F1-Blog

Malaysia a full runthrough

It was not quite the race that McLaren and Lewis were hoping for after their domination in Australia. It was however an interesting race, as it showed that the season is not going to be the two horse race that we have had in recent seasons.

Ferrari shone all weekend, and where pretty much unbeatable, Felipe was looking fast, as was Kimi, and the Ferrari with it’s minor changes to improve cooling looked strong.

The race started under a little cloud, the McLaren team had been penalised five grid spots for both of their cars, this was because Lewis and Heikki had impeded Heidfeld and Alonso’s fast laps at the end of the Q3 session.

This put the two lower fueled McLarens into eight and ninth place, in and around heavier fueld cars. This did however show us that both the McLaren and Lewis are quick away from the line, the Brit lined up ninth on the grid, and finished the first set of corners in fifth, Mark Webber did well getting the Red Bull into fourth as well.

Malaysia Preview

The second of our 2008 fly away opening races is upon us, just one week after the Australian GP.

This one is again a difficult, hot race, and cars that had heat issues last week will probably have more of the same.

Sepang is also a challenging circuit for the engines, even if the heat is not too bad as it has a very high percentage of full throttle around the 3.444 miles (5.543km) circuit. It seems that this might be the last of the daytime races, as the organisers have put in to be allowed to run at night from 2009.

This will be the tenth time the teams have been around the track, and it’s always an interesting race as there are a fair few overtaking opportunities  to be had if the drivers are brave enough.

The track used to be dominated by the Schumacher brothers, with Michael winning three times and Ralf having won in 2002 driving for Williams (BMW). Since then Fernando has won twice at the track and his then team mate Giancarlo Fisichella won the 2006 race in the Renault.