Hamilton flames out of Malaysian GP; Rosberg finishes third
Ryan Joseph Ramos October 2, 2016
Lewis Hamilton could only muster cries of “oh no, no” as flames erupted from his Mercedes F1 car’s engine late into the Malaysian GP and with the British driver leading comfortably. What would have been certain victory fizzled out, and he looked on as teammate Nico Rosberg extended his lead in the championship race by finishing in third place.
It was a Red Bull 1-2 finish at the Sepang Circuit. Daniel Ricciardo beat teammate Max Verstappen to become only the other non-Mercedes race winner this season apart from, well… Verstappen.
Rosberg is now up 23 points over Hamilton, with five races left after the Malaysian GP. The German driver has 288 points to Lewis’s 265 at the moment. With that in mind, surely having to retire in lap 41 of a dominating race has to sting.
This was Rosberg’s 52nd career podium finish. What’s interesting is that 50 of those were as a Silver Arrows driver. Nico also set the fastest lap in the race–the 20th such achievement in his career.
“I came here with the will to win and that didn’t work out,” said Rosberg. “So I can’t say that I am happy.” He added that he was pleased to be able to finish at the podium despite thinking his race was over after the first corner.
Lewis, of course, actually had his race cut short.
“On the straight, I just lost power all of a sudden. You could hear something blew and I obviously had to stop.” He pointed out that it was hard to say anything positive after leading the Malaysian GP for a long time only for the engine to fail. He also added that most of the failures in the engines of the team so far are his. Yet he was quick to reiterate that he had 100% confidence in his engineering team.
Hamilton, in closing, said that he’ll be alright despite this setback. He is, after all, the defending world champion. We’ll see how it turns out. The last five races should be exciting.
