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Malaysian Grand Prix preview
The Radical
Roar Rookie
22nd March, 2012
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The Radical
Roar Rookie
22nd March, 2012
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A mere week after the 2012 For­mula One sea­son com­menced in Aus­tralia, round two is upon us, as the trav­el­ling cir­cus rolls into Malaysia for the 14th time.

The Sep­ang Inter­na­tional Cir­cuit designed by Her­mann Tilke made its debut on the cal­en­dar in 1999, in a race won by Ferrari’s Eddie Irvine.

At three hundred and ten kilo­me­tres and com­pris­ing fifty-six laps, the event is sim­i­lar in length to Mel­bourne, though con­di­tions will be less for­giv­ing on drivers.

Though he has yet to stand on the podium since his return to the sport, let alone win a race, Michael Schu­macher holds the win record at Malaysia, hav­ing pre­vailed in 2000, 2001 and 2004 dur­ing his hal­cyon days at Fer­rari, so it should come as no great sur­prise that the con­struc­tor also holds the records for most wins at the cir­cuit, with five in total.

The big ques­tion on everybody’s lips is whether any­body can catch McLaren after their rel­a­tive dom­i­nance last week­end, Jen­son But­ton hav­ing con­firmed the Albert Park cir­cuit as his domain fol­low­ing his third tri­umph from the last four events in Australia.

It is often said that lit­tle can be read into the events of the sea­son’s open­ing race, which for fif­teen of the past sev­en­teen sea­sons has been Aus­tralia, so it will be intrigu­ing to see how sim­i­lar the out­come this week­end is come Sunday.

Some­thing to con­sider is the long and at times sweep­ing straights of the Sep­ang cir­cuit, an anom­aly among Tilke’s courses, down more than any­thing due to the track being the first on the cal­en­dar designed by the Ger­man. They could lend a sig­nif­i­cant advan­tage to sev­eral outfits.

The first name that comes to mind is Mer­cedes, hav­ing pio­neered the con­tro­ver­sial DRS-activated F-duct which worked effec­tively dur­ing qual­i­fy­ing at Melbourne.

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If they can get on top of their achilles heel – the W03 seem­ingly more vul­ner­a­ble to tyre degra­da­tion than other cars – then we can expect to see Nico Ros­berg and Michael Schu­macher giv­ing McLaren and Red Bull a run for their money.

As always, pit­stops will be cru­cial, and with Pirelli bring­ing the medium and hard com­pounds to Malaysia, teams will have to con­sider their strate­gies very wisely.

The 2009 race is the most noto­ri­ous in the circuit’s his­tory, going down as the first event since Ade­laide 1991 to be aban­doned with half-points awarded, after Malaysia’s tra­di­tional mon­soonal del­uge con­sumed the track.

Last sea­son, Sebas­t­ian Vet­tel fol­lowed on from his vic­tory at Mel­bourne, cruis­ing to the che­quered flag ahead of Lewis Hamil­ton and Renault’s Nick Heidfeld.

All eyes will be on Fer­rari to see whether their woes con­tinue, and what Hamilton’s response to his teammate’s dom­i­na­tion last week­end will be, while HRT will be sim­ply push­ing to make it onto the grid for the first time this season.

A team to look out for is Williams, despite Pas­tor Maldonado’s unfor­tu­nate final lap demise at Mel­bourne. A return to Renault power and the arrival of new per­son­nel seems to have rein­vig­o­rated the outfit.

Throw them into the equa­tion and we can expect one com­pet­i­tive race on Sun­day evening.

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Predictions
Pole: Lewis Hamil­ton
Win­ner: Jen­son Button
Sec­ond: Lewis Hamil­ton
Third: Sebas­t­ian Vettel
Fourth: Mark Web­ber
Fifth: Michael Schu­macher
Fastest Lap: Michael Schu­macher

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