Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Another early morning start today to watch the Malaysian F1 race. Thankfully the rain stayed away and we were treated to a good race. Yes we saw Hamilton with what seemed a comfortable win from the flag, but behind him there was plenty to keep me awake. It is interesting that Lewis used less fuel than his closest rivals and made his tires last longer. So much for Rosberg being the more thinking driver easier on his equipment. If Lewis did not have to fit the hard compound he could have finished the race as a two stopper. Hulkenburg again showed his class and ran a two stop race, almost stealing fourth.

Ricciardo showed his is not overawed by his champion teammate, muscling his way to third at the start before having a nightmare race, capped off with a ten place grid penalty for Bahrain. Problems with a loose front wheel at a pit stop, and then his front wing mounting broke, not good. Shades of Mark Webber. Rosberg, Vettel and Alonso were all close at times before Rosberg ended up a comfortable second for the first Mercedes One-Two for 60 years. How smart does Lauda look now.

Ricciardo lost his fuel flow meter again, very careless. Apparently 4 other teams experienced failures, but is there something about how Red Bull mounts this that is different? This week they worked with the FIA to monitor fuel flow, so how do they defend what they did in Australia?

Williams and McLaren both seemed off the pace compared to Australia. Massa was one of the few drivers that matched Hamilton on fuel usage. That was a nice graphic to have for this race. I waited for him to speed up at the end to use what he had kept in reserve, but he never did. He was given the move over flag by the team to let Bottas by so he could chase Button down. Apparently the team thought Bottas was faster, but he never got close enough to push Massa, so Massa did not move over. An interesting debriefing session. They finally told Bottas he was racing Massa, but still could not pass him.

Magnussen hit Kimi from behind into Turn 1 and cut Kimi's tire and ruined his race. Interesting that at one point during his drive back the Ferrari had a hard time passing a Caterham, which seems to have found some pace and reliability. Magnussen recovered from the front wing damage and a drive through to finish ninth.

Lotus had a mixed day with Maldanado involved in an early collision with Bianchi and an early retirement, but Grosjean finished the race in eleventh which should give them some hope for the season not being a total loss.

The story of the season so far is the pace and reliability of the Mercedes, and the speed with which Red Bull has recovered from the debacle of testing. If Renault can lift their game we could have good season ahead of us, but who knows how much Mercedes have in hand. As Stirling Moss used to say, win at the slowest speed.