Malaysia 2008 : Raikkonen storms to victory in Malaysia

It was a weekend in Malaysia for Ferrari to bounce back after a dismal outing in Australia with Kimi Raikkonen taking the Malaysian Grand Prix with relative ease. Second Place belonged to Robert Kubica in a fast improving BMW-Sauber F1.08 and Heikki Kovalainen in third place.

Jarno Trulli in the Toyota showed that Toyota have good pace this year with an impressive 4th place finish just ahead of a charging Lewis Hamilton who, if not for one poor pit stop would have placed higher.

The race began with Felipe Massa on pole and after turn one, Massa kept the lead ahead of Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen. Nick Heidfeld and Jarno Trulli came together lightly, but enough to send Heidfeld down to 10th place. Heidfeld would have a difficult time making up ground the rest of the race from there. First lap bumper cars was limited to just Sebastein Bourdais spinning off into the gravel trap and beaching his car for the day.

Lap by lap run down:

Lap 2 had Massa in the lead edging close to a 1 sec gap ahead of Raikkonen followed by Kubica, then Trulli, Kovalainen, and Coulthard.

Lap 4 as Alonso was pushing Coulthard, Heidfeld took advantage and made a brilliant 2 car pass to move up into 8th.

Lap 6 proved bad luck for Force India when Adrian Sutil pulled off the track into retirement.

Lap 10 showed that Ferrari were by far the quickest cars on track as Massa and Raikkonen pulled a full 8 seconds ahead of BMW-Sauber’s Robert Kubica. It was apparent that barring any mechanical failure that Ferrari had washed away any ill effects from the Australian Grand Prix and were out to prove their dominance that winter testing had shown.

Lap 17 Massa pits

Lap 18 Raikkonen pits and comes out just in front of Massa to take the lead of the race for the first time and begins to pull away quickly from Massa.

Lap 19 was disaster for Lewis Hamilton when right front tire problems had him in the pits for 20 seconds and that seriously damaged his hopes of a podium in Malaysia.

Lap 31 was Massa’s downfall when he loses the rear of the car ans spins into the gravel trap where he’s beached for the day. This hands 2nd place over to Robert Kubica.

Lap 47 Rubens Barrichello limps into the pits for a 10 second stop and go penalty, his second penalty in 2 races. This one for speeding in the pits.
The deserving winner, Kimi Raikkonen finishing well in front of Robert Kubica who was well in front of Heikki Kovalainen.

It was fitting to hear Raikkonen say his drive to the victory was ‘pretty easy’ once he had the lead. Did I hear Lewis Hamilton say that last week in Australia.
As far as the race goes, it was a fairly uneventful race with drivers showing they could actually get along without traction control. Compared to Australia this was a clean race. Ferrari were clearly the quickest team on the day, but the second quickest team on the day had to be BMW-Sauber. McLaren struggled for grip all day and couldn’t muster up enough pace to challenge either Ferrari or BMW-Sauber.

It’s a pretty dramatic turnaround with respect to who has the bragging rights. Last week no one questioned that McLaren won with ease and Ferrari fumbled their way out of Australia. Now, after such a dominant performance in Malaysia by Ferrari, a steadily improving BMW-Sauber, and McLaren much slower despite Kovalainen’s 3rd place, the bragging rights are squarely on the shoulders of Ferrari.

1. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1h31m18.555s
2. KUBICA BMW +19.5s
3. KOVALAINEN McLaren +38.4s
4. TRULLI Toyota +45.8s
5. HAMILTON McLaren +46.5s
6. HEIDFELD BMW +49.8s
7. WEBBER Red Bull +1m08.1s
8. ALONSO Renault +1m10.0s
9. COULTHARD Red Bull +1m16.2s
10. BUTTON Honda +1m26.2s
11. PIQUET Renault +1m32.2s
12. FISICHELLA Force India +1 lap
13. BARRICHELLO Honda +1 lap
14. ROSBERG Williams +1 lap
15. DAVIDSON Super Aguri +1 lap
16. SATO Super Aguri +2 laps
17. NAKAJIMA Williams +2 laps
R. VETTEL Toro Rosso +17 laps
R. MASSA Ferrari +26 laps
R. SUTIL Force India +51 laps
R. GLOCK Toyota +55 laps
R. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso +56 laps