Probably not. Vettel had a gap of around 13 or so seconds after Hamilton's final stop and had the pace all through the race to see off any potential late half challenge from Hamilton. Even if Hamilton had caught Vettel, he'd have found it difficult to pass. Above anything (including tyre strategy), Vettel simply drove better all weekend than either of the Mercedes drivers.

The merc had the pace, they pitted one more than Vettel, went through traffic after the safety car and still only finished 10 seconds behind. The Ferrari pace was flattered by the Merc pitting one extra.

Quote from another forum " I think the Merc strategists are still in 2014 mode where they can basically dick around and still win", and he's spot on

That's the way I saw it too.

Hamilton spent most of the race going around half a second faster than Vettel but he had 25 seconds to recover... on the slow tyre.

Said a lot that, at the end, that they were telling him "we're still racing for the win but you'll have to overtake Vettel on-track".
Erm, yeah.

Kinda reminds me of Singapore (?) last year, where there was a SC at about 2/3rds distance and Hamilton still had to pit after it when nobody else did.
He ended up winning because the Merc' just trounced everybody else (and Rosberg had already retired) but it was a shitty strategy call and they only dodged the bullet because they were so much faster than the opposition.

If they allow anything like that to happen this year, it's going to bite them on the arse.

Puts it in perspective when Hamilton managed to recover an entire pitstop of time within about 20 laps last year whereas, this year, he couldn't recover a pitstop of time over an entire race distance.

To be fair though one of those pit stops during the safety car was more or less a freebie, Hamilton didn't hang about either and soon got himself back into second, with a 10 second gap and not many laps done, and yet still couldn't close in on Vettel.

The main difference being that Vettel was out front in clean air and from there on was able to run his own race and manage his tyres and pace while Hamilton was playing catch-up. The Mercs basically ate their 'free' set of tyres just getting back to 2nd & 3rd by which time they were a fair chunk of time behind Vettel. Hamilton also had the hindrance of not having a new set of options to bolt on later when he needed them.

Not taking anything away for Ferrari, they ran a perfect race and totally deserved the win. I would suggest that under the 'exceptional' circumstances of Malaysia this year Ferrari were as quick as Mercedes which is pretty incredible. Mercedes (Hamilton at least) still have the single lap pace by a comfortable margin and perhaps without his issues on Friday Lewis may have managed to get a better set-up that protected the tyres but I doubt it. Ferrari's lower down force set-up was clearly the way to go this weekend. It would have been a very interesting race without the safety car.

Ferrari I think are going to have a successful season and could win something like 6 races. They are going to have to rely on Mercedes mistakes, unreliability or environmental factors like record heat but we saw last season when under virtually zero external pressure there were enough races where things went slighty wrong for Mercedes so I'm sure Ferrari will be able to capitalise. Assuming Vettel is No1 and will pick up the majority of those wins and other podiums he should stay in the title hunt most of the season. Mercedes may have to consider their own team strategy except that so far this season it seems very much like Rosberg hasn't got any fight in him. I think within a few races he'll be way off Hamilton in the DC standings and will effectively be racing as a clear No2 driver.

It's a bit odd what's happened to Nico so far this year. He doesn't seem to have any fight in him at all. He remained a respectful distance behind Lewis in Melbourne and had a clear chance to put Vettel under pressure into the first corner yesterday and utterly wimped out of it. When Vettel came up to him later in the race he did zero to protect his position.

Anyway, a Ferrari resurgence, however temporary it may be (Canada may actually be their next good chance) it great for the sport.

Quick word on McLaren. Great to see them show some race pace although clearly it was at the expense of reliability. Worrying though that Honda are having to totally redesign the MGU-H element after a catastrophic failure. That will have a knock-on in their development timetable. I think they'll find themselves peaking around 4th in the pecking order behind Williams by the end of the season. Best they can hope for is a podium or two I think.

Alonso must be gutted, jumping out of a pony in to a donkey. Feel so sorry for Jenson he should have such a better package. How can Mclaren and Honda with there massive resourses get it so wrong!!

Alonso must have had a rueful grimace after the race and Button's comment over the radio along the lines of "what's happening I seem to be catching somebody up" followed by a response to the effect "it is down to a train of cars being held up by Hulkenberg" summed up the malaise that McLaren are in with an engine that is less competitive than a Renault.

Some competition for Mercedes is a good thing but yesterday was all about tyres and Ferrari won that hands down.

