Sebastian Vettel Wins a Tense 2011 Malaysian GP

Patrick AllenApr 10, 2011

The Malaysian Grand Prix very rarely disappoints and I’ve got to say the 2011 GP was another great event!

There were overtaking maneuvers galore, battles that lasted multiple laps, and although the man who started pole finished first, it certainly wasn’t a routine win.

The race got off to a fantastic start when all of the cars darted into turn one.

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Sebastian Vettel held on to P1, but behind him there was synchronized chaos!

Felipe Massa got passed Fernando Alonso, and Mark Webber slipped down the rankings, but the real story was developing at Renault. Nick Heidfeld sped beautifully up into P2 after a great maneuver at turn 1, and Vitaly Petrov sneaked around the outside to claim P5.

After one lap the positions were as follows:

Sebastian Vettel, Nick Heidfeld, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Vitaly Petrov, Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher, Mark Webber, Kamui Kobayashi, Jamie Alguersari, Sebastien Buemi, Nico Rosberg, Paul Di Resta, Rubens Barrichello, Adrian Sutil, Sergio Perez, Pastor Maldinado, Heikki Kovalianen, Jarno Trulli, Timo Glock, Jerome D’Ambrosio, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Narain Karthikeyan.

By lap 3, Rubens Barrichello received his first bit of bad luck when he picked up a puncture right at the beginning of the lap. The Williams man limped around the track and his afternoon was effectively ruined.

There were some lovely little scraps as the race took early shape. Felipe Massa had a great fight with Vitaly Petrov and Fernando Alonso was able to pass Kamui Kobayashi and Mark Webber in one lap!

One lap later, there was a lovely battle developing between Kobayashi and Webber. At this point it became clear that Webber’s KERS were broken so it looked as if Sauber and Red Bull would be fighting for many more laps.

The first pit stop came on lap 11 as Mark Webber darted in for new tires.

By this stage, the Ferraris had begun to really close in on the McLarens who were stuck behind Heidfeld.

On lap 13, Lewis Hamilton stopped in the hope of leap frogging Heidfeld, but when the McLaren man rejoined in P10 and in traffic it looked as if there would need to be a plan B.

Vettel, Button, Massa, Alonso and Heidfeld all stopped soon after and to be honest, not a lot changed.

On lap 16, the positions were as follows:

Vettel, Kobayashi, Hamilton, Button, Alonso, Heidfeld, Webber, Massa, Petrov, Alguersuari, Perez, Di Resta, Schumacher, Sutil, Buemi, Glock, Rosberg, Kovalianen, Di’Ambrosio, Liuzzi, Trulli, Barrichello.

By lap 17, Fernando Alonso was absolutely on fire and fighting with Jenson Button!

Button held through the first three turns, but by turn four, Alonso had made a fantastic move to pass Button. The Ferrari man then sped off into the distance and easily dispatched Kobayashi for P3.

As the following laps developed there were some close battles and some excellent tense moments but no significant position changes.

Around laps 24-25, the McLarens pitted and experienced very different fortunes. Button rejoined in P7 with clear track ahead of him, whilst Hamilton found himself rejoining behind Vitaly Petrov.

I’ve got to say that, unfortunately, in this part of the race most of the big position changes were down to pit stops and not track maneuvers; still, the action was surfactant.

The race then calmed a little, but there were some lovely battles in the midfield. I think the best was probably a fight between Kamui Kobayashi and Michael Schumacher. The drivers swapped positions through turns one and two and were all over each other!

Kobayashi came out victorious, but I think the fans were the real winners!

Mark Webber would eventually stop four times but despite a troubled start and a loss of KERS, the Red Bull man had done a fantastic job to get himself into P7 after rejoining from his third stop.

Lewis Hamilton’s weekend took a negative turn when a tyre fitting issue caused a slow pit stop and enabled Jenson Button to leap frog him. Hamilton then struggled on the hard tyre and was quickly caught by Fernando Alonso in P5.

Alonso was all over Hamilton but was struggling himself with a broken rear wing. There was some great fighting which unfortunately came to an end when the Ferrari man misjudged an opportunity and wrecked his front wing going into the back of Hamilton.

The McLaren man was okay, but still basically struggling for pace. Whilst Alonso pitted for a new wing, Hamilton was passed beautifully by Nick Heidfeld and then Mark Webber.

Hamilton had to admit defeat and pitted for a new pair of tyres. Ironically, this meant Alonso was able to leap frog Hamilton in pit stops!

There was some great last minute action when Vitaly Petrov caught air and wrecked his steering column, and Mark Webber kept the action interesting by pressurizing Heidfeld right until the final corner.

The race finished with with Vettel in P1 (despite loosing KERS), Button in second after a great race and Nick Heidfeld earned his first podium for a very long time!

I think the 2011 Malaysian Grand Prix was definitely a great one, there were overtaking maneuvers galore and arguably the drivers deserved their finishing positions.

As I finished typing this article, Fernando Alonso was called to the stewards to investigate his incident with Hamilton, but I think it was an honest error and Alonso should be okay.

With both Red Bulls loosing their KERS it will be fantastic to se what happens next week in China. The Chinese GP’s long back straight will be a deadly area for KERS and if the top team fail to sort their issues we may well see a new race winner!

Malaysia was great...roll on China!

Drivers’ Top Three

Vettel, 50

Button, 26

Hamilton, 24

Constructors’

Red Bull, 72

McLaren, 50

Ferrari, 36

Provisional Result

Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull

Jenson Button, McLaren