Malaysian Grand Prix (weather)

There is a 60% chance of precipitation for the weekend.

Malaysian GP Preview
By Chris Goodwin

You may have been aware (or not) that Formula One has been in town for the past couple of weeks. The teams and drivers spent 4 days last week testing updates on their race cars while many have been in the region for the entire three week break since the season opener in Melbourne, Australia.

It has been the first time that Formula One has organised such a group test as this in Malaysia and follows on from the pre-season test in Bahrain. Despite the often heard cries for cost savings in the world’s most expensive sport, these ‘flyaway’ tests are a huge additional expense but serve to demonstrate the intensity of competition these days, as well as the level of commitment from the teams and the manufacturers who back them.

To say that the competition is intense would be understating it somewhat, but the fact that on each day of the four-day Sepang test we had a different team on top pretty much sums it up.

Robert Kubica for BMW topped the times on day one, then it was Kimi Raikonnen in his Ferrari test car on day two. On the third day, Melbourne sensation Lewis Hamilton was fastest and finally it was the turn of Melbourne disappointment Heikki Kovalainen to give his Renault team some hope on the final day.

Every team and every driver has work to do.

Kimi and Ferrari may well have won the first race in Oz quite comfortably, but their advantage over the rest is probably not as clear as it appeared three weeks ago. Not only did he have to nurse his engine home towards the end of the race, but the legality of his car’s floor aerodynamics has been called into question.

There is no danger of him being stripped of his Melbourne win, but the team may well have to make some subtle revisions to the stiffness of the Ferrari floor mounting which could impact on their aero efficiency and the impressive straight line speed vs cornering downforce compromise they have demonstrated lately.

On top of that, there seems to be a real danger that the Scuderia could be forced to change Kimi’s engine following the hard time it had in the closing few laps of the last race. A loss of some coolant and the resultant over heating wasn’t excessive at all, but could cause them problems in the heat of Sepang. The engine has been tested in Italy in microscopic detail, but if a precautionary change is necessary, the one engine for two races rule will have been contravened and a ten grid places penalty will be coming Kimi’s way.

All of this could benefit Felipe Massa who was out of luck in Australia, but a more likely beneficiary is Fernando Alonso. Not that he needs any help that is. The Spaniard looks calm and confident, so much so that he didn’t even attend the Sepang test. That work was left to Lewis Hamilton and test drive Pedro de la Rosa to rack up the miles and complete a mammoth amount of development work.

The interesting point about the teams being active on the test track in Malaysia for a week is that those with the necessary resources were able to effectively pull a week of 24 hour development days. Testing in the Asian daylight before analysis and simulation work was completed in Europe in preparation for the following days test.

It was a very busy and productive week for some!

Renault will certainly be hoping that it has given them the chance to turn a corner as they struggled in the first race as we all saw. Or in fact we didn’t really see. They were so out of contention that I hardly noticed that they were there at all! This is something that the current World Champions can and will do something about. Add to that, the potential of the OTHER rookie sensation has so far been unfulfilled and you could well see a major turn around from Renault and Heikki Kovalainen this weekend.

One of the biggest turn arounds in the history of Formula One was that of the Super Aguri team. Very much tail-enders last year, the new team found their feet having started with an almost impossibly short amount of time to prepare for the 06 season. This year though, they have a much more potent race car at their disposal and two quick drivers who are apparently pushing each other on to greater levels of performance. Greater even than the official Honda factory team which is struggling to beat it’s low budget, junior outfit. The fact that Super Aguri are basically using last season’s Honda, albeit with some modifications and input from Honda in Japan which ensures it’s legality in the eyes of the FIA, must make it extremely uncomfortable for the big budget mainstream Honda team. A lot of time, effort, resources and MONEY has been spent since last season and they appear to have gone backwards.

Lets see if last weeks testing has provided them with the breakthrough Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello are looking for.

It’s the same story at Toyota and at Red Bull. Great expectations pre season but despite their big budgets, the performance just wasn’t there come race weekend in Australia. It doesn’t appear that it was there in testing last week either, so these teams’ problems could take some time to be resolved…

The 56 laps of Sepang this Sunday will be the ninth running of the Malaysian Grand Prix in this modern era (my father wouldn’t forgive me for not mentioning the Malaysian GP that he contested successfully during the ‘60s). During that time we have had a huge variety of controversy, technical wrangling, new stars emerging and great racing.

The Malaysian GP headlines in 2007 will feature Ferrari’s reliability concerns as well as their technical legality and new tyre markings exposing who is running the soft compound tyres. Spectacular performances from the emerging stars of Hamilton, Kubica and Kovalainen and the intrigue over the David vs Golliath battles will capture everyone’s attention. Finally the performances of Toyota vs Williams and Toyota vs Honda vs Super Aguri will be well worth keeping a close eye on.

These are just a few of the things that I KNOW will happen in Sepang this weekend, but as usual, make sure you tune in to STAR Sports for qualifying on Saturday. After that, the headlines could be completely different!

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