Wet or slick? Drying time of Sepang's track surface proved deceptively difficult to predict
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Max Verstappen’s RB22 did its usual poor start off the grid, losing him the lead for a few laps to Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes. But otherwise he and the Red Bull were the class of the field all weekend long around Sepang and took their first win of the season by a comfortable margin, the first for the Ford-labelled Red Bull Powertrains power unit.
The monsoon weather which delayed the start by an hour-and-a-half just played a bit of mischief before that but didn’t really change the outcome for Verstappen who looked set to dominate regardless of conditions.
But it did impact heavily upon the fortunes of the other front row starter, Lewis Hamilton, the choices Ferrari made in response to the weather leaving him almost two minutes off the lead after just a few laps. With a lot of help from a safety car, he was able to stage a great recovery drive to the podium, behind Antonelli and benefitting from the late retirement from third of George Russell’s Mercedes.
What the combination of the equatorial storm and the subsequent spluttering out of cars on the initial reconnaissance laps behind a safety car did was move the track away from the certainty of starting on intermediate tyres, teasingly suggesting slicks as the heat quickly dried out the puddles. It was a tease Hamilton and 12 others fell for – to disastrous effect.
12 out of 22 cars on this grid are fitted with the wrong tyres
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The original delay waiting for the rain to stop and the subsequent one in the aftermath of cars slowing to a powerless crawl during the reconnaissance laps, not ready for such low-speed wet running (this was the first time they had used the power unit wet modes), meant much of the track looked merely damp. But that was deceptive. It only looked that way because of how rough the surface had become in the nine years since F1 cars last ran over it. In the big gaps within that rough texture lay plenty of water. It was nowhere near ready for slicks. Hamilton had realised this as he set off behind Verstappen on the next safety car laps, those which officially started the race before a standing start on lap 3. The spray coming from the back of the Red Bull as they left the pits told him what the gripless feel of the Ferrari confirmed a few seconds later.
Without the extra delay to re-install the software of all the cars after the low-speed running, there’d have been no question. Everyone would have started on inters and Hamilton could have had a much more conventional race.
Why did it take so long to restart? The FIA explained: “On the formation lap ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, an unprecedented combination of low engine speed, low-grip conditions, wet-weather energy management settings and the Sepang circuit’s sector configuration led to an unintended loss of power for a number of cars. As a result, the FIA Technical Department removed the energy limit constraint in the affected sectors through an updated software release distributed to all competitors during the race delay caused by heavy rain enabling teams to make the necessary changes to the power unit before the start of the race.” Yep, the cars all had to install a software correction for the problem the reconnaissance laps had revealed…
Mechanics shuffle the cars back into grid order after the first chaotic reconnaissance laps
Any Hone/LAT
Hamilton, together with team-mate Charles Leclerc and McLaren’s Lando Norris sunk like stones off the grid and in the opening few corners on their slicks, as Antonelli and Russell surged past Verstappen to head the field – and those in the midfield who’d made the correct choice of inters, took full advantage too, with Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls up to fourth and even forcing Verstappen to get defensive through the first few turns, though soon to succumb to Isack Hadjar’s Red Bull. The Williams of Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon, Esteban Ocon’s Haas and Arvid Lindblad’s Racing Bulls were among those piling past the doomed slick runners. Norris and Hamilton were left floundering around in 15th and 16th respectively, losing up to 10sec per lap.
Leclerc and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri bailed out of their initial choice of slicks in the first two laps, rejoining at the back but at least now on the correct rubber. Hamilton was offered the choice but urged the team to gamble on staying out now that the damage was done. Norris – and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, the Alpines and Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas – made the same choice, all of them just hoping that a safety car might rescue them. Without that they were going to be lapped before the race was very old.
Mercedes sweep in to the lead at the start of the race, as the Ferraris tumble down the order
Grand Prix Photo
Bottas created the very safety car he’d been hoping for, depositing the gripless, wrong-tyred Cadillac into the gravel on lap nine. He did this just as the inters and slicks were reaching the crossover point as the track dried. The inters runners thereby got a perfectly-timed cheap pitstop. Hamilton stayed out there on his soft compounds, Norris pitted for a set of hards, putting him back behind Hamilton, 15th and 16th.
As everyone lined up waiting for the safety car to come in, there was a big variety of tyre compounds. The choice had been set to be intriguing even before the weather came to randomise everything. The medium overheated the rears very quickly, the softs needed a lot of management to keep the fronts from overheating, the hards were slower but could be pushed pretty hard. Would it be better for the driver to manage the faster tyre or to push hard on the slower tyre?
But that was with the track temperature at 55-60C. Now it was only 34C after the rainfall and continued overcast skies meant it just stayed there. Now, the soft could be pushed harder than before and the hard wasn’t as competitive. Those who’d used the inter at the start had already met the two compounds requirement – and Red Bull committed heavily to the more aggressive choice. Verstappen (and Hadjar) would do the race on three sets of softs. What was already the fastest car now had a tyre compound advantage too.
Mercedes (just like McLaren) had gone more conservative in their tyre set choices and had Antonelli and Russell on mediums for the restart. Mercedes and Red Bull filled the first four places and would quickly leave the Lawson-led mid-pack behind as the Ferraris and McLarens tried to recover from the lowly positions their wrong initial choices had left them. There was set to be three sets of action: front, midfield and recoveries.
