Malaysian Grand Prix 2011: Raceday - Formula One highlights (part 7)
Lewis Hamilton’s team was eating up second after second with the passing lap on the race leader, complemented by Red Bull’s radio transmission to Vettel’s car that informed the German not to use his KERS. To further add insult to injury, the McLaren team
informed Jenson Button to push as well – The McLarens were closing in like hungry wolves on the lone Red Bull in front, smelling blood.
Jenson Button responded by increasing his pace. There was further activity on the car’s onboard radio as the former Brawn GP driver inquired about Alonso’s tyre-ware. The team responded that the Ferrari was on the soft Pirellis. This meant that while the
Spaniard had the comfort of more grip and traction, his Pirellis were wearing out more with every passing lap – Either signalling lack of performance in the near future, or a potential pit stop.
Meanwhile, Kobayashi and Petrov were battling over P-8. During the start of the season, it was argued that Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes would be amongst the top 8 battling for positions. In this case, Sauber and Renault were clearly proving the
book keepers wrong.
The race headed into Lap 34 with a somewhat surprising change of events. Sebastian Vettel, evidently struggling for performance, did what he does best under pressure. The German driver posted the fastest lap with a 1 minute 41.539 seconds and opened up his
gap over Lewis Hamilton to 6.5 seconds as a result – Were Red Bull actually experiencing problems or was it part of some elaborate scheme to offset McLaren’s strategy? Would the shift in performance be able to ensure the chequered flag to the Red Bull driver
or does it further weaken the already struggling car?
Jarno Trulli, who was classified as ‘retired’ from the race looked to make a sudden reappearance act as Team Lotus seemed set to resurrect him from the dead after making some repairs. Perhaps, despite not being able to compete with the rest of the cars already
ahead in terms of the number of laps put in, further time on track would eventually work to the team’s advantage heading into the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday.
35 laps of the race were already up. Nearly 20 laps remained. Were we in for some more drama? More retirements? More overtaking opportunities?
Stay tuned on bettor.com with what’s more to come in the highlights of round 2 from Malaysia.
Continued in Part 8…
Tags: