Lotus again stood head and shoulders above the other Oxfordshire teams in Malaysian Grand Prix with two drivers in the top sevenbehind winner Sebastian Vettel.

This time, Kimi Raikkonen, winner of last week’s Australian Grand Prix had to give best to his teammate Romain Grosjean, who finished one spot ahead of him in sixth place.

These results placed the Enstone-based team second behind Red Bull in the Constructors Championship.

Grosjean said: “I think we can be quite happy with the result. “It was a tough race, starting wet and finishing dry, but that’s what you expect in Malaysia. “I spent a lot of time stuck behind Felipe Massa in the middle phase of the race and I’m sure if I could have passed him earlier then I would have stayed ahead.

“But by the end my tyres were finished, so it was best just to let him through.”

It was another disappointing race for the Grove-based Williams team.

Valtteri Bottas missed out on his first points finish by 1.486secs when coming 11th.

His teammate Pastor Maldonado’s race ended early when he retired on lap 45.

Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton came 13th and 16th respectively for the Banbury-based Marussia outfit.

The Caterham team, from Leafield, saw their drivers Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde finish 14th and 15th respectively.