2015 Malaysian Grand Prix - Sepang

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Please refer the first point. Where was the Ferrari pace in Australia? where they ended up 30 seconds behind Merc, where Hamilton said, he was just managing the gap to Nico and was responding to Nico whenever Nico came closer, which means there was more pace to create a distance of more than 30 seconds to Ferrari.

Ferrari was able to take advantage by playing it to their strengths.

Precisely that. Just like RBR and Ricciardo did last year. Safety car worked in Ferrari's favor, just like it did in Ricciardo's in Hungary last year. But to say that, Ferrari is now a real contender is an over statement.

[evered7]

Please refer the first point. Where was the Ferrari pace in Australia? where they ended up 30 seconds behind Merc, where Hamilton said, he was just managing the gap to Nico and was responding to Nico whenever Nico came closer, which means there was more pace to create a distance of more than 30 seconds to Ferrari.

Ferrari was able to take advantage by playing it to their strengths.

Precisely that. Just like RBR and Ricciardo did last year. Safety car worked in Ferrari's favor, just like it did in Ricciardo's in Hungary last year. But to say that, Ferrari is now a real contender is an over statement.

Mercedes were 10 secs behind Ferrari after clearing the traffic on Lap 9 (I think). At the end, the gap remained the same. If Mercedes were faster, why didn't they manage to catch Ferrari in the 40 something laps that remained in the race?

Mercedes would have lost 27 seconds on the pitstop but lost only 10 due to the SC (accounting for traffic as well).

I think the result was a fair representation of the pace of the cars on 'that' day with Mercedes not being handicapped by any reliability issues.

[Harsha]

Please refer the first point. Where was the Ferrari pace in Australia? where they ended up 30 seconds behind Merc, where Hamilton said, he was just managing the gap to Nico and was responding to Nico whenever Nico came closer, which means there was more pace to create a distance of more than 30 seconds to Ferrari.

Ferrari was able to take advantage by playing it to their strengths.

Precisely that. Just like RBR and Ricciardo did last year. Safety car worked in Ferrari's favor, just like it did in Ricciardo's in Hungary last year. But to say that, Ferrari is now a real contender is an over statement.

Last year is a different story against this year. Ferrari may or may not be real contenders at this point as it is depended on some big developments. But unlike last year where Mercedes has two teams to fight to take the pieces they spill this year there is only Ferrari at a much smaller distance than last year and when situation a raised they dont need Mercedes problems of Reliability or Driver errors like 2014. They may not be in the position of Sepang position every race but they will not be too far away.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Ferrari was able to take advantage by playing it to their strengths.

Precisely that. Just like RBR and Ricciardo did last year. Safety car worked in Ferrari's favor, just like it did in Ricciardo's in Hungary last year. But to say that, Ferrari is now a real contender is an over statement.

Last year is a different story against this year. Ferrari may or may not be real contenders at this point as it is depended on some big developments. But unlike last year where Mercedes has two teams to fight to take the pieces they spill this year there is only Ferrari at a much smaller distance than last year and when situation a raised they dont need Mercedes problems of Reliability or Driver errors like 2014. They may not be in the position of Sepang position every race but they will not be too far away.

You are speaking of unseen future on Ferrari's part. The facts doesn't give so much hope or promise. Season started with 1.4 second qualifying deficit for Ferrari in Australia and 30 second gap in race. No team ever makes up such big gaps, just in couple of weeks, nor does come any closer. Teams come to these fly away races, generally, with the same configuration of cars. No upgrades, just a bit of optimization. A lot of development appears through European phase.

http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/125 ... peat-tough
James Allison:

"In Melbourne Mercedes were very, very dominant, but even in free air we couldn't have held a candle to them in Melbourne. There's a lot of work for us to do before we can come to a race weekend confident that we can hunt for victory from the first session of the weekend. But we do have an exciting development programme and we've got a lot of performance to bring."

You don't simply jump and get performance out of the blue. Even when Red Bull was dominating, there were races where they lost due to a variety of circumstances. Overall, seasons belonged to them. Currently, Merc is in similar situation where they may have slip ups, but generally, they have a dominant car. Ferrari has a long to way catch up, by Allison's own admission. Yes, Ferrari will be there to pick up the pieces, when Merc loses them. But on outright Merit, I will take Allison's words for that.

[iotar__]

Despite all the excitement of Mercedes' defeat Malaysia wasn't an interesting race, Merc didn't challenge Ferrari, Williams, TR and RB finished in pairs with gaps and their own pace. Strategies overlapped so drivers were close at some point but did not really compete with each other.

For those dissecting Ferr vs Merc for 100th time, nice summary from earlier linked article (ESPN, Allison):

"I think we probably were a wee bit quicker than them in the race, but you saw when Mercedes was behind the traffic that they got stuck behind, which were 1.5s slower than them, they found it hard to get past. "So if you are a 0.1s or 0.2s quicker, which is maybe what we were, then that's super hard to turn into an overtake" "they [Mercedes] would have had the opportunity to split their strategy and at least beat us with one. The safety car presented us the opportunity to get past them in a relatively painless way."

[Andres125sx]

Mercedes were 10 secs behind Ferrari after clearing the traffic on Lap 9 (I think). At the end, the gap remained the same. If Mercedes were faster, why didn't they manage to catch Ferrari in the 40 something laps that remained in the race?

Mercedes would have lost 27 seconds on the pitstop but lost only 10 due to the SC (accounting for traffic as well).

I think the result was a fair representation of the pace of the cars on 'that' day with Mercedes not being handicapped by any reliability issues.

Exactly, on that day but, do you think we will see track temperatures of up to 62ºC (143ºF) often this season?

