An hour and 41 minutes was all that separated the Malaysian Grand Prix start and finish. But in terms of how we felt about contemporary F1, either felt like they belonged in a separate age.
The leap was from one extreme to the other – straight from self-flagellation to self-satisfaction. Partly because unlike in Melbourne’s season-opener the Sepang race was a gripping one, including in the matter of who would win it. But mainly because unlike Melbourne and indeed pretty much the entire calendar year that preceded it Mercedes was not only challenged but furthermore was conquered. And in a result that up until January would have been the biggest shock of the lot, it was a certain Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari that won out. It was merely the latest reminder that about the only constant in this game is that things don’t stay constant for long. It’s odd that we keep needing them.
Yet it felt timely, as it came just when the sport was threatening to get dangerously close to the cliff edge of recrimination and rancour; the desire to tear up and start again. In other words, it felt like last year’s Bahrain race, a race that in the nick of time halted a similar build of momentum; a Sunday’s entertainment that could hardly have been better to shoot the foxes some were looking to set free. Even better than that, it was this time a battle between two competitive teams rather than within a dominant one. Suddenly after the Sepang race almost no one was talking about the current formula with disgust. Not even the vanquished Mercedes.
So what happened? Well, as a few sages pointed out during the winter, even with the whirlwind changes of management that was redolent of the squad at its most self-defeating, Ferrari was almost in spite of itself pretty well set to make a competitive step-up for 2015. For one thing whatever else Marco Mattiacci did in his fleeting spell in charge at Maranello, him giving free reign to the highly-rated James Allison – possibly the best technical brain out there in the age post Adrian Newey taking a step back – and something it seems his successor team principal Maurizio Arrivabene has continued, was a masterstroke. Clearing the decks of other staff to give him his clear run appears to be vital too, indeed Allison said as much after the race.
The SF15-T is the first proper Allison car, and looks to share all of the characteristics of his recent Lotuses that a few reckoned weren’t too far off even Newey’s multiple title-winning Red Bulls (perhaps closer than results suggested). Not least great handling and almost other-worldly ability to stretch out tyre life. Both were vital in the Malaysian win.
And another thing vital in the victory was the considerable leap forward in the Ferrari power unit. To some extent it was like the chassis step-up in that things were bound to improve almost by accident; there was rather a lot of low-hanging fruit to be had in the Maranello engine department given in 2014 all went down various wrong paths including prioritising compactness over grunt. But still, to go from gutless Renault impersonator to convincing sidekick of the imperious Mercedes in a single go is a mighty achievement (especially when compared with what the French concern has done in the same period).
For Sepang Ferrari brought another power unit step, and across the finishing line speed trap on race day only the ubiquitous Williams were quicker than Vettel’s red machine and there not by much. The Ferrari pair also were consistently quicker than the Mercedes in the straight-dominated sectors of the track. Not for nothing, Felipe Massa even before the Sepang running noted that: “we don’t have an advantage on the straights any more…they (Ferrari) improve massively the engine. They have a much better system, much better engine compared to last year. Last year we had a car that we were losing in the corners, we had less downforce than Ferrari, but we were gaining on the straights.”
The 2014 in which those with Ferrari units couldn’t push for two laps in a row due to poor energy harvesting now appears long gone. That it didn’t appear to have to cut many extra holes in its chassis as so many do in Sepang’s sapping ambient shows its cooling is strong too.
