Alonso rides Malaysian storm to claim surprise win

Sepang podium finishers - photo from gpupdate - sutton

Fernando Alonso claimed his first win since Silverstone GP last year when he successfully fend-off the equally surprising Sauber of Sergio Perez, who went on to finish second. Lewis Hamilton finished third for second consecutive times, after also be on pole twice consecutively.

The race itself was quite a dramatic affair. The race was started under the light rain, where all contenders were on inters. As the light went off, both McLaren started cleanly, while the veteran third placement Michael Schumacher suffered a bad start, immediately losing place to the fast starter Romain Grosjean who later punted him off several corner later, which Webber carefully capitalized to seize third. After recovering from their spin, Michael was down to 13th, while Grosjean was running in 18th.

However, shortly afterwards, all runners immediately pitted for the full wet, as rain intensified. FIA then deemed the race was too dangerous to be continued, triggering a red flag in lap 9.

The race restarted at 5.15pm local time, and was conducted behind the safety car. The safety car stayed on for 3 laps. Upon the real restart, many drivers dived in the pit for an inters. However, several front runner decided to stick on the full wet, namely Hamilton and Perez, and both Red Bulls and Ferraris. When they finally pitted, Alonso capitalized on Hamilton slight delay in his release from the box, ironically to give way to Massa who was on his way to pit box. More after the jump.

It was a led Alonso never relinquished till the end. Towards the end of the race, Perez was really flying, particularly after switching to dry tyres. However, after getting a "Be careful" message from his team, Perez went off slightly in turn 14, effectively ending the Sauber-Ferrari effort to haul the Ferrari works team. It was nevertheless a great drive by the young driver, who is rumoured to join Ferrari next year.

Many big names however, fail to score significant points. Jenson Button was way back in 14th after clipping his front wing to Karthikeyan HRT, Michael Schumacher never threatened after his spin, Rosberg drifted backwards due to tyre degredation, Vettel suffered from late puncture and Massa was never in a contention. 

The order at the finish is as tabulated below:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time
1	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	Winner
2	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	+2.2 secs
3	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	+14.5 secs
4	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	+17.6 secs
5	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	+29.4 secs
6	Bruno Senna	Williams-Renault	+37.6 secs
7	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	+44.4 secs
8	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Ferrari	+46.9 secs
9	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	+47.8 secs
10	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	+49.9 secs
11	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	+75.5 secs
12	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	+76.8 secs
13	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	+78.5 secs
14	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	+79.7 secs
15	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+97.3 secs
16	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham-Renault	+1 Lap
17	Timo Glock	Marussia-Cosworth	+1 Lap
18	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham-Renault	+1 Lap
19	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	+2 Laps
20	Charles Pic	Marussia-Cosworth	+2 Laps
21	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	+2 Laps
22	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT-Cosworth	+2 Laps
Ret	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	+10 Laps
Ret	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	+53 Laps