| 2011 Malaysian Grand Prix | |||||
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Race 2 of 19 in the2011 Formula One World Championship
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| Race details | |||||
| Date | 10 April 2011 | ||||
| Official name | 2011 Petronas Malaysia Grand Prix | ||||
| Location | Sepang International Circuit Sepang,Selangor,Malaysia | ||||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||||
| Course length | 5.543 km (3.444 miles) | ||||
| Distance | 56 laps, 310.408 km (192.879 miles) | ||||
| Weather | Cloudy, dry | ||||
| Attendance | 105,018 (Weekend)[1] | ||||
| Pole position | |||||
| Driver | Red Bull Racing-Renault | ||||
| Time | 1:34.870 | ||||
| Fastest lap | |||||
| Driver |  Mark Webber | Red Bull Racing-Renault | |||
| Time | 1:40.571 on lap 46 | ||||
| Podium | |||||
| First | Red Bull Racing-Renault | ||||
| Second | McLaren-Mercedes | ||||
| Third | Renault | ||||
Lap leaders | |||||
The2011 Malaysian Grand Prix (formally the2011 Formula 1 Petronas Malaysia Grand Prix)[2] was aFormula One motor race held on 10 April 2011 at theSepang International Circuit inSelangor,Malaysia. It was the second round of the2011 Formula One season. The 56-lap race was won byRed Bull Racing driverSebastian Vettel after starting frompole position.Jenson Button finished second in aMcLaren, andNick Heidfeld completed the podium forRenault, in third place.[3]
As a consequence of the race, Vettel extended his lead in theWorld Drivers' Championship to 24 points over Button. Button's McLaren teammateLewis Hamilton, who finished eighth in Malaysia, fell 4 points behind Button in third, tied on points withMark Webber who finished fourth in the race. In theWorld Constructors' Championship, Red Bull's 37-point haul from the weekend allowed them to extend the championship lead over McLaren to 24 points, withFerrari a further 12 points behind in third position.
This was Heidfeld's last podium and alsoRenault's last podium until the2020 Eifel Grand Prix.
After failing to qualify inMelbourne when they were forced to use the front wing from their2010 car,Hispania Racing arrived at the circuit confident of being able to qualify for the race because their2011 specification front wing satisfactorily completed its mandatory crash tests.[4]
Several teams made driver changes for the first practice session.Nico Hülkenberg once again substituted forPaul di Resta atForce India, whilstDaniel Ricciardo drove in the place ofSébastien Buemi atScuderia Toro Rosso, having previously driven in the place ofJaime Alguersuari inMelbourne.GP2 driverDavide Valsecchi also took part, replacingHeikki Kovalainen atLotus.
Tyre supplierPirelli brought its silver-banded hard compound tyre as the harder "prime" tyre and the yellow-banded soft compound as the softer "option" compound. This was the same tyre selection that Bridgestone had chosen to bring to the Malaysian Grand Prix for the past two years.[5][6][7]
The high temperatures inMalaysia and the abrasive surface of the Sepang circuit led to tyre supplierPirelli making predictions of high wear rates throughout qualifying and the race to the extent that pit stop strategy would be the deciding factor in the outcome.[8] The tyre manufacturer also supplied an experimental harder compound of rubber for use during free practice with a view to introducing the tyre for theTurkish Grand Prix, but rejected it following feedback from the teams.[9]
Shortly after qualifying, theFIA moved the pole position slot from the left- to the right-hand side of the circuit.[10] The pole slot had traditionally been on the left-hand side of the circuit because it offered the optimal racing line into the tight first corner, but was moved because of the build-up of marbles from the Pirelli tyres off the racing line, which runs over the right-hand side of the circuit.
Before the race, winner ofrace one inMelbourne -Sebastian Vettel - led the Drivers' Championship with the 25 points he gained for winning the only race thus far in2011. The rest of the standings were as the drivers had finished at that race -Lewis Hamilton on 18,Vitaly Petrov on 15 etc.
In the Constructors' Championship,Red Bull Racing lead with 35 points,McLaren were second with 26 (9 points behind), andFerrari were a further 8 behind McLaren on 18 points. Renault were in fourth, just behind on 15 points.Toro Rosso on 4, andForce India on 3, completed the points scoring teams.
The first practice session was run in humid but dry conditions, despite forecasts of heavy rain.Mark Webber was the fastest driver in the first session, over a second and a half faster thanLewis Hamilton and two seconds faster thanMichael Schumacher. In the secondRed Bull Racingcar,Sebastian Vettel finished seventeenth overall, four seconds off Webber's pace; however, with comments from team principalChristian Horner in the build-up to the event suggesting that the unraced KERS device would be essential, Vettel's program was focused on developing the KERS unit rather than outright pace. Overall lap times were considerably slower at the circuit than in2010, with Webber's fastest time over two and a half seconds slower thanLewis Hamilton's time in the same session a year previously.[8]
The session was scattered with incidents;Virgin driverJérôme d'Ambrosio suffered a mechanical fault that caused his right-front suspension to fail. The team were unable to repair the problem in time for the second practice session. Further down the pit lane,Renault experienced two similar problems, first withNick Heidfeld, whose front-right tyre locked in place, and he was able to limp back to the garage.Vitaly Petrov was sidelined with a mechanical failure for most of the first session, and spun off at turn 9 when he experienced a similar problem to Heidfeld. Both Renaults spent most of the second session in the pits while the team investigated the problems, which was discovered to have come from a material fault in the suspension uprights, but they were limited to just a handful of laps overall.