Do people really not get it? 'How can Honda get is so wrong?'. 'Alonso must be kicking himself' etc... Really? Honda are a year behind in engine development. They were never going to be competative from race 1. This year is about developing the engine and understanding how best to integrate it with the McLaren chassis based on the new design ethos they are jointly following. Together they found 1.5 seconds in 2 weeks between Melbourne & Sepang. In 2 weeks time they'll have found more time. The increased engine performance is just starting to put the car in the envelope where the chassis can start to work. Aero, brakes, tyres & drivability will all start to come into play and we'll start to see if the package is as good as McLaren are saying it will be. As I said in my earlier post they should be aiming to establish themselves as 4th in the pecking order by the end of this season then next season they'll aim for third behind the works Mercedes & Ferrari with a long-term view of competing with those two teams.

McLaren Honda is effectively a new team this year and yet in only the second race of the season they really weren't much slower than Red Bull. By the start of the European season we'll start to see them knocking on the door of Q3 and some real points and maybe people stop with all this melodrama, or at least switch it to a more deserving team like RB/Renault. Now there is a partnership that's in trouble.

How do you think this year's McLaren Honda compares with pretty-much any car that turned a wheel in 2014?

Clue: It's slower and far less reliable.

Honda had a bad weekend all round with them being the worst of the factory teams in MotoGP. Ok, Dani is suffering chronic arm pump (will he finish the season?) and Marc cocked up the first corner dropping to the back but it still appears they no longer have the out and out race pace to keep Yamaha and now Ducati (hurrah!) in check at will. Now we just need Suzuki and Aprilia to come to the party to make up what would be the most competitive MotoGP field at the front ever.

C'mon, that's a cheap dig, Si. I'd expect that from FF but not you.

In point of fact if you compare the times in the practice sessions between this year and last year there wasn't a great deal of improvement in 2015 and Alonso's best time in FP3 would have put him in much the same position (14th rather than 15th) in 2014. So by no means the slowest out there and McLaren certainly aren't the only ones who have reliability issues. The McLaren was about 1 second slower in 2015 than it was in 2014 but are clearly heading in the right direction. That's after 2 races, hardly enough to draw conclusions for the entire season, though. After 2 races last year I doubt anyone would have predicted Ricciardo was going to win 3 races or that Williams would have the great season they did. It's far too early to say anything meaningful.

Well, finally it looks like Ferrari have turned the corner in 2015. Vettel has been very patient with them. I just hope that McLaren Honda can sort themselves out now as I want to see Mercedes given a run for their money this grand prix season.
I want to see lots more neck and neck races this year. Let's hope there are more F1 races like Malaysia.
Although, they are closing some of the best circuits, like Monza and now Nürburgring, what next? Shutting down the Monte Carlo Grand Prix ? Oh, no, they'll never do that as that is where all the money is

Jenson Button still seemed really positive on Saturday about the chances of real improvement for McLaren.

I guess he knows more than most what is going on - or was it just face saving PR/putting on a brave face?

I assume you meant Imola? The Nurburgring hasn't closed in any case, they have just had to abandon running the GP this year due to the lack of interest from German fans and how much Bernie charges to hold an F1 race. I'm not sure I'd ever have described the Nurgurgring as one of the best circuits anyway. It certainly doesn't count as one of the European classic circuits anymore.

Now that Vettel's been on the podium twice and even on the top step no less, do you think Ferrari will give him a race suit that actually fits properly?

At the moment it looks like they were out of his size....

Thanks for putting us right, Ron.

Looks a bit like the German paratrooper drawing used in Dad's Army.

Oh, I don't mean it as a "cheap dig" and I could quite happily go into all the negatives and positives of what McLaren are trying to do but the simple fact is that McLaren, if not Honda, have data about both their chassis and engine from last year which they should be able to use to get an idea of how this year's car is likely to perform in relation to last year's.

They'll know what temperatures the engine is required to endure, what air-flow through the radiators is required, the air and fuel requirements, the required lifespan of the engine, the required power from the KERS systems etc.

Sure, Honda haven't had as long to design their engine but, then again, they do have the benefit of knowing all that stuff so if Honda have built an engine that doesn't meet those known requirements I'd say criticism is appropriate rather than sympathy.

Fundamentally, a team always has last year's car to use as a benchmark and any team which rocks up to the first race of a season with a car that's worse than the previous one (and, in this case, is much worse) deserves all the criticism they get.

What's more, given the result of Sepang, all Button's talk about how the MP4-30 and Honda PU are the "most important" things in F1 for challenging the dominance of Mercedes would seem rather hollow at the moment.

