By Läel Damasceno
April 5 2009

Wet tyres not enough for Sepang River... because the race was run at 5pm local time they were bound to run into the storm they did, they only did that for TV coverage. The track was inundated by the monsoon weather, stopping the race short.

The lights go out, Kubica almost stalls, he reports on the radio that the engine was making odd sounds. Barrichello swerves to avoid him, Rosberg made a lightning start taking the lead, Renault and Alonso take advantage of the KERS and jumps to third. Rosberg had an amazing start. Heikki Kovolainen had a horrid start, he has yet to turn a lap in this new season. This must me so frustrating for McLaren as they are still to pick up their first points as Hamilton was disqualified last week for not telling the FIA that he had gone over the radio with his team about Jarno Trulli.

 Hamilton started the race quite heavy, he made up places as his rivals went to the pits. He pitted on lap 22 and fitted full wets on the car. On this track the drivers could be driving on a dry patch and on the other half of the track it could be wet.

The tyres on Lewis' car started to disintegrate so he mad a trip back to the pits on lap 27, he came out with fresh inters only to pit again on lap 30, now he had full wets and enough fuel to end the race.

The driving conditions got worse and it was literally a river. Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari looked like a boat, he may have as well used paddles to move his car around the track. Water was all over the car. Ferrari messed things up by gambling on full wets on their stop, by the time rain had arrived his tyres were already torn to bits. Ferrari lost any chance of scoring their first points this season, following that double retirement in Melbourne.

 As conditions worsened the stewards decided to red flag the race on lap 32. The monsoon conditions were too much for the track. Water certainly played musical chairs on the track. 

 As the race was stopped before the halfway point all points were cut in half. The race was stopped on lap 32, but because they didn't do a full lap behind the safety car Heidfeld got 2nd... if they had, the final finishing spots would have been very diffrent. The results were only counted from the previous lap. 

Button wins his second race in a row from pole, and Heidfeld did an amazing job to finish second splitting the diffuser cars, Timo Glock was declared third, his gamble to switch to inters as other went to full wets paid off brilliantly. Its starting to look like the diffusers don't make the big difference teams claimed. The Sauber and Red Bull teams seam to be doing quite well without it.

 Hamilton finished 7th to score McLaren their first point in the season. So far the team have been able to capitalise on other teams misfortunes and weaker drivers, there is still potential for McLaren this season.

I guess Sepang wont be the track to define the teams just yet, so until next round we'll still wonder where are the teams.

 The Results

Malaysian Grad Prix

Discussion started by McLaren Fans (IP Logged), 05/04/2009 20:37

McLaren Fans
05/04/2009 20:37

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