World champion Sebastien Vettel won the Malaysian Grand Prix with a dominant drive on Sunday to take an early grip on the Formula One season.
The 23-year-old German steered his Red Bull car from pole position to the chequered flag to win ahead of McLaren’s Jenson Button, the 2009 champion, and Nick Heidfeld who finished third for Renault.
Vettel’s second start-to-finish win in two outings this year came despite further problems with Red Bull’s faulty Kinetic Energy Regeneration System (KERS) which gave his team-mate Mark Webber a nightmare start.
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Formula 1: Pole Sitter Sebastian Vettel Wins Malaysian Grand Prix
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The Australian dropped from third to 10th before storming back to finish fourth ahead of the two Ferraris of Brazilian Felipe Massa and two-time champion Fernando Alonso. AFP
Lewis Hamilton finishing seventh on the track in the other McLaren after he and Alonso collided when they were fighting for third late on.
Two hours after the race, stewards imposed retroactive 20-second time penalties on the former world champions for driving infringements, dropping Hamilton to eighth place behind Japanese Sauber driver Kamui Kobayashi.
Alonso’s position remained unchanged with Mercedes’s Michael Schumacher and Force India’s Paul di Resta making up the final two points scorers.
Vettel moved to 50 points with the victory, 24 ahead of Button with Hamilton and Webber a further four points adrift as the series heads to Shanghai for the Chinese Grand Prix next Sunday. Yahoo! Eurosport UK
Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired 1 1 Sebastian VettelRBR-Renault 37:39.8 2 4 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes +3.2 secs 3 9 Nick Heidfeld Renault +25.0 secs 4 2 Mark Webber RBR-Renault +26.3 secs 5 6 Felipe Massa Ferrari +36.9 secs 6 5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari +57.2 secs 7 16 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari +66.4 secs 8 3 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes +69.9 secs 9 7 Michael Schumacher Mercedes +84.8 secs 10 15 Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes +91.5 secs 11 14 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1 Lap 12 8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes +1 Lap 13 18 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari +1 Lap 14 19 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari +1 Lap 15 20 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault +1 Lap 16 24 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth +2 Laps 17 10 Vitaly Petrov Renault Accident Ret 23 Vitantonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth Rear wing issue Ret 25 Jerome d'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth Accident Ret 21 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault Clutch Ret 17 Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari Accident Ret 11 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth Hydraulics Ret 22 Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth Hydraulics Ret 12 Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth Engine misfire
Note: McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso have had 20 seconds added to their race times by the Malaysian stewards following their clash during the Sepang event.
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