In response to it all there have been a few knowing comments additionally to the effect that this is also reflective of the team’s management changes with Mattiacci being replaced after last season’s end with Arrivabene, or even of its driver change of Seb arriving in the stead of Fernando Alonso (the ‘Alonso’s not a team player’ line being dusted down). But these are red herrings; it’s not F1’s way for there to be quick fixes. The glacial rate of improvement, where on-track steps are usually months (sometimes years) in the making, ensures this. With this in mind, for what it’s worth most of this Ferrari’s seeds were sown when Alonso was still at the team…
Vettel celebrates Ferrari’s first victory in almost two years (©Ferrari)
Nevertheless both Arrivabene and Vettel have impressed in their short spells at the squad. In Arrivabene’s case he has charmed just about everyone as well as pulled off the odd smart piece of politicking, while Vettel – following a season in which he almost wilfully it seemed didn’t adapt to the new regulations and their impact on handling; one in which his then-boss Christian Horner reckoned he considered even stepping away from F1 altogether – a change of scenery has rekindled his enthusiasm a treat. In Malaysia he was imperious – fast, consistent and put not so much as a wheel out of place that I saw, despite being under pressure for much of the race distance. Horner was right to comment that: “It was classic Sebastian Vettel. I thought he drove brilliantly.”
Of course, the biggest question arising from the Malaysian round was whether this was strictly a one-off or the shape of things to come. In that usual way it was in fact a bit of both.
Certainly a few cards fell the Scuderia’s way in Malaysia. Likely no race in 2015 will be as tough on the Pirellis and therefore by extension expose Ferrari’s advantage in tyre life as much; the wet qualifying session got Seb at least one place higher on the starting grid than he likely would have been otherwise; the early safety car boxed its opponents into a corner as well as resolved the question of establishing track position well ahead of schedule. Lest we forget that both Mercs lost a lot of track time in Friday’s running too, which presumably impeded their preparations.
But there are reasons to believe that there is rather a lot solid in Ferrari’s upturn also. A few of these we’ve outlined already, but it was also the case that the round one in which the Mercedes ran away was peculiar too and in a way that instead suited Merc. Not least that Seb was stuck behind Massa for half of that race. And ultimately that the Vettel-Ferrari combination was in Sepang close enough to take advantage of whatever peculiarities occurred, and win by close to ten seconds, reflects well. One-off or the shape of things to come? The evidence suggests more of the latter.
Indeed such was the shock that a few – combining the sport’s unceasing love of the conspiracy with the assumption that if something appears too good to be true then it probably is – theorised that the win wasn’t quite as it seemed. That Merc had deliberately let this one go, primarily to ward off the wolves pacing near their door calling for equalisation.
In a sense it’s understandable that a few thought this, as in post-race interviews both Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and driver Lewis Hamilton seemed remarkably sanguine about the defeat, said it was good for the sport and early in their comments referenced the notorious equalisation debate that had been given legs, mainly by Red Bull, since the opening round. Lewis’s veil was a thin one: “some people will have to eat their words” he said; Wolff didn’t have a veil at all: “hopefully all that nonsense about equalisation stops now”.
So it seems wariness about ‘levelling-up’ at the very least is somewhere near the top of Merc minds. Then again this was the home race for the team’s major sponsor and supplier Petronas (which sponsors the race too); remember also that Mercedes doesn’t have a home race of its own this year. So even if it was going to cede a win deliberately it likely wouldn’t have been this one. And also as we’ve demonstrated this triumph for Vettel and Ferrari has clear cause and effect.
At its most reductive level, it was a slightly less good car but rather better on its tyres beating a slightly quicker car that had to drive within its limits due to nursing the rubber. Even within this most complex of sports explanations are often disarmingly simple. Merc still has the base pace advantage – albeit a much smaller one than we thought; Mark Hughes had it at a mere 0.2 seconds per lap in Sepang – and therefore remains the favourite for both championships. But in future races Ferrari should at least keep it honest, particularly when the temperature climbs or the tyres are soft. Or both.
There were plenty of fingers pointed at Mercedes’s race strategy also, which seemed odd from the outside. It was, observers said, in the first part of qualifying that Ferrari knew it had a chance of victory when Mercedes rather signposted that it planned a three-stopper mainly on the harder tyre in the race by then running both cars on mediums. Ferrari could therefore plan accordingly from that point on.
