Malaysian GP - It's Checo Time!

I can tell if a race is a good one. It’s when I realise my heart is beating fast.

The alternative is that I’m in quite serious trouble, so I’m sticking with the F1 theory. This race had the blood circulating at a fairly alarming rate...

The weekend was preceded by rumours that Massa might get replaced at Ferrari following a poor weekend in Australia. So lousy was it that Ferrari even replaced his chassis, in case it was that causing the problem. Mercedes were also in the spotlight for a frankly baffling bit of technology that fed air from the rear wing back over the surface of the car to the front wing. Nope – I’ve got absolutely no idea either.

Lotus were on fire – literally, as their hospitality unit caught fire, burning Kimi’s helmet (insert inappropriate joke here). The Kimster also had a 5 place grid penalty hanging over him, following a gearbox change.

HRT had a brilliant start to their weekend when they managed to show up without going bust, with 2 whole cars, and actually go fast enough in Q1 not to be dropped for failing the 107% rule. The hapless Massa barely managed to scrape through to Q2.

He wound up 12^th, and Q3 saw the McLaren’s lock out the front row again, with Hamilton once more on pole, with both Mercedes, Red Bull and Lotus cars joined by Alonso in 8th and Perez 9^th, after Raikkonen’s penalty dropped him from 5^th to 10^th. It seemed as if Ferrari hadn’t just moved away from the top 2 teams, but fallen behind 2 more as well.

Malaysia’s charming weather livened things up at the start, with all the drivers starting on inters on the damp track. Hamilton maintained his lead at the start whilst, back in the mist, Schumacher got tagged by Grosjean, the resulting spin all the more remarkable in that no-one hit the former rainmaster. Webber scrabbled up to 3^rd as the rain got heavier, and Perez dived in on lap 2, gambling that the wet tyres might be the right move. Oh boy – weren’t they just.

Grosjean continued his tour of the racing world’s grave traps, spinning out on lap 4, and Button was all over his team-mate a couple of laps later as Hamilton stopped.

By lap 7 the volume of rain meant the Safety Car was deployed, with the race red-flagged 2 laps later. After a 50 minute break (during which Kimi probably had had a couple of cans of coke and a choc ice) things got underway behind the Safety Car again, and as it peeled off on lap 13, Button left it just one circuit before pitting, promoting Perez to 2^nd, following his wise early tyre change. Button jumped Hamilton when the latter got blocked by Massa in the pit-lane scramble, but JB’s afternoon was effectively over shortly afterwards as he clumsily tried to pass Karthikeyan’s HRT (for position!) and the pair collided, breaking Jenson’s front wing.

Lap 16 saw Alonso pass Perez for the lead, and Rosberg began an unhappy descent through the field, being passed by Vettel, Raikkonen and Webber in quick order.

More rain added to the complications on lap 25, and Massa’s season of mediocrity continued as di Resta and Vergne cruised past the struggling Brazilian.

A distinct lack of knowing what the hell the weather was going to do was hampering the drivers by lap 36, all hanging on with fading intermediate tyres. Was it going to rain again? Change to wets? Hang on for slicks?

Suddenly, Perez’s smoother-than-a-mink-who-used-good-conditioner driving style and tyres management was paying dividends again, as he began reeling in Alonso.

Ricciardo braved it first and went onto slicks, proving to be instantly fast and tempting Webber to do the same the following lap. With slicks now definitely the in-thing, Alonso dived in on lap 41, with Perez staying out another lap longer.

The changing conditions and drivers switching to slicks saw a succession of weird fasted laps from Red Bull, Williams and even Caterham, and Perez proved his genuine pace by again closing on Alonso.

Vettel’s normal cool demeanour failed big time as his pulled in a little too quickly after passing Karthikeyan, and snagged a tyre on the HRT’s front wing. Seb seemed confused over what finger to use when not winning, so opted for using his middle one, whilst simultaneously trying to control his bucking bronco Red Bull.

With 6 laps remaining Perez was lining up Alonso for the lead, when a terrified team radioed him to let him know they REALLY needed that position. Still trying hard, Sergio went off track briefly, increasing the gap to Alonso to 5 seconds.

Maldonado continued his season of drive well, fail at the end, as his engine let go on the last lap but one, whilst Vettel was the victim of a Red Bull comedy routine that involved telling their driver to stop, go go go, stop it’s an emergency, Gas mark 5, bake for 20 minutes and I’ll have a P, please Bob.

Alonso won by a slim margin from Perez and there were tears from both pitwalls: of relief from Ferrari, and joy from Sauber, Sergio’s brilliant drive landing the team their highest result ever. Hamilton’s probably considering getting the 3^rd step of the podium engraved with his name, whilst the points scorers were from 9 different teams, with Webber, Raikkonen, Senna, di Resta, Vergne, Hulkenberk and Schumacher scoring as well.

Amazingly, Alonso leads the championship in a car no-one thinks is any good.

A fine example of F1 maturity showed up post race. Button put his hand up for the HRT incident, whilst Vettel firmly placed the blame for his incident at Karthikeyan’s door. Not so much fun, when you’re not winning, is it Seb?

(Angry rap accompaniment by Eminem's "The Slim Shady LP". Wicky wicky wicky!)