2017 Malaysia Grand Prix - Sepang, 29 September-01 October

[f1316]

No safety car, no rain, no particular attrition - Ferrari just can't catch a break; can't help but think of Spa last year, when Hamilton starting from the back, or Abu Dhabi 2012 when Vettel did it, and there were always nice safety cars. If we had got one today - pretty much at any point after Vettel got past Alonso - I think Seb might have won.

And Alonso... I just knew he'd get in Vettel's way, always does; he seems to have a deep resentment for him taking his seat and doing well and always makes it especially hard for him vs others.

All that said, if the Ferrari remains the fastest car everywhere we go - and turbo issue now out the way - 5 wins still guarantees Seb the title; so definitely not over and I suspect Mercedes are doing everything to look after their engine, but if we'd had a 'normal' couple of races, it would look very different.

Ferrari was the fastest car at Monza ? at Spa ? at Baku ? at Silverstone ?
Furthermore, do you really think Merc will be outperform by Ferrari on EVERY race till the end ?

When did I say that?

Perhaps you misunderstood, let me try a different construction: if everywhere we go, Ferrari continues to be the fastest - as it has been in the last two races - then 5 wins guarantees Seb the title.

Point of fact: both Lewis and Seb argued the Ferrari was the quickest race car in Spa. In any case, I thought Mercedes would be the quickest car in Malaysia - I'm just saying IF (and it's a big if) - then at least it's still in their hands; Ferrari don't need to rely on dnf's or red bull just yet.

Another interesting thing from today is that A Renault engines car was capable of beating the works Mercedes on a track with long straights; that bodes well for McLaren if their chassis is as good as they say. The power gap is surmountable.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Nobody is overlooking that. But the third fastest car still managed to secure 2nd place.
For Mercedes this is almost as good as a win.
They extended both championships in a race where they were not even close to be the fastest car.

"but they got rekt" yea if you´re delusional.

I think the worrying aspect is how quick that Ferrari is and how bad the Mercedes is when it fails to hit its operating window....

Russia, Silverstone, Hungary, Italy and Malaysia. At all these circuits, the pendulum has swung between Mercedes and Ferrari. I have listed these circuits as going to into each of these races, what was expected before the weekend, wasn't what we witnessed through the weekend. While Mercedes got their setup wrong at some circuits, Ferrari did so in Silverstone and Italy. I see that continuing till the end of the season.

With Vettel most likely getting a penalty for Suzuka and a circuit where overtaking between the top cars is going to be so difficult, it would be a roller coaster.

[Restomaniac]

I was not able to watch the race... Anybody have onboards from both Vettel and Stroll. From the single twitter video it appears like Vettel is more to blame than Stroll.

The Malaysia track is super wide and Stroll does not have much more than a single car width between himself and the apex.

That means that Vettel has acres of space on the right. Also, it does appear that they are almost side-by-side (before Vettel accelerates)?

Would love to see more angles to make up my mind...

I think stroll was sleeping and drifted into Seb. However i blame Seb just like I did in Singapore, for placing his car in the line of risky people.

He didnt drifted. He freaking turned towards Seb. wtf

Maybe Seb should now just park the car right after finish line because

Or maybe he should not be so desperate to get to the marbles first. There is plenty for all he needs to be smarter. Stay out of trouble and don't go taking any risks.

Yes Stroll was sleeping but what was the desperate rush for?

[F1NAC]

OMG people keep blaming Vettel... Ridiculous

[Jester Maroc]

OMG people keep blaming Vettel... Ridiculous

I am not blaming Vettel. I am asking for onboards to decide who is more to blame. Stroll does seem to be moving to the right, but it is a cooldown lap and moving about slowly is quite normal. What is not normal is Vettel's sudden surge of speed to reach the apex first.

I really want to see a Stroll onboard...

[Restomaniac]

OMG people keep blaming Vettel... Ridiculous

Erm it's a 50/50.

[Spoutnik]

No safety car, no rain, no particular attrition - Ferrari just can't catch a break; can't help but think of Spa last year, when Hamilton starting from the back, or Abu Dhabi 2012 when Vettel did it, and there were always nice safety cars. If we had got one today - pretty much at any point after Vettel got past Alonso - I think Seb might have won.