Then the early safety car appearance, after just three laps, rather put Merc between a rock and a hard place. It could and indeed did pit and cede the lead to Vettel, and as it was put its cars into traffic (and the team admitted afterwards that it expected more cars to pit and was surprised by the number of opponents that had to be cleared). But the alternative wasn’t great either, as the very reason it chased the three-stopper was that it couldn’t get more than about 10 laps out of the mediums in the first stint, meaning had its cars stayed out following around five laps of green flag running after the safety car went in they would have had to pit anyway, giving essentially the same combination of ceding the lead and getting into traffic (and with a greater time loss).
Could this become a familiar sight in 2015? (© Ferrari)
Ultimately though the points are moot. Mercedes would have lost pretty much whatever it did as Niki Lauda admitted subsequently. Safety car or not; aping the Ferrari strategy or not. Vettel was set to stop one time fewer, and use the faster tyre for longer, all the while ceding nearly nothing on pace.
But perhaps Merc needs to sharpen itself up under the pressure that it’s rather got used to being without. The team seemed rather caught between two considerations in Malaysia – which is not a good look. That it signposted its race-day strategy a day in advance is not a good look either – almost like it hadn’t thought that there was a possibility that others worth thinking about were watching. Neither is it a good look that in the race having apparently found a strategy that might rescue things it transpired that it – in Lewis’s case at least – couldn’t be taken to its natural conclusion due to not having any sufficiently fresh medium tyres available.
Some wondered too if faced with the safety car Merc should have split its ticket by pitting only one car and leaving the other out. Perhaps with this the team simply didn’t want to open itself up to another round of being accused of favouring one pilot over the other given one of the strategies inevitably would have been the better one. Yet as James Allen in his strategy analysis pointed out too perhaps part of Merc’s calculation was that for the split strategy to work it would have effectively meant backing Nico Rosberg for the win, with Lewis’s role being to back up Vettel in the first stint. And given the two drivers’ respective likelihood of bringing home the bacon right now the team didn’t want to go with that.
And indeed the knives appear out for Nico generally at the moment. It seems harsh, after but two rounds and two in which he finished within a few seconds of his team mate. But he has a couple of problems. One is to do with accumulation, that since Spa and all last year he’s beaten Lewis only once, in Brazil, and he’d likely have been beaten there too but for Lewis spinning. And the other is that the results fit the narrative that many have constructed – that last year was Nico’s only chance; that with the latest title in pocket Lewis would step up a level. Perhaps another problem Nico has too had a lamp swung over it in Malaysia’s qualifying, when he asked for advice on racing lines, to be told rather curtly by his engineer that such advice isn’t permitted these days. There are a few who reckon Nico’s struggle (relatively speaking) can be traced back to the restriction on radio driver coaching brought in before the Singapore weekend last season.
But as ever all is extrapolated from results. On the podium in Melbourne Nico commented that Lewis “drove like a champion”. It could simply have been Nico being gracious, which as we know he often is. Had he said it having won – or even having partaken in a closer fight that day – that’s how it would have been taken. Yet from his current position plenty have interpreted them as the words of a man psychologically cowed.
Nico though to some extent has been unlucky. Last year of course regularly qualifying ahead of Lewis formed the basis of his challenge. This year both qualifying sessions thus far have allowed Lewis to play his trump card – improvisation. Sepang’s quali session was wet of course, while in Melbourne the falling track temperature and gusty wind again made what was underneath you uncertain. Technical Director Paddy Lowe indeed said that Lewis’s quali effort in Australia “was more Lewis than car”. In Sepang’s race Nico was hit also by having to queue behind Lewis when pitting under the safety car, which cost him two additional places and contributed to him losing nine seconds more than his team mate did in picking his way through traffic. But, his critics claimed, he once again looked more timid in that situation than his stable mate.
Still, Nico has been written off before, more than once last season indeed. And he is one it seems who – like the antagonist in a bad horror film – rather delights in bouncing back into the picture just at the point you think he’s finally been dealt with. The gap on points to his table-topping team mate is but 10 with a full 17 races remaining and the future stretches ahead. But it feels already that he needs to strike back soon if matters, both on points and within his own team, aren’t to get away from him.
Plenty left Sepang with something to chew over. Nico perhaps with more than anyone.
