09.51 Very, very cold atmosphere between Vettel and Webber after that
race. No eye contact and very little exchanged between the two.
09.50 Ignore the screenshot of Vettel looking like Johnny Borrell from
Razorlight and instead look at the team standings:
09.46 The Red Bull radio relays this message: “Good job, Seb.
Looks like you wanted it bad enough. Still you’ve got some explaining to do.”
09.44 Ultra-quick race wrap from Oliver Brown in Kuala Lumpar:
Vettel wins, Webber 2nd. Hamilton 3rd and Rosberg 4th but absolutely no
celebration from Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn. Telling.
Lap 56 Final lap. “Ok Lewis, we need maximum fuel saving for this
last bit of the race,” comes the instruction. It’s amusing, really.
Rosberg is clearly desperate to overtake Lewis Hamilton and get on the
podium. No dice, though… Meanwhile, there’s the chequered flag! Sebastian
Vettel wins the Malaysian Grand Prix!
Lap 55 No championship point for Button today then… He was in 12th
but the team have taken the decision to retire him.
Lap 54 Just three laps remaining…..Rosberg and Brawn’s debate
continues with the team principal laying down the law. “We want to
bring these cars home”. Rosberg is desperate to be let loose but it’s
not happening.
Lap 53 About 3.7sec separates the two Red Bulls, with Vettel ahead of
Webber.
Lap 52 Just five laps remaining. Rosberg and Brawn continued their
debate on the radio, with the driver insisting he could capitalise on some
Red Bull tyre issues at the death. Brawn remained unmoved.
Lap 50 “I can go so much faster, just let me go past,” says
Rosberg on the radio. “Negative,” comes the reply from Ross Brawn.
Oh dear. Two more battling team-mates.
Lap 49 How rude of me…I’m concentrating on the inter-team battle for
first and second when there’s a very tasty fight for third going on between
Mercedes colleagues Hamilton and Rosberg. The Brit still leads but it’s all
to play for.
Lap 48 Now Vettel has the lead are we just meandering towards an
inevitable conclusion? The comments on the radio have been fascinating today
and the comments in the media mixed zone might be even spicier.
Lap 47 Is Vettel now an F1 villain? Webber, who was “too slow”
apparently, would not get out the way for Vettel and the German had to take
him on. And take him on, he did. Vettel retains the lead as Oliver Brown
salivates:
Lap 46 The Red Bulls are battling wheel to wheel! There’s hardly a
metre between them! It’s a Battle Royale………….and Vettel takes the
lead! “This is silly, Seb, come on” we hear on the radio
(which operates on a slight delay). Were the team bosses worried about a
potential crash?
Lap 45 Webber, Vettel, Hamilton is our 1-2-3. Mercedes tell us there
were fuel-saving orders issued to Hamilton, but the reason he relinquished
second place to Vettel was related to his tyres. He has now swapped to the
softer tyres and looks a lot happier, although Rosberg is right behind him.
Lap 44 Out the pits and Webber – just – retains the lead. There’s very
little in it, though. This is great action! Webber, on the defensive, was
quite a sight. He’s held off Vettel and is reasonably comfortable in the
lead.
Lap 43 Webber pits and almost catches his engineers off-guard. They
trot in place in the nick of time and he’s back on the track.
Lap 42 Now then! The gap between Webber and Vettel is becoming shorter
and shorter with every passing minute. Vettel pits for, presumably, the last
time today.
Lap 41 Right, recap. Webber first, Vettel second, Hamilton third. We’ve
heard Lewis on the radio saying he can’t catch Webber, and it looks like
he’s going to struggle to catch Vettel now. Vettel, meanwhile, is slowly but
surely reducing the gap between him and Webber.
Lap 39 Jenson Button has rejoined the race in 14th after those problems
with getting his front-right tyre on.
Lap 38 Lewis Hamilton has been instructed to think about more fuel
saving….And almost straight away he relinquishes second place to Sebastian
Vettel, who is desperately trying to cut the five-second gap between he and
team-mate Mark Webber.
