Sebastian Vettel led his Red Bull Racing team-mate Mark Webber across the line to win a scintillating 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix with a soft – hard Bridgestone Potenza tyre strategy at a searing hot Sepang.
The rain which visited the circuit for every afternoon in the build-up to the race remained absent, meaning it was tyre strategies using Bridgestone’s two dry tyres which defined performance, with a good mix of timing and order of use of the hard and soft compounds.
Congratulations to Red Bull for their one-two today, and to Mercedes for Nico Rosberg’s third place.
This was a good and interesting race based around tyre strategies. Those who started with the soft tyre had to stop sooner than those who started with the hard, as the soft had a shorter wear life. The hard tyre allowed drivers to continue pushing, as shown by Mark Webber setting the race’s fastest lap on lap 53 with this tyre. The soft required a more forgiving style to maintain its performance. Drivers were able to use fresh tyres sets in the race, as they did not use these tyres in the wet qualifying the day before. This meant we saw many fastest race laps as the race progressed, from drivers taking to the track on fresh rubber. So many people predicted rain for this race, but on race day we did not need wet weather to provide excitement on track.
Sepang F1 Results1 S. Vettel Red Bull 1:33:48.4122 M. Webber Red Bull + 4.8493 N. Rosberg Mercedes Grand Prix + 13.5044 R. Kubica Renault + 18.5895 A. Sutil Force India F1 + 21.0596 L. Hamilton McLaren + 23.4717 F. Massa Ferrari + 27.0688 J. Button McLaren + 37.9189 J. Alguersuari Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1:10.60210 N. Hulkenberg Williams + 1:13.39911 S. Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1:18.93812 R. Barrichello Williams + 1 lap(s)
Did not finish13 F. Alonso Ferrari + 2 lap(s)14 L. Di Grassi Virgin Racing + 3 lap(s)15 K. Chandhok HRT F1 Team + 3 lap(s)16 B. Senna HRT F1 Team + 4 lap(s)17 J. Trulli Lotus F1 + 5 lap(s)18 H. Kovalainen Lotus F1 + 10 lap(s)19 V. Petrov Renault + 24 lap(s)20 V. Liuzzi Force India F1 + 44 lap(s)21 M. Schumacher Mercedes Grand Prix + 47 lap(s)22 K. Kobayashi Sauber + 48 lap(s)23 T. Glock Virgin Racing + 54 lap(s)24 P. de la Rosa Sauber + 56 lap(s)