And Alonso... I just knew he'd get in Vettel's way, always does; he seems to have a deep resentment for him taking his seat and doing well and always makes it especially hard for him vs others.

All that said, if the Ferrari remains the fastest car everywhere we go - and turbo issue now out the way - 5 wins still guarantees Seb the title; so definitely not over and I suspect Mercedes are doing everything to look after their engine, but if we'd had a 'normal' couple of races, it would look very different.

Ferrari was the fastest car at Monza ? at Spa ? at Baku ? at Silverstone ?
Furthermore, do you really think Merc will be outperform by Ferrari on EVERY race till the end ?

When did I say that?

Perhaps you misunderstood, let me try a different construction: if everywhere we go, Ferrari continues to be the fastest - as it has been in the last two races - then 5 wins guarantees Seb the title.

Point of fact: both Lewis and Seb argued the Ferrari was the quickest race car in Spa. In any case, I thought Mercedes would be the quickest car in Malaysia - I'm just saying IF (and it's a big if) - then at least it's still in their hands; Ferrari don't need to rely on dnf's or red bull just yet.

Another interesting thing from today is that A Renault engines car was capable of beating the works Mercedes on a track with long straights; that bodes well for McLaren if their chassis is as good as they say. The power gap is surmountable.

I don't think they will be as fast as they were in the last two races for the races to come...

At Spa Ferrari hadn't a very significative advantage imo it was 55-45 like in Spain with a better qualy pace for Lewis.

I don't take a look at the speed data this weekend but at Spa we've seen how difficult it is to beat a full power Merc engine on the Merc factory car... Lewis without DRS had the same speed as Vettel with DRS.
Overall Mercedes are in control they just need to find the good window for the race to come. They can also rely very heavily on Lewis qualy pace, especially on track where it's difficult to overtake (Suzuka, Interlagos).

[Silent Storm]

Great performance by Vandoorne finishing 30 seconds ahead of Alonso, and also got ahead of Alonso in points.

[zeph]

Great performance by Vandoorne finishing 30 seconds ahead of Alonso, and also got ahead of Alonso in points.

Yes, he definitely beat Alonso on merit this weekend. And I'm an Alonso fan.

[F1NAC]

OMG people keep blaming Vettel... Ridiculous

Erm it's a 50/50.

why 50/50 . From VET's onboard you can see that he is following the corner. he's doing that every single weekend. What should he do. When did you see somebody crashing with you on cooldown lap ffs?

Speed was similar to Grosjean's (Car behind during incident)

[Restomaniac]

I hope Rai doesn't have a Turbo failure.
We could had Ferrari with Vet+5 and Rai+10 on the grid. That's not good at all.

[zeph]

I found the podium interviews interesting in that both RBR drivers mentioned they noticed the Mercs were struggling for grip.

[Restomaniac]

OMG people keep blaming Vettel... Ridiculous

Erm it's a 50/50.

why 50/50 . From VET's onboard you can see that he is following the corner. he's doing that every single weekend. What should he do. When did you see somebody crashing with you on cooldown lap ffs?

Speed was similar to Grosjean's (Car behind during incident)

Because it clearly was. Str was sleeping but Vet seemed to want to start overtaking for a laugh.

I get they you're a Vet/Ferrari fan but it was 50/50 looking at it impartially. You should calm down a tad.

[matt_b]

I found the podium interviews interesting in that both RBR drivers mentioned they noticed the Mercs were struggling for grip.

Tyres were overheating but all the remaining race will be much cooler than today.

[iotar__]

I found the podium interviews interesting in that both RBR drivers mentioned they noticed the Mercs were struggling for grip.

Like every slower car that tries to keep a quicker behind.
- "Mercedes' dominance, engine (inc. modes) advantage, no chance for Ferrari, Friday means nothing." Malaysia = balanced track with tyres influence as you saw and no time to fix problems.

- Should have been Ferrari 1-2. Fake drama, we've seen that before, pity Raikkonen wasn't there : "I don't think any of us knows what it is exactly". Oh yeah.

- Vettel's race was unfairly aided by evil DRS (see: Spain). If only they banned it for this race we could have watched some good, pure racing. "DRS lost Vettel Spain" remains the most absurd excuse ever.