Alonso carries Ferrari to victory against brilliant Perez

What a race and what a fantastically unexpected win for Fernando Alonso and Ferrari. The even more unexpected Sauber of Sergio Perez was second and pole position holder Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren completed the podium in a race which saw a deluge, a red flag, a grid of gazebo’s, safety car restart and some quite thrilling action.

Perez was phenomenal today, at times his pace and relentless pursuit of Alonso was spellbinding. Perhaps he should have won? In fact he should have because he was in the perfect zone, comfortable in all conditions and his car seemed easy to drive and kind on its tyres.

But that surely promotes the point that here today we witnessed a victory by a car which is not even quicker than a Sauber (as good as it is this year, it generally isn’t quicker than a McLaren or a Red Bull) and a driver who will never ever give up.

Fernando Alonso was simply awesome in the rains and heat of Malaysia. He dragged it into the top 10 in qualifying and from the very start in the wet conditions he was there mixing it towards the front. Pit stops worked his way, and he took advantage of that as well as a decisive move to pass Perez.

When the going was good, he exploited it to the maximum. He was amazingly careful with his tyres, making sure not to take too much from them, so he could at least put up a fight against the charging Perez.

He knows that the Ferrari at the moment doesn’t stand a chance in normal conditions, so when a door of opportunity opens you can count on the Spaniard to step right through it and slam it in the face of his pursuers.

Ferrari still hope to challenge for the title as the season goes on and had wanted just to be able to hang on to the leaders during the opening races while they try to develop the car, so to be leading the drivers championship is a real fillip.

The other Ferrari driver Felipe Massa ended up in a poor 15^th from 12^th on the grid. Little wonder then, especially after this fantastic performance by Perez why there are persistent rumours of his imminent replacement by the Mexican. Massa just isn’t the same driver who was so brilliant in 2008/09.

Sergio Perez should have won in what would have been a remarkable victory for him and his Sauber team. I know this team are not exactly podium regulars and so they should be very satisfied with their second place which judging by the reaction after the race they are fairly ecstatic about it but you can’t help but feel they should be a little disappointed and not just about Kamui Kobayashi retiring.

Apart from a couple of slight off track moments Perez was almost perfect and for a large portion of the race he was the quickest man out there in what is supposedly a midfield car.

As the race started there was a constant drizzle of rain ensuring that the entire field apart from the HRT’s started on intermediate tyres. The rain increased and Perez in conjunction with his team decided to take a gamble.

In for the full extreme wet tyres, he started lapping three seconds quicker than anyone so that when all the leaders had to pit he had floated up to third behind the two McLarens. The rain made the track what Jenson Button described as a ‘lake’ and the safety car was duly deployed on lap six and the red flag came a few laps later followed by the grid of gazebo’s and umbrellas.

This didn’t ruffle Perez though, at the restart everyone was on full wets, but the track was soon ready for inters. During the pit stops Perez emerged in the lead, but Alonso had pitted a lap earlier and with tyres already up to temperature passed him quickly and pulled away.

However as the track dried, the Sauber driver started catching by over a second a lap at times, taking huge chunks out of the seven second lead Alonso had built up. By the time it was ready for slicks Perez was about to make a move, but waiting a lap longer than Alonso to pit meant he was back to a seven second gap.

This was their first mistake, as mentioned in the Sky commentary perhaps they should have been looking for a win and grasping their opportunity rather than protecting a decent result. It had become obvious that slicks were the way forward as Daniel Ricciardo who stopped first for dry tyres was lapping several seconds quicker than anyone else. The experience of Ferrari showed here, as this was also their chance and they grasped with hands and feet.

But the Mexican remained unflustered and calmly set a scorching pace to catch the Ferrari back up, and here’s where I believe they made their second mistake. With six laps to go the team radioed Perez to remind him not to take too many chances and that this was a very good result. This of course prompted him to go off which surely is no coincidence, although it's to be expected he'd deny it caused him to lose concentration. 

Drivers are here to race and to win, valuable though those points are to the team, and perhaps it would be more understandable if it was when he was running third as second is just another spot on the podium, but this was a chance to win.

I think his mind set was thrown off slightly, his heroic pursuit of Alonso was now not the priority and there the lack of concentration came, any conspiracy theories of Sauber backing off to protect their Ferrari engine partners victory have been denied and are just silly. Fantastic result tinged with what could have been.

Bruno Senna was another one to star finishing 6^th after tripping over his Williams team mate Pastor Maldonado and being last after the first lap. At times he was one of the fastest out there and made some great overtakes. Scored the result Maldonado should have had in Australia, but also proved that Williams have got themselves a decent car this year in all conditions, already beating their points total from 2011.

