The second round of the 2014 F1 season took place in the Sepang Circuit in Malaysia on the 30th of March. All were eager to see what team had improved from the previous Aussie GP and no surprises were sprung up with both the Mercedes cars performing in a league of their own. Starting from Friday practice sessions till the end of the race on Sunday, Mercedes dominated the Sepang circuit with a car that was at least 1.5 seconds faster than the closest rival.
Lewis Hamilton was outstanding in the fastest car on track and won his maiden Malaysian GP. He had taken part in previous 8 Malaysian GP’s without a win. He comfortably beat his partner Nico Roseburg in the other Merc. The world champion Sebastian Vettal came in 3rd. The information from the pits indicates that the Bulls are pretty fast and most importantly, pretty stable. If they manage to get the Renault engine to perform right, they would be serious contenders to Mercs over the next few races. Ferrari seems to have less traction out of corners and do lack straight line speed. However, the positive for them again is the stability under breaking and the stability of the car where a bit more power from the engine would see them fighting at the top.
It was a brilliant drive from Nico Hulkenburg to claim 5th place for the team force India, who are proving to be force to recognize. McLaren had lost pace from Australia to Malaysia with them blaming it on less down force due to a change they had to do with the aero flow.
Sharing the sentiments of most F1 fans, the race could be considered boring. The race overall had only a very few overtake moves and none of them good enough to get you to the edge of the seat or ensuring you lose parts of your fingernails. The usual roaring sounds of the F1 engines were missed again.
For the official review of the race and teams, please follow the link – http://www.formula1.com/news/features/2014/3/15645.html
The race did not end with any controversies. However, 2 laps away from the finish, the F1 fans were treated by the Williams team with a message to Filippe Massa telling him to move and let his team mate Bottas pass through. This indeed was a laughing matter for some F1 fans as Massa was known to have got many such messages during his stay at Ferrari. The difference was that this time around, Massa rightfully did not oblige. The Team Williams made a statement after the race and after a few discussions with the drivers that all are cool at the garage. As Massa rightfully said, the pace of the McLaren driven by Jenson Button (which was in front of Massa) was such, even if he had moved aside, Bottas wouldn’t have overtaken.
Though, could be considered marginal, overall the positives of the race could be considered as,
1. The next best teams (to Merc) as Ferrari, Redbull, Force India and Williams are running at almost the same pace (race Pace) and we will see one or two of them bridging the gap to the Mercs within the next few races.
2. The race pace difference from the top team to the slowest is around 4 – 4.5 seconds which is far better than what we have seen over the past seasons. Meaning, we have a closer field.
3. Few brilliant drives considering the novelty of format and them mainly coming from Rookies.
Share your thoughts with us and let’s see what happens in Bahrain this weekend. The race is on the 6th of April and we will see a few teams coming up with a few upgrades to the race. Ferrari have already confirmed few upgrades for Bahrain and let’s hope it would help break the boredom of 2014 season.
