The 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix, formally titled the 2015 Formula 1 Petronas Malaysia Grand Prix, was a Formula One motor race that was held on 29 March 2015 at the Sepang International Circuit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was the seventeenth running of the Malaysian Grand Prix as a World Championship event.
Lewis Hamilton came into the race leading the Drivers' championship by seven points over teammate Nico Rosberg, followed closely by Sebastian Vettel, a further three points adrift. Mercedes entered with a twenty-eight-point lead over Ferrari in the Constructors' championship campaign.
Hamilton secured pole position in a rain-soaked qualifying session, the 40th pole position in his career. Vettel won the race, having started from second place on the grid. It was the 40th victory of his career, and the first victory for Ferrari since the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix as well as the first victory for a German Ferrari driver since the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix won by Michael Schumacher. It was also the first time since the 2006 United States Grand Prix that neither McLaren was classified.
Background The race, held on 29 March 2015 with practice and qualifying sessions on the two preceding days, was the seventeenth running of the Malaysian Grand Prix, which had been part of the Formula One World Championship without interruption since . A race sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, motorsport's governing body, had been held in Malaysia since the 1960s, with the first editions being run in Singapore, then part of the Malaysian Federation, before moving to the Shah Alam Circuit. With the arrival of the Formula One Grand Prix in 1999, the race was moved to the purpose-built Sepang International Circuit, where all editions have since been held. For sponsorship reasons, the race's official name was 2015 Formula 1 Petronas Malaysia Grand Prix.
Going into the weekend, Lewis Hamilton was leading the Drivers' Championship, having won the first race ahead of his teammate Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel. He therefore had 25 points and held a seven-point advantage over Rosberg, with Vettel another three points behind. In the constructors' standings, Mercedes was on top, having taken the maximum available 43 points from their 1–2 finish in Melbourne. Ferrari were second on 15 points, followed by Sauber with 14.
Mercedes arrived at the second race of the season with maximum points from Australia, having finished first and second with third placed Sebastian Vettel half a minute down. Following their dominant performance, many commentators voiced fears that the sport might become even more one-sided and boring over the course of the 2015 season than it had been the previous year. Red Bull's team principal Christian Horner called for the FIA to step in and apply rule changes that would level the competition, stating: "The FIA, within the rules, have an equalisation mechanism and that needs to be looked at." Red Bull subsequently threatened to leave the sport, should no measures be taken. While many commentators pointed out that Red Bull had enjoyed their own share of dominance in the prior years, Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone voiced understanding for the team, saying: "There is a rule that I think [former president] Max [Mosley] put in when he was there that in the event... that a particular team or engine supplier did something magic - which Mercedes have done - the FIA can level up things. They [Mercedes] have done a first class job which everybody acknowledges. We need to change things a little bit now and try to level things up a little bit." Mercedes' executive director Toto Wolff reacted to the calls by urging his rivals to "get your fucking head down and work to sort it out". McLaren driver Jenson Button also raised doubt over the practicality of rule changes, saying "There's nothing really to ban because it doesn't look like Mercedes are doing anything other teams aren't doing."
Following criticism voiced by Red Bull, the future of engine supplier Renault was also a matter of debate. While Renault contemplated exiting the sport, another scenario that received media attention was a possible buy-out of the Toro Rosso team. The discussion about the future of the sport was additionally fuelled by the news that the German Grand Prix would be dropped from the 2015 calendar, due to a lack of financing. The exclusion of one of motorsport's most traditional events caused many to raise the question whether the same fate might await other traditional venues such as Monza.
Fernando Alonso returned from his pre-season injury to take back his seat at McLaren, which had been filled by Kevin Magnussen at the previous race in Australia. Also returning was Williams driver Valtteri Bottas, who missed the previous race due to a back injury sustained during qualifying.
Manor Marussia, who were able to field their cars for the first time in Malaysia, were under criticism after they failed to run their cars at the Australian Grand Prix, with Ecclestone saying they would need to pay for their travel expenses, which are usually covered by the commercial rights holder.
As in the previous two years, Pirelli announced they would be supplying teams with the orange-banded hard compound tyre as the prime selection and the white-banded medium compound as the option selection for the event. The event also made use of Pirelli's two wet weather tyres, the green-banded intermediate and blue-banded full wet tyres.
Practice
Per the regulations for the 2015 season, three practice sessions were held, two 90-minute sessions on Friday and another one-hour session before qualifying on Saturday. Nico Rosberg set the fastest time in the first practice session on Friday morning, while championship leader Lewis Hamilton was sidelined due to engine problems. He recovered to take fastest time in the second session of the day, while Ferrari proved that they would be closer to their rivals in Sepang, coming within 0.4 seconds in both free practice sessions.
Fernando Alonso made his debut in the new McLaren, finishing 14th and 16th in the two Friday sessions respectively, outpacing teammate Jenson Button both times. Also debuting during free practice were Manor-Marussia, with both cars struggling to meet the time limit of 107%. Raffaele Marciello filled in for Sauber-regular Felipe Nasr during the first session.
