Fernando Alonso and McLaren have torn up the formbook by registering a surprisingly comfortable victory in Malaysia.
Expectations that the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen would prove dominant were quashed at the first corner when both Alonso and McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton nipped ahead of pole-sitter Massa. The Brazilian then compounded his tardy start by going off-track unnecessarily as he sought to overtake Hamilton. From then on, Massa barely figured in the race.
While Alonso swept to an imperious victory, the Ferraris struggled to replicate their Melbourne pace. Raikkonen eventually closed the gap to Hamilton but the young Englishman held off the Finn's belated challenge to take a deserved second place.
So much for those post-Australia prophecies of a 2007 redwash...
Race Report:
It was bright and sunny in Sepang with a few scattered white clouds, yet still the pessimists were predicting rain around Lap 36. The ambient temperature was steady at 34C but the track temperature varied between 54 and 58C as the cars lined up - the drivers hiding in what shade they could find till the very last minute.
Rubens Barrichello opted to start his Honda from the pitlane and as the tyre covers came off it was clear that all the front-runners were on the softer tyre, only the Red Bulls and Jarno Trulli's Toyota started on the harder (unmarked) compound.
As the lights went out it was going to be a scramble into Turn 1, but thanks to the four hours of rain overnight, there was little difference between the 'dirty' and the 'non dirty' line. Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa were evenly matched, but Alonso had the inside line and by the end of the straight he had edged up past Massa on the inside.
The Ferrari driver made the mistake of leaving a car's width to the apex and as he turned in, Lewis Hamilton saw a gap. While Raikkonen was letting Massa try to find a way past Alonso, Hamilton - who'd been slowish off the line - cruised up the inside past Raikkonen and kept on going to stick his nose right by Massa's car.
Massa could not now move across and so Hamilton kept on coming, sticking to his line, throwing Massa further out than he wanted to be. By the time Turn 3 played out Hamilton was ahead and it was a poor start for the Ferrari team - from P1 and P3 to P3 and P4.
Further back Spyker's Adrian Sutil had another disastrous opening lap in which he saw contact with another car and was out on the spot.
So as they came round at the end of Lap 1 it was Fernando Alonso, from Hamilton, Massa, Raikkonen, Heidfeld, Kubica, Rosberg, Fisichella, Trulli, Kovalainen, Webber and Coulthard. Whereas Mark Webber had lost two places off the start David Coulthard had gained one.
Immediately Alonso started to scamper off into the distance as Massa tried to find a way past Hamilton. On Lap 2 Alonso had a 2.7 lead and the (what turned out to be lighter fuelled Ferraris) were right on Hamilton's tail.
At the start of Lap 3 Massa tried round the outside of Turn 1, but couldn't get past. However Turn 4 is an equally good place to pass. Massa steamed up the inside, left his braking too late and ran straight on as Hamilton let him scream past and then ducked inside. It looked very GP2.
Massa was lucky that Raikkonen was not closer otherwise he would have lost P3 to his team-mate. After a lap spent catching up Massa was ready to try to get past the McLaren again. This time he chanced his arm at the end of the pit straight into Turn 1, but on the inside.
Hamilton was waiting for him and covered the line. Massa couldn't launch himself up the inside and get his car braked in time, so fell back into line. Such was the pace of the squabble for P2 that the BMWs behind were making no significant progress on them.
Finally on Lap 6 it looked like Massa had manouvered Hamilton into where he wanted him. Lewis covered the inside line into Turn 1 and was slow exiting Turn 3 because of his too-tight line. This allowed Massa to get alongside him on the inside in the short straight down to Turn 4.
Massa launched his car up the inside and looked to have the pass made, but left his braking woefully late, locked up and ran on over the kerbs and grass in a repeat of Lap 3. This time Raikkonen and Nick Heidfeld were both through and he had to resume in P5. It didn't look like the move of a potential World Champion.
By Lap 7 Kimi Raikkonen was up behind Hamilton, but whereas Massa had been able to put pressure on the Brit, Raikkonen seemed destined to follow him round for the first tyre stint and possibly get him on the pit-stops.
At the front, we began to see the typical metronomic lapping of Fernando Alonso as he takes his car and slowly whittles down the lap times.
Lap 9 Alonso Fastest Lap 1:37.309
Lap 10 Alonso Fastest Lap 1:37.266
Lap 11 Alonso Fastest Lap 1:37.062
Lap 12 Alonso Fastest Lap 1:39.961
Lap 14 Alonso Fastest Lap 1:36.921
On Lap 9 Albers brought his Spyker back to the pit for a fiery end, thanks to overheating and on Lap 12 Robert Kubica dropped down the order in his BMW thanks to a traction control problem (or lack of). The pole was experiencing a lot of wheel spin, hence the need for early tyres.
On lap 13 the race order was:
Alonso, 12.6 clear of Hamilton, who had 0.5 on Raikkonen. Heidfeld was 6.4 seconds behind the Finn and he had Massa only 0.4 behind. Giancarlo Fisichella had made a lot of places on the opening lap and Kubica's problems had handed him 7th place.
At the end of Lap 18 Felipe Massa was the first of the frontrunners to pit and a lap later Alonso followed him in. This left Hamilton leading the second race of his two-race F1 career. Raikkonen pitted on the same lap as Alonso and Hamilton pitted at the end of Lap 20.
Fifth on the grid Nick Heidfeld continued in the lead until Lap 23 when he was obliged to stop, but his longer running kept him ahead of Massa and in P4.
