Vettel betters lap mark in Sepang, Hamilton off course
Sebastian Vettel smashed the all-time Sepang lap record Friday as Ferrari put the pressure on Lewis Hamilton before a track fault brought an early halt to Malaysian GP practice. Vettel clocked 1min 31.261sec around the 5.543-kilometre circuit on his qualifying simulation run in the second session to smash the old record of 1:32.50 set by Fernando Alonso in 2005.
His Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was second, sixtenths of a second adrift. The Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen were third and fourth on a frustrating day for Mercedes’ championship leader, Hamilton who was only sixth fastest with Valtteri Bottas seventh. Hamilton had been on just his 10th lap of the afternoon when he took too much speed into turn eight, resulting in a sideways excursion into the gravel and a wrecked set of soft tyres.
DRAIN COVER CAUSES TYRE BLOW OUT
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Officials launched an inspection of every drain cover at the Sepang circuit after Romain Grosjean suffered a frightening tyre explosion. A drain grille popped up at a kerb on turn nine after Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari drove over it. A few seconds later Grosjean hit the same spot at more than 200 kilometres (124 miles) an hour, with disastrous effect. The impact instantly ripped his right rear tyre from its rim and threw his Haas into the barriers.
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