2007 Malaysian Grand Prix

The 2007 Malaysian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 8 April, 2007 at the Sepang International Circuit. It was the second race of the 2007 Formula One season. The race itself saw Fernando Alonso win the race from second on the grid with his rookie team mate Lewis Hamilton behind him in second, making it the first time since the 2005 Brazilian Grand Prix that both McLarens had finished in the top two. Kimi Räikkönen, winner of the opening race in Australia, took the last step on the podium.

Räikkönen's team mate, Felipe Massa started from pole position for the race, but following a poor start, which saw both McLarens pass him on the first two corners of the first lap, he went off the circuit while trying to pass Hamilton a couple of laps into the race. This dropped the Brazilian to fifth place, where he stayed for the remainder of the race.

Report

Pre-Race

When the Formula One teams arrived in Malaysia, the row over teams using cars they had not designed (as required by the FIA Technical Regulations) came up again, with Spyker putting in a protest against Scuderia Toro Rosso. The Malaysian stewards rejected their protest, stating that it fell "outside their jurisdiction".

McLaren had raised another technical concern after the first race of the season in Australia by requesting clarification of the rules regarding systems which allowed the front of the car's undertray to move upwards under aerodynamic loading at high speed. Autosport magazine has said that this movement would potentially increase straight line speed. The FIA introduced stringent tests on the cars at the Malaysian race to ensure floor mounting systems used by Ferrari and BMW Sauber were not in breach of the regulations. Ferrari duo Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen said the performance of the F2007 would not be compromised in any way.

Felipe Massa set the pace in the first of two 90 minute practice sessions on Friday, with a time of 1:34.972, edging out Fernando Alonso in the McLaren by three tenths of a second. Alonso's team-mate, Lewis Hamilton was third, with Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen just behind in fourth. Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber, Jarno Trulli, Kazuki Nakajima, Ralf Schumacher and Robert Kubica rounded out the top ten. However, it was a bad morning for Renault, with Heikki Kovalainen 14th and Giancarlo Fisichella 15th. The Hondas also had a very bad morning, with their cars languishing down in 19th and 20th places.

The Hondas struggled again in the second practice session on Friday with Barrichello calling it "extremely frustrating", as they also were beaten by Super Aguri's Takuma Sato. However, Renault improved dramatically, with Fisichella second and Kovalainen third. But Massa was unstoppable, and set the pace again in the Ferrari. Räikkönen was again fourth, but the McLarens were down in 9th and 12th. However, McLaren boss Ron Dennis played down the slow times, saying they were concentrating on "tyre evaluation".

In the final practice session on Saturday morning however, Massa and Ferrari were knocked off top spot, as Hamilton set the fastest time in the McLaren with a lap of 1:34.811, just one tenth ahead of the Ferrari. World Champion Alonso followed the leading two, but five tenths off Massa. Kubica completed the leading quartet and Anthony Davidson did a stunning job for Super Aguri, finishing the practice session in 8th, just 1.3 seconds down on the leaders, and well ahead of the Honda A-team who were still near the bottom of the pack, in 17th and 19th place, only to be split by Kovalainen.

Qualifying

Part One

Honda's misery continued as Rubens Barrichello was knocked out of part one and ended up 19th. Alexander Wurz was one place behind the Brazilian, as he endured gear-selection problems in his Williams. Scott Speed in the Toro Rosso missed the cut with 17th spot, but team-mate Tonio Liuzzi made it through to part two. Anthony Davidson in the Super Aguri also failed to make the cut with 18th, and laid the blame completely with Liuzzi, saying that he was "pretty aware I was behind him". The Spykers rounded off the back row, with their technical director Mike Gascoyne saying they "made a mistake" in missing the test at Sepang a week earlier.

At the front, the McLarens were one-two, with the Ferraris third and fifth, only to be split by Robert Kubica's BMW Sauber.

Part Two

Although no rain fell, the threat of it at the start of the second 15-minute session caused all the drivers to post quick laps at the start of the session, normally the slowest period. The McLarens, Ferraris and BMWs completed the top six, but the Renaults were the shock as both Fisichella and Kovalainen were knocked out, with Pat Symonds later stating that they "didn't maximise [their] chances". Honda's misery was also compounded as Jenson Button was knocked out, saying it was the "maximum we could possibly get", along with Coulthard, Liuzzi and Sato. It was later thought that Coulthard had changed engines before qualifying, along with Rubens Barrichello, and therefore both got a 10-place grid penalty. Closer examination, however, revealed that Coulthard changed his engine before the start of the race weekend, preventing his 10 place drop.

Part Three

In the final part of qualifying, Massa snatched pole from Alonso in the dying seconds as rain began to fall, with Kimi Räikkönen completing the top three. Lewis Hamilton was fourth, over half a second behind the leading three, blaming the lack of pace on a rookie error made at the end of the session, saying that there were "some spots of rain on my visor, so I had to sort of let off". The BMWs were 5th and 7th, only to be split by Nico Rosberg in the Williams, who was delighted with his performance. The Toyotas of Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher, along with Red Bull's Mark Webber rounded out the top 10.

Race

Fernando Alonso won the race; his first victory for McLaren. It was also the Woking based team's first win since the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix.

At the start, Alonso took the lead from Massa while Hamilton opted to go round the outside of the Ferrari driver into turn two and got up to second. Adrian Sutil's suspension failed at turn four and hit Button. Sutil was out but Button continued. Liuzzi and Sato also collided at turn four, with Sato carrying on and Liuzzi having to pit for a new front wing. Afterwards, they seemed to both point their fingers at each other, with neither of them accepting the blame.

