Malaysian Grand Prix Review

But it could have been oh so different. Although one must always take free practice times with a pinch of salt, Jarno Trulli went one better than in Melbourne, where he was 2nd fastest on Friday, to put his Jordan at the top of the time sheets in Malaysia. Sepang is now clearly a Ferrari stronghold, so it was no surprise to see both scarlet cars up there, but to see the Jaguars of Eddie Irvine and Luciano Burti 5th and 8th was more than a pleasant surprise. Was it the car, or was it due to the Michelin tyres?

On the Friday, Ralf Schumacher's Williams was a fairly anonymous 10th, while Juan-Pablo Montoya didn't even record a time after a succession of problems that tested his patience. Who would have thought, then, that the next day the Grove machines would be challenging the Ferraris for top honours? On Saturday morning, not only had the times well and truly smashed last year's pole, but Ralf was 2nd quickest, thanks no less to a car which was some 10kph faster than anyone else down the straight.

Ralf held pole for most of the session until the Ferrari boys' last runs, which planted both red cars on the front row, relegating the Williams to 3rd. Neutral observers, though, would have been willing on the younger Schumi to take Williams' first pole in over 50 races. Hakkinen jumped to an undeserved 4th on his final lap, although Coulthard in 8th was more indicative of where McLaren really was.

In the end, Jaguar were back in the midfield, the Saubers weren't special on Petronas' home ground, while the Prosts disappointed mightily once again. In completely dry trim it was little surprise to see Benetton, Arrows and the European Minardis anchored to the back, continuing their Melbourne form. After yet more mechanical problems throughout practice, Giancarlo Fisichella and particularly Jenson Button must have been pulling their hair out.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Giancarlo Fisichella
(for his hideous attempt at an angle park)

Looking at some of the shenanigans before the race even got under way, you just knew this was one strange afternoon. Firstly, the usually reliable Honda engine in Frentzen's car misfires on the warm-up lap. Then Fisichella tries to line up on the wrong side of the track before leaving his car parked diagonally across the track, in one of the funniest things I've ever seen (for which he easily earns our 'Reject of the Race' award), forcing the start to be aborted.

Then Montoya can't get his car started the second time around, and runs off to take the spare car to start from the pit lane. I can't recall ever seeing that before, and one wonders if it's even permitted, but he did it and got away with it. A shame that we never got to see what he could do in the race. Also a shame that Kimi Raikkonen broke his transmission when the lights went out ­ it would have been interesting to see how he would have negotiated the first two tight corners. We still aren't convinced.

While Ralf was sent to the back of the field, Hakkinen also lost out when he had to dodge the spinning Williams, allowing Coulthard, who had made a terrific getaway, to move up to 4th behind Trulli. Hakkinen fell to 8th, behind even Jos Verstappen, who from 18th on the grid had taken the tightest lines into those first two corners, knocking out an indignant Irvine in the process, and coming out in a remarkable 6th. A candidate for start of the year if ever I saw one.

Two laps in and Panis' day was done, an oil leak causing a spectacular engine fire that was more frightening, and left Olivier more shaken, than anyone has actually made out thus far. For when the BAR spun backwards into the gravel, flames momentarily engulfed the whole car. And then the rain came.

Murray Walker described it quite aptly: "When it rains in Malaysia, it doesn't fall by the bucket-loads ­ it falls by the OCEAN-LOADS!" Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad has since said that he was pleased that the F1 drivers got a taste of real Malaysian monsoonal weather. Honestly, I doubt the drivers would agree.

Now Sepang is not that big a track, but it was amazing to see how one end of the track remained completely dry. But where it rained, there was enough water to drown the track, and visibility fell to near-zero. How anyone managed to get back to the pits to change tyres is a mystery.

The logical choice was to go for full wets, and no team can be criticised for making that decision. In hindsight, Ferrari of course struck it rich by making a last-minute decision to put both cars on intermediates, but their indecisiveness and unusual inefficiency saw both Ferraris in the pits for a total of around 80 seconds. However, there is no point in contemplating whether or not they were lucky to get away with this or not, as the safety car had been rightly deployed. Neither Ferrari driver was ever going to lose a lap.

What we can say, though, is that both Barrichello and Schumacher may have been lucky that the safety car stayed out for as long as it did. Frankly, that it circulated for so many laps was a joke. If the best drivers in the world can't hack some extremely wet conditions with full wet tyres, with the worst scenario being spinning off into gravel traps as big as the Sahara desert (as they are at Sepang), then F1 might as well convert to an American-style system where they don't race in the wet.

As it was, the length the safety car was out on the track negated the point of having full wets on, and played right into Ferrari's hands. The cynical might even suggest, as Martin Brundle on ITV did, that since in such situations the officials may consult with drivers as to when the track is ready, that it was Schumacher who asked the safety car to stay out that long. Oh well, conspiracy theories are always fun.

So the race got back under way, and Frentzen who was 2nd quickly fell back, with Verstappen moving up to an amazing 2nd place, and the Ferraris tearing through faster than a bull in Pamplona, while Ralf was also making progress. Within a few laps, Schumacher and Barrichello had moved from 10th and 9th respectively to 1st and 2nd, and that was the race, folks. Barrichello is said to be disgruntled at Michael's opportunistic move past him, but this was never seen on camera.

Barrichello ended up two-stopping (in terms of fuel stops), but such was the gap he could pull out on Coulthard when he was on inters and David on wets, that he could make that extra stop and still finish ahead of the McLaren. The fact that Coulthard and Frentzen made one less stop is what gave them their eventual 3rd and 4th place finishes.

5th to 7th were Ralf, Hakkinen and an unlucky Verstappen. Ralf made use of a lighter fuel load and his remarkable straight-line speed in the middle stint to blast past Mika and Jos, but by the end of the race his brakes were struggling big-time, looking at the amount of brake dust that was spraying out. But without the first corner spin, Ralf probably would have come 3rd, so 5th was a let-down. Whether or not Williams will mount a sustained challenge against Ferrari and McLaren remains to be seen.

Only at the end, when the track was fully dry, that Hakkinen put in the quick laps. Unfortunately, the rest of his drive conformed to some trends we saw last year. It does seem as though, when the cards don't fall his way, Hakkinen can give the appearance of losing interest. That was the case here. And Nurburgring and Suzuka last year showed his distaste for damp tracks, when conversely Michael Schumacher is so good. That was also the case here.

Verstappen nothing short of a sensational race. He set the 7th fastest lap time, and probably deserved 6th place. But throughout practice he was nowhere to be seen, and it's probably fair to say that, without inclement weather, the Arrows/Asiatech package will not challenge consistently.

Reliability is something which even European Minardi seems to have. Having had no testing between Melbourne and Sepang, for Paul Stoddart's team to get both cars easily within the 107% barrier, and for both Tarso Marques and Fernando Alonso to finish, having kept out of trouble and stayed out of the way of the leaders throughout the race, was a fantastic effort. After his troubles in Melbourne, it was particularly pleasing to see Marques perform to his ability.

Apart from the Ferrari domination, it was certainly good to see other cars fighting the McLarens for the other spots, even if the usual suspects ended up in the points. It bodes well for the rest of the season, while Barrichello's pace in practice has been sufficiently impressive to suggest that he could give Michael some real headaches on Rubens' home soil at Interlagos.