2012 Malaysia Grand Prix Discussion Thread

[the Masked Lapwing]

Now this is just ridiculous. Maldonado isn't going anywhere up the grid if he keeps getting ripped off at the death.

[Wizzie]

Vettel in trouble

[Benetton]

Unreal drive by Perez and Alonso. Hats off to both of them. Perez is a future champion no doubt.

[Minardi Man]

Still feel great for Sauber, what a lovely team

[F1000X]

Nobody cares, Eyebrows. Nobody cares. Take your champagne and bathplug off back to your trailer, there's a new sheriff in town and he's going to be chewing you up next year.

[Wizzie]

Perez's drive has to be right up there to the best the world has ever seen, even with that error

[WeirdKerr]

Vettel in trouble

box box box.... no stay out .... no box box box emergency... lol

[DanielPT]

It is still good for me... A win was on the cards for Perez, though! Still he unrejectifies himself! Fantastic! I am happy!

[David AGS]

What a cracking RACE!!!

[Pointrox]

What a great race for Sauber and Perez! Eres grande Checo!
I knew he will have his great breakthrough this season - and here it is

[DOSBoot]

Great job by Perez! Shame he didn't win it, but I'll take the second place. Honorable mention to Alonso as well. He shows that a s**tbox can win races.

[eurobrun]

Perez will be a future world champion.

[Valrys]

Hmm, I wonder if anyone will take bets on Sauber remaining 4th or above in the constructors championship.

Fantastic race, Perez and Senna the clear standouts, with positive mentions to the Force Indias and Vergne.

[WaffleCat]

brilliant podium by Perez.Would have never thought of him to perform superbly.

Also,Vettel's engineer just messed with his head.Box box box,wait,stay out stay out,oh crap,stop stop stop stop.

[mediocre]

Luca Badoer should return for Ferrari.

[solarcold]

SERGIO PEREZ SERGIO PEREZ SERGIO PEREZ SERGIO PEREZ!!!

[dinizintheoven]

Come in number 6, your time is up! It's the dole queue for you, and there's a Mexican no-longer-reject who wants your job! Do not pass Go, do not collect whatever salary it is Ferrari are paying you.

That was absolutely epic. That justified the rigmarole in getting the Astra 1 dish set up. A mild slap for RTL for their VERY LONG ADVERT BREAK in the middle of the race, though (the one where they didn't have the action as an inset at the side of the screen) - although with James Allan chuntering on throughout the race, it was a little bit like watching ITV's coverage from 2002-08.

And now, I can watch the best bits again at 2:45!

[Ed24]

Massa wasn't great, but Kobayashi was pretty awful as well considering what Perez could do, and that seems to be overlooked a little.

[patrick]

It's difficult to trust Ferrari's influence based on past events, but regardless of the source of that team message it's possible the interference could have broken Checo's focus and caused the mistake. Nonetheless, he has lost nothing from that drive and nobody's going to blame him for a small mistake due to his experience. The result far outweighs it and is a great boon for him and Sauber.

could have been a brilliant result though!

[Valrys]

Massa wasn't great, but Kobayashi was pretty awful as well considering what Perez could do, and that seems to be overlooked a little.

His pace was solid, Perez was just awesome. Also we don't know what caused him to retire, so maybe he was nursing a problem.

[Minardi Man]

Massa wasn't great, but Kobayashi was pretty awful as well considering what Perez could do, and that seems to be overlooked a little.

He was in the points until he retired, Massa was no where near.
I'll be inclined to agree with you somewhat if Koboyashi crashed out, but I don't think he did, did he?

[mario]

Great job by Perez! Shame he didn't win it, but I'll take the second place. Honorable mention to Alonso as well. He shows that a s**tbox can win races.

Alonso hasn't just won a race in that car, he is also leading the WDC right now (he has 35 points, against 30 for Hamilton and 25 for Button), which is something that by rights he really should not be doing in that car. He really is flattering Ferrari a hell of a lot given how poor the car looked in testing - it make you wonder what he could do if he had his hands on a front running car...
Perez, despite that slight slip up, must have grabbed the attention of the entire paddock with what has been an astoundingly strong drive - you can see why Ferrari have been keeping a close eye on him. It is surely also going to increase the calls for Perez to replace Massa, given that Massa finished nowhere by comparison - shame that things didn't go quite so well for Kobayashi...
Further back, Hamilton, will probably be very frustrated - with neither Button or Vettel scoring today and Webber finishing behind him, he has put some space between himself and them, but on the other hand neither he nor the team really maximised their chances today. At least this time it was his team mate who collided with somebody else...

