Strong black coffee. Check.
Illegible scrawled notes. Check.
Right then. Here
we go.
The first
thing to say about the 2012 Formula 1 Petronas Malaysia Grand Prix is that it was a very long
race. Two hours and forty eight minutes to be precise. My second race blog ever
and it was one of ‘those’ lunatic Spa type races featuring a huge round of pit
stops in the first few laps, torrential rain, a Safety Car, thunder and
lightning strikes, black-out in the commentary box, race red-flagged and that
was all by lap 9.
The husband chirruped
away (with more than a hint of glee) about how I’d have fun blogging this race.
I must admit I was getting ever so slightly nervous that we would have another
2011 Canadian GP on our hands until we were told there was a New Rule this year
that a race has a maximum time-limit of 4 hours. Given the Canadian GP was only
4 hours and 4 minutes long (and that was the longest race for several hundred
years), did we really need a New Rule? Maybe some of the dignitaries went and
complained to Bernie in Montreal that the race was too long. Was Lenny Kravitz
there do we know?
Anyway back to the
build-up when all that pesky rain was merely a distant black cloud in the sky.
To get us started, Sky did a slightly odd sepia intro with the faces of drivers
projected onto down-town derelict looking Kuala Lumpur buildings. As adverts go
for Malaysia, it wasn’t really Sky’s finest hour. In the interests of research
(and being notoriously terrible at geography), I googled Sepang. Until 2000, the Sepang district was just a flat stretch of
palm oil plantations and apparently the best eating options are at the airport.
I think that says everything. When the lottery millions come rolling in, I
might give Sepang a miss.
Sunglasses Watch: Button still sporting his Oliver Peoples Sheldrakes
and Schuey was rocking the ‘Top Gun’ look in his Ray Ban Aviators. I think the
1980s rule supreme in the Schumacher Mansion.
Rather alarmingly, I have written on my scribbled notes
‘build-up too long’. This is on line 4 of my notes. One of the problems with
Sky is that they literally bludgeon you to death with stats and analysis and
that frigging sky-pad for 90 minutes and by the start you’re almost a gibbering
wreck praying for the red lights to go off.
Oooooh Nerd
Alert. Just had a small segment showing the iconic 1979 title-winning Ferrari 312T4 (and Jody Scheckter). Its so ugly that in
fact its stunningly beautiful. Apparently Martin Brundle agrees too and has a
model of this car in his study. Martin Brundle has a study?! I sort of pictured
him as a man who creosotes his fence and mows the lawn on a non-race weekend. A
gross underestimation it would appear.
Next up was an interview with Ross Brawn and the
Mercedes drivers by Georgie Thompson. Expect withering looks and quizzical
eyebrows aplenty! According to Schuey, Mercedes were ‘nowhere’ last season. Get
used to it, Michael. At the end of that interview, the husband (inexplicably) said
“putting your eggs into one basket will only work if the basket comes off”. And
he wonders sometimes why I don’t respond.
First shot of the Weather Monitor of Doom. It says
there is a large rain shower at 10km north-east, moving towards the circuit.
Its like that scene from the Wizard of Oz when the tornado is coming and
Dorothy is trying to get home in time. Ok my mind is prone to tangents. Keep an
eye on this weather folks. It changes EVERYTHING.
Apparently it was very hot in Sepang. Just in case
we (as idiot viewers) could not imagine what it felt like being hot, Sky Towers
felt it incumbent upon themselves to explain the effects of heat. This involved
some footage of Natalie Pinkham in tight black lycra (in full make-up) jogging
along telling us how she felt like she was wrapped in clingfilm. Thanks,
Natalie. Honestly who comes up with these ideas – have they employed Gareth
from The Office?!
Some more fast-forwarding and it was time for
Martin’s Gridwalk. Today’s Random Celebrity at a Race was Owen Wilson. I bet
Martin has never seen an Owen Wilson film but manfully he tried to ‘have a
quick word’. And indeed it was a very quick word. It is safe to say that Owen
practically snubbed Our Martin. Bring back Lenny Kravitz with his loquacious
and charming ways. Who is Owen Wilson anyway? Luckily, as always, Christian
Horner was on hand (ie. actually waiting for Martin to turn around) for a quick
interview. Bless.
I caught sight
of Jake Humphrey strolling up the pit-lane followed by a phalanx of cameras.
Would he make eye contact with Martin? Would they blank each other? Its like
Angelina and Jennifer all over again. Anyway Jake was in Focused Professional Mode
and strode past quickly (hopefully he hadn’t spotted Owen Wilson and decided to
sprint up and have a ‘quick word’!).
Schuey’s car
was the last to make its way onto the track. Random Mercedes bod that Brundle
pounced on wasn’t aware of the reason for the delay but didn’t think there was
a problem. That meant there was a problem. OH NO. It was already raining but the
drivers were only on intermediate tyres. It was going to be carnage. Hurrah.
Time. For.
The. Start (just another two hours and forty eight minutes to go, folks!).
Both McLarens got away cleanly and this time Hamilton didn’t surrender his lead. Schumacher’s
Mercedes just appeared to go backwards at the start and at turn 4 he spun
massively after contact with Grosjean meaning by lap 2 he was in 16th
place. This was not in the Schumacher Rainmeister script and 4 year old was
once again absolutely distraught. He had even prayed to God for rain to help
Schumacher and you know what, God had listened.
As the heavens opened,
the cars all became very twitchy and the drivers started to flood into the pits
to change onto wet tyres. First into the pits for wets on lap 2 was Sergio
Perez. Remember that. As the camera panned to Grosjean’s car sitting in some
gravel (again), Hamilton radioed in to say he was aquaplaning. Never words any
F1 driver wants to utter in the middle of a race. Off into the pits then for
Lewis while Jenson reported that the last sector was like a lake. Spare a
thought for HRT, they finally qualify for a race and have to cope with
flash-flood conditions and lightning strikes on the circuit. Suddenly the TV
lost all picture before coverage resumed with a nervous sounding Croft telling
us the lights just went out in the commentary box. Grow a pair, man, think what
it was like for Karthikeyan dicing death in an HRT.
The Safety Car was
rapidly deployed (bet the safety car driver was overjoyed to get that message)
and this gave me a chance to work out who was where. The top 3 were Lewis,
Jenson and Perez. In 10th place, it was none other than an HRT (did
anyone see Schumacher actually get into a Mercedes, he didn’t just decide to
drive the HRT for a laugh did he?!). Possibly even more stunning was that
Vergne was in 7th place still on intermediates. WTF? Seriously
impressive.
Lap 9 – RACE
RED-FLAGGED. I scooted off to make a vat of coffee as I had one hour’s less
sleep than normal due to the start of BST and the swines inconsiderately put a
Grand Prix on early.
Well how about that,
some of the teams brought gazebos with them to keep the cars and drivers nice
and dry. McLaren definitely won the award for best gazebo. I like to think Martin Whitmarsh popped into John Lewis and got one just in case. Did Karthikeyan
have a gazebo? I was worried for him. We got a moody shot of Adrian Newey
looking like a cross between that sinister monk from the Da Vinci Code and the
husband on a holiday in Cornwall. The commentators were very downbeat about the
fact there had been no rain all week and now they’ve had the storm to end all
storms. Welcome to my world, dudes, of endless holidays where we arrive in
blazing sunshine the day before a cold front moves in. Life can be cruel.
We then got a
lot of ‘filler’. Mildly (ie. not really) interesting shots of Vettel and Alonso
having a big chat. Other best buds are seemingly Massa and Schumacher.
Reminiscing about those good ol’ Ferrari years. Hang on, Massa is still at
Ferrari. Well kind of. The poor old commentators at Sky Towers were really
struggling. I bet it was so much easier at the Beeb where they could simply hand
the mike over to Eddie Jordan and leave him to drone on ad infinitum about Jordan’s
1-2 at Spa in 1998 (in torrential rain). Is it time yet to mention Spa 1998 was
the subject of the husband’s first ever chat up line to me. He was a smooth
operator.
After an
eternity, we were told the race would resume behind the safety car on wets. On
lap 14, the safety car buggered off and all the drivers started coming to the
pits. Hamilton had a terrible pit-stop and ended up coming out behind Alonso.
Turning-point alert! Further disaster for McLaren as Jenson Button clattered
into the back of Karthikeyan and broke his front wing. Perez did his stop and
was still leading the race. At some point Alonso overtook Perez. Did we see
this? Who knows. Anyway the race order at lap 20 was Alonso, Perez and Hamilton
– and Hamilton was spectacularly failing to close on Perez.
According to
the Weather Monitor of Doom, there
was more rain coming. Oh FFS enough already. Button came in again for more
intermediates and ended up battling with Massa for 16th place. Oh
the ignominy. In the meantime, Perez was rapidly gobbling up Alonso.
On my increasingly incomprehensible notes, I
appear to have written ‘Massa in guinea-pig sticks’. Oh yes, Massa pitted for
slicks (in my opinion) to test them out for Alonso who was coming under
incredible pressure from Perez. Hamilton had another rubbish pit-stop. Hope the
therapist was on hand post-race. Poor Lewis.
Meanwhile, Perez was hunting down that Ferrari
like a man possessed. Pulling out fastest laps one after another. What a
stunning drive by the young man from Guadalajara.
Ten laps to go and Vettel suddenly got a puncture.
There were bits of rubber disintegrating everywhere. It would appear that
Vettel hit the back of Karthikeyan’s HRT. Poor Narain – he must feel like
he has a death-wish. First a torrential rainstorm then F1 world champions kept
crashing into him. Anyway, Vettel did a lot of fist-shaking. Kevin the Teenager
was in the house.
Nearly there! With 6 laps to go, Perez was now
RIGHT BEHIND Alonso, then suddenly he got a team radio message saying ‘be
careful, we need this position’. Er why wait until he practically catches Alonso
before calling him back? I’m not saying this is a coded message but Sauber has
a Ferrari engine. Just saying. Anyway Perez (in his car with a Ferrari engine) then
made a mistake so it was all academic.
Just as I turned to the husband and said I thought
Williams might win a race this year, plumes of smoke shot out of Maldonaldo’s
car on the penultimate lap. I am truly the kiss of death. There was also some
final drama with Vettel’s car when he was told to stop the car, then carry on
and then we heard ‘its an emergency, stop the car’. How mystifying.
Anyhoo, here are the results from the Malaysian
Grand Prix 2012:
- Alonso (qualified 9th and won the race – superb drive and it definitely made no difference at all that the 2nd place driver also had a Ferrari Engine and is a member of Ferrari’s young driver academy).
- Perez (a truly brilliant, brilliant drive and duh Brundle/Croft, of course he is the driver of the day).
- Hamilton (two poles, no wins – this could spook a more fragile character).
- Webber (another 4th place – yawn).
- Raikkonen (fully deserved alone for sending ice-creams to all the media – a loon but at least he’s a loon not a boring automaton of a driver).
- Senna (a fine drive).
Two weeks rest before China and another
crack-of-dawn start. See you there!
In the meantime, please do leave comments. I’d
love to hear from you!
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