2015 Malaysian Grand Prix - Sepang

[turbof1]

No engine polemics in the race thread guys... . Removed some bickering.

[Shakeman]

Clearly Merc playing up the competition from Ferrari to neuter the whining equalisation from Horner. I think the tracktemp was the real differentiator and was too high for Merc which favoured Ferrari today. Not sure if this will be a running theme come cooler destinations.

[andartop]

Sorry, missed the start, what happened? Did the Merc drivers crash into each other? How did Vettel end up in front?

[iotar__]

- there goes my prediction of easy Merc win, at least I'm not alone because Hamilton didn't drive away from anybody
- now Vettel and his fans will suddenly love =D> new engine F1, funny how great car and lack of competition makes all the difference, could be fun to find all the quotes about hybrids not belonging to F1, calls for rule changes and driving styles. I on the other hand think that lap times are pathetic and equalisation must happen.

- stops, tyre degradation and varied strategies give interesting racing, shocking development although unnecessary safety car played the part, good thing Merc can't play games anymore like with double pitstop here
- Lotus' strategy is even worse than reliability and speed, just awful with track position, no responsibility for failures
- TR beating RB

[djos]

The irony of RedBull bitching about the Renault engine is them being beaten by ToroRosso

Which is not a such a huge surprise having seen the Bull behaving like one since the winter tests. That car had visible Balance Problems from day 1. Last year Merc was probably already ahead Chassis wise, this year, the Bulls are just average cars, the engine clearly not being their sole Problem.
On a positive note McLaren seems to catch up pace wise, although they finally had to retire both cars -fortunately rather late at least in the case of Jenson- so they did get some precious mileage.

It is quite clear that the track temperature helped Ferrari a lot but still looking forward to a season that might have at least some very interesting races. Nico unfortunately seems to have lost the plot. For Lewis this will probably be an easier way to the next Championship with Seb being able to grab Points away from Nico probably more often than just this once.
Still, good News for F1!

RIC had car damage including to his front wing and KYV got punted off the track by one of the force India clowns.

[Traction]

Hi all...Just a stunning race from a 4 x WDC. Good to see Seb so happy but it's certainly way too early to claim Ferrari are back. One race imo doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of the season will be the same especially when Mercedes strategically were not at their best. I'm cautiously optimistic though as the race pace was clearly there.

Lewis is clearly the number one driver at Mercedes now an I'm sure Nico has almost resigned himself to accepting his role as number 2.

Ricciardo...

[Jordan44]

Sorry, missed the start, what happened? Did the Merc drivers crash into each other? How did Vettel end up in front?

Ferrari won on merit. Tyre strategy and degradation was the difference.

[Just_a_fan]

Button looking fairly happy all things being considered. A "turbo problem" but what that means is anyone's guess.

[RZS10]

RIC had car damage including to his front wing and KYV got punted off the track by one of the force India clowns.

They were being overtaken by ToroRosso on track and RIC had a similar pace to Kvyat despite the damage, i'm not saying the engine is great, but RedBull made it sound like it's solely an engine issue, but them fighting against their small sister team that is nowhere near RB budget wise just goes to show that they have more problems than just the engine and that their car is not as good as they think it is.

Anyways, i believe Hamilton should have pitted with his ~10 second advantage instead of waiting until Vettel was able to close the gap and overtake him, those would have been the 10 seconds he lacked at the end

[zeph]

Good to see Seb so happy but it's certainly way too early to claim Ferrari are back. One race imo doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of the season will be the same especially when Mercedes strategically were not at their best. I'm cautiously optimistic though as the race pace was clearly there.

Even more than Vettel's flawless performance, I think Raikkonen pummeling through the field and finishing 4th just really shows how good the Ferrari is. I am not saying they are as good as Mercedes, but they are clearly better than everyone else.

[ylk1]

Mercedes today:

[gandharva]

Guys, it's all the car!

Nice one frome Ferrari. But I think it was very much down to the high temperatures that caused the Mercs to struggle.
Lots of nice fights because of the safety car and TR beating RBR fair and square. I think some heads will roll soon at RBR.

[andartop]

Sorry, missed the start, what happened? Did the Merc drivers crash into each other? How did Vettel end up in front?

Ferrari won on merit.

Yeah, I lied, I just wanted someone else to confirm what I saw, as based on some comments here after winter testing and the first race Merc were supposed to have another 10 sec / lap on everyone and Lewis was going to lap everyone but Nico 5 times over.

[djos]

RIC had car damage including to his front wing and KYV got punted off the track by one of the force India clowns.

They were being overtaken by ToroRosso on track and RIC had a similar pace to Kvyat despite the damage, i'm not saying the engine is great, but RedBull made it sound like it's solely an engine issue, but them fighting against their small sister team that is nowhere near RB budget wise just goes to show that they have more problems than just the engine and that their car is not as good as they think it is.

Seriously, pay attention to the race, RIC even got told to let DK past due to the front wing damage getting worse. Just after that DK got punted off by a force India.

[Just_a_fan]

Thinking about Mercedes decision to pit during the safety car, I wonder if the need to work the tyres hard to overtake didn't help their tyre life. The cars will always be more gentle on the tyres when in clean air taking ideal lines than in dirty air running in the dirty bits of track. Not sure it would have made enough of a difference but perhaps staying out and being clean air would have allowed them to manage the overall situation better. Or perhaps the result today was the best they could actually do in the circumstances. Perhaps that's why Hamilton didn't look as pi**ed as might have been expected on the podium and in the "cool-down" room.