And right down the back of the grid things do not sound good for Karthikeyan - according to Autosport he is currently under investigation for the collision between himself and Vettel.

[GwilymJJames]

EDIT: Discussion is not ROTR

[patrick]

I'm starting to see why they call him Magic Alonso in Spain, while I still find him an intolerably sinister person he's a damn sneaky driver. Could be a title race on par with 2010

[Klon]

And right down the back of the grid things do not sound good for Karthikeyan - according to Autosport he is currently under investigation for the collision between himself and Vettel.

Oi, investigating doesn't mean anything yet. I am sure this will be filed as a racing accident. Although, even if not - it's not like it matters: being put a few spots back really won't hurt him.

[Ataxia]

Karthikeyan was in the way constantly. He doesn't get off the racing line; he just drifts around aimlessly and hopes the other cars will overtake him. To quote Barry the Baptist: 'He's a bathplug liability'.

Great race though, I was super disappointed when Perez lost all that ground to Alonso. Great drive by both, as well as by Senna, the man written off by so many.

[Ed24]

He was in the points until he retired, Massa was no where near.
I'll be inclined to agree with you somewhat if Koboyashi crashed out, but I don't think he did, did he?

Actually, Kobayashi was only in the points in the first 5 laps and then on Lap 40 in the pitstop phase, not when he retired.

He was 13th when he retired...

[DonTirri]

Hot DAMN what a race!

Despite the red flag period I can say this is probably one of the best races in a long time in my honest opinion (Well okay, Canada last year was simply epic but still).
My cliffnotes as usual:

- Alonso: You lucky, lucky, LUCKY bastard. Props for Fernando for actually realizing that it was a damn lucky one.
- Perez: Heartbreak. Absolute heartbreak. Second in an incredible result for Chico, but what if he hadn't gone off? What if... IIDOTR EASY.
- Hamilton: Anynomous. He did nothing worth mentioning. Just cruised to third after Button had his runin with Narain.
- Webber: Outside of a few fastest laps and a good start for a change, Webber was anynomous aswell. Still a solid result.
- Räikkönen: If there are doubts about the Icemans form lingering, you are dumb. Once again makes you wonder what could've been had he not had the penalty... I admit I chuckled when Kimi snatched the fastest lap at the end, the more things change the more they stay the same.
- Senna: Seems like I have to take back a lot of words I've said about Senna. Color me impressed. Granted, a lot of it was thanks to misfortunes of the top teams, still a solid result.
- Di Resta: A relatively anynomous race, only thing that I remember is the scrabble with Vergne. Or was it Hulkenberg with Ricciardo? I honestly can't tell the FI's from each other
- Vergne: Relatively promising race. Or was it Ricciardo? Ah well, I really can't tell the Toro Rosso's apart.
- Hulkenberg: Refer to Di Resta
- Schumacher: The grandaddy of F1 still has something left on the tank. Shame the car is an absolute shitbox when the race lasts longer than six laps.
- Ricciardo: Refer to Vergne.
- Rosberg: What happened Nico? Get a grip man, get a grip.
- Button: Shame we didn't see a repeat of Canada last year. There is no blaming Karthikeyan for the clash though, so it's no excuse.
- Massa: Poor Felipe should just cut his losses and GTFO from F1. He's a damn embarrassment.
- Vettel: Unlucky. Makes you wonder what the whole deal at the end of the race was.
- Maldonado: Pastor just can't seem to catch a break can he? Third time he's been robbed of points in the end of the race.
- Caterham: They haven't taken steps forward, nor have they backslid. Petrov seems to have the upper hand on Kovy, makes you wonder just HOW much Trulli held the team back.
- Marussia: Same old Same old.
- HRT: Outside of Narains hand in some of the top drivers getting knocked out of points, HRT is same old same old. Mobile chicanes at best.

Oh and to answer the question asked in caps by some user whose name I couldn't be bothered to remember: Räikkönen.

[mario]

And right down the back of the grid things do not sound good for Karthikeyan - according to Autosport he is currently under investigation for the collision between himself and Vettel.

Oi, investigating doesn't mean anything yet. I am sure this will be filed as a racing accident. Although, even if not - it's not like it matters: being put a few spots back really won't hurt him.

