The Malaysian Grand Prix 2012 was the 2nd round of the 2012 F1 season, and took place at the Sepang International Circuit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on March 25th.
Fernando Alonso won the race after starting in the 8th position, followed by Sergio Pérez, and Lewis Hamilton, who originally had the pole position, completing the podium.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 76 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
- Laps 1-5: 20 stops
- Laps 13-16: 26 stops
- Laps 23-27: 5 stops
- Laps 37-41: 23 stops
The fastest pit stop was Pedro de la Rosa's, stopping the clock at 15.684 seconds during his pit stop on lap 13, while the slowest one was was Pedro de la Rosa's, who stopped the clock at 38.887 seconds, 23.203 seconds slower than de la Rosa, during his pit stop on lap 16.
These times include the time the driver spent going through the pit lane, as well as the actual time he stopped for the mechanics to work on his car.
Strategy
The race was not obvious in terms of pit stop strategy, with different teams and different drivers choosing to make anywhere from 2 to 5 stops.
The race winner, Fernando Alonso, was on a 3 stops strategy.
2 stops
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10Jean-Éric Vergne
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2Narain Karthikeyan
3 stops
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7Sergio Pérez
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7Paul di Resta
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3Timo Glock
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1Charles Pic
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7Fernando Alonso
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7Nico Hülkenberg
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3Vitaly Petrov
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2Lewis Hamilton
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-Mark Webber
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5Kimi Räikkönen
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6Kamui Kobayashi
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7Michael Schumacher
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-Pedro de la Rosa
4 stops
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7Bruno Senna
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3Felipe Massa
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3Daniel Ricciardo
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6Heikki Kovalainen
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6Sebastian Vettel
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6Nico Rosberg
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8Pastor Maldonado
5 stops
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12Jenson Button
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 2 stops strategy gained 6 positions on average, the ones on a 3 stops strategy gained 2.58 positions on average, the ones on a 4 stops strategy lost an average of 0.17 positions, while those on a 5 stops strategy lost an average of 12 positions.
Despite of the average possitons gained or lost, and considering a deeper analysis of the performance of each strategy, we consider the 3 stops strategy as the optimal for this race.
It is important to note that this might not always be the case for other races held at the Sepang International Circuit, as the conditions might change from year to year, in terms of wheel degradation, accidents, safety cars, etc.
Incidents
There race went on mostly with no incidents. Only 3 divers were involved in circumstances that were severe enough to prevented them from finishing the race.
These included, Pastor Maldonado, who suffered an engine malfunction on lap 54, Kamui Kobayashi, who had to retire on lap 46, and Romain Grosjean, who retired dure to damage caused by a collision with other cars on lap 3.
Engine
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Pastor MaldonadoLap 54
Retired
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Kamui KobayashiLap 46
Collision
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Romain GrosjeanLap 3
Qualifying
Lewis Hamilton managed to get the pole position by 0.149 seconds and a final lipe time of 1:36.219. Jenson Button was right behind him, helping McLaren score a one-two and monopolize the first line of the grid.
Track evolution
As the qualifying session went on, with the track rubbering in, and the drivers testing the limits of the grip of their cars, the times per lap dropped, and 16 out of the 17 drivers that took place in Q2 were able to improve their times.
The Q3 is the time were all the remaining drivers put all their cards on the table, even those with a superior car who might have been managing their times in Q1 and Q2 push their cars to the limit in Q3. It therefore comes as no surprise that 8 out of the 10 drivers that took place in Q3 were able to improve their times.