Monday 6 April 2009

Malaysian GP

Round 2 of the Formula One World Championship and again the modifications to the cars this year meant an exciting race with plenty of real overtaking - we didn't just have to wait for pit-stops for the order to change.

The Malaysian Grand Prix was almost as exciting as the previous week’s LieGate scandal had been. (Liegate involved McLaren and its representatives, including Hamilton, lying to the stewards – end result, Hamilton disqualified from the first Grand Prix of the season).


Jenson Button was on pole again and led the race almost from start to finish (with a slow start losing the first couple of laps to Rosberg and a pit-stop routine taking him back into the pack for the briefest of spells). Kovaleinen didn’t make it round the first lap – just to add to McLaren’s woes.


Ferrari had screwed up Massa’s qualifying and then managed to screw up Reikonen’s race by choosing wet tyres too early. By the time this happened it was too late - his wet tyres had gone off.




I think it's safe to say visibilty was not good by the time the safety car was deployed.

Quite when the race finished was a matter for some conjecture and lengthy stewards' debate. Torrential rain meant the race was red-flagged but it took nearly an hour to declare the winner. Not, it seems, because there was much likelihood of a re-start (by then it was almost pitch dark) but because they couldn’t work out who was where when the race finished. (Bearing in mind the race is deemed to have finished when the leader last crossed the line prior to the red flag being thrown.) It seemed that Button had won with the Toyota of Glock second and Heidfeld third but that was then changed to Button, Heidfeld, Glock. The commentator interviewing Hamilton asked was he pleased with seventh place, even though it was half points, and Hamilton said “I thought I was fifth...” One would have thought with all their technology it would have been a fairly simple thing to work out who was where...

The end result (as it stands though it may well change during the week) –

Back on top - briefly

Liverpool beat Fulham away on Saturday and went to the top of the Premiership. They scored in the 94th minute which was a lesson in not wasting time. If Fulham hadn’t spent so much of the second half wasting time the match would have been over. Unfortunately, on Sunday, Manchester United copied us by beating Aston Villa 3-2 with a goal in extra time. So they went top by one point. Bummer.