The top teams had a mixed day. McLaren had secured their second successive front row lock out, and Hamilton was leading fairly convincingly. But after the restart, a botched tyre stop left him behind Alonso and Perez and he was never able to get back on terms with them,  again the speed didn’t seem with him. Still he had a more genuine smile about him after the race.

Of course that wouldn’t be because his team mate Jenson Button failed to score a point after breaking his nose against the innocent HRT of Narain Karthikeyan, then having tyre temperature issues resulting in 14^th. Not a good day in conditions he’d usually excel in.

Red Bull had a similar story. They got solid points from Mark Webber in fourth but the damage limitation run to second in Australia was not to be repeated by Sebastian Vettel in Malaysia. Although he had worked himself up to fourth place from fifth, he suffered a puncture while lapping Karthikeyan, pulling in front of him too soon and slicing his tyre on the HRT front wing.

His arm waving from cockpit indicated Vettel was not a happy man. Still it’s just the start and although they were strangely nowhere while the track was wet the dry pace still looks like it will win them some races.

Lotus had another good race from Kimi Raikkonen who charged up from his 5 place grid penalty of tenth, to finish 5^th. He says all he is now craving is a normal straight forward weekend so he can discover where the team really stand. Romain Grosjean threw it in the gravel.

Force India recovered from a poor qualifying to get Paul di Resta up to 7^th and Nico Hulkenberg to 9^th and score his first points of the year. They were split by Jean-Eric Vergne in the Toro Rosso, making up for his last lap disappointment in Australia.

Pastor Maldonado would have been at least 10^th if his engine had survived to the end, but this handed the final point to Michael Schumacher. The Mercedes driver deserves more for the form he is currently showing as the silver arrows flatter to deceive again.

Schumacher had qualified 3^rd, but a sluggish start and Grosjean’s Lotus hitting him on the first lap left him down the field. Despite his Mercedes also chewing the tyres, he was able to manage them for one less pit stop than team mate Nico Rosberg, and completed a decent recovery drive, but Merc’s race pace is nowhere near their qualifying speed. Nico was 13^th and has disappointed so far this year but both drivers will have expected more from the first two races.

And one more mention for Narain Karthikeyan, whose HRT started on wets so that when the red flag came out he was lying tenth. That was one team who were hoping the race wouldn’t be restarted!

The opening races are done and now there’s a three week gap until China, so what have we learned so far? It’s closer than ever at the top and in the midfield. McLaren are very quick, but perhaps not as quick as first thought. Red Bull has problems in qualifying, Sergio Perez is a star, Mercedes should be doing better and Ferrari is being carried on the shoulders of a magical Spaniard called Fernando Alonso.

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Button lays down marker in 2012 opener

Jenson Button started the 2012 Formula 1 season in style today, taking a dominant win even if it was by no more than a couple of seconds, he was untouchable throughout the race.

The McLaren driver got a great start to draw level with pole sitter Lewis Hamilton, he had the inside line for turn 1 and that was that, job all but done. He disappeared off into the distance, and only a safety car caused by Caterham’s Vitaly Petrov stopping on the start finish straight would let the rest have another bite at victory.

But as is typical of Button these days, he was calm and assured under pressure, had a perfect restart lap and promptly left the others behind before maintaining the gap back to the now second placed Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel.

 
It’s worth noting the McLaren was able to maintain its tyre temperature much better than the Red Bull through the slow laps of the safety car, showing how much of an improved car they have, as this was a trait Red Bull displayed many a time last year; this time though Button left Vettel trailing to take the win and lay down a marker for the year ahead.

Perhaps most bothered by this was Button’s team mate Hamilton who looked decidedly glum after the race. He’d taken an emphatic pole position, yet could offer no real challenge to Jenson something that he obviously hadn’t expected. I think Lewis expected this race to be his, but for whatever reason he couldn’t find the pace to compete for the victory.

However, he took third and if it hadn’t been for the safety car he probably would have had second, so it wasn’t such a bad day, but the man wants to win, and I think he still finds it difficult to comprehend that a team mate is giving him such a hard time and beating him.

I see things potentially getting pretty tense between them because Lewis is quicker than Jenson, there is no doubt but Jenson is clever, he’s got the team around him and the camaraderie and I think he’s out-psyching Hamilton and the more he wins, the worse it’ll get for Lewis. In the team photograph he looked alone. I’m sure that’s not really the case, but it was an interesting observation.

I’m curious to see how he responds in Malaysia and anyway, this was the first race and far too early for such analysis, but it was just a thought. I'm sure he's going to be a real threat this year.

Despite not being the dominant force that they have been in the recent past, Red Bull quietly got on with the job and rose from fifth and sixth on the grid to claim second and fourth for Vettel and Mark Webber respectively.

