Fernando Alonso won from second on the grid, with Lewis Hamilton second, in the first race where the tyre compounds were told apart by a white stripe.
Fernando Alonso won the 2007 Malaysian Grand Prix for McLaren at Sepang on 8 April 2007, starting from second. Lewis Hamilton was second for McLaren and Kimi Raikkonen third for Ferrari. The race was the first in which tyre compounds were distinguished by a white stripe.
Fernando Alonso won the 2007 Malaysian Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit on 8 April 2007, starting from second on the grid and leading McLaren to its first one-two finish since 2005. Lewis Hamilton finished second, and Kimi Raikkonen took third for Ferrari. The race is also remembered as the first in which the two tyre compounds were told apart by a white stripe.
Where did the Malaysian race sit in the 2007 season?
This was the second round of the 2007 season, held on 8 April near Kuala Lumpur. The teams had come straight from the Australian Grand Prix, which had been run nine days earlier. With only one race completed, every driver still had a clean slate.
Felipe Massa took pole for Ferrari, with reigning champion Fernando Alonso alongside him on the front row. Behind them, Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen formed the next group of contenders, and the weekend was shaped by how each car would handle the track.
A white stripe on the softer tyre and a McLaren one-two made Sepang a race of firsts.
What happened in pre-race testing?
Almost every team attended a test at Sepang that began on 27 March 2007 and was scheduled to run for three days. The exception was Spyker, which believed it could not get upgrades ready in time for the race. The other teams used the days to gather data on the surface.
Robert Kubica set the pace on the first day for BMW Sauber, and Raikkonen was fastest on the second. Hamilton topped the times on the third day. The final day was partly wet, so the teams agreed to extend the test by one more day, and Heikki Kovalainen was quickest on that extra day for Renault.
Why did the Spyker protest matter?
Spyker objected that Toro Rosso was using cars drawn up by a sibling outfit, Red Bull Racing. The Concorde Agreement requires each team to design its own cars, so the protest raised a serious question about the rules, even though the Malaysian stewards rejected it.
The FIA considered it inappropriate for the stewards to take up a matter that Spyker had chosen to pursue. Red Bull warned of legal action because Spyker held its car designs, though the threat went nowhere. The governing body never investigated how Spyker had come to hold the designs in the first place.
Why did the FIA tighten the floor tests?
McLaren had asked for clarity after the Australian race about systems that let the front of the undertray rise under aerodynamic load at speed. Ferrari and BMW Sauber both used mounting systems of that kind, so the FIA introduced more demanding checks in Malaysia to confirm they were legal.
Autosport magazine reported that the movement could raise straight-line speed, which made the question important for the whole field. Massa and Raikkonen both said the modifications needed to satisfy the checks would not compromise the performance of the Ferrari F2007.
Why were the tyres marked with white stripes?
Malaysia was the first race where the two compounds could be told apart, because the softer one carried a white band across its tread. Teams had to run both a prime and an option tyre during the race, so spectators and commentators needed a simple way to follow each driver's strategy.
In Australia the softer tyres had carried a small white circle, but commentators and spectators could not tell the compounds apart even at low speed. The stripe idea was tried in the test session the week before, with marker pens, and 160 pens were used across the weekend.
The idea is credited to Sam Michael, the technical director at Williams, who called the result a pretty good solution. The reaction in the paddock was largely positive.
How did practice shape the weekend?
Three practice sessions came before qualifying. Massa was fastest in the first Friday session with 1:34.972, and Alonso was three-tenths behind him in the same session. Hamilton was third, with Raikkonen fourth, and the order changed little in the second session, where Massa set 1:35.780.
Hamilton then set the best time on Saturday with 1:34.811, and Massa finished a tenth behind. Ron Dennis played down the Friday times, saying McLaren was concentrating on tyre evaluation. Renault improved dramatically in the second Friday session, with Giancarlo Fisichella second and Kovalainen third.
Super Aguri, closely tied to the Honda works operation, was believed to be running a revised version of Honda's 2006 machinery. Honda's own cars managed only the 17th and 19th quickest times in practice.
How did qualifying play out?
Qualifying ran in three parts, with the six slowest cars eliminated after each of the first two. Alonso was fastest in both of those parts, with 1:34.942 and then 1:34.057, while Christijan Albers and Adrian Sutil, both in Spykers, were the slowest of that opening segment.