Massa tried several times to get past Hamilton, but ran very wide into turn four and into the gravel. He dropped to fifth, behind team-mate Räikkönen and BMW's Nick Heidfeld. After starting fifteenth, Button quickly found himself being dropped, and was overtaken for 17th place by team-mate Barrichello, who started from pitlane after the engine change. By lap 7, Alonso was 8.1 seconds ahead of Hamilton.

The Renaults had a good start and by lap eight they were running in 8th and 10th, with Fisichella ahead of Kovalainen. The Spyker team's weekend got worse as Christijan Albers retired on lap 9 with a gearbox fire.

Felipe Massa was unable to get past Nick Heidfeld after losing time due to a mistake while attempting to pass Lewis Hamilton earlier in the race.

On lap 12, Robert Kubica was the first man to pit, however he reported traction control problems four laps later and dropped down the order. Button's weekend got worse, as Takuma Sato passed the Briton. Despite the problems Button said he believes the team made "a small step forward".

Alonso developed radio problems prior to his first pitstop, but these were fixed during his stop. The top five remained in the same positions after the pitstops, with Alonso leading Hamilton, Räikkönen, Heidfeld and Massa. Hamilton began to close at a second a lap and set the fastest lap on lap 22 with a time of 1:36.701.

Lewis Hamilton kept Kimi Räikkönen's Ferrari at bay to score McLaren's first one-two since the 2005 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Kubica dropped to thirteenth as his traction control problem got worse, and a train of cars developed behind him. Kovalainen's performance was much better than in Melbourne, and he hussled Jarno Trulli for 8th.

The top five again remained the same after the second round of stops. Nico Rosberg, who was in 6th place, retired with engine problems and was extremely frustrated afterwards. David Coulthard also retired after problems with his brake pedal, the same problem that he experienced in the Friday practice session. Hamilton started to struggle in the latter stages and Räikkönen began to catch him.

In the end though, Alonso won comfortably from team-mate Hamilton, who was barely a second ahead of Räikkönen, with Heidfeld and Massa some fifteen seconds up the road. Heidfeld said later "this is a fantastic experience (to beat Massa)". Fisichella finished sixth (he later said it felt like a podium given the performance of the car), Trulli was 7th, and rookie Kovalainen scored his first point in 8th. Wurz managed to come through from 19th to 9th, and although he claimed no points, said later it "bodes well for Williams's chances in the rest of the season".

Hamilton admitted afterwards that this was his hardest race, while Räikkönen admitted he "did not have enough speed on the straightline to try to challenge either [Hamilton or Massa]".

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	Name	Team/Engine	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3
1	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:35.340	1:34.454	1:35.043
2	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Mercedes	1:34.942	1:34.057	1:35.310
3	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:35.138	1:34.687	1:35.479
4	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:35.028	1:34.650	1:36.045
5	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:35.617	1:35.203	1:36.543
6	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:35.755	1:35.380	1:36.829
7	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:35.294	1:34.739	1:36.839
8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:35.666	1:35.255	1:36.902
9	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1:35.736	1:35.595	1:37.078
10	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:35.727	1:35.579	1:37.345
11	Heikki Kovalainen	Renault	1:36.092	1:35.630
12	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	1:35.879	1:35.706
13	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	1:35.730	1:35.766
14	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	1:36.430	1:35.945
15	Jenson Button	Honda	1:35.913	1:36.088
16	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:36.140	1:36.145
17	Scott Speed	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:36.578
18	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	1:36.816
19	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:36.827
20	Alexander Wurz	Williams-Toyota	1:37.326
21	Christijan Albers	Spyker-Ferrari	1:38.279
22	Adrian Sutil	Spyker-Ferrari	1:38.415

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Lap	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Mercedes	56	1:32:14.930	2	10
2	2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	56	+17.557	4	8
3	6	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	56	+18.339	3	6
4	9	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	56	+33.777	5	5
5	5	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	56	+36.705	1	4
6	3	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	56	+1:05.638	12	3
7	12	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	56	+1:10.132	8	2
8	4	Heikki Kovalainen	Renault	56	+1:12.015	11	1
9	17	Alexander Wurz	Williams-Toyota	56	+1:29.924	19
10	15	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	56	+1:33.556	10
11	8	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	55	+1 lap	22
12	7	Jenson Button	Honda	55	+1 lap	15
13	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	55	+1 lap	14
14	19	Scott Speed	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	55	+1 lap	17
15	11	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	55	+1 lap	9
16	23	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	55	+1 lap	18
17	18	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	55	+1 lap	16
18	10	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	55	+1 lap	7
Ret	6	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	42	Hydraulics	6
Ret	10	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	36	Brakes	13
Ret	21	Christijan Albers	Spyker-Ferrari	7	Engine	20
Ret	20	Adrian Sutil	Spyker-Ferrari	0	Collision	21

Notes

• Fastest Lap: Lewis Hamilton, 1:36.701 (128.249 mph, Lap 22)
• First Points: Heikki Kovalainen (8th)
• Milestones: Bridgestone - 100th Pole Position (Tyre Manufacturer)

External links

• Malaysian Grand Prix results (fia.com)
• Detailed Malaysian Grand Prix results
• Malaysian Grand Prix 2007 race review