My Motorsport Blog

“APPALLING” is what Eddie Jordan said about Ferrari and McLaren’s decision to sit in the pits and wait for better weather and track conditions. I say they received their just deserve by Jenson starting 17th, Alonso 19th and Hamilton and Massa in 20th and 21st respectively. This will ensure that fans see some very interesting and exiting opening laps, and, I hope they can stay out of trouble in the first few corners or we will have  a major change to the Championship point standings by the end of Sunday. Hopefully all the teams will take note of the risk they run by not getting a “Banker lap time”  as Eddie Jordan described it.

In the past teams have been on the receiving end of similar set backs in qualifying due to accidents or mechanical failures. If predictions that have been made in the past come true the fight for the drivers World Championship position will be a serious contest between Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. I am not a great supporter of Webber but he has been phenomenal on the track. If Mark could only realise that he needs to stay calm and not take silly risks he will be breathing down Sebastian Vettels neck all the time. I would love to put my money on Sebastian Vettel but the Red Bull just does not have the reliability at the moment. The Red Bull cars have the best opportunity to get serious points before the rest of the field catch up or their opportunities will fade away. Ross Brawn and Mercedes GP will be contesting pole and the podium positions soon and time is running out for Ferrari and Red Bull.  

If we have a wet race tomorrow as predicted Ferrari and McLaren will rue the descision to stay in the pits when they could have been putting in qualifying times in the first outing. Nico Hulkenberg, Robert Kubica and Kamui Kobayashi will not be intimidated by the world champions in this formula and will ensure that each point will be hard fought for. I am thus sure that we will see Red Bull in a podium position but will we have Adrian Sutil making things difficult for the front runners?

The face of determination and a serious contender? An excellent result for Ferrari in the first round and well done Alonso. I am not surprised that Ferrari achieved the results they did with a first and second on the podium. This  must concern other teams. Button and Hamilton are world champions and the first thing Buttons does is have a negative attitude in the end of race interview, come on Jenson, you will trip over your own lip and this at the first race!!!! Oh well, no surprise there then!  Vettel and Webber’s achievements with reliability issues could be of concern and I expect more in the form of achievement from the Red Bull Team in future but as with most teams this might have been a good testing first round.

Many would say not refuelling removes some excitement from the race but I think not. Drivers now have to consider the race as a whole and not just the short bursts between refuelling and tyre changes. What does reduce the value of spectatorship would be the amount of teams that fell out in the early laps of this race. Formula One never has or will be a cheap sport no matter what you try to do or write in the regulations. I would rather look at 20 cars racing and 18 finishing due to track incidents than 24 starting and 15 finishing JUST. It impedes on the value of the sport and we need more time for the teams to test. We need more practise and development time.

New teams and their sponsors would have been better off entering after the first or second round to become more competitive and overcome reliability issues. Virgin, Hispania Racing and worst of all Sauber BMW, not having a single car finished this race must be a great disappointment. Shumi at the ripe old age of 41 still showed that his performance is as good as any of the others and wait for the 3rd or even the 4th round before we adjourn court on the man. There will be a podium yet when the German National anthem rings out…twice!!!!. As for Rosberg, Alonso and Massa, they will be Vettel’s nemesis in the future and he would do well to check the rear view mirror before viewing the 2010 Drivers Championship trophy by the end of the year. I would like to add that he (Vettel) would be my driver of choice to get to the trophy at this stage.

What about Button and Hamilton? All I will say is that we have some great racing ahead and let the teams settle. This partnership between Jenson and Lewis will head for disaster and it will be the British press that will spoil it just for headline sake and I expect this to happen soon.

Congratulations should go to Lotus as they had one car finish the first race and the gold and green colours of Lotus is a welcome sight to this formula. I hope to see more of them in the future at a much higher ranking. Thanks to the Chapman family for allowing us to bring this marque back to the F1 fraternity where it belongs.

So Michael has returned to Formula One and joined Ross Brawn in the Mercedes Benz F1 team. Although I am happy about his return and that of Mercedes Benz I have to wonder if he could be a serious contender to this years F1 World Championship. With youngsters like Vettel, Alonso, Massa , Hamilton, Buttons and the rest of a very young and competitive drivers lineup the road to success will not be easy.

I am not being misled by the first days testing in Valencia where Michael outpaced team mate Nico Rosberg and managed get the third best lap time of the days testing, Felipe Massa (Ferrari) and Pedro de la Rosa (Sauber) took the first and second best times respectively. I will wait and see what happens in Bahrain on the 14th March when the cars will be on their first full fuel load and being driven in anger.

In the first race of the 1991 Sports Prototype Season Michael drove a Mercedes in full silver trim at Suzuka but some severe overheating issues hampered him. It will be good to see the “Silberpfeile” back in action with a full compliment of German drivers.

Overconfidence: Ferrari made a huge error in judgement and while looking at the qualifying times I could see them drop but they remained in the pits in the first qualifying. This bad judgement from the team and engineer could cost Massa some championship points which could cost him winning a drivers championship. No doubt they could perform because Räikkönen stayed in the top 10.

Surprises: Both McLaren cars out of the final qualifying with Heidfeld and Nakajima following suit. Alonso managed to get into the final qualifying with a ear infection, now that surprised me because ear infections makes you feel off balance I thought.

The final qualifying saw me not putting a jinx on the drivers by my predicting the top 10, bar Hamilton, who dropped out in the second qualifying. Overall the biggest surprise was Massa out in the first and Alonso in the top 10. We have a race.

The circuit is 5.543Km or 3.444 miles in length, 10 right hand corners and 5 left. The lap record is held by Juan Pablo Montoya with a time lap time of 1:34,223. The Ferrari’s had a one-two position on the grid in 2008 and Kimi Räikkönen won the race with Robert Kubica and Heikki Kovalainen second and third respectively.

The circuit is of course Sepang, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and at this stage we could be in for a storm……NO!!!! I actually do mean a storm. The weather forecasts for Saturday and Sunday show thunder showers so this link will help you monitor the situation. However, we have a new team and they do not seem interested in the weather or taking prisoners and want to win. I am referring to Brawn GP and they could repeat their Australian performance in Sepang if the car handles well in the wet.

I do not really want to speculate about this because the cars are completely different from last year but we know that Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams have an advantage with their respective aero-packages. I am however tempted to say that Brawn GP will feature in the top 5 this weekend. Looking at the results of 2008 in which Räikkönen won, followed by Robert Kubica, Kovalainen, Trulli, Hamilton, Heidfeld, Webber and Alonso. To these I would gladly add the names of Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello and Felipe Massa as potential front runners.

Nick Heidfeld still holds the fastest lap at this circuit but he will have to make sure he qualifies well. It would have been great to see Sebastian Vettel in this pack but with the penalty he received in Australia it will be a hard day’s work in the “office” for the young man. Looking at this picture of Nick and Robert I do wonder what it is with F1 drivers and the “fluff” on their faces? We really need Wilkinson to add some sponsorship to this formula.

Looking at comments made by team and driver previews on the official F1 site it would appear that they have not looked at the weather forecast and this includes Hirohide Hamashima, Bridgestone director of motorsport tyre development because they are all concerned about the heat in Sepang. Granted Hirohide did mention the later start time and rain.

I believe the decision to start later at these circuits were wrong as the changes in track temperature and the setting sun were commented on in Australia by several drivers. It does make the race more exiting though.