F1 Race Weekend 2: Malaysia Gran Prix

[ditch_drfc]

I genuinely doubt that is what happened. The repercussions for doing that if ever found out would be too damaging. And as stated, almost all of the grid uses technology from other cars. Ferrari have given technology to other cars for years, and have never asked another team to move over. I strongly doubt that they asked him to stay put. And would Sauber listen even if they did and they thought they could get the win? I don't think so. It's more likely that given the conditions, tyres, weather, fuel etc etc that Sauber decided that it's best he at least gets on the podium.

[keyser_soze]

...especially given what happen to Maldonado in Australia the week before, binned it on the last lap!

Still stranger things have happened like Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately putting it in the wall to get a safety car out a few years ago.

[Mr1Croft]

Did Mclaren ever say to Lewis \"Don't take him\" when he and Schumacher grappled for most of the laps in all races last season? That is when Schumacher stayed on the track of course.

I don't think Sauber or Perez threw it away. The orders to not risk the points were seconds before he ran off the track and you could see the disappointment in their faces. The orders were to 'keep going Sergio, take him if you can but don't push the car too far' if you take away the excursion off the track which increased Alonso's lead by 5 seconds he still was taking at least 5/10s of a second out of the lead in each of the last 18 laps. I noticed him last week when he got in the points and did pretty well, the only driver to do a one-stop strategy on the opening day of the season was a gamble that didn't pull off as well as it should.

I think if you look at the top 10 yesterday it was a shock result with perhaps only 4 in there who you would expect (Webber, Hamilton, Alonso and Schumacher). With the likes of Raikonnen and Vergne being some of the bigger upsetters.

With Button failing yesterday that was the chance Vettel needed to blow the title race wide open. Did he actually finish or did they retire? I seem to remember about 4 different instructions in his final lap.

[keyser_soze]

I didn't hear whether Vettel officially retired in the end, there was a strange set of instructions (box box, keep going, STOP) obviously based around some legislation or other, but as he was laps ahead of the Class 2 cars (HRT etc) then he would still be classified ahead of them even if he stopped on the last lap.

If there was any foul play going on with Sauber/Ferrari you would have thought it would have been flagged up far earlier, he was catching him up way before the last round of pitstops.