fall from grace of McLaren was also stunning to watch. Both drivers could have won this race, but they threw it away in such a ridiculous fashion.

Schumacher once again missed out on a potentially big result. He was right in the mix with the Red Bulls before coming together with Grosjean. He started third in both races so far, but only has one point to show for it. Just goes to show, Saturdays aren’t everything.

Result: 5/5

Next up: CHINA

Author’s Note: This ended up being way way longer than I thought it would be, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless! If you did, or even if you didn’t, please share it with the F1 fan in your life, or just anyone really!

If you haven’t already, please follow for more as this series continues. My plan will now have to slightly change considering the length that these are ending up.

So, from next Tuesday onwards both newsletters will be of one race each, instead of two races every Friday. Australia should have be available now if you want to catch up on the most recent part.

This allows me to go in-depth on the topic in a way that should be fun to read and informative without having to think about removing some of the intriguing subplots that pop up during this series.

Previous parts can be found here:

An Introduction

Part 1 — Pre-Season Testing & Expectations