Malaysian Grand Prix

And rain it did.
Noah was quoted while walking down the pit lane as “I’m still waiting on a lumber shipment and I haven’t even found the frigging elephants yet”. That said, the old adage still applies, if you want to do well in an F1 race, it is better to start from the front.

Jenson Button is causing some members of the press corps to question their logic in writing him off seasons ago. Logic still applies, he is not the greatest thing slice sliced bread, but he is in what is becoming the best car of the grid this year. Similar to certain sons of world champions in the mid 90’s when Sir Frank was at the peak of his game. And logic dictates that credit is given to Ross Brawn for coming up with the best car of the grid since he was last rendering services with Ferrari. The Englishman has either through his on effort or just his management style created a complete package that will probably win another world championship with probably a record third team as a designer.

Once the sky really opened up and the safety car came out, the
marshals ended up calling the results based on the last green flag lap and assigning half points for the top eight finishers. The conspiracy theorists were sharpening their pencils and there will be all sorts of stories towards the end of the season when people start getting eliminated from the running due to the math. Some fans will argue that the race was called due to safety. That’s fine. But then don’t award any points because the results were entirely artificial.

BMW has been critical of the teams running the diffuser this season, but with the artificial results, they should be happy with the second place that Nick Heidfeld achieved this weekend. Toyota did well with their diffusers with Glock on the last spot on the podium and Trulli making up the best of the rest. The Italian did better than Burinio, which means that even with the best car, there is some chance that not all of Brawn’s drivers can walk on water. The last three points paying slots went to Webber, Hamilton and Rosberg.

The minor news from the race is that Ferrari has admitted that they are way off the pace. The die hard tifosi have not given up, nor has Gazzetta della Sport, but pragmatists realize that this is probably not going to be the scarlet cars’ year. Excuses are being made already that the team was more focused on winning last year than developing the 2009 car. That is a red herring. The issue goes back to the teams decision to rid itself of the foreigners after Stepney-gate. When you shuffle the chairs and eliminate some of the best talent in the industry, there is going to be disappointment, even if the pope is on your side. The question becomes whether the team can recognize the mistake early or god forbid, repeat the drought of the 80s and 90s.

The major news this week is the fact that McLaren has been caught cheating. Again. The final positions were rearranged for the Australian race with Trulli getting third back after it came out that Hamilton lied to the stewards about the pass during the safety car. Sporting director Dave Ryan was suspended and then left the silver arrows team and now the team has been summoned to Paris at the end of the month to explain themselves. Enough is enough, it’s time to throw the Woking based team out of the sport for a couple of years to start
focusing on what is important in the sport. The precedent has been set with the FIA in WRC, it’s time to step up the game in F1. Besides, Mercedes is probably dying for an excuse to get out and save some money with sales well of the mark in their car business. They probably also want to limit their exposure to a team that has been caught engaging in grossly unethical behavior twice now. Not that I’m biased or anything.

The circus stays in Asia with Shanghai in two weeks. The racing may not be that interesting yet, but I do hear that popcorn futures are up.

Race Results

1	BUTTON	Brawn-Mercedes	55m30.622s
2	HEIDFELD	BMW Sauber	+ 22.7s
3	GLOCK	Toyota	+ 23.5s
4	TRULLI	Toyota	+ 46.1s
5	BARRICHELLO	Brawn-Mercedes	+ 47.3s
6	WEBBER	RBR-Renault	+ 52.3s
7	HAMILTON	McLaren-Mercedes	+ 60.7s
8	ROSBERG	Williams-Toyota	+ 71.5s
9	MASSA	Ferrari	+ 76.9s
10	BOURDAIS	STR-Ferrari	+ 102.164s
11	ALONSO	Renault	+ 109.422s
12	NAKAJIMA	Williams-Toyota	+ 116.130s
13	PIQUET	Renault	+ 113.713s
14	RÄIKKÖNEN	Ferrari	+ 142.841s
15	VETTEL	RBR-Renault	+ 1 lap, spin
16	BUEMI	STR-Ferrari	+ 1 lap, spin
17	SUTIL	Force India-Mercedes	+ 1 lap
18	FISICHELLA	Renault	+ 2 laps, spin
19	KUBICA	BMW Sauber	+ 30 laps, engine
20	KOVALAINEN	McLaren-Mercedes	+ 31 laps, spin
Fastest Lap	BUTTON	Brawn-Mercedes	1m36.641s

NOTE: Scheduled for 56 laps but stopped early due to heavy rain. Half points awarded.

Driver’s Championship Standings

1	BUTTON	Brawn-Mercedes	15 Points
2	BARRICHELLO	Brawn-Mercedes	10 Points
3	TRULLI	Toyota	8.5 Points
4	GLOCK	Toyota	8 Points
5	HEIDFELD	BMW Sauber	4 Points
6	ALONSO	Renault	4 Points
7	ROSBERG	Williams-Toyota	3.5 Points
8	BUEMI	STR-Ferrari	2 Points
9	WEBBER	RBR-Renault	1.5 Points
10	HAMILTON	McLaren-Mercedes	1 Point
11	BOURDAIS	STR-Ferrari	1 Point

Constructor’s Championship Standings

1	BRAWN-MERCEDES	25 Points
2	TOYOTA	16.5 Points
3	BMW SAUBER	4 Points
4	RENAULT	4 Points
5	WILLIAMS- TOYOTA	3.5 Points
6	STR-FERRARI	3 Points
7	RBR-RENAULT	1.5 Points
8	MCLAREN-MERCEDES	1 Point