True, we will have to wait and see what happens with the investigation - it is just that, having been rather inattentive in Melbourne, the stewards might decide to take a harsher line with him here if they deem him to be at fault.

[Enforcer]

Gutted that Perez didn't win. Gutted. And I think pretty much every neutral and even casual Alonso/Ferrari fans would agree.

Not sure what to make of his engineer's influence. I think the radio message was intended to convey: "You're stupidly faster than him and have seven laps. Don't panic and kamikaze him." rather than anything else. Did it distract him? We'll probably never know for certain. Perez probably doesn't know for sure himself, tbh.

That said, Alonso put in a great performance, even if Perez's overshadowed it. He did everything right, and his pace was more than respectable considering he's in a difficult car. Massa on the other hand... oh dear. He had a sniff of the points mid race, but made a mistake and after that what pace he had vanished. And to do this whilst your team-mate wins and the guy who's been rumoured to have been planted at Sauber by Ferrari to assess could he replace you, should have won, is nothing short of disastrous. I think we could look back on this as the weekend which killed off what chance there was of Massa salvaging his Ferrari career.

Williams again displayed they have a good race car and Senna deserved his 6th. Wonder how many more he'll need to rack up to be taken seriously as an F1 driver in his own right?

Finally a word on Mercedes: lol.
That car chewed up its inters mid race so quickly it was comical. Schumacher pulled up to the back of Hulkenberg and had a two lap window (if even that) to get him before his tires went and he dropped away. Rosberg pitted after being passed 3 times in as many laps and re-emerged 16th. By the time he got to 14th, he'd dropped off to Schumacher's pace on knackered tires. That's how quickly he did his tires. So much for tire wear being a once off thing at Australia. Even if Schumacher hadn't been spun around by Grosjean, I'm struggling to see how he could've done much better than 10th. Mercedes challening for the front row on Saturday and then fending off Force Indias and Torro Rossos on Sunday might be a recurring theme for a few races.

[Belegur]

Karthikeyan was in the way constantly. He doesn't get off the racing line; he just drifts around aimlessly and hopes the other cars will overtake him. To quote Barry the Baptist: 'He's a bathplug liability'.

One of the times I wish James Hunt was still with us, just to hear what he would have called Karthikeyan. You've all heard how he spoke of Phillippe Alliot, imagine what terms he'd use here.

[IdeFan]

Once again it is proven that all you need to do to make F1 great is add water.

At the risk of overusing the word in this thread, I too am gutted for Perez, a win would have been magical. Ultimately though what cost him the win was staying out an extra lap on inters and the mistake coming onto the back straight, so you can't put it down to luck.

Both Alonso and Perez were consistently fast on inters at the start, on full wets before the red flag, on inters after the red flag, and on slicks at the end. It's tempting to put the result down to luck (and its true they probably wouldn't have finished where they did had it not rained) but they were consistently the best drivers throughout the race today and that's not luck.

I was praying for the red flag to end the race when it did after Karthikeyan's heroics (he was as high as 8th at one point) and I think I would have preferred an HRT half point to a Perez victory, but only just.

Finally I think the stick that Hamilton will inevitably receive for his third position is a bit harsh. Its been a chaotic couple of races so far and it looks set to be an unpredictable season, under these circumstances keeping your head down, keeping out of trouble and "anonymously" picking up podiums is exactly what he needs to do.

[Paul Hayes]

I did not, it has to be said, expect that. Wow. I was willing Perez on at the end there, but perhaps his inexperience told.

Not a bad audition for that second Ferrari seat, either!

[mario]

Once again it is proven that all you need to do to make F1 great is add water.

At the risk of overusing the word in this thread, I too am gutted for Perez, a win would have been magical. Ultimately though what cost him the win was staying out an extra lap on inters and the mistake coming onto the back straight, so you can't put it down to luck.

Both Alonso and Perez were consistently fast on inters at the start, on full wets before the red flag, on inters after the red flag, and on slicks at the end. It's tempting to put the result down to luck (and its true they probably wouldn't have finished where they did had it not rained) but they were consistently the best drivers throughout the race today and that's not luck.

I was praying for the red flag to end the race when it did after Karthikeyan's heroics (he was as high as 8th at one point) and I think I would have preferred an HRT half point to a Perez victory, but only just.

Finally I think the stick that Hamilton will inevitably receive for his third position is a bit harsh. Its been a chaotic couple of races so far and it looks set to be an unpredictable season, under these circumstances keeping your head down, keeping out of trouble and "anonymously" picking up podiums is exactly what he needs to do.