During the third practice session on Saturday morning, both Mercedes drivers were once again fastest, with Rosberg setting the fastest time, while Ferrari was about half a second behind.
Qualifying
Qualifying consisted of three parts, 18, 15 and 12 minutes in length respectively, with five drivers eliminated from competing after each of the first two sessions. The first part of qualifying (Q1) got under way in the dry and sunny conditions; this was not the conditions that would favour McLaren as they were still off the pace of the midfield although they made progress. Jenson Button along with his returning teammate Fernando Alonso were separated by only a tenth of a second, but were 17th and 18th on the grid. Joining them were the Manor-Marussia cars of Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens; Merhi recorded a time that was almost five seconds slower than Alonso, and Stevens failed to take to the circuit, while Felipe Nasr also failed to make it out of Q1, as he struggled for balance in his Sauber.
Clouds built up at the west of the circuit before Q2 and there was a traffic jam in the pit lane. A scramble for position started to be evident and only one driver – Nico Rosberg – managed a clean lap without traffic, as the rest of the field dealt with the thunderstorm that was warned to arrive during Q2 and started tripping up on each other. The biggest casualty of the session was Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen who got held up by Marcus Ericsson. Räikkönen recorded a lap of 1:42.173, which was not fast enough to get into Q3 as rain started soon after. Joining Räikkönen were Pastor Maldonado, the Force Indias of Nico Hülkenberg and Sergio Pérez and the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz Jr., as they could not improve on their original lap times due to the conditions.
After a delay of half an hour, the cars returned to the circuit, with the majority of the remaining ten drivers on intermediate tyres, while Romain Grosjean, Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas initially surveyed the circuit on wets before switching to the intermediates. Ultimately, Hamilton took pole position by 0.074 seconds ahead of Vettel, with Rosberg third. They were followed by the Red Bull cars of Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat, while Toro Rosso's young driver Max Verstappen took sixth place. The rest of the top ten was completed by Massa, Grosjean, Bottas and Ericsson. It was the 40th pole position of Hamilton's career. After qualifying, Romain Grosjean was found to have left the pit lane in a different position to the one he left the garage, and so he received a two place grid penalty dropping him to tenth on the grid.
Qualifying classification
DriverConstructorQ1Q2Q3 1 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:39.269 1:41.517 1:49.834 1 2 5 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:39.814 1:39.632 1:49.908 2 3 6 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:39.374 1:39.377 1:50.299 3 4 3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing-Renault 1:40.504 1:41.085 1:51.541 4 5 26 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull Racing-Renault 1:40.546 1:41.665 1:51.951 5 6 33 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso-Renault 1:40.793 1:41.430 1:51.981 6 7 19 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1:40.543 1:41.230 1:52.473 7 8 8 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Mercedes 1:40.303 1:41.209 1:52.981 10 9 77 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1:40.249 1:40.650 1:53.179 8 10 9 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 1:40.340 1:41.748 1:53.261 9 11 7 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:40.415 1:42.173 11 12 13 Lotus-Mercedes 1:40.361 1:42.198 12 13 27 Nico Hülkenberg 1:40.830 1:43.023 13 14 11 Sergio Pérez 1:41.036 1:43.469 14 15 55 Carlos Sainz Jr. Toro Rosso-Renault 1:39.814 1:43.701 15 16 12 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 1:41.308 16 17 22 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda 1:41.636 17 18 14 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 1:41.746 18 107% time: 1:46.217— 98 Roberto Merhi Marussia-Ferrari 1:46.677 19— 28 Will Stevens Marussia-Ferrari no time 20 Source:
Notes — Romain Grosjean received a two place grid penalty for failing to "leave the pitlane in the order of his arrival." — Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens were granted permission to start by race stewards.
Race
Temperatures on race day were very hot, with the track temperature at . Rain was possible, though less than in previous years, also due to the earlier starting time. Williams were hoping for a dry race, since qualifying showed they were still off the pace in wet conditions. Will Stevens, who missed qualifying due to a fuel system problem, was ultimately unable to participate in the race. Approximately 44,611 people attended the race.
At the start, Lewis Hamilton got away well, while Nico Rosberg challenged Sebastian Vettel for second place, but the Ferrari was able to come out on top. Both Pastor Maldonado and Kimi Räikkönen suffered punctures on lap one after contact with Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Nasr respectively and had to come in for a new set of tyres. Vettel was able to stay with the Mercedes of Hamilton over the first few laps. On lap four, Marcus Ericsson braked too late and spun in turn one, retiring from the race and bringing out the safety car. All but seven cars went into the pits to change tyres, including both Mercedes drivers, while Sebastian Vettel stayed out. When racing resumed on lap seven, Vettel led Nico Hülkenberg, Romain Grosjean, Carlos Sainz Jr. and Sergio Pérez, with Hamilton the first of the cars who made pit stops right behind.