by Chris Hayes
A bodged pit-stop may have destroyed
Lewis Hamilton's Malaysian Grand Prix, but it was the dominance of
Kimi Raikkonen and
Ferrari that ultimately pulled the trigger on the Briton's hopes.
The championship leader – who only a week ago stormed to a peerless victory himself – faced an uphill struggle at Sepang after being demoted to ninth on the grid for impeding
BMW Sauber's
Nick Heidfeld during the final stage of qualifying. The 23-year-old vaulted up to fifth place after a good start, but a resilient
Mark Webber brought his charge to an abrupt halt by managing to keep the badly understeering McLaren-Mercedes at bay for almost two-thirds of the race.
“I was pushing Mark for a very long time, but being behind someone – no matter how quick you are – it is really difficult to get past,” bemoaned Hamilton.
The Stevenage-born ace looked set to finally surmount Webber at the first round of pit-stops, only for a wheel gun failure to cost him valuable seconds, seeing him rejoin the fray right behind the
Red Bull Racing machine once more.
“We were in a good position for a shot at third place at least,” he acknowledged, “but then I had the problem in my first pit-stop which lost me a lot of time.”
Having finally battled his way past Webber during the second round of stops, Hamilton, on the vastly superior hard tyres, stormed up behind fourth-placed man
Jarno Trulli in the final stint. The assault, however, would ultimately come to no avail as stern resilience from his Italian rival prevented the 2006 GP2 champion from launching a last-ditch challenge.
“I did the best job I could,” the Melbourne winner insisted afterwards. “However, we take away the fact that the car ran very reliably in these extreme conditions, and I was able to push Jarno right until the last second. I have to say that both Mark and Jarno drove really well today, and it was great to fight them out on-track.”
