How Red Bull stole the Malaysian Grand Prix

The Malaysian Grand Prix was bizarre in so many ways: underpowered Red Bull winning on a track with many full-throttle sections; Mercedes struggling badly on a circuit that features enough high-speed corners and straights to ordinarily suit its strengths; Ferrari dropping yet more points in the world championship thanks to freak engine failures on a weekend where it undoubtedly had the fastest car.

That the race finished with Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari stranded on the track with its left-rear corner folded over the top of the car, after a collision on the slowing down lap, somehow encapsulated the strangeness of Formula 1's final race in Malaysia.

First to Mercedes, which should have been back on form with F1 returning to a more conventional race circuit, following the street fighting of Singapore a fortnight earlier, when Lewis Hamilton opportunistically won a race he had no business winning until Ferrari imploded at the start.

But Mercedes was way off colour at the Sepang circuit. And even though Hamilton managed to qualify on pole, he openly admitted he was fortunate to do so, and knew he'd be in for a real slog in the race.

Hamilton so often finds something special in Q3, as he did here, but nevertheless the W08 was not handling well, and not looking after its tyres well either.

Mercedes brought significant aerodynamic upgrades to its car for this weekend, but was more than 2.5 seconds off the pace in the wet in first practice, and 1.4s down (and slower than Fernando Alonso's McLaren-Honda) in the dry in practice two.

The team reverted to a previous aerodynamic configuration on Hamilton's car for Saturday, while keeping the new parts on team-mate Valtteri Bottas's version, but still the picture was mixed.

The way Bottas struggled with the new aero package must be a serious concern for Mercedes

Bottas was only four tenths off the pace in final practice and fastest of all in Q2, but could get no more from the car and qualified down in fifth.

Hamilton was more than six tenths off the pace in third practice, but right on it in Q3, though his heroics would not have been enough for pole without Kimi Raikkonen messing up at the vital moment.

The trend of struggle continued throughout the race too, which Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff described as a "very painful Sunday".

Amid Mercedes' woe, Ferrari should have scored a comfortable one-two result, and got its championship challenge back on track after the nightmare of Singapore. But engine trouble consigned Vettel to the back of the grid before he'd even had the chance to set a time in qualifying, then denied Raikkonen the chance to take up his starting position on the front row.

Into the breach stepped Red Bull, which looked stonkingly quick when the cars first turned wheels in the wet on Friday, in touch over one lap in the dry, and super-consistent over longer runs.

The Renault engine still can't compete with Mercedes and Ferrari at the business end of qualifying, but there is convergence in race trim, and the RB13 has gradually become a truly potent chassis, perhaps now the best on the grid.

With Ferrari nowhere to be seen at the front, it was down to Red Bull to carry the fight to a struggling Mercedes. To begin with, it looked as though Mercedes might romp away with this race, as Hamilton scampered clear from pole and Bottas came charging around the outside of both Red Bulls as the pack swept into Turn 1 for the first time.

But Bottas could not make his move stick. Verstappen hung around on the outside line through Turn 2, got back past the Mercedes on its inside through Turn 3, then got his elbows out to keep Bottas behind through Turns 4 and 5.

With Bottas successfully repelled, Verstappen could unleash his Red Bull and charge after Hamilton. By the end of the third lap, Verstappen was close enough to have a go and he flung his Red Bull down the inside of the Mercedes as they braked for Turn 1.

Hamilton initially moved to cover the inside line on the approach, but thought better of putting up too much of a fight, considering Verstappen was both prodigiously fast and prepared to take an "extra risk" knowing he is not in title contention.

"I was having some de-rates [of the ERS], which enabled him to get closer, [but] even if I'd closed the door on that one lap he would have got me on another, because they had over half a second in pace, some laps it was eight-tenths of a second," Hamilton said.

"I'm naturally questioning myself about [whether] I should have closed the door, but I think, overall, the long-game approach I took is the right one, because there was no need to battle with Verstappen, who was much quicker, and risk colliding with him and not finishing the race."

Regardless of Hamilton's added difficulties with his car's recovered energy deployment in those early stages, it quickly became apparent Mercedes' earlier weekend woes had carried through to the grand prix itself.

Verstappen dropped Hamilton at a rate of just over half a second per lap, building a lead of nine seconds by lap 18 of 56, which he then maintained until the pitstops.

Bottas fared even worse than Hamilton, losing third place to the second Red Bull Daniel Ricciardo under braking for Turn 4 on lap nine, after a side-by-side battle through the Turn 1/2/3 complex, then falling away from Verstappen's leading Red Bull at a second per lap through the first stint.

"For me the main issue was struggling more with the front end, which hasn't really been the case this year," explained Bottas, who also suggested Mercedes' efforts to understand the problems were hampered by having to remove sensors to save weight after Friday practice.

"But now mid-corners I'm losing a lot of front end. It is tricky to get the car turned - overheating the front left tyre, also four-wheel sliding in high speed corners.

"That has been the case for me all weekend, and I have been only running the new package. The mechanical car set-up wasn't that different between the cars. The only difference was the aero package.

"In the race, if I tried to go quicker, I just slid more, and struggled more with the tyre temps. It is definitely not nice and you can see on the lap times."

Bottas suggested Mercedes' struggles in Malaysia have thrown up "even bigger" questions than those posed by its early-season problems with peaky performance on the ultra-soft tyre, which led to difficult races in Russia and Monaco.

It seems a combination of problems with Mercedes' high-downforce aero package - something that has been a consistent weakness all season for the team - and a dislike for the high ambient temperatures prevalent in Malaysia have played a major part in this latest setback.

"I guess there are more problems that come together and cause the lack of performance," said Wolff. "One of them is certainly very high ambient temperatures, and specific circuit characteristics.