I realise I'm coming over like a total McLaren fan-boy, which is not really the case. I'm no more a McLaren fan than I am a Williams or Lotus fan. I just think they're an easy target for detractors who don't 100% understand what they are trying to do. Ron is 100% right when he says n the current engine-led era you can only win the CC if you are a works team. Right now that's Mercedes, Ferrari or Mc-H. That's perhaps where RB-Renault have fallen down. Renault have built a power unit and supplied it to RB rather than building it 100% in concert with RB.

However, you are right in some respects, Mc-H arguably shouldn't have been quite so bad as they have been so far. It sounds like Honda utterly under-estimated the complexity of the PU, specifically the energy recovery aspects and have really struggled to get that element working. McLaren's experience with the Merc PU from last season should in theory have helped but for what ever reason it clearly hasn't. Presumably Mercedes are very careful not to give too much IP away to their customers in case they do a McLaren and go elsewhere. It sounds like one part Mercedes have aced which is perhaps over-looked is the software they have developed which manages the PU and integrates with the 'customer' software on each car.

McLaren have clearly taken a step back but their intentions are right and I do not doubt Honda will deliver a good PU eventually. Probably just in time for the regulations to change again!

i'm sure with the power and resources available to Honda that they will be able to improve the engine, as they will not want their reputation knocked. With the F1 engine homologation rules though they may be limited on what they are actually allowed to do in 2015. Their immediate target has to be to get Mclaren through to the last ten in qualifying and to be able to finish a race regularly.

It's JB I feel sorry for.

I'm not really a JB fan (he always strikes me as a bit of a "smiling assassin") but the poor bugger's had a very patchy F1 career. He's found himself stuck in a variety of teams that were in a "development phase" and, on the one occasion he's been up against a top-quality opponent (Lewis), he aquited himself very well.

Alas, he joined McLaren in an era where it has been, basically, going downhill all the way and now it's likely he's going to "do a Barrichello" by spending years providing talent and money for McLaren and then end up retiring before any of that pays off.

Course, OTOH, Alonso has signed a 3 year contract with McLaren and he's not getting any younger either so either Alonso genuinely does think McLaren will be able to compete for a championship within a couple of years or Kimi's been giving him advice on how to milk your least-favourite employer to fund your retirement.

From that POV, Button might be thinking that it's smart to do whatever Alonso does because they're both, effectively, in F1's Last-Chance saloon.

I tend to agree with you but then again Renault aren't exactly mugs and look at the mess they're making of it! In any case I think Honda have a lot of wiggle room really when it comes to the development restrictions. You can do a lot outside the restrictions under the banner of safety and reliability. If they're clever (I'd assume they are) they will have designed the PU with quite ambitious performance potential and deal with the inherent reliability issues. Better to have an engine that doesn't work most of the time to start with that might one day win races once you design the issues out than design a safe engine that works well from the start but is never going to win because you can't develop it.

I think JB reckons he's got the McLaren seat for another couple of years at least. He's got really good links with Honda and is very popular within the McLaren team with the exception of Boullier. I think Dennis has realised that having a clear 1 - 2 driver line-up is the way to be these days, especially when you don't have the best car, and arguably Alonso/Button is at least as good if not better than any other team. The concern for JB will be if McLaren start to struggle for financial backing and start to look for paying drivers again. Then he'll be out. McLaren have to get a big name sponsor on their car some time this season, surely?

What do people think of Hamilton's reported new contract? Has he done OK negotiating himself or have Mercedes got themselves a bargain? I think there's a bit of both. He's not really improved his over-all package despite being reigning WC and favourite for the current season. He's kept on a par with Alonso & Vettel but I assume that by doing it himself he's avoiding agent fees so in real terms gets more. He's also done well to get this out of the way early on in the season and you could argue he's shown restraint not holding out for more despite being easily the most marketable driver and one of the most marketable sports people globally. He could have got more I think but he's hardly going to end up a pauper so good job over-all I say.

A Nascar team has been seriously penalised for drilling holes in their tyres. This might seem like an April fool and irrelevant to Formula One but read on.

The holes were not big, indeed they were minute. They were designed to create a slow puncture. But what good could that be?

Nascar does not allow the pre heating of tyres by any means. Nascars are closed wheel racing cars which means that the tyres, and wheels, get very hot during a race sometimes to the point that, with the added brake heat, they start melting.

Because of this heating the tyre pressures increase considerably and this has the effect of changing the shape of the tyre detrimentally. The idea therefore was to gradually reduce the pressure by leakage to increase performance.

This has reminded me of one of my issues with modern F1. I have always thought that tyre heaters were pointless and stupid. Everybody has them so nobody gets any advantage from them. Also I remember the days before tyre heaters when cars leaving the pits on new tyres were quite slow for a couple of laps which added to the entertainment. They're just another added cost for teams and really need to be banned.