Malaysian GP –Preview. No sooner than the dust has settled from a crazy Australian GP than we are in Malaysia for round two of the season. As is normal for this part of the world at this time of year, the weather is going to be very hot and humid with the chance of a thunderstorm at any time. The weather forecasters have unable or unwilling to commit to a firm prediction of rain, but as we get nearer the time for the cars to hit the track some of the more sensational forecasts are scaling down the threat of rain and just covering themselves with ‘chance of thunderstorms’. Looking at the weather for the last few days, any rain has been light and fallen in the early morning and those conditions look set to continue. As a result I will avoid the temptation to have speculative bets on big priced outsiders, for now at least. The front cover of today’s Autosport magazine has a headline – ‘How the new rules have torn up the form book’ but that is probably pushing things a little too far. The new regulations did spice up the show, but as previewed by this column last week, the nature of the Albert Park track was always going to test the drivers much more than the tracks used for testing, and so it proved. That does not mean that we are going to see fifteen or sixteen retirements as a matter of course throughout the season but rather that Melbourne was the first day back at school and some of the naughty boys got a bit excited with their new toys. Seeing Massa hitting the wall on lap one could not be described as a surprise. He was making mistakes through the winter in testing, so in the heat of battle, he was always likely to have a few ‘moments’. A first corner pile up is nothing new in Melbourne and that is just as much down to drivers being ‘race rusty’ than any effect of the new regulations. Certainly, the loss of engine braking and TC has made things more difficult for the drivers, but the combination of the nature of the track and the extra adrenalin of it being the first race for five months, made for a race full of incidents. Could we see a repeat in Malaysia? I doubt it, so long as it stays dry. The two tracks are quite different with Melbourne being a fastish, narrow, ‘point and squirt’ quasi street circuit and Sepang being a very wide, slower track with plenty of room for escaping from errors intact. No walls to hit and plenty of run off areas were the drivers can bale out rather than have a crash. The very fact that so many drivers were involved in crashes in Australia will have acted as a wake up call and they will be that bit more circumspect this weekend. There will be a fair amount of retirements but that is more likely to be the result of the machinery being severely tested by back to back races held in very hot conditions. If there was a big surprise in Melbourne it was just how badly Ferrari performed. Apart from the first free practice session they never looked happy and the double whammy of the two engine failures and both drivers driving like a couple of average rookies, meant they were lucky to get a point. With just a few days to sort out their mechanical problems they are going into this race with a big question mark over the cars reliability and an even bigger one over Massa’s ability to be competitive without driver aids. The team say they have found the problem, a fuel-feed problem partly caused by the hot conditions encountered in Australia, that it has been addressed and no problems are expected this time round. We shall see, it will be just as hot here and they say that improving the engine mapping will cure to the problem. Whether this as any knock on effects remains to be seen. Ferrari are on the back foot, but they still have a very good car in race trim. Raikkonen looked very dangerous after a great start and if he can get a decent run up near the front of the pack, he can be very much one of the contenders. Massa is another kettle of fish. He will have more room for error but this track does feature a fair amount of hard breaking into slow corners and he will have to be much more controlled than he was last week. He has never finished better than 5th here and despite having a pole position under his belt, he might well find the podium once again eludes him. The McLaren team were expected to bee playing catch up to the red cars after winter testing, but that situation has been turned on its head after just one race. The MP4-23 was fast and reliable in both qualifying and the race and there was no sign of any excessive real tyre degradation, despite the very hot conditions. Hamilton was pushed for pole but never really looked under any real pressure in the race. Kovalainen set fastest lap but Hamilton never needed to give it the full Monty at any stage. Perhaps we will see the real potential of the car if he has a hard charging Raikkonen up his chuff on Sunday afternoon. It does appear that Ferrari are not competitive in qualifying, something they have been happy to admit after the opening race. Indeed it could be that BMW will be the biggest threat to the Silver cars on Saturday. Certainly Kubica looked like he could have pinched pole but for a mistake on his flying lap. He did have two laps less fuel than Hamilton and the BMW’s would need to go lighter and be perfect to get pole this time. Now that McLaren know their rivals potential, they may run Hamilton with a couple of laps less fuel than in Melbourne, just to make sure he is up at the front. He looks the logical choice for pole position but with the best odds being 2.63 and the possibility of a thunderstorm disrupting the session, there is an argument for waiting until after Saturdays free practice session before having a bet. Team mate Kovalainen did a solid job all weekend and said that he had not been pushing but rather making sure he didn’t make any mistakes. He was third in qualifying and but for a bit of bad luck under the final safety car period, he would have finished 2nd in the race. If Ferrari continues to struggle over a flying lap he must be fancied to have a very reasonable chance of out qualifying Massa. The Brazilian can be very quick over a flying lap but odds on, against a faster car, without TC and engine braking? I don’t think so. Kovalainen looks the better value. 3 points Kovalainen to out qualify Massa @ 2.10 with Unibet. lost 3 points Another qualifying bet I like is Rosberg to beat Alonso. The young German qualified 7th after a less than perfect Friday and had no fresh soft tyres for his Q3 run, the potential for a third row slot is definitely there. Alonso failed to make it into Q3 and said that the car is better over long runs than for qualifying. This is the Spaniards favourite track but the car is not good enough to guarantee him a top 10 qualifying position. Rosberg has been 3rd and 6th on the grid on his two outings at Sepang and now in a better car, he should be right up there again. 3 points Rosberg to out qualify Alonso @ 1.85 with Unibet. lost three points |
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