Kimi Raikkonen emerged from his pit-stop behind the Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella who didn't pit until Lap 24. Though Raikkonen was only 0.6 behind the Renault at one stage, by the time Fisi had pitted he was 1.4 seconds behind the Roman. This mid-race lack of pace might have cost him the chance to challenge Hamilton at the close.
Further back, Robert Kubica in 13th place had gathered together a train of vehicles - Barrichello, Schumacher, Button, Speed, Sato and Davidson all queueing up to get by.
On Lap 25 the order was:
Alonso 10.9 seconds clear of Hamilton who now had a huge 10.2 seconds on Kimi Raikkonen with the gap growing by the lap. Raikkonen had 4.4 seconds on Heidfeld who had opened out a 3.0 gap to Massa. Nico Rosberg was in 6th place, Coulthard was 7th but hadn't stopped, with Fisichella 8th, Trulli 9th and Kovalainen 10th.
There was little movement between the front-runners, though as Alonso came into lapped traffic he began to lose time to Hamilton. Robert Kubica returned to the pits on Lap 28 with a damaged front wing and released his train of cars.
Alonso gave a familiar hand gesture to the lapped Tonio Liuzzi as Hamilton closed to 8.7 seconds behind.
By Lap 30 Felipe Massa had started to erode the gap that Heidfeld had pulled out - it was down to 1.9 seconds. Alex Wurz - who had earlier gained revenge over David Coulthard with a sublime passing move round the outside of Turn 4 was beginning to pressure Kovalainen for 9th.
There was a lot of drama in DC's cockpit as his Friday problem re-emerged, his brake pedal started catching on the steering column. DC (following team-mate Webbo in 11th and 12th) asked the team if he could stop. He pitted for repairs, but his GP was run.
By Lap 36 Hamilton had reduced Alonso's advantage to 7.8 seconds and there was no sign of the much anticipated rain. Meanwhile Felipe Massa had closed right up on Nick Heidfeld again but could find no way past.
At the end of Lap 39 Hamilton started off the second round of pit-stops and rejoined behind the Heidfeld/Massa battle. On Laps 41 and 42 the two Ferraris pitted.
Meanwhile Nick Heidfeld made it in and out of the pitlane just in time. As he rejoined the circuit Felipe Massa was powering down the pitstraight - after some personal best sector times he was trying to recapture 4th place, but the Brazilian missed out by a matter of metres.
Alonso had no problems on his final pit-stop, but after emerging back on track Hamilton looked slow on his harder Bridgestones. Though the gap to Raikkonen in P3 had been as much as 12.9 seconds it was coming down fast.
However Nico Rosberg's promising afternoon came to an end when he retired his Williams-Toyota from 6th place with what looked like an engine fault and which the team tactfully told Rosberg was a hydraulics fault - thus sparing any possible Toyota blushes.
On lap 44 the order was:
Alonso 14.4 seconds clear of Hamilton, who was 7.7 seconds up on Raikkonen, who was 12.8 ahead of Heidfeld, who was 1.4 up on Massa. Fisichella was 6th, Trulli 7th Kovalainen 8th, Wurz 9th and Webber 10th.
As the laps ticked down to 56, Raikkonen slowly but surely reeled Hamilton in. However apart from a few lock-ups the Brit looked in control. The gap was steadily dwindling, though. 6.1 to 5.6 to 5.1 to 4.5 to 3.8 to 3.3. to 2.8 to 1.7 to 1.2 to 0.8 going into the final lap.
Raikkonen had a big advantage on the back straight but was unable to close up enough. Another two or three laps and it would have been an entirely different story - the final corner is very difficult to defend against a faster car.
As it was the Finn had left himself too much to do and he had to settle for P3. On the podium afterwards Raikkonen looked absolutely spent.
Alonso had taken the chequered flag to give McLaren their first 1-2 since 2005 and their first win since the 2005 season. This at a race that Ferrari were expected to win if not with quite the dominance they had shown in Melbourne.
Three weeks is clearly a long time in F1.
Heidfeld picked up more good points while yet again his team-mate suffered reliability problems. Massa finished a disappointing 5th while 6th and 8th for Fisichella and Kovalainen was as good as they were going to get from dreadful grid slots.
Heiki didn't have the nightmare race he'd had in Australia, but he'd lost out to his team-mate again. A largely unseen Jarno Trulli slotted into seventh place.
It hadn't been an exhilarating race, but it had thrown up some question marks about Ferrari's pace and Massa's temperament. Ferrari fans were probably thinking wistfully "if only Michael were here...".
FH
Results
1 F. Alonso McLaren 1:32:14.930
2 L. Hamilton McLaren + 17.557
3 K. Räikkönen Ferrari + 18.319
4 N. Heidfeld BMW + 33.777
5 F. Massa Ferrari + 36.705
6 G. Fisichella Renault + 1:05.638
7 J. Trulli Toyota + 1:10.132
8 H. Kovalainen Renault + 1:12.015
9 A. Wurz Williams + 1:28.924
10 M. Webber Red Bull + 1:33.556
11 R. Barrichello Honda + 1 laps
12 J. Button Honda + 1 laps
13 T. Sato Super Aguri + 1 laps
14 S. Speed Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1 laps
15 R. Schumacher Toyota + 1 laps
16 A. Davidson Super Aguri + 1 laps
17 V. Liuzzi Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1 laps
18 R. Kubica BMW + 1 laps
Did not finish
19 N. Rosberg Williams + 14 laps
20 D. Coulthard Red Bull + 20 laps
21 C. Albers Spyker F1 + 49 laps
22 A. Sutil Spyker F1 + 56 laps
