F1 Racing at Malaysia

Last time I saw, there were 11 views of the Melbourne thread, which is enough to get me to do a review of the Malaysian Grand Prix.

12:30 PM
Kuala Lumpur is somewhere around 14 hours ahead of the Central time zone, but Speedtv is replaying it at 12:30 today. It's the 2nd round of the FIA Formula One World Championship at Sepang, pronounced see` pang. In my F1 Challenge simracing game, I've driven Sepang only once. I started off not liking it, but after a few laps, the track grew on me.

1:03 PM
We were having lunch during Speed's pre-race, so I have no notes about it. It's a good pre-race show and reminded me of ESPN's pre-race shows before Nascar got so big that everybody felt like they needed to start entertaining. This pre-race focused on the cars, track conditions and, to a lesser extent, the drivers. I only saw Peter Windsor interview one driver, Timo Glock. I suspect that Alonso, Hamilton, Raikkonen and many others hide themselves away from the cameras and reporters prior to the race.

We were having the traditional Easter lunch of Italian Beef sandwiches. :laugh: My wife makes the best Italian Beef ever. :love2:

Like I said last week, the beginning of an F1 race is very cool. I have a friend that used to ridicule Nascar by saying the only thing he ever had to watch on a Nascar race were the last few laps. He liked F1 racing and I used to come back and say that the only thing I ever watched in an F1 race was the first lap. :smilewinkgrin:

1:07 PM
To repeat what I said last week, the onboard cameras are the best part of watching F1 racing.

1:09 PM
An excellent battle between Fernando Alonso, David Coulthard and Nick Heidfeld. Heidfeld made it 3-wide and passed Alonso and DC. Yes, an actual pass in F1 racing. :smilewinkgrin:

Then, while DC and Fred were battling, Heidfeld drove away from them a bit.

1:21 PM
Lewis Hamilton is not handling well at all. David Hobbs suggests that the car is "too stiff" and, um, yeah, don't ask me what he's talking about. I have no clue what he means by that.

1:22 PM
I mentioned the onboard cameras, but I didn't mention that the sound of the cars is very cool also. We're riding with Hamilton again, and the sound is so good that we can hear the tires squeal as he slides the car through the corner.

1:27 PM
Felipe Massa, 2nd Ferrari driver, came in for a stop, and, as Steve Matchett points out, Raikkonen, running 2nd at the time, really needs to push it now and go as fast as he can on a light fuel load and gain time on Massa. Oddly, Kimi comes in after just 1 lap, but he does get out ahead of Massa. I expected him to stay out longer.

1:29 PM
After last week's disaster Down Under, I didn't expect Ferrari to run so well. They're currently running 1st and 2nd.

1:31 PM
Hamilton's pit stop is horrendous. They had a lot of trouble getting the right front off and when they did, a cloud of brake dust came off the car.

1:47 PM
Hamilton's car is still handling horribly and Matchett attributes it to brake bias. Seeing as Matchett was a former engineer, his word is the one we'll be trusting.

1:49 PM
Again, Ferrari really came back strong today. Raikkonen has a 16 second lead over Massa.

1:50 PM
And the lead is going to be much bigger now as Massa just spun out into the sand. He's beached. And he has a fork sticking out the back of the car.

2:22 PM
With 4 to go, Kimi's running away with it.

2:28 PM
After a miserable start to the season, Ferrari comes back strong and Kimi wins the race.

Not as many notes today, I know, but, I fell asleep during the race. Don't read too much into that, because I've been known to take a catnap during Nascar races, too. I also was flipping back and forth between this race and college basketball. The race today just wasn't as interesting as the race at Melbourne was. And, Davidson coming back to beat Georgetown was very enjoyable.