F1 Malaysia - The Race

Welcome back to Sepang for the Malaysian GP. There is plenty of talk about rain during the race and that will make interesting as usual.

A great and tense quali yesterday put Sebastian back on pole after Lewis had done all the running and only one tenth separated them at the finish of the session. It does appear Mclaren have now found the pace and are in position to compete with both Red Bull's.

Nice to see Bernie back with us during Martin's grid walk and as usual he had the usual entourage around him including the Malaysian Prime Minister. It was also great to see Lewis's Dad back in the paddock with Lewis and he was able to congratulate his other son after his first race in saloon cars and he did a good job. He is also managing Paul di Resta.

So we have 56 laps with a track temperature of 31 degrees and humidity at a staggering 83% and the drivers are going to have their work cut out over the race distance. All the teams were doing everything to keep cars and drivers as cool as possible on the grid.

Sepang is a very wide circuit and we will have plenty of opportunities to see overtaking using DRS particularly down the long start/finish straight. On the warm up lap Mark was on the radio noting a problem with his car and was advised by the pit they could see it but can't do anything about it, oh dear.

A great start and some brilliant driving to avoid bumping and boring which was great. Some great action and the winners without a doubt were Renault as Nick Heidfeld shot into P2 in front of Lewis with a great drive around the outside of P1. It is obvious Mark has no KERS and that confirms the problem he has and dropped him down to ninth.

Rubens had to pit as he lost his left rear tyre and had to do a complete lap on the degrading tyre. Mark is much quicker as he fights with Kamui but not at the end of the straight as Kamui goes straight back past and Mark is now down in tenth.

Nick is keeping Lewis in check in his Renault and this is allowing Sebastian to move ahead at the front. Jenson appears to be dropping back from Lewis and they are now talking about rain so the teams want to avoid stopping for tyres but need to avoid having to pit again when, and if the rain comes.

Mark was the first to stop on lap eleven and the KERS problem has basically destroyed his race. The tyres are starting to go off by lap twelve but the ever present rain is causing the teams to wait for tyres. Nick dropped off the pace and as Lewis was locked in behind Nick he then pitted in an attempt to get back into clear air. In the meanwhile Jenson, Felipe and Fernando were beginning to close in on Lewis.

On lap fifteen a little rain started to drop and that caused a flurry of pit stops but only back onto
soft tyres as the amount rain wouldn't affect the race pace. Nick seems to have had a problem and dropped back behind Fernando so Lewis comes into P2 and now must go into attack to catch Sebastian but some six seconds behind.

The rain was only a short light shower and by lap twenty Lewis was closing slightly on Sebastian with Fernando also closing on Lewis. Felipe then closed in on Mark and passed him quite easily as he used his KERS accepting Mark hasn't got his.

The front of the race started close down as Sebastian pitted and came out behind Felipe and the gap came down to just over three seconds. Jenson also closed in followed by Fernando and Mark driving brilliantly up to fifth.

It appears Sebastian doesn't have KERS either and he has Lewis hovering followed very closely by Jenson. Without doubt KERS and DRS are greatly assisting with overtaking and we have seen a lot of it today down the start/finish straight. However, Sebastian suddenly dropped in the fastest lap albeit he is carrying a weight penalty with the KERS system.

Lewis had Jenson closing in on him and Sebastian was just leaping ahead in front and had extended his gap to over ten seconds. Lewis had a slow stop as he had a problem with the front left and that allowed Jenson to jump up into P2 as he had a better stop. Lewis doesn't seem happy on lap forty and he has Mark all over his rear spoiler.

It's all happening now at the front as Jenson started closing in on Fernando and Sebastian on his fresh rubber and driving brilliantly. Fernando then pitted and came out behind Mark so that will be interesting. With most teams doing three pit stops it will be interesting to see whether Mark has to do a fourth stop as he pitted first and early during the race.

Mark has to stop for the fourth time on lap forty four as Jenson moved up to second and both Renault's were fighting with Felipe. All of a sudden Fernando came steaming up to the back of Lewis and battle royal commenced for third. The team then announced Fernando's DRS wasn't working as he came together with Lewis and broke his front spoiler.

We can only hope Lewis doesn't get a puncture as Fernando comes into the pits for a new front nose and rejoins behind Mark. At least Fernando's incident has taken the pressure off Lewis as he continues to struggle. Jenson was within eight seconds of Sebastian but he seems to have it covered up front.

Now we have a gaggle of cars fighting for third as Lewis struggles with this set of tyres and he has Nick, Vitaly and Mark driving brilliantly all looming in on the back of the Mclaren. Nick then passed Lewis into turn one and Mark having passed Vitaly then looms in one Lewis.

