The Malaysian GP belonged to Red Bull and Mercedes but it was definitely a good race. I really wish Mercedes were able to mount a better offense at the end, but unfortunately they had to settle for 3rd and 4th. I'm cautiously optimistic after Mercedes's fantastic showing in this race. It seems they may be working out the kinks in their cars and had it not been for Brawn telling Hamilton and Rosberg to conserve the cars, they may have been able to challenge Red Bull a bit more thoroughly. They both drove really well today and as I said last week, I'm pulling for Mercedes this season so I'm pleased with the race outcome for the most part. There was definitely a bit of good action during the race along with some screw ups in the pit that may not have really affected this race's outcome, but easily could've on any other day. On the first lap, Alonso ran into the back of Vettel and damaged the front wing on his car, which wouldn't have been so bad if Ferrari hadn't opted not to repair the wing which later broke off the car all together and put Alonso out of the race. I get the reasoning behind why they made the decision to have him attempt one more lap before pitting, but on only the third lap, they should have played it safe and pitted him once to fix the wing and once to switch over to the dry weather tires. They definitely could've made up the time two pit stops so early in the race would've cost them, but instead Alonso had to retire. They gambled, and sometimes you have to, but I didn't think that was a smart decision since that definitely cost them points. I was definitely angry to see Vettel win especially since the team orders were to allow Webber to remain in front and he completely disobeyed them and, at several points almost collided with Webber, to get a win over his teammate in only the second race. I thought that was really low by him and Webber had every right to be as pissed as he was on the podium. I was almost hoping he'd collide with Webber just so that he would be out of contention, but Webber deserved to be on podium with how well he drove. Rosberg, on the other hand, obeyed team orders and allowed Hamilton to stay in front even though he was pleading with his crew to let him pass Hamilton. Hamilton said after the race that Rosberg really deserved third because he drove more consistently, which is pretty much true. Both Perez and Button also drove well and it actually looked like Button was going to take fifth or possibly better before he ran into problems in the pit with a loose tire and on the track with some front end vibration.
Other than that, some really egregious errors were made by the pit crews. Toro Rosso was fined for a dangerous release which led to a collision with a Caterham car and the fact that Button somehow left before the wheel on his car was tightened was definitely a bad look. The latter was certainly an accident, but that cost McLaren a lot of time so regardless, it needs to be addressed. It seemed like all the pit crews still need to get into the groove of things though. I'll give to Red Bull that their pit stops were flawless and the fastest of any team if I'm not mistaken.