Several names fell early. Scott Speed, Anthony Davidson, Rubens Barrichello and Alex Wurz were all knocked out in the first part. Davidson blamed Vitantonio Liuzzi for obstructing his lap, and Wurz had trouble selecting gears in his Williams. Mike Gascoyne, Spyker's technical director, admitted that missing the test had been a mistake.
Renault were the surprise casualties, as neither car reached the final part. Pat Symonds described the level of performance as disappointing and said the team now had to make the best of the situation it was in.
In the final part, Massa snatched pole from Alonso in the closing seconds, just as the rain started. His 1:35.043 also gave Bridgestone its 100th pole in the sport. Raikkonen was third, and Hamilton fourth, conceding that spots of rain on his visor had made him lift. Heidfeld was fifth, Rosberg sixth and Kubica seventh, with the Toyotas of Trulli and Schumacher eighth and ninth, and Webber completed the top ten.
Penalties followed for Coulthard and Barrichello, who had both changed engines. The stewards first penalised Coulthard too, but they rescinded his penalty after finding that his change had been made before the race weekend began and that he had retired from the previous race. Barrichello's ten-place penalty stood.
How did the race start?
The race was run on a dry track. Alonso took the inside line into turn one and gained the lead, while Hamilton went from fourth on the grid to second, passing Raikkonen and then Massa around the outside at turn two.
Nearly everyone had started on the softer option tyre, except Button, Trulli and both Red Bull drivers. The opening lap was chaotic. Adrian Sutil's suspension failed at turn four, and he collided with Button's Honda, forcing Button into an early stop to repair the damage. Liuzzi and Takuma Sato also tangled at the same corner, and the drivers later blamed one another for the incident.
Massa spent the early laps trying to pass Hamilton on the inside at turn four, but the first two attempts failed. On lap five he briefly got ahead before overshooting the corner and running onto the grass, which dropped him to fifth behind Raikkonen and Nick Heidfeld. Albers retired in the Spyker on lap nine with a gearbox fire.
What decided the middle of the race?
Alonso built his advantage through the first round of pit stops, when he led Hamilton by 15 seconds. Hamilton's short first stop forced him into an early second visit, which allowed Raikkonen to close the gap and Alonso to pull away again, to 18 seconds at the second round of stops.
Kubica pitted for fuel and fresh tyres on lap 12, but then reported traction control problems that grew worse. He dropped to 13th as a train of cars built up behind him.
Hamilton kept the pressure on. His quickest lap of the afternoon, 1:36.701, came on lap 22, despite a stop on lap 20. Alonso had set fastest laps of his own on laps seven and fifteen, and the leading trio gradually separated from the rest of the field.
Rosberg, running sixth after the stops, retired on lap 43 with hydraulic problems. David Coulthard also dropped out after his brake pedal failed, the same fault that had troubled him in Friday practice.
How did the race finish?
Alonso won by 17 seconds, with Hamilton second and Raikkonen third. McLaren had not won since the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix, and this was also their first one-two since the 2005 Brazilian round. Heidfeld and Massa were fourth and fifth, 15 seconds down on Raikkonen.
| Finish | Driver | Team | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winner | Fernando Alonso | McLaren | Started second; won by 17 seconds |
| Second | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren | Short first stop forced an early second stop |
| Third | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | Short on straight-line speed; protected an engine with a water leak |
| Fourth | Nick Heidfeld | BMW Sauber | Finished ahead of Massa |
| Fifth | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | Started from pole; overshot into the grass on lap five |
| Sixth | Giancarlo Fisichella | Renault | Felt like a podium given the car's pace |
| Eighth | Heikki Kovalainen | Renault | First Formula One point |
| Retired | Nico Rosberg | Williams | Hydraulic problems on lap 43 |
Alex Wurz climbed from 19th to ninth after an opening stint that carried him up the order, and Mark Webber was the last driver on the lead lap in tenth. The two Hondas finished eleventh and twelfth, with Barrichello ahead of Button.
Why did the result matter for McLaren and Ferrari?
The win was a significant moment for McLaren, because it was the team's first success since 2005. Alonso had now won races for two different teams, a fact he described as very special. For Ferrari the weekend was a disappointment, and Jean Todt said the team would try to do a better job in Bahrain.
Alonso admitted he had not expected to win so early in his McLaren career. Hamilton said it was the hardest race he had driven to that point, while Raikkonen acknowledged that he lacked the straight-line speed to challenge either McLaren. He also had to nurse an engine that had overheated because of a water leak during the Melbourne race.
Heidfeld said that beating Massa had been a fantastic experience, and Hamilton apologised for the way he had tricked Massa into the move.