Lap 37 Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn just on the coverage for a
quick interview. He sounds confident over his team’s chances today. Can
Hamilton do it?
Lap 36 Hold up….. Problems with Button in the pits. His front-right
tyre looks like it may have not been put on properly.
Lap 35 Button pits and Webber’s back in the lead. Decent spell from
Button, that.
Lap 34 Vettel has a new set of hard compound tyres. He’s out of the
pits behind Webber and Hamilton. Rosberg is not far behind, while Button –
who is yet to put – in the lead.
Lap 33 Thanks, YouTube. That didn’t take long. Here’s some video of
that Hamilton garage mix-up earlier:
Lap 32 Force India co-owner Vijay Mallya:
The cars were really quick. We were very encouraged. But during the pit
stops we had a catastrophic failure of the new wheel nuts. Everything took
too long and the inevitable happened.
Lap 31 Webber still leading the way on those hard tyres.
Lap 30 Here’s the story on Di Resta: There was a problem with the wheel
nuts. Di Resta was in the pits for so long there was an overheating of the
components and he was told he should retire.
Lap 29 We’re at half-race distance now and Vettel is being told to keep
calm and carry on by a helpful engineer.
Lap 28 “Mark is too slow. Get him out the way,” we hear on
the radio. Doesn’t look slow to me.
Lap 26 Vettel is continuing to gain on Webber. “Sebastian, look
after your tyres,” comes the orders on the radio.
Lap 25 That record from Hamilton didn’t last long….Rosberg’s only
gone and smashed it.
Lap 24 It looks like Di Resta is retiring from the race after another
nightmare pit stop. It could have been a great afternoon for the team but
the four pit stops have all raised problems.
Lap 23 Hamilton rapid! He’s just set a new fastest lap record for the
race. 1.41.610. That’s rather fast.
Lap 22 Lap 22 ends with Webber back in the lead. Vettel two. And
Hamilton leading the Mercedes three-four.
Lap 21 Webber’s on the medium compound tyres now. Ironic comments
abound as Hamilton succesfully pits with the correct team.
Lap 20 We’ve got the Red Bull team on the radio and they tell Vettel to
deliver more of the same after a 1min 43.0sec lap.
Lap 19 Nice pic of the front wing damage that ended Alonso’s race
earlier:
Lap 18 Vettel just increasing the distance between he and Hamilton,
which, jokes aside, raises the very serious point that if Hamilton had
pitted at the right garage (!) he’d be right on Vettel’s tail now.
Lap 17 Recap on the leaders: Webber leading the way, Vettel close by
and a Mercedes three-four.
Lap 16 There’s action all over the place unfolding right before our
very eyes but the press corps are still talking about one thing, and one
thing only:
Lap 15 Webber was fastest on that last lap than either of his main
pursuers, Vettel and Hamilton.
Lap 14 Still got the Webber-Vettel-Hamilton top three and currently
there’s no rain detected along the track path.
Lap 13 Pastor Maldonado has incurred some damage to his car. Yellow
flag.
Lap 12 The temperature has dropped a tad. Hamilton has made up a lot of
ground and is only five seconds off the lead. How costly could that trip to
his old garage be?
Lap 11 Webber still leading the way. Vettel and Hamilton complete the
top three but Rosberg is close behind the Brit.
Lap 10 F1 hacks absolutely lapping up that gaffe from Hamilton. They
love a story like that and he didn’t fail to deliver!
Lap nine A huge lap from Mark Webber. “Mighty” says one of
the Sky commentators and that’s appropriate.
Lap eight After a very eventful start things have calmed down a dash.
Those Red Bulls are still in the top three.
Lap seven Ha! Lewis Hamilton just went into the wrong garage. He said
hello to his old McLaren team-mates.
Lap six Sebastian Vettel has pitted and put on the medium compound
tyres. He’s basically saying to the chasing pack: “Your move, lads.”
