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Raikkonen bounces back

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen won the second F1 grand prix of the year, the Malaysian Grand Prix when he started second on the grid to bounce from the disappointment at Albert Park.

The current world champion showed he meant business from the start where he started behind team-mate Felipe Massa who later spun out of the race whilst in second position and I think only a breakdown could have stopped him from winning.

I thought Massa was going to collect his first points for the season but he did not the finish the race again and he will now have to wait for the next race in Bahrain. Ferrari will need both drivers to finish as often as possible in order to successfully defend the constructor's title.

In second place came BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica and I am actually pleased to see BMW drivers finish on the podium whereas last year they tended to finish just outside the podium places.Last week Nick Heidfeld also finished second.

To complete the podium was McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen who should be pleased with his third place and an improvement from last week when he finished fifth.

In what seems like good signs for Toyota this year, Jarno Trulli finished just outside the podium places and ahead of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton when he took fourth place. In last week's race team-mate Kazuki Nakajima got six place but could only get 17 th at Sepang.

I think Hamilton did well to get fifth place after starting ninth on the grid. His fifth place means he still leads the championship by three points.

Heidfeld was behind Hamilton in sixth and as I have already said it looks good for BMW but I still think they lack pace to challenge the top two teams.

I thought Mark Webber should have finished fifth after a very good race but he dropped two places when he pitted but seventh place is not too bad considering that in Melbourne he didn't even complete a lap.

To complete the points places was former champion Fernando Alonso who tried everything he could take to overtake Webber but Webber held on to seventh place.

Only five cars failed to finish the race this time and this is a big improvement from last week where only seven finished. Maybe it means the drivers have now adjusted well to the lack of driver controls.

The next race will be in Bahrain in a fortnight and its interesting who will be leading the championship after that.

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