Daniel Ricciardo Wins MalaysianGP; Hamilton’s Car Goes Up In Flames

Australian Formula 1 racer Daniel Ricciardo snatched another of his ‘shoey’ moments -- his victory performance in which he drinks the sparkling champagne out of his sweaty shoe and makes everyone else on the podium do the same -- when he won his fourth Grand Prix title at the MalaysianGP on the Sepang circuit. The Red Bull racer fought a tight battle with his teammate Max Verstappen to bring the team a one-two finish. For Mercedes, however, it was a different story as Nico Rosberg finished third after he pulled himself to the spot after an eventful start. Lewis Hamilton had a heartbreaking day after his car sustained a blown engine on Lap 41 when he was leading by a good 22 seconds.

Following this, Rosberg now leads the championship with 23 points over his closest rival, Hamilton. Rosberg did sustain a 10-second penalty after he made contact with Kimi Raikkonen, but since he was well ahead of the latter, it didn’t affect his finishing position. Raikkonen eventually finished fourth.

Right after Ferrari were Williams' Valtteri Bottas on the fifth position and Force India’s Sergio Perez on the sixth, whereas, McLaren’s Fernando Alonso grabbed the seventh position ahead of Nico Hulkenberg on eighth and Jenson Button on the ninth place. Jolyon Palmer finished in the tenth position and bagged his maiden F1 points for himself and his team, Renault.

The race was quite eventful with plenty of incidents and near misses. At the very beginning, Sebastian Vettel’s car made contact with the Red Bull arrow ahead of him. He damaged his front-left side suspension and sent Rosberg, who was also in front of him, into a big spin. This forced the latter to fall to the 17th spot at the start, whereas Vettel was forced to retire instantly. For creating the mess, Vettel has also been slapped with a three-place grid drop in the next race slated to take place in Japan.

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Furthermore, back in the middle order, Bottas suffered from brake temperature and battery issues, while his teammate Felipe Massa stalled at the start of the race. Massa consequently finished thirteenth, but even a fifth-thirteenth finish wasn’t enough to put Williams ahead of Force India in the overall constructor standings.