Malaysian GP *SPOILERS*

Seeing as theres 55mins gone of FP1 I feel we probably should have a official thread for the grand prix!!

Suprised if RedBull are beat.

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*watching Hispania with popcorn*

jeez what happened to this forum. I remember it used to be a competition on who can make this topic first!
RedBull and Mclaren seem close which should make for a nice battle. Think the bulls will still have the race if they dont screw anything up!

I hope for a mixed weather race though! Would be nice some dry, rain then dry ending!

I am worried about this year tbh.

RBR are al least .5 ahead of Mclaren who are also .5 ahead of the rest.

Red Bull will dominate qualifyin if dry and McLaren will be next but not close, I think difference could be even bigger than at melbourne. Ferrari is lost, they even admitted it in their press release hah...Mercedes and Renault could have a chance to beat them

after watching the replay of practice i gotta say webber looks strong and mclaren is close to redbull.
Have to wait and see if Schumi can keep it up and i guess its a 3 way battle between Mercedes,Renault and Ferrari also Rubens in that fight aswell. For the Rest i think Lotus maybe closer to rest than melbourne.

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"And thats the bottom line cause Alonso0506 said so"

As expected RBR seem pretty far in front !!

But again, Mclaren seem just as far in front of Ferrari! Watching the times, Ferrari, Renault, and Mercedes all seemed pretty close... That battle should be interesting to watch.

Weather remains the large question mark though...And tbh, whilst the Ferrari is underperforming in the dry I would prefer it to stay dry so Jenson can rack up some healthy points :p! I hope hope hope Jenson is the Mclaren challenging this weekend. After Lewis and Vettel had their fun in Oz, I feel its Webber's and Buttons. Both seemed pretty good in FP2. Button was awful in FP1 and appeared to favour the Oz spec diffuser.

Barachello put in a nice run at the end of FP2. Slower than the Ferrari's, Mercs and Renaults but looked better than the following pack !

Nice to see HRT able to do some laps. I was pretty impressed with Narain. Years out of F1 and yet seemed on pace. More to come from the car it seems...

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

Given how close the back end of the grid is to the front, we can predict exactly zero from today's running. Clearly the soft tyre runs were either with extremely heavy tanks or an awful lot of sandbagging. Nothing from the front was at all representative of the running.

Still, just from looking at the cars it did seem as though the Ferrari wasn't especially stable. That's about all I could muster from FP2.

After that, I'm back to expecting Red Bull domination in qualifying and the following pack probably being a touch closer in the race. And hoping that the thunderstorms don't come on Sunday... rain is excellent, but as we well know it seldom just rains in Malaysia.

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DJSKYLINE
jeez what happened to this forum. I remember it used to be a competition on who can make this topic first!

People grow up and have more pressing matters which actually have a bearing on anything?

I am hoping Mclaren can get in front of Vettel who did not look that great today. But with the rain that is expected anything can happen.

I don't care about the front, I care about the backmarkers. Go HRT!!!!
(It's funny to say it )



Stats: 139 Starts / 7 Wins / 9 Poles / 5 Fastest laps

Good laps from Lotus guys... still expected more from them but I guess its still too early.

Brilliant lap from Kobayashi in Q1. Car's not looked great all weekend, let's hope he can push that thing up there.

IMO BBC are over-rating Perez too early. He is good yeah, but lets give him a few more races yet.

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

A 2010 Dallara just qualified for a GP. And Geoff Willis finally admitted the "100% new" car is "based on last years chassis".

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:D JENSON. first time this weekend he's got S2 nailed first lap!

edit - lol yeah, and Virgins still pretty comfortable ahead.

edit 2 - I hope hope hope Jenson can replicate that!

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



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2011 10:48AM by chet.

Nick Heidfeld in 6th. I'm happy now.

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GPGSL: S6 - TafuroGP Tester (14th) /// S7 - ART Tester (6th) /// S8 - Demon Driver (13th) /// S9 - Demon/Snake Driver (13th) /// S10 - Snake Driver (???) ///]
"My ambition is handicapped by laziness" - Charles Bukowski

That was a cracking session. So close at the front, Lotus getting a bit closer to the rear and looking solidly inside Q2 at one point, genuinely close sessions all the way through, tyres falling apart and with a big step between compounds.

Excellent.

Good session!

Lewis, and Vettel never disappoint to provide some good action.

Start should be awesome. The last time two Mclarens started on the opposite side of the grid to the Ferraris was 2007 :p. Key thing for Button is to not get passed by Fernando otherwise that will be his race ruined once again.

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

And if Vettel doesn't stream away at the front again, we should be in for a cracking race, with a good chance of rain to boot. I know Q1 was interrupted, but there could be a question mark over both Red Bulls on the hard tyres? Webber was lucky to get to Q2.

They were one of only a few to only use the hard tyres in Q1 though. I think only they and McLaren.

To be honest, McLaren look fastest. I was rather taken aback when Button posted that 1:35.5 in Q2. I was expecting Red Bull to be comfortably ahead, though not by the margin Vettel had in Melbourne.

I got the impression Hamilton nailed two laps and Vettel his pole lap, but the McLaren looked better on the tyres in Melbourne, or handled the worn tyres better.

Of course, tomorrow is a whole different sort of wear. In Melbourne the tyres went off a bit. Tomorrow it's looking somewhat like they had in testing - ie falling off a cliff. Who works best in those conditions may be entirely different to Melbourne.

Going from FP it looked to be role reversal for tyre preservation. Vettels long(ish) stint in FP2 was pretty impressive compared to Buttons comparable one. Webber's stint on the primes at the start of FP3 seemed pretty okay too.

Mclaren do seem quicker than in Melbourne but I wonder if they sacrificed tyre longevity for 1 lap performance. Or maybe the other way round for RBR, maybe they've worked on endurance for what will be a tough race.

Only tomorrow will tell. I think i want it to stay dry, the prospect of another Turkey '10 is on cards in that it was straight, flat out battle with 4 drivers. Minus the RBR incident, it was by far one of the most interesting races last year.

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

Great session, fantastic laps by Lewis and Vettel I was not expecting Mclaren to be on that sort of pace. Thank god they sorted out the car or it would have been a very boring year.

I still think on race pace the RBR are faster but we shall see how the 1st stint goes as the other week Mclaren were better on the tyres.