How Hamilton made tough race look easy

Lewis Hamilton's drive to victory in the Malaysian Grand Prix looked effortless, easy even. It was the kind of performance we've grown used to from Sebastian Vettel in recent times. As with Vettel's comfortable wins, it's all too easy to dismiss it as a walk in the park. After all, with the gift of the best car, anyone could turn up and cruise to victory, right?

Not a bit of it. Unlike in Melbourne, where Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg had a clean run to victory without having to worry about Hamilton, this was a straight fight between the two at the front. And it was a fight that Hamilton utterly dominated. From pole position, he assumed the lead, stretching his advantage to over two seconds on the opening lap. He never looked back.

Rosberg endured two alarming moments in the first half-minute of the grand prix. At the start, Vettel squeezed him towards the pitwall, legitimately given the space remaining between them when Rosberg started to cede ground.

Then Rosberg had a lairy moment at Turn 3 when the rear stepped out, meaning he had to do some canny defensive driving to keep the Red Bulls at bay.

"I had a great start," said Rosberg. "With Vettel it was massively close. I closed my eyes and thought I might hit the wall, but it just worked out. Then I had a big tankslapper, so both the Red Bulls were all over the back of me and I managed to defend well. From there on, I just couldn't quite catch Lewis."

Rosberg had no way of fighting back. The gap at the chequered flag, just over 17 seconds, perhaps even flattered him. For this was a weekend on which Hamilton was supreme.

Hamilton kept the lead despite Rosberg's great start © LAT

He was faster over a lap, in the second and third sectors in particular. More importantly, in hot conditions that meant Mercedes went into the race with very serious tyre-degradation concerns, Hamilton was able to look after his rears better, which speed trap figures suggested was a consequence of running slightly more downforce.

He also used less fuel, around 3kg less if the figures displayed on screen during the race were accurate. So he was faster, better on tyres, had the stronger set-up and was more efficient. Game, set and match. Hamilton made it look easy.

"I don't think any race is ever easy," said Hamilton. "Obviously there are opportunities that are presented in front of you and obviously you have to take them with both hands and today that's what I did. Looking after the car, looking after fuel, not making any mistakes, it was a massive challenge in that sense.

"I would hear that Nico had stepped up the speed, reacting to those things without damaging your tyres, so without doubt it was still a great challenge but one that I was able to do well because the car was spectacular this weekend. I'm really, really happy with a great performance from the team."

What makes this win so significant for Hamilton is that coming into the season, when it was clear that Mercedes would at least start the campaign with a big advantage, the dynamic between him and his team-mate was one of the big questions.

Hamilton is the faster driver on raw pace, probably even Rosberg would (privately) admit that. But Rosberg is plenty fast enough and has his own strengths to bring to the table, including a determination to assimilate every piece of information available to give himself the edge.

Even though tyre degradation was not as serious a concern for Mercedes in the race as Friday practice had threatened, Hamilton still had to juggle those balls at the front of the race. And he did so without missing a beat. In Malaysia, he was just the better driver on all fronts.

"It's difficult to say what the difference was. You could see straight from the beginning that Nico had a bit of a snap [oversteer moment] and it was harder to recover from them because mid-race he came back," said Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff.

"Lewis had a faultless race. Well, I wouldn't say faultless, because Nico was faultless as well technically, but they kept pushing each other all through the weekend. At the beginning of the weekend it was Nico, then Lewis came back, then during the race it was Lewis."

Even when Rosberg had sometimes looked faster in practice, on the headline laps Hamilton's failure to string together three long sectors suggested that the fundamental pace was there. What happened on Sunday served only to underline that.

Rosberg's second allowed him to consolidate his lead © LAT

From a world championship point of view, Hamilton's accomplished win still means he lies 18 points behind Rosberg, which is why the German wasn't too disappointed with second place on a day when he had no answer for his team-mate.

A real strength for Rosberg is that he knows and accepts there will be days when he is beaten and will roll with the punches. The question mark over Hamilton is whether he will react in the same way? That's something that the races to come will reveal as the pair disputes the championship lead.

Vettel might have something to say about that. For the Malaysian GP encapsulated the potential shape of the world championship. It is Red Bull that looks most threatening, with Vettel finishing third, crossing the line only seven seconds behind Rosberg.

After its pre-season struggles, Red Bull proved in Malaysia that it will be a world championship threat, doubly so given that Daniel Ricciardo should have backed up his team-mate in fourth had he not been released from his final stop with the left-front wheel not attached, the first of a series of body blows that ruined the Australian's afternoon.

Bar a few early laps behind Ricciardo, Vettel held third throughout, following exactly the same three-stop strategy (three stints on the medium, then a brief run on the slower hard tyres to the chequered flag) as the top two.

