Zoom Hamilton made little impression of the medium tyre

Kimi Raikkonen won the second round of the championship after using a hard-hard-medium compound Bridgestone Potenza tyre strategy in the Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.

Raikkonen was joined on the podium by BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica, who registered his best ever Formula One finish with second place, finishing just under 20 seconds behind Raikkonen. Heikki Kovalainen finished third whilst Jarno Trulli finished in fourth, holding off a charging fifth-finishing Lewis Hamilton at the end of the race.

There were a variety of tyre strategies used in Malaysia. Every driver that finished the race made two stops for fuel and tyres, but the order they used the two compounds differed according to individual competitor performance and preference.

Hirohide Hamashima, Director of Tyre Development
“This was another hot race for us and another race where our tyre performance was very good. Today was very interesting in terms of tyre wear, especially with the front tyres. "

"For cars with better balance the tyre appearance was favourable, however, for those cars without such agreeable balance there was significant graining. With the new surface this circuit shows the balance of the cars very well."

"The track is more severe than before which is why we saw different tyre strategies compared to last year and this suited our tyre compound allocation very well. We saw a range of strategies from different competitors and this made for an interesting strategic race."

"Congratulations to Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari on their successful strategy. They maximised tyre performance today. Also, Robert Kubica and BMW Sauber did very well and got very close to maximising the potential of our tyres.”

E.A. © CAPSIS International
Source: Bridgestone