Both had strong drives through the pack, Webber particularly after his usual poor start got bogged down in traffic and had a fair few scraps, particularly with Mercedes Nico Rosberg whom he accused of weaving, so to end up just off the podium wasn’t a bad result at all. Also out qualifying Vettel and keeping him insight during the race will have given him cause to hope for a much better year.

Vettel actually put a fantastic move on Rosberg and matched the McLaren’s pace for most of the day. He retrieved what could have been a poor weekend and made it a perfectly adequate one. Second is not a bad way to start the year and he is not one for panic being the champion he is, he knows there’s another 19 races to go and he feels sure the Red Bull has a lot of untapped potential; he’ll be in the game for sure.

One of the stars of the race was Fernando Alonso who dragged his Ferrari from twelfth to fifth, a great drive in a car his team mate Felipe Massa could barely keep on the road. He believes there’s a lot to come from the Ferrari, and there’ll have to get to it quickly if he wants to challenge for the title, but today he had one of the drives of the day, while Massa had one of the worst. How long this driver line up remains if this form continues is open to debate.

The rest of the top ten was only decided in the final corners. Pastor Maldonado in a much improved Williams had been lying sixth and would have been my driver of the day if he hadn’t crashed with half a lap left while challenging Alonso. It was a great combative drive but he threw it away and it unleashed the following cars.

Rosberg was challenging Sergio Perez for seventh, the Sauber’s tyres were done as he tried to make it on only one pit stop. Rosberg though got a puncture and slowed to a crawl. This brought Kamui Kobayashi on to the back of Perez, overtaking his team mate to claim sixth.

Into the final two turns, Kimi Raikkonen who screwed up his qualifying, starting only 17^th finished his charge back through the field, taking Perez for seventh. Kimi showed he’d lost none of his race craft in an impressive race, but he’ll hope for a better weekend in Malaysia as this Lotus is fast.

This left the battling Toro Rosso’s of Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne right on his tail, with the Force India of Paul di Resta just behind. Final corner and they’re all crammed up together. Perez floors it, just keeping Ricciardo behind to take eighth and ninth respectively while di Resta who’d started the final lap in 13^th powers into tenth as Vergne slides on the kerb.

That last lap of the race shows just how tightly packed and competitive the midfield is going to be this year, Williams look like they might have turned the corner, Toro Rosso are going to be scrapping for the minor points, while Force India didn’t look as good as expected but there’s plenty of time to rectify that.

At the head of the group are Sauber, while Lotus appears to be hovering just above with ambitions of competing towards the big teams. Certainly Romain Grosjean proved they had good quali pace with third but retired after a clash with Maldonado, while Kimi’s charge through the field showed they had a good race car too. A team to watch out for, although you get a feeling these early races will be their best opportunity for some good results.

Not really mentioned Mercedes, Nico Rosberg dropped backwards during the race, which is no great surprise generally, but better things were hoped for. Their qualifying pace was good, and with their controversial F-duct behind the DRS helping increase straight line speed causing a stir, no points isn’t a great start.

Michael Schumacher actually out qualified Rosberg for once and then was looking fairly competitive in third trying to resist Vettel’s attacks before the car just lost drive on lap 13, but apparently Ross Brawn said both drivers were already complaining about tyre degradation, something they were concerned about in testing. But they and Ferrari will remain the teams most likely to challenge the big two.

The top four finishers were covered by under five seconds. Red Bull say there’s more to come, McLaren claim they could have pushed harder, this season looks like it’s going to be close, very close.

All photo's taken from autosport.com

Who's going to win?

This time next week, we’ll know which teams got it right and which ones got it not so right. But for now, we’re staring into the unknown. With just a week to the start of the season, testing has given us a picture of the relative strength of each team that’s really rather muddy.

With fuel loads and various tyre compounds it’s been difficult to get a proper read on the situation, but that’s not to say I won’t give it a go, there’s enough information to make a fair if not accurate prediction for the season ahead.

Red Bull

Didn’t go for times, and tested for ten out of twelve days with a different exhaust layout which was upgraded with two days to spare, probably to prevent others from copying it in time for Australia. With the blown diffuser now banned which was integral to the design of the previous car, Red Bull have the most to lose, so their design is being closely watch to see how they’ll grab the downforce back.

They ran relatively reliably and consistently, and rival teams have suggested they are still the team to beat. Mark Webber looked sharper than he has done for a while, I didn’t think the style of driving needed for the blown diffuser ever really suited him, I think he’ll be a bigger threat this year. Sebastian Vettel is still the man to beat.