Webber once again topped the second practice session, but his margin toJenson Button was just five thousandths of a second.Pastor Maldonado set the fastest time early in the session, but damaged hisWilliams when he spun into a wall in the pit lane entry and slipped down the order.Vitantonio Liuzzi also encountered trouble, stopping on the circuit after bouncing over a kerb, but he was able to get his car going once more. TheHispania's new front wing worked as expected, with Liuzzi able to set times within 107% of the leader's benchmark in both practice sessions.
Hamilton came first in the final practice session, ahead of Webber and Button. The session was free of incidents, aside from several spins byPaul di Resta, while Liuzzi was held up in the pits for most of the session with a mechanical fault and only took to the circuit in the last fifteen minutes.
The qualifying session was closely fought among the Red Bull and McLaren drivers, with the difference between pole and second place just one tenth of a second, as opposed to the eight tenths seen in Melbourne.
The first session was interrupted whenSébastien Buemi's Toro Rosso shed part of its sidepod while Buemi was on a flying lap. There was no internal damage to the car, and Buemi was able to return to the pits with the internal workings of the car showing. The session was red-flagged for several minutes while marshalls retrieved the bodywork. Buemi's car was inspected by the FIA and cleared to return to the circuit, though the exact cause of the problem remained unknown.[11] Because of the incident involving Buemi, several teams were forced to abort flying laps, including theFerraris ofFelipe Massa andFernando Alonso, who had been in the process of setting flying laps on the hard compound tyres. When the session restarted, the team were forced to sacrifice one set of soft tyres for both cars. By the end of the session, bothLotuses were eliminated, a clear two seconds faster than theVirgins of Glock and d'Ambrosio. BothHispanias were also eliminated, but comfortably made the grid asNarain Karthikeyan in twenty-fourth position was a second inside the 107% margin.Pastor Maldonado was also eliminated, qualifying in eighteenth place.
The second qualifying period sawJenson Button top the timing sheets, the first person to set a lap time under 1:36.000 all weekend. Several teams, most notablyRenault elected to do just one run late in the session, with both Petrov and Heidfeld easily advancing to the third and final session. A late lap fromKamui Kobayashi saw him qualify for the final session at the expense ofMichael Schumacher, who was demoted to eleventh place for the second race in a row. Buemi recovered from his earlier scare to qualify twelfth, with teammateJaime Alguersuari in thirteenth.Paul di Resta out-qualifiedAdrian Sutil by placing fourteenth, followed byRubens Barrichello andSergio Pérez in the secondWilliams andSauber respectively, with Sutil finishing seventeenth overall.
The third period began with the remaining ten drivers divided into two distinct groups: the Red Bull and McLaren drivers, who all set two flying laps, and everyone else, only going out once, many with the hope of saving an extra set of tyres for the race.Lewis Hamilton set the early benchmark with a time of exactly 1:35.000, followed by the Red Bulls andJenson Button.Fernando Alonso was the next driver to set a time, but he was over half a second off Hamilton's pace. The top four drivers emerged again to set their final times, with each driver getting progressively faster. Jenson Button improved on his initial time, but remained fourth.Mark Webber bested him, but was still two tenths of a second off Hamilton's time. Hamilton himself improved in kind, and looked as if he had secured pole position beforeSebastian Vettel crossed the line, a tenth of a second faster than Hamilton. With Vettel first and Hamilton second, followed by Webber, Button and Alonso, the top five drivers lined up in the same order as they did in Melbourne.Nick Heidfeld qualified in sixth place for Renault, followed by Massa in the second Ferrari and teammate Petrov in the second Renault in eighth.Nico Rosberg and Kamui Kobayashi completed the top ten.
In what would be a dominant race for the 2010 World Champion, Vettel made a clean break from the lights and quickly began developing a strong lead from the rest of the pack. The other big winner was Nick Heidfeld, who was able to move from sixth to second at the start. By lap 9 Vettel had built a 5.2 second lead over his fellow German,[12] and was able to comfortably bring his car home in first in spite of KERS problems that plagued the second half of his race.[3] while Pastor Maldonado retired with a misfire. Barrichello was the next retirement with a gearbox problem, which they later traced to the hydraulics. On lap 24, the Sauber ofSergio Pérez was struck by a piece of debris, possibly from an unidentified car. The debris damaged the front wing and floor of the Sauber before passing through both the chassis and the protectiveZylon panel, and hitting theECU. The ECU was rendered inactive, stopping the car. The debris then passed out of the car by smashing through the sidepod.[13] Jarno Trulli slid across the gravel before retiring with a clutch failure on lap 31.
The Hispanias of Karthikeyan and Liuzzi were withdrawn by the team for "safety reasons".[14] Karthikeyan experienced an abnormal spike in water temperature on lap 15, whilst Liuzzi's car was subject to vibrations from the rear wing. Although neither fault was terminal, the team elected to retire the cars rather than risk further damage.
Behind Vettel, the McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button fought with Fernando Alonso for position, Button coming out on top and ultimately taking his first podium of the season, ahead of Nick Heidfeld who finished third, whilst both Hamilton and Alonso were penalised for their actions on track.[3] Further back, D'Ambrosio pulled off the track with an electronics failure, and later Petrov crashed out from eighth place.
Notes
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| Previous race: 2011 Australian Grand Prix | FIA Formula One World Championship 2011 season | Next race: 2011 Chinese Grand Prix |
| Previous race: 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix | Malaysian Grand Prix | Next race: 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix |
