Weather Favors the Wily: Alonso's Win in the 2012 Malaysian Thriller

Fastest in the wet, unshaken by a rival's charge once the track dried out, the Spaniard grabbed an unlikely opportunity to win

This guy, Fernando Alonso. He is here to stay and is set to raise the bar for the race starts record he has held since 2022. He is likely to reach the milestone of 400 races in Mexico.

Even in his early forties, he performs exceptionally well. He’s special. However, there was a time when he was even better. Much better.

I invite you to take a trip down memory lane with me, to a time when F1 cars were smaller, 170 kilograms lighter, and powered by naturally aspirated V8 engines equipped with simple batteries.

Let’s pay a visit to Sepang in Malaysia, arguably the finest circuit designed by Herman Tilke, and relive one of Alonso’s greatest victories.

It’s the 25th day of March 2012. It’s a humid Sunday, and the sky above Malaysia is poised to unleash a heavy downpour. Fans around the world have no idea what kind of surreal and unforgettable season awaits them.

The Beginning of the 2012 Season

As of the day I’m writing this article, five drivers on the grid are still competing who participated in 2012: Fernando Alonso – back then at Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton – McLaren, Nico Hulkenberg – Force India, Sergio Perez – Sauber and Daniel Ricciardo, who currently drives for the same team that was then known as Toro Rosso. Interestingly, three of these drivers will play a major role in the race that is the focus of this article.

2012 also marked the return of three drivers to the sport: Kimi Raikkonen, Romain Grosjean, both joining Lotus, and Narain Karthikeyan, who had previously driven for Jordan during the team's final season in Formula 1. The Indian signed a contract with HRT.

Together with Raikkonen, there were six world champions on the grid: Alonso, both McLaren drivers – Jenson Button and Hamilton, Michael Schumacher who had returned from his first retirement, and his compatriot, the reigning world champion, Sebastian Vettel.

Situation in the standings isn’t really that important. There was only one race before Malaysia and all I can say about the 2012 Australian Grand Prix is that it happened. Button won, Vettel finished 2nd and Hamilton stood on the last step of the podium.

Not many interesting things happened in the race besides Maldonado’s heroics and Perez putting Pirelli to shame. “We’re aiming for between two or three pit stops in Australia” had said Paul Hembery, back then the Motorsport Director of the sole tire supplier. Perez took it personal and changed tires only once.

What certainly is important here and was back than is the banning of blown diffuser, which had been one of the strengths of the Newey designed Red Bulls. The FIA even had briefly made it illegal in 2011 for one race – the British Grand Prix, but eventually decided to postpone the ban for the next season.

It’s Raining at Sepang

The Malaysian Grand Prix took place one week after the race at Albert Park. Similar to the Australian event, the McLaren drivers locked the front row during qualifying. Hamilton claimed pole position around 0.150s ahead of his teammate. Schumacher started 3rd and right next to him Mark Webber in a Red Bull Renault. Vettel and Raikkonen lined up behind them, while Grosjean and Rosberg started 7th and 8th. The fifth row belonged to Alonso and Perez.  

The qualifying session had been dry, but the weather decided to play a part on Sunday. Just before the race, a shower occurred, leaving parts of the circuit damp. It was drizzling lightly, and dark clouds loomed above the venue; however, the main straight and half of the circuit appeared almost completely dry.

In such conditions, intermediates are the best bet and the primary challenge drivers face is cooling the tires on wet patches to prevent them from overheating and wearing out too quickly. Fortunately for the spectacle, at the beginning of the race, they encountered a different problem.

Grosjean the Mighty

Grosjean made an excellent start and found himself in 3rd place after the first two corners. Schumacher dropped to 4th, with two Red Bull drivers trailing behind him. Alonso gained two positions at the expense of Rosberg and Raikkonen.

At the start the drivers enjoyed perfect visibility. However, once the cars reached the short uphill straight leading to Turn 4, the tires lifted the water accumulated on the tarmac 2 to 3 meters above the track surface.

Hamilton defended against Button’s overtaking attempt in the braking zone. Webber, who had taken the karting outside line in Turn 3, first overtook Schumacher and then Grosjean around the outside of Turn 4. Schumacher attempted to execute the same maneuver on the Lotus driver but ended up facing the wrong way after taking a hit form the Frenchman. Grosjean spun in unison.

The race for both drivers was compromised before the completion of the opening lap. The Frenchman had mercy for the rest of the field and finished in the gravel on lap 4, while the German continued on.

Grosjean made a name for himself in 2012, thanks to his devil-may-care attitude that emerged as soon as the five red lights went out. His bravery reached its peak in Belgium, where his spectacular start at Spa impressed the FIA so much that they awarded him a race ban. Not only did the sport’s governing body commend him, but fellow drivers also generously praised the Frenchman. In recognition of his heroics in Japan, Webber referred to him as “first lap nutcase Grosjean.”

The Downpour & the Chaos

Back to the race.

The order of the top 5 at the end of lap 1 was as follows: the McLaren duo, with Hamilton in front; the Red Bull duo, with Webber ahead of his teammate; and Alonso.

At the same lap Perez pitted from 7th. And it was a brilliant move. The rain kept intensifying. The tires filtered more and more water. The spray grew larger with each lap. A drizzle was quickly turning into a downpour, and it became evident that soon inters won’t be able to handle the volume of water falling from the sky.

The lap times of the leading Hamilton showed how rapidly the conditions were deteriorating: lap 1 – 2:03.650, lap 2 – 2:05.093, lap 3 – 2:07.896, lap 4 – 2:11.167. Typically, the opening lap is slower than the subsequent laps; however, during the 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix, the situation was reversed due to the sudden downpour.

Button and Alonso pitted on lap 4. The McLaren driver attempted to undercut his teammate and use full wets to his advantage, but he encountered an obstacle in the form of the Mercedes driven by Schumacher. Overtaking the German wasn’t a difficult task given the grip advantage, but Button did it right after spending fast Turns 5 and 6 behind Schumacher. This delay could have cost him the lead.

The McLaren duo was separated by approximately 2.4 seconds before Button made his pit stop. His in-lap was 2.2 seconds faster than his teammate's. Given that he was right on the sisters’ McLaren gearbox when Hamilton exited the pits, one might wonder: Would Button have taken the lead if he hadn't been briefly impeded by Schumacher? And why was the Mercedes even there to begin with? Because Grosjean!

Jokes aside, this speculation serves as a good reminder that sometimes one’s fortune in a race is influenced by factors beyond their control. Hamilton had a similar experience in the same race, but more on that later.

Anyway, the leader successfully defended against an overtaking attempt in Turn 4 and pulled away from Button. Both Red Bulls, like Hamilton, had pitted on lap 5. The double stack cost Vettel one place grabbed by Alonso, but the biggest winner in the strategic battle at the front of the pack was Perez. The Mexican went from net 7th to 3rd. By lap 6, he had only the McLaren duo ahead of him, while the Red Bull drivers, separated by the Ferrari, followed behind.

Almost everyone was on full wets but even those tires couldn’t handle the conditions. Perez briefly went off in Turn 12, and Button complained on the radio that the last sector resembled a lake.

The rain didn’t look like the biblical flood of 2009 on the same track, but it was severe enough for the Race Director, Charlie Whiting, to deploy the Safety Car on lap 7. The conditions kept worsening and two laps later the race was red flagged.

Back to Racing

The drivers, the teams and the fans watching from the stands and worldwide had around 50 minutes to take a break and take a look how much had happened in just 6 laps of racing. In rain and chaos events breed like rabbits. And they surely did in Malaysia, on March 25, 2012.

The race resumed when the rain reduced in intensity from a downpour to a drizzle. The cars lined up behind the Safety Car and followed Bernd Maylander like ducks follow their mother.

Visibly the conditions were much better than before the red flag. The track was still wet and the spray kept rising high above the tarmac, however it was nothing that intermediates couldn’t handle, let alone the full wets everybody was on.

The Restart, the Duels and the Busy Pit Lane

The Safety Car period ended on lap 13, and Button immediately dived into the pits for inters. The plethora of cars followed suit, but none from the top 6.

Hamilton maintained the lead. Alonso overtook Webber by selecting the outside line at Turn 1, which seamlessly transitioned into the inside line at Turn 2. The Australian briefly lost another position at Turn 4 when Vettel passed him on the inside, but he regained it with a switchback maneuver and a superior line into the fast left hander of Turn 5.

At the end of lap 14, Hamilton, Webber, and both Ferraris pitted. The team from Maranello could afford a double stack because Massa was two positions behind his teammate at the time. This move helped Alonso leapfrog Hamilton.

The McLaren mechanics did a decent job changing their driver's tires. The replay shows that they completed the task before their Ferrari counterparts, whose garage was located directly in front of McLaren's, began servicing Alonso. However, the team from Woking couldn’t release their driver into the path of the approaching Massa; they had to wait. This delay ultimately cost Hamilton the lead.

To make matters worse, his teammate undercut him. Hamilton emerged from the pits behind Button. Now both McLaren drivers got screwed by events beyond their control. However, the bad luck wasn’t even. It dealt Hamilton the worse hand.

Button, typically a juggernaut in mixed conditions, made a huge mistake chasing Alonso for the potential net lead. He tried to overtake the HRT driven by Karthikeyan in Turn 9. The Indian driver had started on full wet tires and, as a result of this move he was 10th at the restart. He was racing for position and didn’t make it easy for Button, but he left enough room for him in the slow uphill corner. The McLaren driver made a clumsy maneuver and damaged his front wing on Karthikeyan’s left rear tire.

Button’s race was ruined, Hamilton’s compromised, but McLaren weren’t the only ones who faced hurdles at Sepang. Vettel's radio was malfunctioning, preventing his team from hearing him. His race engineer instructed him to use the pit confirm button.

At the end of lap 15, Vettel pitted behind the leading Perez. The Red Bull driver leapfrogged his teammate but fell behind Rosberg, who had been one of the first to pit for inters. Webber also lost a position to Raikkonen for the same reason.

Perez briefly lead for two corners after exiting the pits, before Alonso, on warmer tires, overtook him in Turn 3. The Spaniard breezed past the Sauber on the outside.

Alonso’s Surfing

After the violent earthquake, the race generally settled down. The order of the 7 on lap 16 was: Alonso, Perez, Hamilton, followed by the four-car train of Rosberg, Vettel, Raikkonen, and Webber.

On lap 20, DRS was enabled despite the track still being wet. Although something like that won’t fly these days, back in the early 2010s it wasn’t a rare occurrence. It actually was standard procedure. However it all changed, following Jules Bianchi's crash at Suzuka in 2014.

DRS brought some action to the previously mentioned four-car train. On lap 25. Rosberg found himself at the back of it. His Mercedes was outmatched by both Red Bulls and the lone Lotus.

The top 3 quickly pulled away and then spread out. Hamilton left behind the four-car train before the action started. Perez built a comfy cushion between himself and the McLaren driver. Alonso was faster than the Mexican.

The Spaniard was flying on the wet but continuously improving circuit, which was quite impressive considering the car beneath him.

How bad or how good the Ferrari F2012 actually was is the subject of much debate. I won’t delve into that discussion, as it would likely expand this article into a ten-thousand-word essay. I think it’s safe to say that, at this point in the season it was a midfield car at best.

However, the term midfield here maybe a bit misleading. It wasn’t midfield in a sense of modern F1. Due to the wild nature of the season, particularly at the beginning, the order of the cars fluctuated, and the gaps between them were relatively small. One would likely have to look back to the mid-1980s to find a similarly evenly matched grid.

The relatively minor differences between the cars made the driver more crucial than usual. This is where Alonso made his money.

Weather Giveth, Weather Taketh

Perez couldn’t keep pace with the fellow Spanish speaker, and by the end of the 30th lap, the gap between the two had widened to 8 seconds. As long as there was moisture on the track, Alonso maintained the upper hand.

But then the advantage suddenly shifted. Instead of watching the Sauber disappear in his mirrors, Alonso saw it getting larger and larger. The lap times clearly indicate the moment the tide turned.

Lap 30 marked the last round in which Alonso was faster than Perez on inters. The drying track clearly favored the Mexican and he went for it. His pace was remarkable; from laps 31 to 39, he closed the gap to just 1.3 seconds, averaging lap times 0.7 seconds faster than the leader.

And it’s not like Alonso was struggling. His lap times were improving, but not as much as Perez’s. The Mexican was the fastest man on the track… in a Sauber. I doubt many people had anticipated such a turn of events.

The cars that had not made the best impression in Australia fought for victory in Malaysia. To make it even more amusing, Rosberg, who had been a mere participator rather than a competitor at Sepang, achieved his maiden victory in the next race in China.

Such were the quirks of 2012.

Time for Slicks

Meanwhile, despite the looming risk of rain, the track was getting ready for slicks. Ricciardo was the first to take a chance on dry tires on lap 37. Two laps later he set 1:48.800, a time 3.2 seconds faster than the charging Perez.

Alonso boxed immediately on lap 40. Sauber missed the opportunity and waited one lap longer before calling their driver into the pits. To be fair, they weren’t the only ones who messed up. McLaren also pitted Hamilton on lap 41. Perhaps they were simply outsmarted.

There have been numerous memes regarding Ferrari’s strategy, but in the early 2010s, Alonso and his race engineer, Andrea Stella, formed a highly effective partnership. The Spaniard trusted the Italian so much that he brought him along to McLaren in 2015. Now, Stella is the Team Principal there.

Perez Still Faster

Ferrari had put medium tires on Alonso’s car and Sauber opted for hard compound for their driver. Hypothetically, this should have resulted in a duel between grip and durability. That wasn't the case. Perez was still faster. Despite being 7 seconds behind Alonso on lap 42, he swiftly closed the gap and entered DRS range by the end of lap 48.

Unlike the last time F1 raced at Sepang in 2012, there was only one DRS zone—located on the main straight—which clearly benefited Alonso. It is also important to note that in the early 2010s, DRS wasn’t as powerful as it is today due to the size of the rear wings and the flaps. They were simply smaller.

The stage was set, and Perez had 8 laps to overtake Alonso.

The Cucumber Incident

While battling for victory, the leading duo had to navigate around tire debris left on the back straight by Vettel. The Red Bull driver had banged wheels with lapped Karthikeyan in a quite bizarre incident, which forced the German to pit and ultimately resulted in him finishing outside of the points.

The drivers blamed one another, while the stewards penalized Karthikeyan. "As in real life, there are a few cucumbers on the road," Vettel summarized his view on the incident.

The Radio Call

The leaders continued their battle. Perez was close, but not close enough to make a move. He was stuck behind unshaken Alonso. The Spaniard had a full 10 seasons of racing experience under his belt and appeared unfazed by the charging rival.

The opportunity for a maiden victory for Pérez evaporated on lap 50. The Mexican braked too late and veered off the track at Turn 14. This mistake cost him nearly 5 seconds and effectively secured a comfortable finish and victory for Alonso.

Before that happened, Perez received a radio message from his engineer: “Checo, you’re second, no mistakes. Just keep it clinical.” The message did not sit well with the commentators, David Croft and Martin Brundle. The former, in between the lines, suggested that Sauber might be trying to avoid upsetting their engine supplier, which, of course, was Ferrari. Was he correct? I’ll let you decide for yourself.

But before you proceed, I have a confession to make: I lied. Those words were not spoken on the radio. The words belong to Carlos Sainz’s engineer, who said them at Monza in 2022 while his driver was chasing Pierre Gasly for the win. What exactly was communicated to Perez? “Checo, be careful. We need this position.”

I’ll leave it at that. You can draw your own conclusions.

The Finish Line

Alonso crossed the finish line to secure his 28th victory, while Perez had to settle for second place - his maiden podium finish. Hamilton claimed third place after spending the majority of the race positioned between the leaders and the rest of the field. In the closing stages, he began to gain on Alonso and Perez, but his pace was not sufficient to catch them.

Behind the top 3 finished Webber, who had leapfrogged Raikkonen in the pits during the change to slick tires. The aforementioned Finn – the author of the fastest lap of the race, followed by Bruno Senna, Paul di Resta, Jean-Eric Vergne, and Hulkenberg. Schumacher earned one point after a decent recovery drive, finishing ahead of his teammate, who had made one extra pit stop for inters when the track was still damp.

The Two Man Spectacle

Alonso’s victory was so impressive, that it brought his race engineer to tears. Of course, he had a stroke of luck and capitalized on it. The Spaniard essentially won the race when the circuit was wet: made crucial overtakes and took the lead he held until the finish line.

Only during the wet part of the race he was the fastest man on the track. The fastest man in the entire race was, of course Perez. 1:52.469 was his average race pace, which was 0.218 seconds faster than Alonso.

Both were amazing on that glorious, capricious Sunday, but only one was flawless.