Good race, good race. Red Bulls return to glory, slay the mighty Germans and Italians, a real feel good story. But how did we get there? Let’s take a look.
Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen were feeling a little lonely at the top due to Kimi Raikkonen starting from pit lane with engine problems. Excuse me, he didn’t start at all, so that left a gap in the first row. The other ‘rrari started from the back due to a poor showing in qualifying, or maybe car trouble, but let’s just say poor qualifying.
The start of the race was not as exciting as Singapore, no early exits, but we saw a hungry Max Verstappen take it to points leader Lewis Hamilton in the opening laps and pass him with relative ease. Max was able to maintain that position throughout the grand prix, mostly to Lewis playing it safe in second place. The real meat of the race came from Vettel charging to P4 from the back of the grid, and Daniel Ricciardo doing everything he could to keep him off the podium.
With 8 laps remaining, a betting man would lay some real coin on Vettel getting the edge on on Ricciardo, and turning a throw away weekend into a podium. But Daniel made that car a double wide and put Vettel into his back pocket. Great race by both drivers, shows you the difference between the men and the boys in Formula 1.
Alonso underwhelmed in Malaysia. I thought he was going to lay down a statement race after being taken out in Singapore, but his teammate, Vandoorne, really got the best of him. Even the greats have off weekends. And Valtteri Bottas had another dud. He needs to do something to keep his seat. You could throw any of The Newsletter staff writers into one of those Mercs and we would finish P5 every weekend. Come on Valtteri, put Kimi in Finland’s rear view.
After the race, Max was begging for a sugary drink. I think he earned it.