Vettel wins in Malaysia!

Sebastian Vettel won the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Having suffered from reliability issues in the two first races of the season, the German driver finally made it to the finish line to score a well-deserved win.

Red Bull Racing’s domination was complete as Mark Webber brought his car home in 2nd place having set the pole position and the fastest lap time of the race.

Vettel built his victory at the start… attacking his team-mate straight away to lead into Turn 1. He then set a good pace to keep Webber at bay while Rosberg held on to third ahead of Robert Kubica. Vettel briefly lost the lead to Webber when he pitted to put on fresh tyres on lap 24.

The Australian stopped the following lap and rejoined the race right behind a yet-to-stop Lewis Hamilton. The RBR driver couldn’t attack the Briton and was finally able to up his pace again when his rival pitted (lap 31). Webber tried to chase his team-mate in the lead but the German was pretty much in control and Webber eventually settled for second with some laps to go.

Rosberg took a comfortable third place and his first podium for Mercedes ahead of a brilliant Robert Kubica. Adrian Sutil superbly fended off the assaults of Lewis Hamilton to hold onto fourth place on the finish line.

Sixth is still a good result for the McLaren driver who started the race from 20th on the grid. Thanks to a lightning start, he was already up to P12 at the end of the first lap and had a good scrap with Petrov on his way up the order. Although he was faster than Sutil in the second part of the race, he never found a way past the Force India.

Both Ferraris of Massa and Alonso also regained many positions during the race. The Brazilian finished in 7th place and now leads the World Championship. His team-mate was less lucky and had to retire on lap 55 with an engine failure.

Jenson Button took eighth position while Jaime Alguersuari and Nico Hulkenberg scored their first points of the season.

Seventeen drivers made it to the finish, including both HRT of Chandhok and Senna, Virgin’s di Grassi and Lotus’ Trulli.

Glock, Kobayashi, Liuzzi, Kovalainen and Petrov retired with mechanical failures. Michael Schumacher had to retire because of a loose wheel nut.

Pedro de la Rosa was unable to start the race, having suffered an engine failure on his way to the grid.