Lap five Kimi Raikkonen is back in 12th after coming off the road
slightly. He was lucky to not suffer any significant damage.
Lap four So Alonso’s out. Why didn’t he come in at the end of lap one?
Can we file that under “massive error” from Ferrari?
Lap three DRS is now enabled. Nico Rosberg has made an appearance in
the top-five, and is hot on the heels of Jenson Button in fourth.
Lap two Wow! Drama! Fernando Alonso’s race looks to be over. No
sooner has lap two begun than his vehicle skuds off the track and into the
gravel. He’s got some serious car trouble, with the front wing long gone.
The upshot is that we have ourselves a Red Bull one-two.
Lap one Five lights…….and we’re off! Frantic start from all
concerned but some good control from Vettel sees him come out of that with
the minimum of fuss. He’s built up a decent lead, with his Red Bull
team-mate Mark Webber also behind Fernando Alonson in third.
08.02 The drivers can expect to lose three kilos in weight during this
race, such is the humidity. Blimey.
07.59 The top 12 are all starting on intermediate tyres.
07.56 This morning’s buzz word is “treacherous”. It’s being
deployed at will.
07.52 Sky have decided a great way to whet the appetite is by
interviewing Lewis Hamilton’s X Factor judge girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger.
Platitudes, yes, but also an interesting point on the schedule:
He’s [Lewis] doing good. Really good, yes. It kind of looks like it does
here every year. You wonder why they have it at 4pm every year?
07.50 More from Oliver Brown:
07.41 The rain is just easing up a bit at the moment, leaving the teams
with some big decisions to make. Giedo van der Garde says it’s “half
wet, half dry”. He doesn’t want to commit to intermediate tyres.
07.35 Here’s how our man in Kuala Lumpar, Oliver Brown, saw the
action yesterday:
Red Bull’s triple world champion had squeezed through the first session by
only four-tenths of a second, but after he had switched to a second set of
intermediate tyres during the final third Vettel again underlined his
peerless composure under pressure.
The German will be put under intense pressure on the grid by the Ferrari pair
of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso, following their late surge to move
second and third, while Lewis Hamilton will start fourth. While he had the
opportunity of a maiden pole for Mercedes, standing top of the standings
with just two minutes of qualifying left, Vettel ultimately eclipsed the
competition with a beautifully judged lap of one minute 49.674 seconds.
07.30 Good morning and thanks for joining me for live coverage of the
2013 Malaysian Grand Prix. Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel made it two
consecutive pole positions for the season yesterday when he mastered the
tricky Malaysian conditions to qualify ahead of Felipe Massa and Fernando
Alonso. What will happen today for the real thing? Let’s find out…
Grid positions after qualifying: 1 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1min
49.674secs, 2 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:50.587, 3 Fernando Alonso (Spa)
Ferrari 1:50.727, 4 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Mercedes GP 1:51.699, 5 Mark Webber
(Aus) Red Bull 1:52.244, 6 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:52.519, 7 Kimi
Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus F1 Team 1:52.970, 8 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren
1:53.175, 9 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India 1:53.439, 10 Sergio Perez (Mex)
McLaren 1:54.136, 11 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Lotus F1 Team 1:37.636, 12 Nico
Hulkenberg (Ger) Sauber-Ferrari 1:38.125, 13 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Scuderia
Toro Rosso 1:38.822, 14 Esteban Gutierrez (Mex) Sauber-Ferrari 1:39.221, 15
Paul di Resta (Gbr) Force India 1:44.509, 16 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Williams
No Time, 17 Jean-Eric Vergne (Fra) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:38.157, 18 Valtteri
Bottas (Fin) Williams 1:38.207, 19 Jules Bianchi (Fra) Marussia 1:38.434, 20
Charles Pic (Fra) Caterham 1:39.314, 21 Max Chilton (Gbr) Marussia 1:39.672,
22 Giedo van der Garde (Ned) Caterham 1:39.932