After the second round of stops, he did get close enough to Rosberg to complain about fluid being flung at his car from the back of the Mercedes. But this was more than anything the consequence of excessive caution on Rosberg's part as he took it easy to ensure tyre life. He was easily able to consolidate and keep the troublesome Vettel behind.

When told he needed to build a gap, he was able to do so by as much as a second a lap. That simply underlined that there was no real battle for second, even though Vettel was only half a second behind at one stage.

The RB10 looks strong aerodynamically, and seemed a little closer to the pace of the Mercedes in Malaysia than it had been in Melbourne, perhaps the consequence of a small step made by the Renault engine. With further software improvements due to come on stream rapidly, the Mercedes drivers would do well to worry more about the four-time world champion than each other, even though Vettel's proximity to the front perhaps flattered Red Bull.

"Probably Lewis could have gone faster," said Vettel. "I think we could have gone faster at the end of the race, but our priority was to make sure we secured the podium.

Vettel showed Red Bull is a real threat © LAT

"We know that there's a lot we can do better, because it doesn't feel great when we are out there racing. If you go out on track and listen and look at how the cars behave on power, there's a big difference. I think it's a question of time, how soon we manage to catch up. And then we try to give them a harder time."

The paddock consensus is that this moment could come as early as the fifth race of the season in Spain. The rate of progress since Vettel failed to complete a stuttering race simulation on the final day of pre-season testing in Bahrain has been astonishing.

The feeling is that the Red Bull is the strongest car aerodynamically, and privately the team has no doubts that it's ahead of Mercedes in this area. Lotus's trackside operations director Alan Permane certainly sees it that way.

"The Red Bull looks absolutely unbelievable and I'm convinced that when we see a few more power unit improvements, which I know are coming and I know they will benefit from, they will give Mercedes a run for their money," Permane explained after the race.

Red Bull claimed the time deficit on the straights in Melbourne was a second per lap, so in Malaysia it was probably more. There could be a double advantage in this, as Red Bull has had to be very conscious of drag levels when finalising aerodynamic set-up.

If the Renault engine can realise the potential everyone at Viry insists is there, then the gain could be exponential. And that's a big worry for everyone at Brackley.

But those dreading the prospect of Red Bull winning a fifth consecutive world championship double should hold their horses. There is still a long way to go in terms of performance to threaten Mercedes for wins and, historically, the team that starts strongest is usually able to hang on even if its relative performance slips.

The Mercedes team itself experienced that in 2009, then in its Brawn guise, where it won six of the first seven races then slid behind Red Bull and others in the competitive order but still won both titles.

But if Red Bull can maintain its upward trajectory, it should guarantee some great racing later in the season by preventing the monotony of Mercedes winning week after week. In Malaysia, Rosberg had no trouble keeping Vettel at arm's length and really shouldn't have let him get so close in the first place. Give it a few months and it won't be so straightforward.

The Malaysian Grand Prix also showed how far behind the rest are. In fourth place, Fernando Alonso's deficit to the front was 35.9s (it had been 35.2s in Australia). Just as in Melbourne, he was more worried about Nico Hulkenberg's Force India than the Mercedes or Red Bulls ahead. After running fifth early on, he did hang onto the back of the Red Bulls, initially Vettel before he was let past on lap four and then Ricciardo, but never looked like a threat.

The gap gradually inched up, equating to about two tenths of a second per lap over the race. Not a big difference, certainly, but there's cause for concern at Ferrari given there seems more obvious potential for improvement with the Renault engine.

Alonso said his race was a nightmare © LAT

As Alonso put it: "I felt slow all the race", although practice suggested that Kimi Raikkonen might have had the pace to do better had his race not been ruined by being clipped by Kevin Magnussen on the second lap, damaging the floor of the Ferrari and condemning the Finn to a long crawl back to the pits.

Hulkenberg was able to challenge Alonso for fourth thanks to a two-stop strategy, although fundamentally the car was a little slower. But the rest were nowhere. McLaren's promised half-a-second a lap performance improvement didn't put in an appearance and it was only circumstances and a very accomplished drive that allowed Jenson Button to finish as high as sixth.

He shouldn't have been ahead of the two Williams of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, who were out of position thanks to again struggling in wet qualifying and spent the whole race not being able to challenge the 2009 world champion.

That gave rise to Massa being given the "Valtteri is faster than you" instruction from the pitwall, which he disregarded. This grabbed the headlines but there was little sign of the kind of pace Williams had demonstrated in testing or Australia.

The race was best described as tense, rather than action-packed, but the conditions, temperatures and the relative lack of experience with the new cars played a big part in that.

Sunday's Bahrain GP, a month on from testing there, will give a clearer indication of the shape of things to come in the 2014 F1 season.