Malaysian Grand Prix *official thread*

Forza Jarno!! It was an awesome sight to see him taking P1 in Q1.

Toyota is very quick if anyone doubted about that before, but... there won't be much use of it if the car breaks down again. :rolleyes:

And also Felipe Massa - that was an incredible lap, half a second advantage. :eek: Where did that one come from? Such gap is big even for a few laps lighter fuel load. Hopefully he can keep it together tomorrow and respond to his critics. Ferrari is expected to be more competitive over race distance, so will the Reds have an untouchable race if it's dry?

BMW not so spectacular as at Melbourne - wonder, how competitive will they be over race distance, where they have had more struggle? Piquet seemed a lot better than at Melbourne.

Williams on the other hand was a bitter blow (16th and 18th?? :o ). Toro Rosso not that great either. It looks like such performances they showed at Melbourne, are rare occurances this season.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by osg

Huge from Trulli, can he translate that into a result tomorrow?

---

Surely if the car is reliable. Sepang is one of the favourite circuits for Jarno. ;)

It will be interesting to see the fuel differenes between Macs and Ferraris, I suspect Massa might be sligtly lighter than Kimi, but not as much as the time difference in Q3 would indicate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jens

And also Felipe Massa - that was an incredible lap, half a second advantage. :eek: Where did that one come from? Such gap is big even for a few laps lighter fuel load. Hopefully he can keep it together tomorrow and respond to his critics. Ferrari is expected to be more competitive over race distance, so will the Reds have an untouchable race if it's dry?

---

turns out Kimi couldn't quite get the feel for the F2008 on that last set of tyres.......... i still think Felipe is a slightly lighter than the Iceman.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by osg

turns out Kimi couldn't quite get the feel for the F2008 on that last set of tyres.......... i still think Felipe is a slightly lighter than the Iceman.

---

I think the Ferrari really took to the new smoother surface of the track!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jens

BMW not so spectacular as at Melbourne -

---

Heidfeld was held up by both McLarens on his flyer and was quite annoyed afterwards. He may have been higher up the grid if not for this:

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/4...0823552lm2.jpg

I'd like to see footage, but you can clearly see Heidfeld has to move off and back onto the racing line to take the corner because both McLaren's are cruising at 60mph on their in-laps on the racing line whilst Heidfeld is still on his flying lap.

Considering Glock was penalised in Oz for impeding someone in Q1, I think penalties are in order here.

And, voila...

Alonso and Heidfeld complain to stewards

Quote:

---

Fernando Alonso and Nick Heidfeld have complained to the stewards after they encountered slowing cars on their final qualifying attempts.

---

What I would also note that despite quite a challenging track for drivers we saw less mistakes than in Australia - probably the Oz GP was just an 'adaption weekend' for drivers. ;)

Laptimes from qualifying tell that while Ferrari was clearly fastest, then behind them both in Q2 and Q3 McLaren, Trulli and BMWs were within two tenths. Jarno has said that Toyota's race pace is even better than qualifying pace (and we saw that in Australia - he wasn't running too far behind Rosberg-Heidfeld duo before retirement) - it would be incredible if he could keep the pace of McLarens in the race!

The qualifying comparison between McLaren and BMW is quite similar to what we saw in Oz (if we conclude from here that the race pace is similar too, then McLaren should run away from the Beemers). But Ferrari is a lot better this weekend and has made McL-BMW duo look quite ordinary.

Expect to rise Williams in the race - hard to score any points though (in "normal conditions" without rain and Safety car mess of course). And maybe we'll finally get a proper comparison between STR drivers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Malllen

And, voila...

Alonso and Heidfeld complain to stewards

---

Both Heikki and Hamilton were on the wrong side of the track at that point. Did they forgot someone was still trying to get a lap. I'm not sure how much they slowed down others, but a 5 place grid position move downwards isn't too far fetched.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by janneppi

Both Heikki and Hamilton were on the wrong side of the track at that point. Did they forgot someone was still trying to get a lap. I'm not sure how much they slowed down other, but a 5 place grid position move downwards isn't too far fetched.

---

I agree.

But because Alonso AND Heidfeld were blocked....

10 places each? :D Would be interesting come Sunday. :p :

Fred wouldn't lodge a complaint against his old "con pinchy's" ;)