Vettel, who kept stern-faced on the podium, had already been given a dusty
dressing-down via the in-car radio link: “Good job, Seb. Looks like you
wanted it bad enough. Still you’ve got some explaining to do.”
Webber had initially moved into the lead before the drivers came in to fit
dry-weather tyres following a wet start. He had led the race throughout, as
the two Red Bulls employed the two available tyre compounds in different
sequences. Vettel ended his race on the softer ‘medium’ tyre, with Webber on
the hard. Vettel, whom many wondered had had his brain addled by the intense
Malaysian heat, said: “Obviously it is very hot and if there is something to
say we need to say it internally.”
Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s head of motorsport and typically a strident advocate
of Vettel’s, conceded that the battle had “got out of control”.
But consternation also engulfed Mercedes as Rosberg tracked Hamilton closely
until the final laps. Rosberg tersely asked the team to let him pass
Hamilton, but was told “negative” by team boss Ross Brawn.
As he protested once more, Brawn told him that Hamilton – who had earlier been
instructed to save fuel – was also being “controlled” and
could go faster. Hamilton acknowledged: “I can’t say it’s the best
feeling being up here today. If I’m honest I really feel Nico should be
standing here.”
Hamilton had at least provided the one lighter diversion on a day of bad blood
when, coming in for his second stop, he dived straight the pit box of former
team McLaren before being waved on towards Mercedes. “I did a Jenson,”
he said. “He did it a couple of years ago and I’ve done it today.
Apologies to my team.”
All this memorable drama was detonated on the first very first lap, as
Fernando Alonso suffered a broken first wing and unwisely opted to drive on
rather than take a pit stop. It was a decision that came back to bite him as
the wing gave way and lodged itself underneath his car, disabling his
steering and causing him to plough straight through Turn One into the
gravel. He implored the marshals for a push but soon recognised he was going
nowhere as a race that the Spaniard had won three times before was brought
to the most premature end.
Replays indicated that Alonso had been the author of his own downfall, twice
nudging his car into that of Sebastian Vettel in front.
But he was not the only driver failing to think straight on a manic afternoon.
Astonishingly, Hamilton, having enjoyed a superb start from third and
successfully fending off a charging Button in fourth, experienced an
unfortunate reacquaintance with his former team as he drove directly into
the McLaren pit box.
As the mechanics bashfully ushered him on, it indeed seemed that while you
could take the boy out of McLaren, you could not take McLaren out of the
boy. After all the tensions around his departure last summer from the house
that Ron Dennis built, it was difficult to envisage how Hamilton could have
made a more glaring gaffe.
At least girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger, smiling as she watched it all unfold
on the monitors, appeared to see the amusing side. So, too, did McLaren, who
described the moment on Twitter as an “unexpected twist”, before adding:
“Feel free to pop in and say ‘hi’ any time!”
Finally a semblance of order emerged as Webber made his first stop and emerged
clearly in the lead from Vettel, but Hamilton found some similarly
remarkable pace, closing on the Australian at the rate of one second per lap
and dragging Rosberg along with him.
Hamilton continued to press, and it is arguable he could even have challenged
Webber for the lead but for his spectacularly botched pit-stop. Vettel’s
race engineer urged him to keep pushing in second.
The Force Indias were enduring a nightmare as Paul di Resta’s support men
struggled to replace his left front tyre, causing the Scot to lose half a
minute and any hope of finishing in the points. Team-mate Adrian Sutil
experienced almost the same problem, prompting those in Vijay Mallya’s threw
up their notepads in disbelief.
Vettel’s race engineer instructed him to conserve his tyres as he was drifting
too close to Webber and becoming affected by the dirty air.
But the German plainly detested being caught behind his stablemate, shouting
over the car radio: “Mark is too slow, get him out of the way!” His advisors
on the pit wall counselled that there was still half of the race left to run
but Vettel’s irritation was plain.
Behind, Rosberg took up the baton in pursuit of the Red Bulls and found
himself lapping around six tenths quicker. Meanwhile, there was misery for
Button as McLaren struggled to replace a front right tyre and had to stop in
the middle of the pits.
Vettel was on the move, harnessing the drag reduction system to fly around
Hamilton and assume second spot on the start-finish straight.
The first attack on Webber came on Lap 44, as they jostled hard into Turn Two,
only for the Australian to stay ahead and then repeat the same defensive
trick at Turn Three to force his team-mate wide.
The breakthrough arrived on Lap 46, after Webber had defended robustly, only
for Vettel to try his luck on the inside on Turn One.
Webber led into Turn Two but his rival would not relent, and when he could not
get on to the power fast enough on the outside Vettel drove around on the
inside. Horner labelled the move “silly” as Newey put his head into his
hands. The race was not yet over and yet the inquest had already begun.
Leading final positions after Race (56 Laps): 1 Sebastian Vettel (Ger)
Red Bull 1hr 38mins 56.681secs, 2 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:39:00.979, 3
Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Mercedes GP 1:39:08.862, 4 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes
GP 1:39:09.321, 5 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:39:22.329, 6 Romain Grosjean
(Fra) Lotus F1 Team 1:39:32.245, 7 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus F1 Team
1:39:45.160, 8 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Sauber-Ferrari 1:39:49.725, 9 Sergio
Perez (Mex) McLaren 1:40:09.038, 10 Jean-Eric Vergne (Fra) Scuderia Toro
Rosso 1:40:23.805, 11 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Williams 1:40:25.291, 12 Esteban
Gutierrez (Mex) Sauber-Ferrari at 1 Lap, 13 Jules Bianchi (Fra) Marussia at
1 Lap, 14 Charles Pic (Fra) Caterham at 1 Lap, 15 Giedo van der Garde (Ned)
Caterham at 1 Lap, 16 Max Chilton (Gbr) Marussia at 2 Laps, 17 Jenson Button
(Gbr) McLaren at 3 Laps, 18 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Scuderia Toro Rosso at 5
Laps
Not Classified: 19 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Williams 45 Laps completed,
20 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India 27 Laps completed, 21 Paul di Resta (Gbr)
Force India 22 Laps completed, 22 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1 Laps
completed