"Kuala Lumpur is not so different; you cannot compare it to Singapore or Monaco, but there is still a lot of low-speed, there are still some very high temperatures, and this is a little bit of a pattern we have seen.

"If you were to name the one [unfavourable] circuit that comes straight after Singapore, Monaco and Hungary, it would be Kuala Lumpur."

A bit of Hamilton magic harnessed to the old aero package was enough to limit the damage here, but the way Bottas struggled on the new one - even allowing for his personal driving deficit to Hamilton - must be a serious concern for Mercedes, which clearly couldn't unlock whatever potential the windtunnel said should be there.

Wolff was quick to remind people the W08 leads both championships (by a large margin), so is by no means "a lame duck", but it was certainly lame enough here to allow Red Bull to beat Mercedes on merit in the dry for the first time in the V6 hybrid turbo era.

Wolff was certainly right that Mercedes "underperformed" in Malaysia, but that should take nothing away from Red Bull, which has worked hard to correct its own early-season aerodynamic problems and is now reaping rewards from what has become a very potent chassis over time, particularly since the RB13 was updated heavily before July's Hungarian GP.

"In qualifying there wasn't a single corner where our car was slower" Christian Horner

Verstappen caught the Mercedes drivers impressively in the late stages of that Hungaroring race, and Ricciardo beat both Raikkonen and Bottas to finish third at Spa, then charged brilliantly from the back of the grid to fourth at Monza.

Spa and Monza are places where Red Bull must trim its downforce levels to mitigate the losses from the Renault engine. The same was true at Sepang. Red Bull ran less wing than Mercedes and Ferrari, but still retained enough efficient downforce to be quicker than Mercedes in the corners.

That potentially affords Red Bull the set-up flexibility to become a real spoiler in the championship fight over the remaining races.

"We were quicker than anticipated, to be honest with you," said Red Bull boss Christian Horner. "The car was very good on its tyres on Friday, very quick in the high-speed. You can see we were running slightly less downforce than the others - we don't have the T-wing here.

"I think that we have found a very good set-up and the drivers have delivered their bit as well.

"The problem with qualifying is we don't have the high-power modes that our competitors have - I am sure there is close to half a second in that - but we can see in qualifying there wasn't a single corner where our car was slower than our opponents.

"When you consider we started off approximately 1.5s off in Melbourne, to have had the best car here this weekend is fantastic. It shows we are on the right path."

Mercedes simply had no answer as Verstappen drove on to a popular and untroubled second career victory, on the weekend of his 20th birthday.

He rebuilt his lead over Hamilton after the stops and simply stroked it home from there, knowing he could "control everything". The only troubling moment was nearly getting collected while lapping Jolyon Palmer and Kevin Magnussen late-on.

What will be troubling Mercedes is the pace Ferrari showed here. Vettel looked the favourite for pole during practice, until he was forced into an engine change before qualifying and was struck down by a lack of pressure in the system.

Ferrari fitted a new engine to Vettel's car following his qualifying problems, happily taking a grid penalty knowing he would start at the back regardless, and Vettel put it to good use by charging up to fourth in the race.

Vettel rose to 12th over the first two laps with relative ease, before spending some time stuck in a "DRS train" behind Alonso's McLaren-Honda. He eventually cleared that obstacle on lap eight, before rising quickly to sixth as slower cars pitted out of the way on consecutive laps.

Mercedes knew Vettel was probably the out-and-out fastest driver in Malaysia, all things considered, and even warned Hamilton that Vettel would become a threat later in the race, just to prevent its driver becoming complacent in second place.

The Ferrari was nearly 30s off the lead by the end of lap 13, thanks to all that traffic, but lost only seven seconds more over the remaining 43 tours.

Vettel overtook Sergio Perez's Force India for fifth at the first corner at the start of lap 21, cleared the Bottas "road block" in the pits after a brief on-track battle, then utilised an offset tyre strategy to charge after Ricciardo's Red Bull in the closing stages.

Vettel made excellent progress using softer tyres to chase down the leading trio, but after getting delayed while lapping Alonso - "he said when he left Ferrari he is a Ferrari fan, today he didn't act like one" - then seeing a tentative bid for the final podium spot aggressively repelled by Ricciardo at Turn 1, Vettel "ran out of tyres" and fell away over the final seven laps - looking as though Ricciardo "broke his spirit a little bit", according to Horner.

But spirits were generally buoyant at Ferrari after the race, despite Vettel losing further ground to Hamilton in the title race.

The fact Mercedes looked lost in Malaysia, while Ferrari looked to have the out-and-out fastest car, was the best news to come out of an otherwise trying weekend for the Scuderia.

The result was not forthcoming, thanks to what Ferrari suspects is two similar failures of a supplied carbonfibre part relating to its engine's air intake system, but the team was boosted by a successful aerodynamic upgrade to the SF70H for this race, and insisted it heads into the final five grands prix of the season with "no fear" for its potential to fight Mercedes for the world championship until the bitter end.

But this still must go down as another massive missed opportunity for Vettel, after throwing away vital points with his defensive chop across the bows of Verstappen and Raikkonen in Singapore.

Mercedes' woes presented him with a golden opportunity to make amends in Malaysia, but sudden and unexpected unreliability has cost him dearly, and his situation may deteriorate further in Japan should his Ferrari's gearbox prove unsalvageable following a clumsy collision with Lance Stroll's Williams after the chequered flag.

That was a strange way to end Formula 1's farewell Malaysian Grand Prix, just as it was strange to see Mercedes leave Malaysia with an enhanced position in the world championship, despite enduring arguably its least competitive grand prix of the season.