Malaysian Grand Prix 2011: Raceday - Formula One highlights (part 5)
Mark Webber’s Red Bull was clearly not up to 100 percent as Felipe Massa was easily able to overtake the Australian for sixth place using his KERS.
A lap later, Webber made his second pit stop of the day and took on a set of soft tyres. Heidfeld made a mistake going into Turn 4 and ran through the gravel but made it back on track. Button made a dash back to pit lane for another routine pit stop and
opted for the soft Pirellis himself. The Briton rejoined the track in 7th position.
Hamilton was further eating up the miles between him and Vettel. The McLaren was outpacing the Red Bull by nearly half a second a lap. However, it soon became evident that Hamilton had picked up the pace in preparations for his 2nd pit stop of
the day – stopping before Vettel meant that the Red Bull could now gain back some of the lead while the McLaren was still getting used to the cold tyres. Hamilton was the first of the front runners to stop.
Barrichello followed Hamilton into pit lane soon after. However, in the case of the Brazilian, it signaled a race retirement – Further disappointing after Australia for the Williams. There were further retirements in store on the same lap. Perez came to
a stop still on the backstretch and climbed out of his car.
The next lap saw the race leader Sebastian Vettel make his way down the pit lane. The young German slapped on a set of soft compound tyres – Using up all 3 of his soft tyre sets, meaning that the next stop involved a hard compound tyre replacement. The holding
champion came out in P4. Meanwhile, Hamilton overtook Petrov to take 5th position.
Fernando Alonso also dived into the pits soon after. The Ferrari opted for a set of soft tyres this time round as well. Vettel easily got past Massa heading into turn 1 and retook the lead using the DRS – An inferior Ferrari in this case or just an under-performing
Massa?
The round of soft tyre pit stops was mostly done and dusted. With hard compound Pirellis yet to be tested on most of the front runners, we were heading for an exciting series of laps. Would Red Bull hold out? Would McLaren cash in or fall prey to the Ferrari
of Fernando Alonso?
Continued in part 6
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