A pretty fair assessment, I'd say - those two drivers may have been fortunate that the conditions favoured them, but both of them took full advantage of the situation to earn their position.
As for Sauber's message to Perez, I can understand their anxiety - Kobayashi was out of the race by that point, so if Perez misjudged the situation and crashed into Alonso, it would have been a disaster for them: Perez was driving sensibly, but he is still relatively inexperienced and Alonso can, when he wants to, defend quite aggressively. We might have wanted him to battle Alonso, but asking him to back off ensured Perez of 5th in the WDC; it also means Sauber remain a solid 4th in the WCC (only five points behind Ferrari and with nearly double the points total of Lotus).

As for Hamilton, I'd say that assessment is probably fairly reasonable - given what happened to him last season, keeping out of the way and picking up points is a safer tactic, and worked well for Alonso last year. After all, this time around it was Button who ended up crashing into another car - although Button has at least held his hands up about his clash with Karthikeyan and put the blame entirely on himself:

"I was struggling to keep the tyres up temperature and it was totally my fault," Button admitted.
"I hit the brakes, I lost the rear. I was struggling to get the car slowed down. I tried to get around the corner but I couldn't do anything but hit him really."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98374

And to be fair to the rest of the grid, I'd have to say that Bruno Senna's drive today was somewhat overlooked due to the action elsewhere, but should go some way to addressing the criticism he faced after the Australian GP. If Maldonado's engine hadn't let go - and he wasn't doing too badly either at the time - Williams would be ahead of Force India in the constructors (they are currently one point behind, but Bruno's 6th would have put them ahead on count back). Kimi wasn't too shabby either - given his grid penalty, 5th is a fairly decent return and his pace was pretty solid, demonstrating to Grosjean that the points and rewards come on Sunday, not Saturday...

Finally a word on Mercedes: lol.
That car chewed up its inters mid race so quickly it was comical. Schumacher pulled up to the back of Hulkenberg and had a two lap window (if even that) to get him before his tires went and he dropped away. Rosberg pitted after being passed 3 times in as many laps and re-emerged 16th. By the time he got to 14th, he'd dropped off to Schumacher's pace on knackered tires. That's how quickly he did his tires. So much for tire wear being a once off thing at Australia. Even if Schumacher hadn't been spun around by Grosjean, I'm struggling to see how he could've done much better than 10th. Mercedes challening for the front row on Saturday and then fending off Force Indias and Torro Rossos on Sunday might be a recurring theme for a few races.

There is likely to be a lot of head scratching at Mercedes over their tyre management - Schumacher might have been able to finish a few places higher had Grosjean not hit him (given that 7th to 10th were covered by 5.5s, he could have slotted in ahead of Rosberg, Vergne or perhaps even Di Resta), but otherwise their pace on Sunday just doesn't live up to what they can manage on Saturday. Still, given that in the dry they were pressurising McLaren for the front row, to fall back that far suggests that they might have focussed too much on qualifying rather than race pace (particularly that F-ducted DRS).

[Phoenix]

Hats off to both Alonso and Pérez - they were the class of the field today by a very long margin. Also very good races for Bruno Senna (another surprise), Räikkönen and Vergne.

[GwilymJJames]

Shock news! FIA favour big team in 50-50 incident.

[Priceless]

Just noticed it now... while Alonso has one race win to his name and is leading the championship, Massa is now behind both Marussia drivers!! Glock has a best finish of 14th, while Massa has a best finish of 15th... equal to Pic who also has a best finish of 15th but is ahead of Massa on countback...

Well, I know there's a lot of races to go yet, but still...!

[Stramala]

Bye bye Massa.

Perez has an impeccable sense of timing. Just when Massa hits his worst form ever and is on the brink of being handed his P45, Perez puts in a storming drive. I was cheering him on the whole way. Shame Kobayashi wasn't up there as well but either Sauber driver getting a good result is fine with me

[tommykl]

Shock news! FIA favour big team in 50-50 incident.

AW, COME ON!

Vettel and Karthikeyan both moved in on each other. Vettel should have known that Karthikeyan would still be there.

[IceG]

So when Perez gets the call from Ferrari, should he go to a team with a crap car and a number one driver already in place and play second fiddle a la Barrichello and Massa? Or should he stay where he is and potentially beat Alonso in a Sauber? Now there is a conundrum.