Today's race outlined just how good the Renault team are again this season, and just what a great champion Alonso is. It also highlighted Raikkonen's bad luck and how M.Schumacher is on his way out.
The Malaysian GP belongs to Renault! Fisichella lead for long periods of the race. When he wasn't leading, Alonso was out in front (except for one lap where either Button or Montoya had the lead). Fisichella had a new engine and a 6 place advantage on the grid - an advantage which was down to 2 places after the first 2 corners!
Seeing as Alonso's engine had already been through the Bahrain GP, he couldn't push quite as hard as Fisichella, and that for me was the deciding factor.
28/36 points for Renault after two races.
Honda proved to be Renault's closest rivals, but were just a little way behind today. Button did everything right, and had a bit of misfortune with traffic, but he was still a few tenths off the Renault's ultimate pace. Barrichello is still settling in to his new team (and also had to drive the spare car today), but came on fairly strongly to a 10th place finish.
Poor poor Kimi.. when will the bad luck end!? He didn't even last half a lap as a collision with Klien, which damaged Raikkonen's rear suspension, forced him out of the race. Another 8ish points thrown away, but these are still very early days. Montoya's pace wasn't too thrilling in his McLaren, but then he was using the engine which was supposed to have 'problems' in Bahrain.
Ferrari .. back? Don't think so.
Massa and Schumacher were over 40 seconds off Fisichella by the end of the race. Sure, thats impressive for Massa as he started from 21st, but compare it with Kimi's charge from 22nd to 3rd in Bahrain and you'll see which car is better. Schumacher? 14th to 6th .. not like his old self. A Schumacher of 2 or 3 years ago would have finished on the podium. Today he didn't have a sniff of the podium. Ferrari are faster this season, but not back.
Williams.. poor luck, all that can be said. Rosberg and Webber were on for strong finishes, most likely knocking the Ferrari's down to 7th and 8th, but not heavily challenging the top 3.
Toyota fared a bit better than Bahrain, although their 8th and 9th places weren't a true reflection as many cars retired ahead of them. BMW Sauber had a strong race with Heidfeld on for a 5th place finish, until his engine gave out 10 laps from the end. Red Bull were strong on pace, but lacking in reliability.
The 3 back teams.. well, they performed as we might expect.
2 weeks until the Australian GP!
It'll be fun staying up for that.
Malaysian GP Results Finishers
1. G.Fisichella. 56 Laps
2. F.Alonso. +4.5s
3. J.Button. +9.6s
4. J.P.Montoya. +39.3s
5. F.Massa. +43.2s
6. M.Schumacher. +43.8s
7. J.Villeneuve. +80.4s
8. R.Schumacher. +81.2s
9. J.Trulli. +1 Lap
10. R.Barrichello. +1 Lap
11. V.Liuzzi. +2 Laps
12. C.Albers. +2 Laps
13. T.Monteiro. +2 Laps
14. T.Sato. +3 Laps
Finishers
- N.Heidfeld. 48 Laps
- S.Speed. 41 Laps
- Y.Ide. 33 Laps
- C.Klien. 26 Laps
- M.Webber. 15 Laps
- D.Coulthard. 10 Laps
- N.Rosberg. 6 Laps
- K.Raikkonen. 0 Laps
Fastest Lap
F.Alonso - 1:34.803
Prediction League
Points Gained -
Lizzy - 18
Neil - 20
Gert-Jan - 17
Total Points After Malaysian GP
1. Neil. 40.
2. Gert-Jan. 31.
3. Lizzy. 24.
Another good raceday for me.
Over at SG I also won this matchday. No wonder, as I was one of few to predict after qualifying. If we keep doing that, Gert-Jan .. then the Prediction League over there will certainly belong to us.
