MALAYSIAN GP – RACE RESULTS – KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN SPACE

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Alonso fourth, Raikkonen out of luck – Not the luckiest of races for Ferrari. Fernando Alonso brought home the points for fourth place, thanks to a gritty second half performance that saw him close on those ahead, taking fourth place off Nico Hulkenberg in the Force India just 4 laps from the flag.

Kimi Raikkonen was very unlucky, as he was clipped at turn 1 in the opening laps by Kevin Magnussen’s McLaren, suffering a right rear puncture. The Finn had to do a whole lap at snail’s pace to get back to the pits, before rejoining in penultimate place. He fought hard, dueling with Daniil Kvyat and Romain Grosjean for a points finish, but it was not to be as he finished twelfth.

It was a one-two finish for Mercedes, with Lewis Hamilton taking his 33rd win from Nico Rosberg, with Sebastian Vettel third for Red Bull.

Thanks to the 12 points for fourth, Alonso has the consolation of being third in the drivers’ championship, one point behind Hamilton and not too far off leader Rosberg. Just one week to go before round three in Bahrain (full report.)

FINAL STANDINGS

Pos Driver                Team                    Time/Gap
 1. Lewis Hamilton        Mercedes                1m40m25.974s
 2. Nico Rosberg          Mercedes                +17.313s
 3. Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault        +24.534s
 4. Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                 +35.992s
 5. Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes    +47.199s
 6. Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes        +1m23.691s
 7. Felipe Massa          Williams-Mercedes       +1m25.076s
 8. Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Mercedes       +1m25.537s
 9. Kevin Magnussen       McLaren-Mercedes        +1 lap
10. Daniil Kvyat          Toro Rosso-Renault      +1 lap
11. Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault           +1 lap
12. Kimi Raikkonen        Ferrari                 +1 lap
13. Kamui Kobayashi       Caterham-Renault        +1 lap
14. Marcus Ericsson       Caterham-Renault        +2 laps
15. Max Chilton           Marussia-Ferrari        +2 laps

Retirements:

    Daniel Ricciardo      Red Bull-Renault        49 laps
    Esteban Gutierrez     Sauber-Ferrari          35 laps
    Adrian Sutil          Sauber-Ferrari          32 laps
    Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Renault      18 laps
    Jules Bianchi         Marussia-Ferrari        8 laps
    Pastor Maldonado      Lotus-Renault           7 laps
    Sergio Perez          Force India-Mercedes    0 laps

Drivers' championship:
 
 1. Nico Rosberg       43
 2. Lewis Hamilton     25   
 3. Fernando Alonso    24   
 4. Jenson Button      23   
 5. Kevin Magnussen    20   
 6. Nico Hulkenberg    18   
 7. Sebastian Vettel   15   
 8. Valtteri Bottas    14   
 9. Kimi Raikkonen     6    
10. Felipe Massa       6   
11. Jean-Eric Vergne   4   
12. Daniil Kvyat       3   
13. Sergio Perez       1   

Constructors' championship:

 1. Mercedes                 68 
 2. McLaren-Mercedes         43 
 3. Ferrari                  30 
 4. Williams-Mercedes        20 
 5. Force India-Mercedes     19 
 6. Red Bull-Renault         15 
 7. Toro Rosso-Renault       7  
 8. Sauber-Ferrari           0  
 9. Lotus-Renault            0  
10. Caterham-Renault         0  
11. Marussia-Ferrari         0

QUOTES

Kimi Raikkonen – Magnussen destroyed race: “I don’t know much about it. All I know his front wing hit me on my wheel but I didn’t feel anything, so I have no idea when it was. Obviously it destroyed our race, not very good for us but I can’t say much as I have not seen it. On Friday and Saturday we have been pretty ok until qualifying, which wasn’t ideal and we weren’t as happy with. We were still in an ok position for the race. I got a pretty good start but then got that issue with the rear tyre. I think how we started was good and for sure we could have been up there with Fernando. It all went down when I got hit so that was that. It is a shame because without it we could have had a pretty ok race. It’s not where we want to be with the guys at the front. They are too fast right now but it is good for what we expected.”

“Hopefully next race we will have some new parts for the car I’ve been asking for and hopefully it makes a change in a nice way. Hopefully the front end will feel nicer. We will have to wait and see how we do on Friday there. I know on the test there was a some difficulties with handling but hopefully the new parts can sort that out. The new updates should make us a bit happier with the front end. It’s a new part and we don’t know if it will do what we expect. We have a good understanding of where we want to go and what to do. I expect if we make that happen we can go much faster, but how quickly we can do that we will see. All the good things we did a lot better here so we are going in the right direction.”