He maintained that position through most of the race until Vettel ignored a team order from Red Bull to lower the performance of his engine, overtaking Webber for the lead on the 46th lap.

Hamilton finished 12 seconds behind, and his teammate Nico Rosberg was told by Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn to hold fourth place.

[4] A Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA, motorsport's governing body)-sanctioned race has been held in Malaysia since the 1960s, with the first editions run in Singapore—then part of the Malaysian Federation—before moving to the Shah Alam Circuit.

[8] His teammate, Mark Webber, explained that Red Bull required an improvement in car performance for the race: "As a team we weren't as strong as we thought we'd be.

Several drivers remained in the pit lane to wait for better track conditions to record their quickest times in a ten-minute period of successive laps, before running a heavy fuel load.

[20] Räikkönen missed the first 55 minutes as Lotus replaced a kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) battery which failed due to a sensor problem,[19][21] but was second-fastest.

[20] Vettel, Alonso, Nico Rosberg of Mercedes, Adrian Sutil of Force India, Massa, Paul di Resta, Hamilton and Lotus driver Romain Grosjean were second to tenth.

A heavy rain shower fell, preventing an improvement in lap times; some drivers drove on the wet track on the intermediate-compound tyres, to acclimatise themselves with the conditions if inclement weather returned later in the week.

[24][25] Räikkönen lapped fastest at 1 minute, 36.569 seconds, followed by Vettel, Massa and Alonso, Webber, Grosjean, Rosberg, Di Resta, Hamilton and Sutil.

Hamilton, Sutil, Webber, Räikkönen, Di Resta, McLaren's Jenson Button, Massa, Rosberg and Alonso were the ten fastest drivers.

[22] A slow pace put Button eighth, an oversteer in the corners left Sutil ninth, and McLaren's Sergio Pérez was tenth.

[22] Di Resta aborted a timed lap due to the rain, prompting Force India to call him to the pit lane for a tyre change.

Marussia's Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton were 19th and 21st, separated by Charles Pic's Caterham, who had an understeer on his first lap that a pressure adjustment for his second did not remove.

[40] At the start of lap two, Webber drew alongside Alonso,[41] whose front wing detached and folded under his Ferrari at the end of the main straight,[22] sending him into the turn-one gravel trap.

[39] Maldonado, in 12th position, ran on a damp white line at turn 11 on lap 13; he drove across the gravel trap, removing half of his car's front wing.

[41] A recurring captive wheel-nut system fault, possibly caused by a high temperature on the left front wheel, lost Sutil 84 seconds in a pit stop, and fell to 20th.

Soon thereafter the Force India team called Sutil and his teammate, Di Resta, into retirement because they could not fix the problem before the end of the race and did not want to damage their cars.

Rocquelin told Vettel by radio on that lap to conserve his tyres in high-speed corners, because he drew too close to Webber and was affected by the aerodynamic turbulence of airflow over his teammate's car.

[40][41] Webber also slowed to preserve his tyres so he could reach the third series of pit stops, and Vettel told the Red Bull team by radio to have his teammate relinquish the lead to him because he thought he was the faster driver.

[41] Red Bull invoked team orders on Vettel and Webber, with the code "Multi-Map 21", telling both drivers to lower engine performance and remain in first and second position (without challenging each other) to conserve their tyres.

[39][50]Massa made a pit stop on the 47th lap to switch to medium-compound tyres when he was unable to pass Grosjean, and emerged in eighth position.

[50][53] That lap, Pérez made a pit stop for hard-compound tyres after Hülkenberg passed him on the inside for eighth place at the fourth corner.

Vergne was tenth, and the final finishers were Bottas, Gutiérrez, Bianchi, Pic, Van Der Garde, Chilton, Button and Ricciardo.

[57] After the race, Vettel revealed that he had ignored team orders as an indirect form of revenge for similar behavior by Webber himself in both of the previous two seasons.

[55] Vettel flew from Kuala Lumpur to visit the Red Bull team factory in Milton Keynes, England on 26 March to apologise to his colleagues after doing so to Webber at the press conference.

According to Horner, Vettel was eager to make up for the wrongdoing and shook hands with Webber: "He can't turn back the clock, but he's accepted what he did was wrong.

"[64][65] Red Bull did not reprimand or punish Vettel because his lawyers threatened legal action; he told Webber at the Chinese Grand Prix three weeks later that he was annoyed by his teammate's comments on the podium.

"[66] While in Australia, Webber received a telephone call from Red Bull owner and co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz, who asked for an oral and written account of events because he was irate about the damage to his company's reputation.

"[69] Alonso said that he could have challenged for the victory had he not retired on the second lap due to Ferrari's similar race pace to Red Bull: "No one was especially quick, so I think we could really have fought for the win.

[71] Although Rosberg begged Ross Brawn to reconsider his decision to maintain position, he respected Mercedes' judgment and finishing third and fourth and duelling Red Bull was "such a milestone".