2015 Malaysian Grand Prix - Sepang

[Chene_Mostert]

The signs already showed in pre season testing wile Merc was sandbagging, using old parts and Ferrari running light.
The season will very tight.
Also alot of clumsy driving today throughout the field?

[Raleigh]

I've said some negative things about both Vettel and this season, glad to be proved wrong...

Vettel showing what he's capable of is very welcome, demonstrates that his 4 titles weren't just the car. And this season is shaping up into a 2-way championship battle between Mercedes and Ferrari, unexpected but fantastic.

[matt_b]

The Ferrari could stay out longer than the Merc, if they'd stayed out during SC and pitted ater a normal distance. They might could have ended up in traffic as well.

We will never know during that first stint but Lewis had track position and the safety car wouldve helped the tyres. I think mercedes were just surprised how many car stayed out, it cost them 10 seconds in traffic and the gap in the end was 8.5.

[Jordan44]

As I understand, merc used all of their tokens and ferrari still has some. This can make season more intersting... Anyway I doubt Ferrari will have more than clear 2nd place in Wcc and maybe Vettel will have chance for 2nd in Wdc.

Mercedes used 80% of their tokens, they still have some.

[AnthonyG]

The Ferrari could stay out longer than the Merc, if they'd stayed out during SC and pitted ater a normal distance. They might could have ended up in traffic as well.

We will never know during that first stint but Lewis had track position and the safety car wouldve helped the tyres. I think mercedes were just surprised how many car stayed out, it cost them 10 seconds in traffic and the gap in the end was 8.5.

11, Vettel backed off and weaved before the finish line

[abicus]

The nail in the coffin was putting Hamilton on Hard tyres at the end. Putting him on the same tyre as Vettel was never going to win him the race. If they had gone for the scrubbed mediums, he would have at least a chance of catching then passing Vettel. Rosberg showed that the tyres wouldn't have totally fallen apart, especially at the end of the race when there is more rubber on the track. A mistake, which ever way you look at it.

[Waywardism]

Although nothing I've seen today makes me think they are serious contenders this year, they're still the best part of a second behind.

I doubt it. The first Williams ended 70s behind. That's a whopping 1,3s per Lap that the Ferrari was faster.
Yes, the strategy made the scales finally tip towards Ferrari today, but even on a similar strategy it would have been pretty close between Ferrari and Merc today. Close meaning 0,1s per Lap in favor of Merc Maximum. (1 additional pitstop partly compensated by somewhat higher possible pace might have meant Seb ending up somewhere between 5s and directly behind Lewis had they also gone for a three stopper.
More difficult to judge is what a 2 stopper for Merc would have meant. Would have been the better strategy for Merc in any case.

I'm sure the temperature played a big part in Ferrari's pace today over race distance, their degradation was minimal compared to others. Like Phil said, Malaysia is a bit of an anomaly in that sense. I think in China we'll see them back to around 0.7s behind the Mercs.

[RZS10]

i seriously don't understand what you're on about

Not surprising as you clearly weren't watching the race properly.

i'd be delighted of you could prove me wrong, but you just keep repeating the same sentence ... but hey... i have some facts for you.
after 11 laps: sainz (4) in front of ric (5), verstappen in front of kvyat
after 19 laps: verstappen (6) in front of kvyat (7) and sainz in front of ric
incident on lap 26, kvyat tries to overtake and hulk hits him, both toro rosso in front of RB anyways
after 30 laps: Toro Rosso on P6 and P7, RBR on P9 and P10

without kvyat being taken out he MIGHT have been able to attack sainz near the end ... kvyat's fastest lap was barely faster than verstappens ... and verstappen had the f*ckup entering the pitlane

but clearly i wasn't watching the race properly =D>

Just watching a Christian Horner interview on BBC, he seems to think Red Bull were beaten fairly and squarely by Toro Rosso.

and neither was their teamchef, i suppose ...

[Miguel]

So how far was Vettel after Hamilton cleared traffic? 10 seconds or 12? And 40+ laps later, still 10 seconds. I do agree that Mercedes' strategy wasn't flawless: pitting your cars on lap5, onto traffic, when they have a high downforce setup doesn't seem utterly clever from the outside. But Ferrari had the pace. Be it due to degradation, new engine, better chassis, new fuel pressure rules, the SF15T had the pace.

