Sunday April 10th 2011: Malaysia Grand Prix

For those of you who are not aware, I am currently living in Canada.  Even with Daylight Savings Time coming into effect, the 2011 Malaysia Grand Prix 'live' started at 3:55 am.... local time... Formula One is not conductive to North American audiences as you may have read in the last post. But the bed side alarm was set for 3:30am, or so I thought.

I apologize for this post appearing online so late in the day as the alarm went off and I thought to myself, '5 more minutes' and the next thing I knew it was 7:30 am.  At least I was able to catch the re-run of the full race on TSN. Whew!

The moment the race started, there was something amiss. I don't know if it was the fact that nerves where on end thinking of the short amount of laps it would take the front runners to over take and lap the HRT and the thought of the tyres giving in to the tremendous heat, but something just didn't feel right. 

 Button (2) Vettel (1) Heildfeld (3)

As the race progressed, it was discovered that the KERS systems where not operating right on some teams cars. Watching as the cars seemed to almost 'buck' beneath the drivers where the KERS system re-charged looked like an accident waiting to happen.

Both the Drag Recovery System (DRS) and Pirelli Tyres have been under so much scrutiny that no one seems to be paying much attention to the KERS.  The 2011 season seems to be a battle at to ends.  First you have the front runners with the use of KERS and the back end mainly without the use of KERS.  If the FIA plan on keeping KERS around, maybe some sharing is needed.  More out of safety than out of fairness.

Many times during the Malaysia Grand Prix, we saw the fore-runners battling it out with the use of DRS and KERS and would have issues lapping the back markers. (Back markers are a debate all on their own) But with the rears of the cars kicking out, it seemed like the right mix of ironic circumstances that could have caused a massive shunt or accident.  Thankfully all cars and drivers managed to complete (or stop at a safe opening) during the race.

Overall, I have to give credit to Pirelli. During the course of the Malaysia Grand Prix, they have managed to drag out the best in every single person in the paddock.  We saw multiple pits stops for each team, having the pitcrew really push it during the race. The race engineers, taking complete ownership of the pit wall, keeping both their drivers and teams happy. And the drivers had to think.  Constant radio communication was heard during the race and it was all because of the Pirelli's.

Normally this isn't done.  Trying to remain unbiased on the blog but the Malaysia Grand Prix brought out the best in some more than others.  Mark Webber.  4 stop strategy and beyond all approach, took 4th. An outstanding performance that was all about racing, plain and simple.  The man spent 1 minute 28.79 seconds combined in the pit and the rest of the time on track fighting back.  Amazing performance!

Full Race Standings

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	56	1:37:39.832	1	25
2	4	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	56	+3.261	4	18
3	9	Nick Heidfeld	Renault	56	+25.075	6	15
4	2	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	56	+26.384	3	12
5	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	56	+36.958	7	10
6	5	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	56	+57.2481	5	8
7	16	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	56	+1:06.439	10	6
8	3	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	56	+1:09.9572	2	4
9	7	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	56	+1:24.896	11	2
10	15	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	56	+1:31.563	14	1
11	14	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	56	+1:41.379	17
12	8	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	55	+1 lap	9
13	18	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	55	+1 lap	12
14	19	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	55	+1 lap	13
15	20	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Renault	55	+1 lap	19
16	24	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	54	+2 laps	21
17	10	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	52	Accident	8
Ret	23	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT-Cosworth	46	Retired	23
Ret	25	Jérôme d'Ambrosio	Virgin-Cosworth	42	Accident	22
Ret	21	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Renault	31	Clutch	20
Ret	17	Sergio Pérez	Sauber-Ferrari	23	Collision damage	16
Ret	11	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	22	Gearbox	15
Ret	22	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	14	Retired	24
Ret	12	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Cosworth	8	Engine	18

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1  Sebastian Vettel 50 2  Jenson Button 26 3  Lewis Hamilton 22 4  Mark Webber 22 5  Fernando Alonso 20 Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1  Red Bull-Renault 72 2  McLaren-Mercedes 48 3  Ferrari 36 4  Renault 30 5  Sauber-Ferrari 6

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

Oh, and for those of you who read the last blog... No, I still haven't managed to watch the beginning of the race yet.  Lets hope that I get to see it in a week when the race is run in China at Shanghai!