Malaysian Grand Prix 2011: Raceday - Formula One highlights (part 10)
Things were definitely heating up as the race headed into its final 10 laps.
Alonso and Hamilton are both understood to be contenders for the top crown this term. Nearly cancelling each other out after making contact a few laps ago wouldn’t have done much good to the Ferrari – McLaren friendship.
The Ferrari crew rushed out of their positions in the garage, awaiting their wounded soldier. Alonso pulled into the pits soon after to take on a new front wing and a set of hard compound tyres.
Turning our attention back to the action at the Sepang track, Vitaly Petrov made a great move past Kobayashi to take over 8th position. Mark Webber used the DRS and made a move on Massa’s outside going into turn 1 but failed to complete the pass
through Turn 2. He attempted again, going into the following turns but was blocked off by the Ferrari and settled for P-6.
The race entered the 50th lap mark. Nick Heidfeld had made a quick time and was effectively 1.5 seconds behind Hamilton at a rate of over 2 seconds a lap for the previous 5 laps. Hamilton clearly looked to be struggling as the gap dropped to 0.7
seconds at the end of the lap. While it could be argued that taking a pit stop with merely 5 laps to go was nothing short of suicide, Hamilton found himself nothing short of a sitting duck – Would the gamble pay off?
Meanwhile, Alguersuari and Rosberg battled for P-14. Heidfeld was finally close enough to make a move on the limping McLaren. The German set up the McLaren perfectly and passed him cleanly to take over 3rd spot. Hamilton on the other hand, didn’t
appear to be fighting him too much – Perhaps resigned to his fate as he continued to struggle quite a lot with the handling of his McLaren after Alonso made contact with him earlier.
There was increasing speculation. Was Race Control going to investigate the incident between the McLaren and the Ferrari? Would Alonso be penalized for the reckless overtaking manoeuvre? Or would Hamilton be punished for blocking Alonso for the second time?
The overall state of the Pirellis was further deteriorating as the cars looked either to make a move to gain track position or block off the challenge from behind. Were we in for further alteration to the classifications post lap 52?
Find out in the final part of the series.
Continued in part 11...
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