As has been said before, Kimi made it from the back of the pack to 4th, slicing through traffic with ease, and matched his best result last season. China is good for Ferrari, and Barcelona looks good as well. If Ferrari is competitive in Bahrain, with all its traction requirements, Mercedes might actually have a challenge in its hands.

BTW: McLaren may actually be in Q3 by the time they can use tokens/claim reliability issues on their engine.

[FoxHound]

i seriously don't understand what you're on about

Not surprising as you clearly weren't watching the race properly.

i'd be delighted of you could prove me wrong, but you just keep repeating the same sentence ... but hey... i have some facts for you.
after 11 laps: sainz (4) in front of ric (5), verstappen in front of kvyat
after 19 laps: verstappen (6) in front of kvyat (7) and sainz in front of ric
incident on lap 26, kvyat tries to overtake and hulk hits him, both toro rosso in front of RB anyways
after 30 laps: Toro Rosso on P6 and P7, RBR on P9 and P10

without kvyat being taken out he MIGHT have been able to attack sainz near the end ... kvyat's fastest lap was barely faster than verstappens ... and verstappen had the f*ckup entering the pitlane

but clearly i wasn't watching the race properly =D>

Just watching a Christian Horner interview on BBC, he seems to think Red Bull were beaten fairly and squarely by Toro Rosso.

and neither was their teamchef, i suppose ...

It's conclusive then!

[Sevach]

The nail in the coffin was putting Hamilton on Hard tyres at the end. Putting him on the same tyre as Vettel was never going to win him the race. If they had gone for the scrubbed mediums, he would have at least a chance of catching then passing Vettel. Rosberg showed that the tyres wouldn't have totally fallen apart, especially at the end of the race when there is more rubber on the track. A mistake, which ever way you look at it.

They already had a montain to climb at that point, plus Hamilton's final stint was longer, they had 2 options stop right after Vettel and risk finish the race without tires or go 3 laps more allowing Vettel to open up the distance, either way Vettel running so long and at a good pace it neutralised their extra stop advantage.

[zeph]

Re: Ferrari's minimal tire degradation; weren't Allison's Lotus cars equally easy on the tires?

[f1316]

Wish I could be bothered to fish out all my comments about how Mercedes still might overuse marginal tyres - ditto my comments about how practice runs showed Ferrari could make this a race...

Anyway, couldn't be more pleased, other than if kimi had had a clear run. Hopefully third time lucky in China.

However, I do think what helped Ferrari here - being kind on tyres - will not be the case everywhere, and they likely still have problems (same as the last five years) getting enough heat into the tyres for quali.

Still, lots of aero and engine upgrades to come. Let's see how the season progresses

[Artur Craft]

Without analysing laptimes in detail, it's clear Mercedes was a tiny bit faster, if any at all.

In the last stint, Vettel had slightly older Hards and still was just managing the gap

In Q1 it became pretty obvious how seriously fast Ferrari was at Sepang(down 0,5s on Mercedes but on Hards). As Melbourne showed, Ferrari's race pace is much better than their's qualifying, so I expected Ferrari to be very close. I'm not surprised, tbh, eventhough it came easier than I thought

Sad to see Red Bull derailing so much

Another thing, with more stops, ie, fresher tires, the fastest lap of the race was only 1s faster than 2014. And let's remember that Rosberg's FP3 time from 2014 was almost 3 tenths faster than the best time done in qualifying this year. And Mercedes needed to push this time unlike last year when they were likely running detuned engines towards the middle-end (lighter car)

[djos]

i seriously don't understand what you're on about

Not surprising as you clearly weren't watching the race properly.

Just watching a Christian Horner interview on BBC, he seems to think Red Bull were beaten fairly and squarely by Toro Rosso.

I'm not saying the TR drivers didn't do a great job, but RIC had clear aero damage from the first corner - these things can't be ignored.

Btw, i don't really rate DK, both TR drivers are better imo.