Radosav posted this link on McLaren thread, but I think it should be here too (sorry if already posted)

http://en.f1i.com/magazine/8353-the-fer ... cedes.html

That said, it's still too early to say if Ferrari can emerge as a real challenger for this year's title, especially since the excessive heat in Malaysia, with track temperatures reaching 62°C, may have been a disadvantage for Mercedes. Temperatures in China will certainly be a lot lower.

Even so Ferrari only managed to match Mercedes lap times, and as Allison said, if same strategy they´d have strugled to beat Mercedes so I think we may say Ferrari won on Malaysia due to two different circumstances, heat and strategy

This may be the case on some other GP, but I don´t think there will be enough sundays with those circumstances to think Ferrari may fight with Mercedes for any championship. They´ll win some other race if they´re lucky enough, but as a norm, Mercedes will continue with their domination as we saw on Melbourne

[henra]

Even so Ferrari only managed to match Mercedes lap times,

That feat alone would have caused quite some cheering last season.
You guys are really hard to please. Let's enjoy the fact that we might indeed see at least a few inter- Team battles this year. Who'd have thought....
Last year pace- wise Merc was on a different planet - for the entire season. Only reliability problems allowed those few non Merc 1-2s.
Seeing the first two races it is safe to assume that Merc is still on top but close enough that relatively small strategy or setup errors might lead to a red car seing the chequered flag first.

[raymondu999]

Let's not forget that with Merc stopping more times - they had more tyre life and could push more. Ferrari would have been pushing less. On that day in history in Malaysia - I think Ferrari had Merc covered. Even without the safety car, Ferrari could still do an OOP (extrapolating backwards from the number of laps they did in their 2nd and 3rd stints) - whereas Merc would not have done an OOP. they were even struggling to get through OPP after the safety car. OPOO or OPOP was probably the best they could have hoped for.

The chassis may not be as fast as the Merc's - that is to say, on tyres with an equal amount of life remaining, the Merc would be quicker over a lap. But the fact is they cannot sustain that performance - and on average ended up slower.

[Jonnycraig]

Probably the best place to report that Vettels win wasn't a surprise to some in the paddock. Indeed, Helmut Marko won a €500 bet on Vettel winning the race.

German media also report that Vettel postponed his Sunday nights flight home and spent a fortune renting a local luxury resort for the night to throw a party for all the Ferrari team members.

[turbof1]

Probably the best place to report that Vettels win wasn't a surprise to some in the paddock. Indeed, Helmut Marko won a €500 bet on Vettel winning the race.

German media also report that Vettel postponed his Sunday nights flight home and spent a fortune renting a local luxury resort for the night to throw a party for all the Ferrari team members.

I think it will certainly help Vettel's image. We had quite a few people claiming Vettel could only win due Adrian Newey designing the car. Those people got proven wrong.

Him spending a fortune to throw a party just shows he really wanted that win for Ferrari. He'll probably rent all of Tomorrowland if he wins the championship .

[Phil]

I think it will certainly help Vettel's image. We had quite a few people claiming Vettel could only win due Adrian Newey designing the car. Those people got proven wrong.

I hate to be the one to bring this up, but there have been many comments. Those that are on that side of the argument that Vettel could only win due to Adrian Newey designing the cars, were probably not refering to singular wins, but championships. The relevance to Newey designing the cars have been in the context of the EBD car matching Vettels ability perfectly - at least to the sense that he excelled in them, compared to his team-mate Webber, our only yard-stick to compare him to, who clearly struggled. This was shown throughout the 4 winning seasons at RedBull - then when the car exploited this effect the most, and in other parts of the season when it didn't. Then the 2014 season came along and went a long way in establishing that in a car clearly not to his liking, the ability of the 4 times world-champion were at times subpar, especially in comparison to his team-mate Ricciardo. This reinforced the thought that perhaps his prior 4 championship wins were helped by the car and the advantage he held in it. His win under the Malaysian Grand-Prix under an entirely different car, with different strengths, characteristics and a different team-mate to messure him against go neither way in disputing those points or doubts.

Still, he is a 4 times world-champion and personally, I don't think a 2014 season in a car that didn't match his ability should put too much doubt behind his achievements. Neither should his win in Malaysia over his 2014 season or the 4 seasons before. They are different cars, different teams, different circumstances. It's why comparing drivers over different regulation periods is difficult and IMO a waste of time. Schumacher's return should have shown us one thing: That over big regulation changes, drivers are met with very different challenges. Even he who we regard as one of the greats of the sport, struggled after his comeback and I'm not convinced it was the age that let him down.

The point that remains is that some drivers probably have a wider operating window than others; Some require a car to their ability more so than others. Doesn't mean that a driver with a narrow ability can't outshine a different one with more natural talent on a given day. There are way too many factors that influence the outcome of a race, or an entire season.

I do have to say; I'll be most interested in seeing how he will fair vs. Kimi. Although I hope what I saw at Ferrari after Vettels win are not signs that might lead to favoritism. Kimi is already quite a bit behind and has had a fair share of badluck. I can't wait to see a straight battle between them, during qualifying and the race.

[n04h f1]

Does anyone have the lap times of Hamilton, Rosberg, and Vettel in last stint? Thanks.

[Juzh]

http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/ ... hart_0.pdf

[n04h f1]

http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/ ... hart_0.pdf

Thanks.

[Kalsi]

On lap 6 there were slow cars who still didn't catch the group back to the safety car.... at that very same moment the safety car went into the pits and the race started again with the group clearly divided in two....

You can hear Raikkonen lamenting that on team radio at minute 18:39 here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSfmMnuv8r8

And that's why you can see him with clear track onboard from lap 10 on

WHAT HAPPENED IS ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE.... didn't anyone notice???