Soft-tyred Verstappen passes Antonelli
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Antonelli didn’t quite get his timing right on the restart, and Verstappen was immediately onto him, using his softer, faster-to-warm rubber to go around the outside of Turn 1 and down the inside into T2. From there, he disappeared at around half-a-second per lap. Antonelli’s loss of momentum as he fought Verstappen allowed Russell to grind by but it was soon clear that Antonelli had better pace than his team-mate. After receiving no co-operation from the pitwall in moving Russell aside, Antonelli made the move himself a few laps later. By which time Verstappen was 5sec clear and still lapping slightly faster.
There was no question that the Red Bull in Verstappen’s hands was simply the fastest thing in the place this weekend. The recent updates have worked in giving it a better through-corner balance, but there was something about the surface of this place which seemed to work in its favour – and against Mercedes.
Friday had shown the Merc’s rear tyre deg to be too high and the extra downforce it ran thereafter killed its straightline speed. The Red Bull was by far the fastest thing down the straights. The Ferrari was the fastest through the turns but struggling on the straights. The McLaren was just not well balanced and didn’t have its usual great fast corner performance. The suspicion at both Mercedes and McLaren is that their problems might have been rooted in the rough track surface. Not just in terms of the impact it had on their tyre performance, but aerodynamically too. The aero impact of track surface texture is a fascinating subject in itself, which can wait for another day. But Ferrari found a sweeter spot than either Mercedes or McLaren (with Hamilton’s car at least) and Mercedes was running 2-3 only because of Hamilton’s choice of starting tyre.
With Verstappen keeping Antonelli at a distance and Russell without the pace to retaliate on his team-mate, the podium looked set – as that trio pulled quickly away from Hadjar who just could not find the same balance with the Red Bull that Verstappen had and was degrading his tyres more quickly as a result.
In the midfield Lawson held sway but Ocon showed his usual wet weather prowess and in the Haas was keeping the pressure on the faster Racing Bulls. He’d subsequently lose time at his second pitstop, push too hard on his new tyres trying to compensate and fade to 15th.
Alonso leads Norris; perhaps the most unlikely outcome of the entire race
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The Williams had faded – Sainz being hit by Bortoleto at the restart and falling to the back, Albon with lack of pace and a flat-spotted tyre. But the intriguing man here was Alonso, in an Aston showing great slow corner prowess (they’d got both cars through to Q2 for the first time this year). He’d got the tyre choice wrong at the start, stayed on the slicks until the Bottas safety car, switched to a fresh set of softs and lined up on the restart 19th. From there he would stage a remarkable comeback, using the slipstream to offset the Honda power unit’s deficit to stay in touch and then putting a series of great moves on ostensibly faster cars, including Lindblad. That put him into 10th – with a couple of dramatic moments set to come ahead of him that would put him eighth at the flag, and hassling Lawson.
Hamilton was able to keep his original softs in great shape and had pace enough to get through the midfield and be steadily gaining on Hadjar’s fourth place. He got those softs to last over half the distance and kept up a pace bettered only by the top three on newer tyres. But, having not been on the inters, he was obligated to take the medium tyre at his stop, and the car was less happy on these and it looked like fourth would be as far as he was going to get.
Hamilton chases down Lindblad and Piastri
Jade Gao / AFP via Getty Images
Leclerc could not match Hamilton’s race pace this weekend and his extra stop for his third set of softs left him well behind, but as he and the McLarens came through the midfield he’d managed to put a pass on Piastri and stay ahead. Norris was the only one showing any pace on the hard tyre but faded once onto the soft. That was still enough to get him past midfield leader Lawson.
Then Albon’s gearbox seized. This initially triggered the virtual safety car. Verstappen’s right-front was looking a little angry and he was told that if he pitted, he’d exit around 5sec behind Antonelli. “How many laps left?” he asked. “Twelve,” he was told. “Yes, nice.” That’s how confident he was in his pace here. And in he came for another set of (used) softs, with Antonelli now leading.
As it turned out, he needn’t have even worried about passing Antonelli – because Mercedes brought their man in for new softs of his own a lap later – with Russell and Hadjar following him in on that lap. With the marshals unable to move the Williams, a truck was needed – and therefore a full safety car followed, triggering further stops for the McLarens, Lawson and Alonso, without any loss of positions.
Out of the Grand Prix… and the title race?
Jade Gao / AFP via Getty Images)
Just as the safety car was about to come in, Russell pulled off to the side, third place – and surely any vague title hopes – gone. A traffic concertina at the site of Russell’s car led Norris to almost hit the back of team-mate Piastri, and he took to the run-off in avoidance, putting him down in 12th. Boosted two places in quick succession, Lawson and Alonso were now seventh and eighth.
As the safety car came in, there were four laps left and Hadjar was dismayed to find he’d lost a chunk of power. Hamilton – who’d pitted under the VSC to be rid of the mediums and onto a set of softs – was all over him like a rash and made a simple deployment pass on the pit straight for third, followed through a lap later by Leclerc. Hadjar had enough to stay clear of Piastri and Lawson, while Norris got by Nico Hülkenberg and Lindblad in his mini-recovery but Alonso was out of reach. Fernando Alonso in an Aston had just beaten Lando Norris’s McLaren. And Max Verstappen had just beaten everyone, for the first time this season. A complicated race, but a simple one for him.
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