Raikkonen Wins The 2008 Malaysian Grand Prix

Reigning world champion Kimi Raikkonen has turned around his fortunes after a disastorous Australia, taking the chequered flag and all 10 points on a day in which his main competitors to the crown faultered.

The Finnhad to start second, but easily made it past Massa who later made a mistake, leading to his retirement.

From there on in, Raikkonen had it easy and cruised to victory.

Race Review and Results

Right from the start, it was going to be action packed.  With Hamilton and Kovalainen being moved back 5 places each, they were going to have to cut the midfield up on their lighter loads.

The lights went out, and Raikkonen got a fanatstic start despite being on the dirty side of the track.  Massa moved across, and in his stupidity nearly caused Raikkonen to crash into the pitwall.

They scrapped into turn 1.  Further back, Heidfeld made a move on Trulli around the outside in T1.  Trulli defended, tapping the German driver on his way through the corner.  Hamilton took advantage of drivers chopping each other up, and moved up to behind Webber.

Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Bourdais didn’t have such a good GP as he did in Australia.  The Frenchman crashed off on the first lap of the race at turn 3.

Nico Rosberg also had a bad start, coming onto the back-straight he smashed into the back of Glock.  Rosberg lost his wing, but unaware to this he attempted to start another lap, and had to crwal around the circuit back to the pits.  Glock pitted and had to retire with suspected suspension damage.  The stewards will be taking a good look at that incident.

As the race continued, Hamilton was jostling for position with Webber.  The Red Bull driver keeping him at arms length until the first pitstop.  Webber pitted the lap before Hamilton, allowing the British driver to do a clean and fast in-lap.

Hamilton had a good in lap and flew into the pitlane.  He raced into the box, and as his tyres were being removed huge clouds of black brake dust were flying into the air.  He was really pushing hard on those brakes.  However, for a change it didn’t all go swimmingly for the rookie.  HIs right front tyre wouldn’t come off, the wheel rim cover was stuck!  The McLaren mechanics eventually pulling the black cover off while breathing in huge plumes of smoke from the front brakes.  The new tyres on, he was away but it cost him 10 seconds and he rejoined in traffic – Webber was still ahead.

During this time, Massa had pitted for Ferrari.  Raikkonen was going one lap longer, he set the fastest lap time, and on his in-lap he was the fastest man on every single corner except the last one because he had to peel off half way through into the pitlane.  A faultless stop by Ferrari, as ever, saw the World Champion come out of the pitlane ahead of Massa.  A 1st place he was going to keep.

With the pitstops well underway, drivers were jumping around the field, Kovalainen making up 3 places to go from 7th to 4th.  Massa was pushing hard, but Raikkonen was continually pulling away from him.  Massa pushed into turn 7, but lost the Ferrari and threw it into the gravel where he beached it.  The Brazilian force dot retire, throwing away 8 good points for himself and Ferrari.  With Australia being a retirement too, and having many crashes related to lack of control, his position as a driver within Ferrari must be under pressure surely?

Sebastian Vettel soon retired, his Ferrari engine giving up the go on lap 41.  Sutil also retired on lap 7, his Ferrari engine breaking.

Cars and drivers were jostling for position in the midfield around the second stops, with another fanatstic overtaking manoeuvre harking back to the good old days of racing.  Heidfeld and Alonso made a great move around Coulthard.  They were on the back straight heading for the final corner.  Alonso looking to pass coulthard went down the right hand side of the RBR.  Heidfeld smelt an opportunity, and took the left hand side.  Coulthard was stuck in the middle as the Renault and BMW Sauber flew around the outside, harking back to when Hakkinen and Schumacher flew past Zonta at Spa 2000, but this time all 3 were racing.  Heidfeld passed them both, Alonso losing out.

Webber fell back in the field after the pitstops, but managed to hold Alonso off, who had struggled all day with a heavy fuel load.  Hamilton was chasing down Trulli in the last few laps, but just couldn’t make anything stick.

The Honda’s had issues late on.  Rubens Barrichello got another stop/go penalty for speeding in the pitlane, is there something wrong with his button?  He ended up losing position to Fisichella in the Force India, who made a sterling effort just to keep going in the circumstances.  Jenson Button lost it on the grass late on, and took a great detour well off track.

The calamities from the back didn’t affect Raikkonen though, as he crossed the line to score a victory for Ferrari, in the 10th running of the Malaysian Grand Prix, from Sepang.  Kimi won his first ever GP here back in 2003, and looked remarkably fresh compared to 2007 when he jumped out of the Ferrari.  He didn’t like the champagne being sprayed in his eyes on the podium though!

Results

2008 Petronas Malaysian GP;

Sepang Circuit, Kuala Lumpur;

56 laps;

Sunny, hot and humid – 39oC avt.

Results, Classified

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	K. Raikkonen	Ferrari	1.31.18.555
2	R. Kubica	BMW Sauber	+19.570
3	H. Kovalainen	McLaren	+38.450
4	J. Trulli	Toyota	+45.832
5	L. Hamilton	McLaren	+46.548
6	N. Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	+49.833
7	M. Webber	Red Bull Racing	+1.08.130
8	F. Alonso	Renault	+1.10.041
9	D. Coulthard	Red Bull Racing	+1.16.220
10	J. Button	Honda	+1.26.214
11	N. Piquet	Renault	+1.32.202
12	G. Fisichella	Force India	+1 lap
13	R. Barrichello	Honda	+1 lap
14	N. Rosberg	Williams	+1 lap
15	A. Davidson	Super Aguri	+1 lap
16	T. Sato	Super Aguri	+2 laps
17	K. Nakajima	Williams	+2 laps

Retirements

Driver	Team	Laps	Reason
S. Vettel	Toro Rosso	41	Engine
F. Massa	Ferrari	31	Accident
A. Sutil	Force India	7	Engine
T. Glock	Toyota	2	Accident
S. Bourdais	Toro Rosso	1	Accident

Driver Thoughts on the racing

Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari (1st Place): “Everything worked perfectly here and we took it easy to make sure nothing went wrong. We saved the engine. It was a perfect job by the team to come back. I would have been happier with Felipe in second but things go wrong.”

Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber (2nd Place): “I think it is a fantastic result for the team.  I tried to keep a consistent pace. We knew we could not match Ferrari but we kept pushing.”

Jarno Trulli, Toyota (4th Place): “It’s nice to be back in the points after such a strong race”

Fernando Alonso, Renault (8th Place): “I did the best that I could today and I scored the final point”

Jenson Button, Honda (10th Place):  “I’m pretty satisfied with 10th place as that is where the performance of the car is right now. With the majority of cars ahead of us also finishing, it is a good reflection of our overall position.”

Giancarlo Fisichella, (12th Place): “I think we honestly did our best here”

Photos

 

Video

Race Review:

Press Conference

Read the Post Race Press Conference, in full including bits not shown on TV and questions from the floor (ITV Cut most off!) :

http://f1fanatics.wordpress.com/2008-season/2008-press-conferences/

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