Lewis then went off the track between turns six and seven putting him back behind Vitaly in eighth as we only have three to go. Mark then started to home in on Nick's rear spoiler on the run to the flag.

Vitaly will be called the flying Russian after going off the track and flying back across the circuit and as he landed the steering column became detached albeit still connected to the steering.

Sebastian, Jenson, Nick, Mark, Felipe, Fernando, Lewis, Kamui, Michael and finally the top points scorer in tenth came Paul di Resta driving again brilliantly. Some great drives throughout the field from Jenson, Nick standing in for the injured Robert Kubica and Paul in only his second grand prix.

Fernando stopped on the in lap and it will be interesting to whether the stewards do anything as the cars should be driven back to parc fermez. The tyres did as forecast and caused many pit stops which makes it very interesting. Tyre wear is critical and achieving the optimum from the tyres is key.

So a very interesting race and apart from another Sebastian run away at the front there was at least plenty of action behind him. Who is going to take this fight to the Red Bull's as Mclaren, Ferrari and Renault appear to be on the pace but race pace seems to fall away.

A point of interest is the change in the result in Australia as both Sauber's were disqualified from the race so please keep in touch with my web site to see the actual result after the stewards changed the positions.

F1 Quali Malysia

Good morning everybody and welcome to the heat and humidity (69%) in Malaysia and as always the threat of rain being anticipated at the end of the session. HRT are under pressure to perform and as we know in Australia they didn't beat the 107% rule and hence didn't get into the race.

Renault have struggled this weekend and a suspension failure hindered their weekend running. Ferrari are also struggling as they simply can't find the set up. For whatever reason they say they have lost pace since winter testing and don't know where the problem is so they are in damage limitation in the early part of the season.

Sauber had an unfortunate end to the race in Melbourne as it was deemed their rear spoiler top section was outside the parameters. This means both cars were disqualified which was a great shame particularly for new boy Perez who drove a brilliant race without a tyre stop.

It is going to be interesting to see whether Red Bull deploy KERS and Christian Horner confirmed they are running the system on the car this weekend. As if they aren't fast enough they now have a further 10 to 15 bhp and that will be significant. Ferrari were also off the pace in Friday running and couldn't get the car hooked up and ran in the low end of the top ten.

The first stoppage in quali one came as Sebastian Buemi lost the side pod on his Torro Rosso and the session was Red flagged whilst the offending piece of bodywork was collected. Teams are now under pressure to qualify after the interuption and many will have lost a set of tyres.

In the early running Lewis headed the times but that isn't really significant as all they are doing at this stage is moving through the three sessions whilst targetting pole. Red Bull didn't pull out any stops in Q1 finishing tenth (SB) and fifteenth (MW) as Felipe headed the times but not really significant at this early stage.

All teams ran under the 107% rule so at least we have a twenty four car grid for the race on Sunday. Red Bull didn't report any problems for Mark, they simply couldn't get the car set up on the different tyre / fuel combination albeit a full second behind Sebastian.

As there is a full second difference between the hard and soft tyres and all of a sudden Sebastian shot into the 1.35's but then Jenson shot it up to the front with a mid 1.35 and some half a second quicker than the Red Bull's.

After initial running it is the top 3 teams occupying the first six places and that is one has to say quite normal. All of a sudden both Renault's shot up into the top six and this looks very interesting for tomorrow's race. With only seconds left both Mclaren's led the field with Jenson in front of Lewis for a change.

We lost Michael and Rubens going into Q3 so Nico led his more illustrious team mate once again. So the fight for pole looks very interesting with the Mclaren's, Ferrari's, Red Bull's and Renault's fighting for P1. So we all ask when are Red Bull going to launch to the front.

So ten minutes to find the pole sitter and Lewis was the first out on soft tyres followed by Jenson. Lewis launches himself into his first lap with DRS and KERS in full chat and puts in a staggering 1.35.000 flat, incredible. He was followed by Sebastian, Mark & Jenson after the initial running with only three tenths covering them.

It appears only two of the teams are running twice with the rest only having one run. What a finish to the session but Sebastian pipped Lewis by such a small margin as it was measured in thousands of a second. So we had Sebastian in pole by a tenth followed by Lewis, Mark, Jenson, Fernando, Nick, Felipe, Vitaly, Nico and Kamui coming in tenth.

We have a real prospect for tomorrow as the difference in times really mean little over a race distance. What is interesting is both red Bull's were running KERS and our concerns about them running away at the front isn't materialising.

We all look forward to the race tomorrow.