2012 Malaysian Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS***

Cool to see The Malaysia thread up, Im excited for the race also. Lets see if HRT can make the race this weekend.

I hope HRT can get in but I fear what happened in Australia might become a more frequent issue.

Gutted i miss this, start back at work at 9am this Sunday .

Hoping for another Mclaren win, although I would be happy with anyone other than a redbull

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I think HRT are even less likely to qualify but let's see. Everyone's expecting a RB/McLaren fightout and I'd take that as a given so I'm more interested in what goes on behind them; whether Mercedes can be fast over a race distance, how Lotus will do without a compromised qualifying/race, how good Sauber and Williams are after showing quite well at Melbourne. It's such a luxury having the second race only a week after the first.

Looking forward to this, it tends to be a good race in spite of this being a Tilke track. Another McLaren/Mercedes/RedBull battle at the front would be awesome. And Lotus could gatecrash it, especially if Kimi gets quali right this time.

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EC83 Wrote:
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> Looking forward to this, it tends to be a good
> race in spite of this being a Tilke track. Another
> McLaren/Mercedes/RedBull battle at the front would
> be awesome. And Lotus could gatecrash it,
> especially if Kimi gets quali right this time.

I agree I have always liked Sepang ( maybe because rain is always a chance ) and now that the race is later in the day the chance of rain is even higher. But I guess with rain there is always the chance of a red flag if it becomes too hard which nowadays is anything harder then a steady rain.

Never looked this much forward to the second race.

This really will be a lottery. The big straights tell me Mercedes and McLaren are going to bum everyone; but then we could have Lotus mixing it up.

I put my money on a Schumacher podium; and if it is wet/changeable, a back to back Jenson for the win.


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Everyone thought Mercedes and their straight line speed was going to silver wash Monza last year... turned out that a car with relatively lowish straight line speed and a supposedly underpowered engine pwned all.

Yet there are some story lines to ponder here are my posers:

Firstly will Red Bull hit back at McLaren and what's the likelyhod that Hamilton will still be sulking?

Can Mercedes get on top of their tyre degregation issues or will Lotus be the team to carry the outside threat to McLaren and Red Bull?

Just how many seconds a lap from Alonso's pace will Massa be?

Will either HRT qualify?

And lastly but not least, assuming that Williams carry the form of the FW34 forward to Sepang.. how many points will they score?

I like this race. A button track too :D!

Expecting a closer Mclaren, RedBull battle with hopefully Lotus in there somewhere aswell as Merc.

I can really see 2 guys at front vanishing though.... Because I expect Merc to qualify well, not race as quick but seriously piss off some drivers :p!

Big question for me is, where will Williams be? Senna MASSIVELY underperformed, so here's hoping he is back, and both in the top 10. That would be more than amazing!

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

LOL, Chetson is back. :D

I always look forward to Malaysia because of the possibility of rain too. I have lasting memories of the awesomeness that was 2001.

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I don't think you can judge Senna too much on his Aussie performance, his car was SMASHED into at the start by Ricciardo.

Massa though... read this: [en.espnf1.com]

Already an ultimatum?

senna made a miserable qualifying compared to maldonado. on this criteria, you can judge him

Think on balance.. Maldonaldo and Senna's lack of experience and on-track maturity showed at Melbourne.

Bruno didn't get it together in qualifying but he did show flashes of pace. His man weakness is consistency or the lack of it and he seems to have a habit of getting caught up in collisions either his own or others.

Maldonaldo could do with a tad more consistency to... However at Melbourne his pursuit of Alonso probably the most relentlessly consistent driver in F1 was impressive... yet he had a few moments of impetuousness, his move on Grosjean was ambitious and audacious but he was lucky that the Swiss Frenchman panicked and jumped out of the way, a couple of laps later he overlooked it and top trip through the gravel but ironically his smallest mistake on the last lap had the highest cost.

Basically... Williams should have tried harder to sign Kimi :P

The rumour mill is churning to the sound of Trulli links to taking Massa's seat....


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

i d certainly welcome that

+1!

those weather predictions... are they real or are the people running this internet site, f1.com, acutally pick up interesting weather. It was predicted that in melbourne we will have thunderstorms, yet, neither qualy nor the race were affected by it. Looking at the predicion for sepang ... it loooks really interesting.

Would be great to see Trulli at Ferrari, not sure on the likelihood of that happening though

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

danm Wrote:
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> The rumour mill is churning to the sound of Trulli
> links to taking Massa's seat....

Definitely, and that would fit nicely with Alonso too, remembering their time at Renault. I think Massa needs to drive the quali laps and race of his life this weekend, otherwise he could get switched out of the race seat as early as straight after this race. If he does another performance like Melbourne, I think he's definitely @#$%&.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2012 05:59PM by EC83.