Lotus F1 Team: Kimi secures 5th, Romain gets another DNF

The atmosphere of the entire SIC paddock never fails to come of peacefulness just before the race. It is like the collective paddock just sighed and sat their collective behinds on chairs. It could be that the cars are already lined up on the grid and the mechanics have pulled the organized chaos to the starting grid.

It was about 15 minutes before the start of the race and the national anthem was being sung. Since everyone has his or her own sense of music, I will not comment on how the Negaraku was being belted out. The sky, however, started to rain. The slicks came off and the intermediates were put on.

By the time the five lights went out, the heavens have already dropped everything it had on the racetrack. The first lap was nothing short of chaotic; the first corner was filled with high-strung nerves. In some sort of miracle, the cars began to shuffle into position. Hamilton had the lead of the train of cars behind him.

Kimi had a good start and placed himself in 8^th. He started at 10^th because of the penalty brought on by the change of gearbox the day before. He qualified in 5^th.

Grosjean made a superb start, leapfrogging from 6^th to 3^rd and pulled the carpet right under Schumacher’s tyres. But the Michael was never going to give the position without a fight. It was wheel-to-wheel with Grosjean in the first, second and third corner. By then, Michael had clawed back his position. Grosjean, with aggression on full, clipped Michael going into turn four. Both spun out, cars dodged to the left and right of them. Both rejoined the race in double-digits positions.

Lap 2 saw Sergio Perez of Sauber dove into the pits for the blue, wet tyres. This was the game changer.

Luck did not fly with the French-man Romain. It was in Lap 4 that he drove over a swimming pool’s worth of water, aquaplaned and slid into the gravel of turn 5. He ended his race with his nose pointed in the wrong direction.

The race did not, could not continue for long. The hard intensity of the downpour made visibility impossible. Yellow flags were out as well as the safety car. On lap 9, the red flags were waved to put a pause on the race. The cars were back on the starting grid.

It is about this time that I walk into the Garage Grandstand in Sepang for the last time this year. I look at the mechanics scrambling out into the rain with equipment, spare parts and new tyres while I place the communications headset on my head. On screen, I can see the cars are covered with a canopy. For a moment, the F1 grid looks like a WRC service stop.

And then, a whole new world for Formula 1 opened – not sight but sound. What was silence a second before became constant chatter between the team and Kimi. The KERS is not working in Kimi’s car and the mechanics are checking the problem. The engineers then put on their rain jackets and run into the downpour, no doubt towards Kimi.

The atmosphere calmed down again. One of the mechanics walked into the pit and pulls off his helmet. Or should I say, her helmet. It was as if Samus herself was in the garage. A lady mechanic in a male dominated job? Yes. Her name is Jenny and she is in charge of the organisation of spare parts. It is quite possible that Lotus F1 is the only team on the grid that has a female mechanic. A definite nod to equal opportunity.

It’s 4:50pm and Romain’s car rolls back into the pits, the mechanics providing the locomotion. No damage to the body… just disappointed expressions especially from Romain himself. The mechanics begins to dismantle the car. Romain looks dejected. Understandable; I leave him to his thoughts.

The radio crackle to life and the pit wall told Kimi that his KERS was working but if anything should happen, Kimi will need to put the KERS in failsafe. The rain, it seems, is affecting the system. There are also talks of the option of tweaking the brake balance in case the KERS packs up and leave Sepang completely.

The wets go on and the race starts. However, I was just told that I have to give up my time in the Garage Grandstand for other people. OK, back to the backup hospitality suite.

I rejoin the action just as Hamilton is bunching up the pack. The restart is chaotic. Almost 1/3 of the pack dive into the pits for different tyres. Some stayed out. And for the next three laps, the pits straights became an accident waiting to happen. It didn’t; the drivers leave with fresh intermediates. For a while, grid positions became meaningless. In that reshuffle of the deck, Alonso sneaks a place from Webber.

Sergio Perez stays out a lap longer than any one else. His change of tyres earlier must have primed his set for the long run in the wet. He leads the race for a couple of laps before coming in for a set of new tyres. He rejoins the race just in front of Alonso to keep the lead.

The World Champion could never be content with being second, especially to a mid-level team. By the third corner, Alonso moves up and assumes the role of the race leader. Sergio tries his best to keep close to Alonso. Perhaps it is the combination of new tyres or extremely poor visibility forced Sergio to let off the accelerator, but a gap opens between the two.

Down the order, Kimi had just taken 5^th from Rosberg, barely. Kimi is now forced to work hard to keep fifth and, for a while, have plenty of Rosberg in his rear view mirror. But ultimately, it is the Mercedes’ shocking lack of pace in the wet that keeps Rosberg from winning back his position.

Lap 32: Sergio pulls out some more speed from his car. He begins to eat up the seconds away from Alonso. Chunk by meaty chunk, Perez chomps the gap down. By lap 40, the 10-odd second lead is cut down to just 1.35 seconds.

Alonso boxes the car in lap 40, switches to slicks and remaines race leader. Sergio and Kimi take on their new set in lap 41. Sergio slips behind Alonso, Kimi gets behind Webber; losing a place. Again, Perez begins to hack away the distance between himself and Alonso. By lap 48, Perez is sniffing Alonso’s gearbox.

And then, a mistake in lap 50. Sergio runs too wide and goes off into turn 14, effectively throwing away whatever hope there might have been from finishing top of the podium. But the team did tell Sergio that second is good enough and not to be drawn into a mistake.

Somewhere along the way, Vettel picks up a puncture that forces him to come in for a new tyre. His stint did not last long after the pit stop. At the closing of the race, and a few miscommunications later, Vettel is told to stop the car immediately. Vettel’s misfortune is Kimi’s fortune as he picked up a position to finish in 5^th. He and the team will be taking that.

Ahead, Webber finishes fourth. Lewis passes the finish line in third. Sergio takes home second and Fernando Alonso miraculously pulls out a top podium finish from nowhere.

At the end of the race, I can only think what a freakish show it was. Ferrari, the team that never showed any pace, finished at the top. But there is still something fundamentally wrong with the car and the full score picked up today will go a long way.

Sauber, finishing second, had a tremendous race. While some have already wrote it off as luck, it was the brains of the team that turned an appalling weather condition into an invaluable ally.

McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull – the teams that were the strongest in Free Practice and in Qualifying – fell victim to the weather in one way or another.

As for Lotus F1, race day in Sepang mirrored the race day in Melbourne. In both races, Kimi had to fight his way into a point-scoring position from the back and Grosjean could not even finish half-distance of the race.

This is certain – the Lotus F1 car have constantly put on a strong pace throughout the weekend. It was quick and more importantly, looked well balanced. As proof; the best lap of the day belonged to Kimi with a time of 1:40.722. Then again, the 2012 season has barely started and the dice can still roll either way.

The full result is here. Next stop, Shanghai.

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