Winging it spells disaster for Alonso

Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix was a race jam-packed with incidents, the first being Fernando Alonso’s dramatic early exit. The Ferrari driver’s front wing disintegrated under his car after a coming together with Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, who went on to take a controversial win.

Alonso, who started the race from third, managed to pass teammate Felipe Massa early on, confidently dealing with the damp track to challenge Vettel for the lead. A minimal amount of contact between the two cars, however, damaged the Ferrari’s front wing. The team opted to leave Alonso out on the track, hoping that the parts would hold up. But the worsening problem ended in catastrophe for the Spaniard, as the wing collapsed underneath his car, sending it careering into a gravel trap and ending his race before it had even got going.

The rest of the Grand Prix was dominated by three terrific scraps — two of which involved dueling teammates. The winner of last week’s Australian Grand Prix, Kimi Raikkonen, had to do constant battle with the Sauber of Nico Hülkenberg, the former eventually finishing sixth and the latter seventh.

At Mercedes, meanwhile, it seemed that old habits die hard as British driver Lewis Hamilton inadvertently drove his car into the pit box of his former team, McLaren. Despite the error, Hamilton managed to hang on to third, much to the annoyance of his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg, who spent much of the race pleading with the pit wall to be let past his teammate. But Mercedes was set on its strategy and explained time and again to the young German that Hamilton had been told to ease off to save his tires. Trouble was eventually avoided, and Hamilton brought the car home third, with Rosberg finishing in fourth place.

A similar situation was playing out at the head of the pack, where the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Vettel had been swapping positions as they pitted. After the fourth and final stop, Vettel emerged from the pit lane hot on the heels of the Australian, and diced dangerously for position for two entire laps. Despite frantic radio communication between the team and Vettel the reigning world champion refused to ease off, taking the lead and eventually the win.

Tempers were clearly frayed, however, as was clear for all to see at the tense post-race press conferences, and indeed in the drivers’ room, where cameras and microphones picked up Webber’s complaints to the young German about his failure to listen to team orders and hold position.

Meanwhile, many of Alonso’s fans were quick to point the finger of blame at Ferrari for failing to call their star driver into the pit, despite the obvious damage to his front wing. Speaking to the press, the team principal of the Italian outfit, Stefano Domenicali, admitted that they had “taken a risk that didn’t pay off.”

“After the touch, the race was not over and I considered the situation where there was a transition from wet to dry,” he continued. “In normal conditions you would come in, but in this transition, if you believe the wing can survive, you try and bide your time. You may have the chance to pit to change to the dry tires and be the hero of the weekend. Unfortunately the wing didn’t stay there.”

“I didn’t see anything from inside,” added Alonso. “The sensation wasn’t all bad. During the first lap everything seemed to be going more or less OK. [...] If we had come in to change the front wing [...] we would have ended up in last place. I know that tomorrow all that will be talked about is whether we should have come in to change it, but that’s too easy to say with the benefit of hindsight.”

After two races, Sebastian Vettel is leading the championship, with Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen in second place. Mark Webber is now third, but Alonso, who finished second in Australia, has dropped down to sixth place in the drivers’ standings.

The Formula 1 circus will be back in three weeks, for the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai.