Vettel shocks Mercedes to take victory in Malaysia

Sebastian Vettel took his first victory for Ferrari as the team took advantage of a strategy mistake by the Mercedes team in the Malaysian Grand Prix. Mercedes was able to recover as Lewis Hamilton came home in 2nd place and Nico Rosberg in 3rd. Vettel's team mate Kimi Raikkonen recovered from a difficult start of the race to claim 4th. The win is the first for Ferrari since Fernando Alonso won the Spanish Grand Prix in 2013.

Lewis Hamilton got away first as the lights went out but on lap 4 the safety car was brought out after Marcus Ericsson spun trying to pass Nico Hulkenberg. The two Mercedes cars went into the pits to change to a prime set of tires as Vettel stayed out in the Ferrari. Vettel was able to build a gap over Hamilton as he had to work his way through the field back up to second. Vettel was able to hold the gap through the rest of the race as he only made two pit stops as opposed to three by Mercedes.

Kimi Raikkonen's race started out difficult as he got a puncture after contact with Felipe Nasr's front wing on the second lap. Raikkonen went to the back of the field after having to drive a whole lap with the puncture but was able to make up ground through the safety car. Using the speed of his Ferrari, Raikkonen made it back up to 4th.

The two Williams drivers both had fairly quiet races as they finished 5th and 6th with Valtteri Bottas leading the way over Felipe Massa. Behind Williams were the two Toro Rossos of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz. With a 7th place finish, Max Verstappen became the youngest point scorer in the history of Formula 1.

Red Bull had a difficult race with a 9th and 10th place finish with Daniil Kvyat leading the way over Daniel Ricciardo. Even more difficult to Red Bull is that they finished below the Toro Rossos and also got lapped for the second straight race.

McLaren had another difficult day as both car failed to see the finish of the race. Fernando Alonso retired on lap 21 due to an ERS cooling issue while Jenson Button retired on lap 43 with a turbo issue. The laps they put in should still be valuable to the team for data though.

Also of note was Roberto Merhi finishing the race for Manor despite being 3 laps down. This was significant for Manor to get the car in the race and finishing. Team mate Will Stevens was unable to start after having a fuel systems problem.

Pos.	Driver	Team
1	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari
5	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes
6	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes
7	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Renault
8	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Toro Rosso-Renault
9	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull-Renaut
10	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull-Renault
11	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Mercedes
12	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari
13	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes
14	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes
15	Roberto Merhi	Manor-Ferrari
	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Mercedes
	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda
	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda
	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari