F1 Malaysian Grand Prix: Thoughts, Preview and Predictions

By the usual criteria, the Australian Grand Prix wasn't a classic.  Very few drivers were able to take advantage of the double DRS zone and even when the tyres began to drop off, quicker cars struggled to pass slower ones.

Mark Webber couldn't pass Nico Rosberg after the first round of stops.  Pastor Maldonado couldn't pass Fernando Alonso from the safety car to the end.  And at the same time, a large train of cars led by Rosberg couldn't overtake Sergio Perez.

But the race was fascinating.  Fans yearn for unpredictability, and the Australian Grand Prix gave us plenty of that.  Did any of us foresee Red Bull recovering from a poor qualifying to match the McLarens, or Mercedes struggling for race pace?

And no self-respecting crystal ball would have told us we'd see the much-maligned Maldonado—in a Williams—near-enough keeping pace with the race leader whenever he got into some clean air.  But somehow, he did just that.

Throw in highlights such as Sebastian Vettel's pass on Rosberg, the final lap drama involving Perez and the touching waltz performed by Felipe Massa and Bruno Senna coming out of Turn 4, and it wouldn't be outlandish to say 2012 got off to a fantastic start.

And it gets even better.  Thanks to a crowded schedule, the Malaysian Grand Prix is this weekend.

Sepang International Circuit, Malaysia

The low-grip, temporary Albert Park circuit is narrow, dominated by medium-speed, short corners and featuring few genuine overtaking opportunities. 

Sepang by contrast is a wide, Tilke-designed track featuring a mixture of fast, high-speed sweeps and tighter, low-speed turns.  The exit of many corners lead immediately into the entry for the next, and there are (in theory) at least three decent overtaking spots.

The difference between the two circuits means a car which was quick around the Australian track will not necessarily be quick in Malaysia. 

While soft and medium tyres were used in Melbourne, Pirelli are taking the medium and hard compounds to Sepang.  The track is typically harder on the tyres than Albert Park.

That much we know for sure, but much remains shrouded in mystery.  We won't have answers to most of our questions until Sunday, but there's no harm attempting to provide some answers beforehand.

Well, other than the very real chance of looking a little bit stupid...

Will McLaren Maintain Their Edge?

Lewis Hamilton was the man to beat on Saturday, claiming his 20th pole position.  A poor start saw him spend most of the race in 2nd place, most likely irritated with himself for losing the lead.  The safety car dropped him behind Sebastian Vettel, and he finished 3rd.

Jenson Button wasn't as quick in qualifying, but did his talking on Sunday.  The Englishman had an uneventful race, and never looked in danger of being caught by the chasing pack.  He lost the lead only when he pitted, and set the fastest lap on the way to his 13th career win.

McLaren haven't made a better start to a season since 1998's dominant performance, and while they're obviously not that good in 2012, the Woking-based team do appear to have the best overall package.

In Melbourne, the car looked beautifully poised and balanced in every stage of every corner.  Everything was working perfectly—perhaps karma paying McLaren back for making an attractive car.

And it worked equally well for Hamilton and Button, despite their somewhat dissimilar driving styles. 

The reason McLaren had it so easy was because they had excellent pace all weekend.  Red Bull had it in the race, but not in qualifying.  If the Austrian team can find a fix for their qualifying speed, McLaren's advantage will be gone.

It's a different sort of track, and the tyre compounds will be different.  I don't doubt Red Bull will qualify closer, but McLaren should retain an edge on Saturday. 

And it's that edge which makes them my favourite to take the chequered flag on Sunday.

Another Tough Weekend for Ferrari?

If one compares the Ferrari at the start of the Australian weekend with the Ferrari at the end, it's impossible to overlook how much progress Fernando Alonso appeared to have made.

I say "appeared to have made" because while 5th place looked great, it was the same sluggish car which started the weekend, and it really had no business finishing that high.

The Ferrari has any number of issues, chief among them—according to team principle Stefano Domenicali—being top-end speed and traction.

But the most obvious problem to a viewer is that of aerodynamics—specifically, how the car behaves in the corners.  We got some good in-car footage during practice and qualifying, and the Ferrari has a tendency to do its own thing.  When that happens halfway through a corner, it's a major problem.

In practice, the red car looked ghastly.  One minute everything looked OK as the driver turned towards the apex, the next he was fighting oversteer and almost losing the car mid-corner.

During the race it didn't seem as poor—fuel loads and a different driving style reduced the unpredictable nature of the beast—but it was by no means a quick car.  On pure pace the Ferrari looked fifth best, maybe sixth.

Large sections of the Sepang circuit require the driver to turn in and trust the car to do what he tells it to do.  The man at the wheel has to believe that his machine will go where he wants it to go through the long, fast and sweeping corners.

Can either of the Ferrari drivers do that with any degree of confidence?  Probably not.

Alonso will probably hope to scrape into Q3, and take it from there.  And Felipe Massa will likely struggle to another pointless finish.

Can Red Bull Get Closer to McLaren in Qualifying?

Many people—me included, I must admit—tipped Red Bull to be the class of the field in Melbourne.  But qualifying suggested they were nowhere near the McLarens, around the same pace as Lotus and Mercedes.

Then in the race, they were near-enough as quick as anyone.

It could be that they miss the lost rear-end grip from the blown diffuser more under low-fuel conditions than the other teams.  Perhaps—because the Red Bull system was among the best—they've been caught out more than their rivals, who had more experience in finding the grip through other means.

If, as it appears, the problem does lie in the grip department, the "green" track won't have helped.  Over the course of a race weekend, cars lay down rubber around the track, and in turn the track—now considered "rubbered in"—gives up more grip. 

If your car lacks grip relative to your rivals, it'll be more noticeable when the track is green.

As the track rubbers in during the race, a car with less "natural" grip gains the most from it.

Street circuits like Albert Park usually start off race weekends that way.  With the rain and reduced running on Friday, it would have been even worse than one would expect in qualifying. 

It was noticeable after the safety car that Red Bull took significantly longer to get their tyres up to temperature than McLaren did—Button opened up a substantial gap in a very short space of time.  That could have affected them in qualifying too.

In Malaysia, the issues which seem to have affected their qualifying in Australia—tyre warming and residual dirt—should not have as much influence.  Sepang is harder on the tyres than Albert Park, and it's a dedicated, full-time race track. 

With that in mind, one would expect Red Bull to go better here, but I don't think they have the raw qualifying pace of McLaren.  Though Vettel has a good chance of landing on the front row, Hamilton in particular will probably have the edge over a single lap.

Can Mercedes Solve Their Race Pace Issues?

In Melbourne, Michael Schumacher qualified a second-career-best 4th.  Nico Rosberg failed to put together a quality lap and started 7th, but his Q2 lap would have placed him 5th.  The pace was definitely there, and everything was looking up.

But in the race, everything fell apart.  Most notably the tyres.

Schumacher suffered a gearbox problem on Lap 10 while running 3rd and retired, but he was losing a second per lap to the leading McLarens. 

Rosberg got a good start, but soon fell away.  He held up Fernando Alonso, then Mark Webber, before finding himself cooped up behind Sergio Perez's one-stopping Sauber—one of the few cars in the race with worse tyres than his Silver Arrow. 

Though the TV cameras missed it, the two collided after slowing for the yellow flags brought out due to Pastor Maldonado's last-lap crash.  As you might expect, each man blamed the other.

Mercedes have excellent single-lap pace, but suffer from extreme tyre wear, seemingly more than any other team on the grid.  This was evident in testing and again in Melbourne, the German cars seeing an alarming drop-off in lap times over the course of a stint.

They can't do much about it with just a week between the races, and it's likely they'll suffer the same difficulties in Sepang.  Pirelli are taking harder compounds than they used in Australia, but the Malaysian track is somewhat tougher on the tyres.

I think we'll see the same as we did in Malaysia—strong qualifying efforts, but disappointing race pace.

Will HRT Qualify?

Even by their usual standards, HRT were very slow in Australia.  Having done no preseason testing, the Spanish team struggled to get their cars ready for the practice sessions and had almost no running prior to qualifying.

Despite doing reasonably well after such a wretched start to the weekend, Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan were not quite fast enough.  The 107% rule caught them out for the second year in a row, and the race stewards refused to grant an exemption.

So instead of racing, HRT packed up early and headed to Malaysia.

The good news is they should make it onto the grid this Sunday.  The team arrived at Melbourne with nothing—now, they at least have some useful data.  A bit of running in the Friday and Saturday practice sessions should give a better understanding of the car, and see them safely below the 107% time.

The bad news?  It's difficult to see a scenario which places them anywhere other than 23rd and 24th at the start.  But hey, any progress is good progress.

Can Lotus Translate Their Pace into Results?

It was a few minutes after 7am on Saturday morning.  Despite the ungodly hour they were on in the UK, I'd decided to stay awake all night to watch the third practice session and qualifying, which was now into the final minutes of Q3.  As you'd expect, tiredness had well and truly set in.

Then "Romain Grosjean" appeared on my screen, with a big black and yellow "2" next to it.  The entire coffee output of Peru couldn't have woken me up any quicker.

A few seconds later, Jenson Button knocked the Frenchman down a place, but even 3rd was a shock.  I got the impression Lotus were competitive, but Grosjean—seen as the weaker link—beaten by only the McLarens?

No one appeared to have expected that.

The race didn't go so well for the Frenchman.  A poor start dropped Romain to sixth, and on the second lap a collision with Pastor Maldonado's Williams forced him to retire with suspension damage.

Kimi Raikkonen had a dreadful qualifying, only setting the 18th fastest time following an error at Turn 12.  Fans with good memories will recall he made an almost-identical mistake back in 2003 at the same corner.  That one left him 15th.

In 2003 he recovered to 3rd.  In 2012, a no less impressive drive saw the Finn come home in 7th.

It's difficult to say how fast the Lotus actually is in race trim, because Raikkonen spent most of the race in traffic.  But on the few clear laps he had, it looked promising.  And winter testing suggested the Lotus was especially kind to its tyres—that may prove crucial over the course of the year.

Barring any major mishaps, Lotus have a strong chance of taking a good haul of points away from Malaysia.  They won't win, but they're not a bad long-odds bet for a minor podium finish.

And What of the Dark Horses?

Perhaps the most unusual thing about the Australian Grand Prix was that so many teams showed promise at various points during the weekend.  McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Lotus all looked capable of scoring good points based on some aspect of their performance.

Ferrari look capable thanks to the ability of Alonso to drive around problems, and we shouldn't dismiss Force India, despite their poor opening weekend.

But the three teams looking unusually good at this stage are Williams, Sauber and Toro Rosso. 

Sauber qualified poorly—due to a mixture of bad luck and reliability issues—but the race pace of Sergio Perez in particular was excellent.  The Mexican started 22nd and last due to a penalty, but his genuine speed and one-stop strategy saw him come home in 8th place.

Kamui Kobayashi's time in Q1 was good enough for 8th on the final grid, but the Japanese complained of reduced grip on his Q2 run.  A damaged rear wing affected his race performance, but he still achieved a credible 6th place finish.

It's difficult to judge exactly how good a position they're in, as neither driver had a "normal" race.  At the risk of being too specific, both men should land between 9th and 12th in qualifying, and be in for a good chance of points on Sunday.

Williams very nearly scored more points in the first race of 2012 than they managed in the whole of 2011.  Pastor Maldonado's exceptional race was ruined by his last-lap crash, but the performance is certainly there.

Bruno Senna's incident-packed race ended after a collision with Felipe Massa.  The Brazilian didn't do well in Australia, and was comprehensively beaten by Maldonado in every department.

How competitive is the FW34?  Very, if you can get it working to your liking.  Maldonado did that in Australia—Senna did not.  Does that mean it's difficult to set up, or just that Bruno had a bad weekend?

Probably the latter.  Both cars should be ahead of the Saubers, but it'll be close. 

Question marks remain over how well the Grove-based team will develop their machine over the course of the season, but at the moment they're seemingly close to Lotus and Mercedes on race pace.

Toro Rosso are better than their race performances suggested.  A terrible first lap saw Daniel Ricciardo in 21st, and Jean-Eric Vergne fared little better in 16th.  From then on it was recovery mode, and Ricciardo made the most of the final lap confusion to steal 9th.

Like so many others, the team looked good when they managed to get some clean air, though probably not as quick as (Maldonado's) Williams.

With a good qualifying effort and less misfortune on the opening lap, Toro Rosso will again be in a position to score points.  Trouble is, so many others will be too.  A weekend spent in the close company of—but probably behind—Sauber is in the cards.

Force India are difficult to read.  We saw little of early retiree Nico Hulkenberg, but he did put in a very impressive qualifying run.  Teammate Paul di Resta is a quick driver, but he had a very poor weekend, qualifying badly and racing slowly.

He should go better this weekend, and Hulkenberg showed the car does have some pace.

But where they'll end up is anyone's guess.  The Indian team are the great unknown of the midfield, and could end up anywhere on the grid from 8th to 17th. 

Closing Predictions

The layout of Sepang places greater emphasis on the aerodynamic package of the car than Albert Park and highlights minor deficiencies more, so (unfortunately) I don't think we'll see the field as close together as they were in the first round.

On the bright side, passing should be somewhat easier, meaning we'll (in theory) be able to see the true pace of the cars better than we could in Melbourne.

My prediction for Australia wasn't especially good, so hopefully this one will go better.

McLaren and Red Bull should be at the front, and I think Lotus are third best overall.  Taking all things into account, Mercedes and Williams will finish relatively close together.

Fernando Alonso will probably put the Ferrari much nearer to the front than it should be, so he'll be in there too, with Massa further back.  Sauber are probably quicker than Toro Rosso and I'll put Force India here too.

Caterham don't seem to have the pace right now to really join the midfield battle, but they'll be comfortably ahead of Marussia.  HRT will bring up the rear.

Unless it rains, in which case you can ignore every one of the 2,900 words you've just read.