McLaren

They’re certainly doing better than this time last year when reliability scuppered them. All is looking well with the Woking squad, certainly not far away from the Red Bull’s and you can definitely expect them to be fighting from the start, and it is certainly the prettiest car on the grid, the only one not to suffer from a stepped nose so it's already a winner. Over long runs, they were consistent and didn’t seem to suffer too badly from tyre degradation.

The strongest driver line-up on the grid; Jenson Button appears confident, but Lewis Hamilton seems happier. If he can maintain that frame of mind for the whole year I expect him to be Vettel’s closest challenger for the title.

Mercedes

Look to have taken a significant step forward this year, no real headline times, but consistent running, and very reliable too although tyre degradation may still be a problem for them. They’ve bolstered their design team over the past year, and they’ll be hoping to challenge for podiums from the start, with maybe a lucky win.

Nico Rosberg is likely to be the teams main qualifier, but Michael Schumacher has looked better and better and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get the best result. I think they’re quietly confident.

Lotus

The headline team in winter testing for good and bad reasons; topped the times in Jerez, construction failure and withdrawal from the second test, then back to top the times in the third test. When the cars been running, its looked good. Certainly they seem to have done more low fuel running than the big guns, but they’re long runs haven’t looked bad at all which bodes well for racing.

Kimi Raikkonen has returned to Formula 1, and he looks sharp, I don’t think he’ll have trouble readapting at all. Romain Grosjean, looks quick after his abortive attempt a few years ago. I think he’ll push Kimi during the year, but especially at the start of the season, these guys could be the surprise.

Ferrari

The Italians led by their new British Technical director Pat Fry went for an adventurous concept in an attempt to challenge Red Bull. Unfortunately they seem to have got a bit lost, looking quick at times, but also woeful at others, and they admit they don’t really know why. There’s a lot of potential in the car but whether they can untap it is certainly not a given. I think good in qualifying and then dropping back through the race to begin with.

How long Fernando Alonso will put up with this, remains to be seen, because if he’s not winning, it won’t be his fault. Felipe Massa looked stronger in testing, I think he’ll be better than last year; he needs to be to keep his seat.  

Force India

They’ve had a decent winter testing season and look to have made a step forward. But then again, so have most other teams. I think they’ll challenge about as consistently as they did last year, but I don’t see them cracking the top four, they may have a chance to scalp Ferrari in the early races.

Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg are an exciting driving line-up, each more than capable of producing strong results. We’ll see how friendly they remain as the season goes on.

Toro Rosso

Another team to come out of winter testing looking fairly impressive, Red Bull’s junior squad look very eager to move to the head of the midfield. They’ve run reliably and looked quick throughout, but I think they’ll need to capitalise on this in the first few races. Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne are two young chargers with their sights on a Red Bull drive, there could be fireworks.

Sauber

Same as Toro Rosso really, looked quick at times, how that’s transferred to  a competitive situation remains to be seen, but I imagine it’ll be fairly similar to last year. That’s the kind of team they are. Kamui Kobayashi is always impressive but whether he’s top line he’ll have to prove this year as Ferrari affiliated Sergio Perez seems to be getting stronger.

Williams

The once giant of Formula 1 is on its knees. Winter testing hasn’t gone badly, but it’s not been great either, punctuated with either fast times, or plain slow and reliability hasn’t been brilliant. Bruno Senna finally gets a proper chance to establish himself as Formula 1 regular, Pastor Maldonado needs to build on his occasional flashes of speed if he doesn't just want to rely on his cash to get a drive, although it helps.

Caterham

Started off fairly disappointingly, it looked like another year of trailing behind the midfield, but I think they may just have latched onto the back and might even sneak a first point this year. Heikki Kovalainen has been fantastic over the last few years, will want a return on his investment. Vitaly Petrov is lucky Russia has got a race soon as he secured this drive late.

HRT

Not much to say, they’ve only done a day’s filming with the car, but at least it’s built and it’s turned a wheel before the first race which is better than last year. They have the oldest driver line-up on the grid in Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthekeyan , both with little potential to improve, another year at the back.

Marussia

The team formally known as Virgin aren’t much better than HRT. Only one testing day after failing crash tests, will hopefully manage to qualify for the race. Timo Glock soldiers on, Charles Pic shouldn’t be any trouble for him.

It’s going to be a much closer season than last year, that much should be fairly certain. At the moment it looks like a two horse race for the title between Red Bull and McLaren, with Mercedes and Lotus snapping at the heels with Ferrari still a very unknown quantity. The midfield will be tight so any drop in development will see an instant fall. This should be extremely competitive and I wouldn’t like to predict who’ll come out on top, but I will and it’s Vettel. It’ll be a hell of a battle though.

All photo's taken from autosport.com