Verstappen wins in Malaysia, Hamilton second

“Lewis did a fantastic job today to score P2 while Valtteri, just like over the rest of the weekend, struggled to match that pace and brought the auto home in P5”.

“Especially after the season I’ve had; I think this victory came at a very good time”.

Hamilton admitted the Mercedes had been second-best.

After what has been described as a hard season, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen gave himself the flawless birthday present at the Sepang Circuit today. “After qualifying seventh, we weren’t really confident about where we’d finish in the race, so to pull off seventh today is an incredible result”.

“Today we had chose to change the engine after P3, then I went out and everything seemed to work, but during the flying lap in turn 5, I suddenly felt like I was losing power”. We didn’t have the pace this weekend.

After his auto broke down in qualifying, Sebastian Vettel did a great job to go from last to fourth in the Malaysian Grand Prix.

“There are some real big problems that I can not really explain, but we need to rectify for next year’s auto if we are going to have any chance of fighting both these teams next year when they step up their game”. “But he only had one strong attack and then we were able to pull away”.

In a double blow for the Italian team, Kimi Raikkonen was unable to start the race at all because of a mechanical failure on the starting grid. “It’s fantastic. It’s a very tough race, so it’s incredible to win”, he added.

“Obviously we had some issue”. I was there already and we had contact – it was completely unnecessary. “I did everything I could after that just to maintain position and good to still get second”. Vettel fell 34 points behind Hamilton in the drivers’ standings and faces the prospect of a possible five-place grid penalty at next weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix if a change is required. “It is a fact that some races the auto has worked out to be better but overall globally we have not got the best vehicle and we have done an exceptional job with what we have. If we start ahead, we win the race”, he said. Yeah, the others have just generally picked up a bit more pace than us.

Behind the top two, Verstappen’s team-mate Ricciardo managed to get past Bottas in the Mercedes for third place, but couldn’t get close to Hamilton after that and ended up in a fight for third with Vettel as the race drew to a close.

Valtteri Bottas made a great start from fifth to third, overtaking Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, but was soon under pressure from the Australian.

“I mean, seriously”, said Vettel.

The first rounds of pit stops came on lap 12 with Massa going in first, Grosjean was next followed by Stroll and Gasly.

BIRTHDAY BOY MAX Verstappen claimed the second victory of his career at the Malaysian Grand Prix, as Sebastian Vettel limited the damage caused by his qualifying nightmare.