Renault strategy gamble fails

Trulli's pace early-on in the 56 race was good enough to give the Italian a shot at a podium finish, but the team brought him early on his second stop in an attempt to leap-frog Kimi Raikkonen's third-placed McLaren. But his R24 began suffering understeer which got progressively worse towards the end of the race.

Alonso was forced to start at the back of the grid after spinning in practice. The Spaniard made a blinding start, but he switched to a two-stop strategy mid-race which made his car to heavy and he trailed in seventh.

"It is a disappointing result for us after we had expected to fight at the front here in Malaysia," said team principal Flavio Briatore. "When Fernando was stuck in the pack, we decided to change his strategy but unfortunately, the result didn't match up to our expectations.

"As for Jarno, he had an eventful race and he fought well for his fifth place. The team worked very well all weekend, and we will learn from our mistakes in order to achieve our full potential in Bahrain in two weeks' time."

Trulli took a positive view on his result, even if he knew that perhaps more could have been achieved: "It's a satisfying result, given that I started eighth and all our competitors were very strong today.

"I got a very good start, but must apologise to Jenson Button. I touched his car on the way to the first corner. I had a good battle with him and Rubens [Barrichello] in the first stint, very clean, and I was enjoying the race. However, after my first stop, the front tyres started graining, and I lost time in the second and third stints relative to my closest rivals. The car was understeering a lot during this part of the race. Having said that, we were reliable and once again have two cars in the points. We can't be too disappointed."

Alonso came to the Malaysian GP as one of the favourites, but after an eventful weekend a points finish was welcome. "I am pleased to score two points after what happened yesterday," he said. "Obviously, everything changed for us after qualifying and in that perspective this is a pretty positive result.

"However, our strategy didn't really work out and I think I could have finished even higher up. The car was competitive, but quite tricky to drive: the balance wasn't particularly good during the race. It is always difficult here in Malaysia, and our mistakes during the weekend didn't make life any easier. But when you finish seventh after starting last, things could be worse."