By Emma Aitken
March 23 2008

Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari kept everyone at bay in Sepang today. Heikki Kovalainen did well to climb up the grid on the opening lap and took the third podium. Lewis Hamilton didn't have the best of days with a pit stop issue losing him a place in the race.

Kimi Raikkonen banished any doubts there might have been about Ferrari’s performance for this season by taking a perfect victory in Sepang. In a sharp contrast to last week the Ferrari had a much better time of it than Hamilton’s McLaren. Lewis surely must have thought he was at least heading for a podium finish, but a 19.9s pit stop put an end to that. The wheel gun dealing with his front right wheel disc malfunctioned so it took a lot long than normal to change the tire. When asked afterwards what his thoughts were while he waited to get back out to the race his response was “I need a beer!” It has to be said that yet again, the young man stepped out of his car looking like he had just got out of bed after a great night’s sleep.

He had been without water in his car throughout the Grand Prix but even that didn’t seem to dent him. Kimi on the other hand, looked exhausted when he got on the podium. Ferrari dominated from the off though and looked like having a 1-2 finish in the bag until Massa spun off half way through the race. The ever sparkling Martin Brundle commented that from the looks of it “ambition got ahead of adhesion”. With the Brazilian heading for an early bath Kubica elevated himself to a career best second place. Once the Ferrari’s pulled away at the start, he led the chasing pack throughout the rest of the race.

There were a few casualties on the first lap. Nico Rosberg was desperate to gain some ground after an appalling qualifying session but this ended up being at the expense of Timo Glock who was hit from the side by the Williams at turn 14 which signified the end of his race. Sebastian Bourdais took his Toro Rosso swiftly off the track at turn six and never returned to it.

The two McLarens did have a fantastic start and made some headway up the grid. Hamilton came out wide and had gained three positions by turn two. From there he took fifth with a bold move on Jarno Trulli under braking for turn 4. It was the pit stop mishap that cost him that position. Lewis’ main battle throughout though appeared to be with the car. The soft compound tyres seemed to take a long time to settle in.

His most successful stint was definitely the last one, after switching to the harder compound tyres. After finally getting shot of Webber, who he had been looking at the back end of for much of the race, he took off after Trulli and fought hard to the end to take fourth off him. Had there been an extra lap in it for him he would have done it too. As it was though he kept on coming right to the finishing line but he couldn’t quite get it done so had to be content with fifth position. Kovalainen had an easier time of it.

Once he found himself elevated to third due to the retirement of Massa he just kept his head down and got on with it. Webber, Alonso, Coulthard and Button all put in solid performances today to complete the top ten. Heidfeld finished in sixth, and what with him leaping to life and putting in the race’s fastest time on the final lap he probably left his team wondering why he couldn’t have done that far earlier on and throughout!

As it was, what with Ferrari not having a fantastic point scoring Australian Grand Prix and Massa’s retirement today, McLaren are still looking healthy. They managed to pick up decent points today despite the odds. And there’s still a long way to go!   

1	Raikkonen	Ferrari	1h31m18.555s
2	Kubica	BMW	+19.5s
3	Kovalainen	McLaren	+38.4s
4	Trulli	Toyota	+45.8s
5	Hamilton	McLaren	+46.5s
6	Heidfeld	BMW	+49.8s
7	Webber	Red Bull Racing	+1m08.1s
8	Alonso	Renault	+1m10.0s
9	Coulthard	Red Bull Racing	+1m16.2s
10	Button	Honda	+1m26.2s
11	Piquet	Renault	+1m.32.2s
12	Fisichella	Force India	+1 Lap
13	Barrichello	Honda	+1 Lap
14	Rosberg	Williams	+1 Lap
15	Davidson	Super Aguri	+1 Lap
16	Sato	Super Aguri	+ 2 Laps
17	Nakajima	Williams	+ 21 Laps
R	Vettel	Toro Rosso	+ 17 Laps
R	Massa	Ferrari	+26 Laps
R	Sutil	Force India	+51 Laps
R	Glock	Toyota	+55 Laps
R	Bourdais	Toro Rosso	+56 Laps