Alonso holds off heroic Perez to win rain struck Malaysian GP

Fernando Alonso has won an exciting and rain affected Malaysian Grand Prix, only just finishing ahead of the flying Sauber of Sergio Perez. Lewis Hamilton came home 3rd after a relatively successful race after starting from pole-position.

The race started with rain falling on the circuit, with the track wetter in various parts than others. All cars started the race on intermediates, with Pedro de la Rosa stalling as the cars began the formation lap. This therefore forced HRT to start him from the pit-lane.

As the lights went out, Lewis Hamilton got a fantastic start as Michael Schumacher lost many places heading into turn 1. The German’s race then went from bad to worse after he got hit from behind by Romain Grosjean through turn 4, which tipped the Mercedes into a spin. Grosjean then spun after only completing three laps in his Lotus, embedding the car in the gravel.

Bruno Senna had another eventful opening lap, damaging his front wing and being forced into the pits. As the rain began to fall even heavier on the track, many drivers’ began piling into the pits for the Cinturato full wets including Felipe Massa, Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. Eventually the majority of the field were running full wets, as the rain began intensifying and aquaplaning became an issue.

Eventually the Safety Car was deployed to slow the field down as the rain attacked the Sepang circuit, with confusion from the race director as they accidentally red flagged the race prematurely. They did, however, finally red flag and suspend the race as the rain became too heavy to race in.

The cars lined up on the grid as torrential rain struck the circuit, with many teams even constructing gazebos’ on the grid to keep their cars and mechanics dry. The grid spent nearly half-an-hour on the start-finish line waiting for the rain to subside and the race director to finally restart the race.

At 17:15 local time the race was restarted as the safety car led the field away, with Lewis Hamilton leading the pack which were all on the full wet tyres. Pedro de la Rosa was struck with a drive-through penalty, as members’ of the team were still present on the grid with three minutes until the race restarted.

Eventually the race was back under green flag conditions, with many drivers’ peeling off into the pits to switch to the intermediate tyres. Lewis Hamilton suffered a disastrous pit-stop as the rear-jack failed to raise the car in unison with the front-jack. This move lost Hamilton several seconds as he rejoined behind Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso.

Jenson Button suffered a disastrous blow to his race as he collided with the rear of Narain Karthikeyan’s HRT, this incident left Button with a damaged front wing which forced the British driver to pit once again for a new front wing.

Nico Rosberg suffered another difficult race, as the German began to loose places to Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen and Mark Webber. The Mercedes driver eventually pitted on lap 26, with Felipe Massa doing likewise two laps later. The Ferrari driver then came under immense pressure from Jenson Button, as well as the Toro Rosso of Daniel Ricciardo.

With the track drying out, many teams’ began looking at changing to dry tyres. Daniel Ricciardo was the guinea-pig of the pack and opted to switch to dry tyres first, with the Australian driver then setting quick sector times. This decision was then copied by the rest of the field, with Massa, Webber, Hamilton and Alonso all pitting. Sergio Perez had begun to put huge amounts of pressure on Fernando Alonso, reeling the Spaniard in with superlative lap times. However as Alonso pitted, Perez stayed out for another lap on the worn-out intermediate tyres. When Perez did finally pit, the team opted for the harder compound contrary to the majority of the field who had opted for mediums.

As the order sorted itself out after the many pit-stops up and down the field, Alonso was in the lead ahead of Sergio Perez. However, that didn’t deter Perez who began reeling in Alonso once again with blistering sector times in the Sauber.

Sebastian Vettel had an unusually uncompetitive end to the race, after making contact with Karthikeyan the German picked up a left-rear puncture as the Pirelli disintegrated along the back straight.

With Sauber’s Sergio Perez beginning to battle for the lead with Fernando Alonso, the other Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi was forced to retire on lap 47. All attention now turned to the battle for the lead as Sergio Perez entered the DRS zone and began battling for the lead. However, the young Mexican’s fight for the lead was ruined as he ran wide on the kerbs and lost several seconds running off the track.

Further down the field Pastor Maldonado retired after an engine issue for the Williams driver, dropping oil on the track throughout sector 3. Sebastian Vettel was then issued a mixture of orders from his race engineer, initially being told to pit and retire the car, then being told to continue before eventually being told to pull off the track and retire due to an emergency on the car. Vettel, however, continued and finished 11th, a whole minute behind the leaders’

With Sergio Perez driving a heroic race behind Alonso, the laps ran out for him as Fernando Alonso crossed the line to score Ferrari’s first victory of 2012, in a car which is still lagging behind the true pace of the likes of McLaren and Red Bull.

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