The Malaysian Grand Prix 2014 was the 2nd round of the 2014 F1 season, and took place at the Sepang International Circuit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on March 30th.
Lewis Hamilton won the race from the pole, followed by Nico Rosberg, and Sebastian Vettel completing the podium.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 55 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
- Laps 9-18: 19 stops
- Laps 22-29: 12 stops
- Laps 31-34: 7 stops
- Laps 38-42: 9 stops
The fastest pit stop was Fernando Alonso's, stopping the clock at 24.222 seconds during his pit stop on lap 27, while the slowest one was was Daniel Ricciardo's, who stopped the clock at 1 minutes, 49.329 seconds, 1 minutes, 25.107 seconds slower than Alonso, during his pit stop on lap 40.
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
We saw a variety of options in terms of pit stop strategies during this race, however most drivers chose a 3 stops. Only 1 driver tried a 1 stop, 5 drivers tried a 2 stops, and 1 driver tried a 5 stops.
The race winner, Lewis Hamilton, was on a 3 stops strategy.
1 stop
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1Jules Bianchi
2 stops
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10Jean-Éric Vergne
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5Esteban Gutiérrez
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1Adrian Sutil
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7Kamui Kobayashi
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2Nico Hülkenberg
3 stops
-
6Kimi Räikkönen
-
1Kevin Magnussen
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6Max Chilton
-
1Daniil Kvyat
-
-Fernando Alonso
-
8Marcus Ericsson
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6Felipe Massa
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4Romain Grosjean
-
4Jenson Button
-
1Sebastian Vettel
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1Nico Rosberg
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10Valtteri Bottas
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-Lewis Hamilton
5 stops
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11Daniel Ricciardo
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 2 stops strategy gained 4.5 positions on average, while those on a 3 stops strategy gained 2.46 positions on average.
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 were some incidents during the race, with 7 drivers who didn't manage to cross the finish line.
These included, Daniel Ricciardo, who suffered a technical malfunction on lap 49, Esteban Gutiérrez, who experienced issues with the gearbox on lap 35, Adrian Sutil, who suffered from electrical problems on lap 32, Jean-Éric Vergne, who had a power unit failure on lap 18, Jules Bianchi, who saw the breaks of the car give up on lap 8, Pastor Maldonado, who suffered an engine malfunction on lap 7, and Sergio Pérez, who withdrew on lap 0.
Technical
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Daniel RicciardoLap 49
Gearbox
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Esteban GutiérrezLap 35
Electrical
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Adrian SutilLap 32
Power Unit
-
Jean-Éric VergneLap 18
Brakes
-
Jules BianchiLap 8
Engine
-
Pastor MaldonadoLap 7
Withdrew
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Sergio PérezLap 0
Qualifying
Lewis Hamilton managed to get the pole position by 0.055 seconds and a final lipe time of 1:59.431. Right next to him, completing the first line of the grid, was Sebastian Vettel.
Track evolution
The conditions of the track worsened from Q1 to Q2, and none of the drivers were able to improve their Q1 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. That being said, the changing conditions of the track made it difficult to find these limits, and only 2 drivers were able to improve their Q2 times.