Round 2 - Malaysia

Kimi Raikkonen banished the memories of the nightmare start to his title defence with a crushingly dominant victory in the Malaysian Grand Prix.
The world champion gave a clear demonstration of the pace Ferrari's Melbourne disasters didn’t allow it to show to take a large chunk out of Lewis Hamilton’s early points lead.
Raikkonen’s perfect day was in stark contrast to his main McLaren rival, whose chances of recovering from his grid penalty to a podium finish were scuppered by a problem with a wheel gun at his first pit stop which meant he couldn’t finish higher than fifth.
Such was Ferrari’s dominance that it should have cruised to a 1-2 finish – but Felipe Massa ruined this scenario when he spun out at half-distance.
The Brazilian pole-sitter had already lost the race lead to Raikkonen after the Finn jumped him during the first round of pit stops.
Massa's second successive retirement allowed BMW’s Robert Kubica the chance to score a career-best second position and his first podium spot since Monza 2006.
McLaren can take some comfort from Heikki Kovalainen taking third, but the Finn finished a mammoth 40 seconds behind his race-winning countryman.
The pattern for Ferrari’s runaway triumph was set at the start.
Massa converted his pole position into the race lead at the first corner – although he had felt concerned enough about the threat posed by Raikkonen to squeeze him towards the pit wall off the line.
Behind, the pack streamed through the first chicane switchback virtually without incident – although Nick Heidfeld was the big loser as Jarno Trulli pushed him out wide.
Hamilton, starting from ninth, had intentionally taken the wider route and picked up three positions by the end of turn two.
He then moved up to fifth with a bold move on Trulli under braking for turn four.
Further round the lap Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Bourdais’ nightmare weekend came to a swift conclusion when he fell off the track at turn six.
Then Nico Rosberg, desperately trying to make up ground following his poor qualifying session, ended Timo Glock’s involvement by hitting the side of the Toyota at turn 14.
Glock was forced into immediate retirement while his Williams rival had to pit for a new nosecone.
The same corner then saw the beginnings of the race’s most entertaining dice involving David Coulthard, Fernando Alonso and Heidfeld on lap three.
Alonso got a run on Coulthard’s Red Bull coming out of the corner and attempted to pass him down the outside of the long back straight.
But Heidfeld, picking up a massive tow from both cars, cannily took the inside line to make it a three-a-breast duel, outbraking both into the chicane and leaving his rivals to squabble all the way down to the second corner.
Ferrari, meanwhile, was enjoying its own private dice out front and quickly pulled over 10 seconds clear of the Kubica-led chasing pack.
By the end of lap seven, Massa had established a two second cushion over Raikkonen.
But that is as comfortable as his lead would get.
Raikkonen began to chisel away at the deficit with the race’s fastest lap on lap eight, before consistently matching his Brazilian team-mate’s speed.
By the time Massa, as expected, pitted slightly earlier on lap 18 – Raikkonen was just 1.9s behind and absolutely flying.
While his team-mate was being serviced, the Finn was motoring through the first two sectors of the lap, setting new fastest times for both.
And although it turned out he just had a single lap’s worth of extra fuel in hand, he had still done enough to take the lead following his own stop.
It was turning into a less straightforward challenge, however, for Hamilton.
The McLaren driver had made no further ground from fifth and, as in qualifying, seemed to struggle with his MP4-23’s handling while tucked up behind Mark Webber’s Red Bull.
This problem finally seemed to be resolved when the Australian pitted first on lap 16 – and it would have been had Hamilton not been delayed at his own stop four laps later.
A problem removing his right-front wheel meant his time in the pits was extended by 12 seconds, meaning when he exited he slipped back behind Webber for another stint.
But both drivers were gifted another position when Massa, who now had fallen over four seconds behind Raikkonen following their respective stops, span out on lap 31.
The Brazilian’s F2008 swapped ends on him going through turn seven and his rear wheels beached into the outside gravel trap.
And although he already looked to have the race totally under his control, this meant Raikkonen could cruise unchallenged through the second half of the race.
While the Finn was coasting to his seventh Ferrari win, Hamilton’s race came alive in the final stint after he finally got shot of Webber for good during the second round of stops.
He began to show good speed after switching to the harder-compound tyres and set about chasing Trulli for fourth place.
But despite relentlessly closing the gap in the final 10 laps of the race, he eventually ran out of time and lost out by just 0.7s to the Toyota driver.
Nevertheless five points for Trulli was a fine reward for a race that for once didn’t prove his qualifying pace was unrepresentative of Toyota’s actual race performance.
And the fact he finished ahead of one McLaren and just seven seconds behind the other, proves that the Japanese team may be finally starting to get it right.
Heidfeld’s race was compromised by getting out of position at the first corner and he ended up sixth, although he did suddently come alive on the final lap to set the race's fastest lap.
Hamilton’s nemesis Webber slipped back to score a still encouraging seventh for Red Bull, while Fernando Alonso didn’t have the pace in his Renault to do better than the final points place.
Webber’s team-mate Coulthard just missed out in ninth, with Jenson Button (Honda), Nelson Piquet (Renault) and the impressive Giancarlo Fisichella (Force India) all performing solidly.