Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso’s took brilliant victory in the Malaysian Grand Prix last Sunday. Incredibly, after all the talk of crisis within the Prancing Horse camp, the Spaniard now leads the Drivers’ World Championship after two rounds, while Scuderia Ferrari is in third place behind leaders McLaren and Red Bull.

"If it’s a crazy race, maybe with rain, then maybe we can finish in front," Alonso said last Thursday during the FIA Press Conference and it seems that, apart from a talent for driving, perhaps he also has the talent to predict the future!

Having had a mainly dry weekend since Thursday, somehow the rain chose the moments leading up to the start to arrive over the Sepang circuit. It was light enough for everyone to fit the Pirelli intermediate tires, but heavy enough to cause plenty of spray off the open-wheeled cars.

As the lights went out, McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button maintained their first and second grid positions, followed by Red Bull Racing’s Mark Webber, Lotus F1’s Romain Grosjean briefly, Sebastian Vettel with Alonso up one to seventh. Having started third, Schumacher spun, while Felipe Massa went up two places to tenth.

Fernando was fifth on the second lap and on lap 3, as the rain intensified, Massa was the first to pit for extreme rain tires and on the following lap, Grosjean parked his Lotus in the gravel in the treacherous conditions. Lap 4 and Alonso, Button, Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, Daniel Ricciardo, Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen switched to the rain tire. On lap 5 it was the turn of Hamilton, Webber and Vettel doing a double stop were Nico Rosberg, Pastor Maldonaldo, Kimi Raikkonen, Kamui Kobayashi and Schumacher.

By the 6th lap, the conditions got worse forcing the stewards to send out Safety Car. But as the track got flooded, the Red Flag did come out on lap 9. The cars formed up on the grid in the order, Hamilton and Button first and second for McLaren, then Perez for Sauber, Webber, Alonso, Vettel, Vergne for Toro Rosso, then Massa with Rosberg ninth for Mercedes, followed by another non-stopper Karthikeyan who had moved up 13 places in the Hispania.

After a pause of almost an hour, the restart took place behind the Safety Car—with all cars now on extreme rain tire. When the Safety Car pulled into the pits, Button pitted immediately for Intermediates and that saw him get ahead of his teammate.

With Button having dropped back after a collision with Karthikeyan, Alonso was now leading with a comfortable margin of around six seconds over Perez. However, the situation changed when the track became dry enough for slicks to be fitted for the first time in the race. The Sauber proved to be much faster than the F2012 and the Mexican was able to close right up to Fernando.

However, the pressure eased when Perez ran wide onto the back straight, the gap growing to at last five seconds again. The Mexican did fight back, but by this stage there were not enough laps remaining for him to get ahead, so a delighted Fernando punched the air as he crossed the line to take a brilliant and unexpected victory. The last podium position went to McLaren’s Hamilton.

Alonso’s first win of the season puts him in the lead in the Drivers’ World Championship, five points ahead of Hamilton and 10 in front of Button.