You wait all year for an
F1 race and whatd’ya know, two come along in 7 days. I’d barely drawn breath
since completing my humungous Australian GP blog when it was time to sprint
downstairs to catch (most of) the Qualifying in Sepang. Admittedly at the far
more civilised hour of 8am so by this point my children had been up for hours and
4 year old was already getting himself into a state about the whereabouts of Michael Schumacher. This
week he drew a picture of Schumacher for his school diary and his teacher wrote
‘my favourite driver is Jenson Button’. Must be the cool shades (which I did
find a moment to google – Oliver Peoples Sheldrake apparently).
Between the two races, there had been some boring ‘your car is better
than ours and its not fair’ challenge from Red Bull and Lotus on the legality
of the Mercedes rear wing and the front wing F-duct (nope, no idea either!). I
love the way its always a leading team that challenges these innovative devices
while the likes of HRT don’t give a flying fig and are just frantically trying
to build a new a car that Martin Brundle won’t keep calling a ‘mobile chicane’.
Anyway the FIA ruled in favour of Mercedes presumably moments after
receiving a fax from Mr Bernard Charles Ecclestone (“do not, I repeat, do not
mess with Schumacher’s fast car”). I like to think he is old-school and still fires
off faxes to all corners of his empire. Only joking, Bernie, if you’re reading
this – oh and also, my Dad says ‘hi’ (random fact: my Dad bought his first ever
car from Bernie!).
Thoughtfully knowing I was writing a blog, the husband had started
watching the qualifying (er, what do we have Sky Plus for?) so I had to ask
what had happened so far in Q1. I can’t remember what he said as my 4 year old
was bleating away incessantly about Schumacher who was topping the timesheets
until that arch-villain Mark Webber (who would have thought?) had the temerity
to pip him and set the fastest time. Brilliantly though for HRT, they managed
to qualify both cars for the race and even better they won’t even start last
due to Kovalainen's
five-place grid penalty. What’s the betting that an HRT does something daft
while being lapped by a front-runner?!
Not a great qualifying for Williams as in Q2, Pastor
Maldonaldo managed to slither off into a load of gravel and trash part of his
car. It all got a bit fast and frenetic towards the end and with a couple of
minutes to go, Schuey and Massa were languishing in 11th and 12th
place respectively. One driver out of
the two managed to make it into the top ten and it wasn’t Felipe. A precision
lap by Schuey (it was never in doubt) to finish 4th ensure he made
it through to the final shoot-out.
Apparently there was a fire in the Lotus hospitality building
overnight. I hope someone didn’t forget to take out the sausage rolls. I quite
like the idea of some VIPs all trying to sneak into the McLaren tent to pilfer
a ham sandwich and some pringles. Actually Martin Whitmarsh is such a bloody
nice bloke he’s probably offer round the nibbles himself.
Anyway time for Q3. This is what it all comes down to.
Alarmingly, we were told that Mercedes were only doing one run this session. By
this point, Lewis Hamilton had already done an absolutely blistering lap to
gain provisional pole. Rosberg was the first of the two Mercedes’ drivers out
and basically made a complete hash of it. I wondered last week whether Nico
could cope with the pressure of having a potentially race-winning car and it
would seem possibly not. Also it can’t be great having your 43 year old
team-mate suddenly out-qualifying and out-racing you. Schumacher went purple in
the 1st and 3rd sector and managed to set the 2nd fastest
time. Much whooping from 4 year old! The last time Michael Schumacher qualified so high up the grid was at the
Japanese GP in 2006 when he was a mere 37 year old whippersnapper.
Not to be outdone, at the death, Button did a stunning lap
and ensured there would be another McLaren 1-2 for the second race in a row. So
the line-up for tomorrow is 1. Hamilton, 2. Button, 3. Schumacher, 4. Webber,
5. Raikkonen, 6. Vettel. Gazooks, that means 5 world champions on the front 3
rows. Sky Towers will be verily giddy with excitement!
There was a great moment in the post-qualifying press
conference when Schuey was asked if it could have been pole today. Cue death
stare and a classic Schuey response that they had achieved the maximum that was
available! Interestingly by the end of the press conference, Lewis didn’t seem
too sure after all that being on pole was a good thing (as it was a long haul
down to turn 1. Yikes, don’t say he’s going to pieces already. There was just
time for the camera to show Vettel with his Kevin the Teenager face going into
the FIA garage to be weighed. Not sure what is worse for him, qualifying 6th
or being out-qualified by Mark Webber. We will see what he is made of tomorrow
and what thrills, spills and crashes the Malaysian GP has in store for us.
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