Bridgestone happy as both specs withstood the Malaysian heat

Fernando Alonso has won the Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix registering his first win for McLaren Mercedes and the team’s first win in over a year. He led team-mate Lewis Hamilton across the line with Australian Grand Prix winner Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) taking third.

Alonso took the lead from the start, displacing pole-sitter Felipe Massa (Ferrari). Both Massa and Raikkonen were overtaken by Hamilton on the first lap leaving the McLarens at the head of the field, a position they did not relinquish until their first pit stops.

The win is Alonso’s sixteenth and he now leads the Drivers’ Championship with 18 points from Raikkonen on 16. It is Hamilton’s second podium finish in as many races in his F1 career. Nick Heidfeld finished fourth for BMW Sauber with Massa taking fifth.

Sixth went to 2006 race winner Giancarlo Fisichella (Renault) with Toyota’s Jarno Trulli taking seventh. The final points scoring position went to Heikki Kovalainen. McLaren Mercedes lead the Constructors’ Championship with 32 points to Ferrari’s 23.

Kees van de Grint, Bridgestone Motorsport Head of Track Engineering Operations said: “Both specifications of Bridgestone Potenza tyres withstood the heat very well. Degradation of the medium specification, although higher than the hard specification, was actually lower today than we have seen in testing and we saw no mechanical failures. As we expected, the medium compound was the faster of the two by a similar amount to that experienced in practice when you account for factors such as fuel load. Bringing the hard and medium compounds to this race was certainly the correct choice. Some drivers experienced an amount of graining, but they quickly learnt how to get better performance from their tyres. Half of the points scoring cars were from constructors that we did not supply previously and it was an exciting race. The white groove marking was a success. Watching pit stops in the pit lane and the cars on track on television it was clear to see which tyre each driver was on.”