Race Analysis: Malaysian GP

The victory not only extended Michael's winning streak to six, it was also his eighth consecutive victory in a 'flyaway' race. Unlike a fine Italian wine, Ferrari seems to travel well...

On Sunday we awoke to heavy rain that stopped about a half an hour before the morning warm-up. The track was still damp when the session started, and that allowed the teams to sample the range of two wets and one intermediate. It was noticeable that the track dried out fairly quickly, helped by the high temperatures, although at the end of the session times were still 10s off a representative dry race lap.

It was sunny for the rest of the morning, but in the hour or so before the race it got a little cloudy and breezy. Most of the teams went to the grid knowing that a shower was a possibility, but the threat was not strong enough for them to swap to wet settings.



Over the winter Ross Brawn admitted Ferrari's weak point was its starts. Obviously some work has been done. The first two races have followed a similar pattern: Schumacher has got away well and converted pole into the lead, although Rubens has been less fortunate from second spot. A cynic might ask if Michael knows (or has) something that his team mate doesn't...

In Malaysia, Barrichello was able to force his way back into his rightful position, albeit at the expense of Ralf Schumacher. This was the second time in two races that the Brazilian has spun a rival out, and on both occasions he's blamed the other guy got not giving him enough room. The move ensured he was on Michael's tail rather than trapped behind a slower car, and the team could thus play out its optimum strategy. However, all bets were off when the rain came.

It was not a shower, but a monsoon - and in true Spa style, it did not cover the whole track. I was down on the inside of Turn One, enjoying one of the best views in the place with just one marshal for company. The first spots began to fall as the field completed lap two. The fun started when Michael and Rubens, as the first drivers to come across the wet stuff, slid off a few corners later. They were certainly helped on their way by the oil slick left a lap earlier by the BAR of Olivier Panis.

The sight of the two Ferraris skating across the gravel was quite amazing, but in retrospect you could see two contrasting approaches. Schumacher tried to go straight on in a controlled style, turning right when he got to the end of the gravel. Rubens was a little less patient, fighting the car more and trying to get back on the track at all costs...

Trulli and Coulthard got ahead of the Brazilian, and new leader Jarno's lap time was exactly 5s slower than on the previous lap, indicating how much he'd had to slow down. But he didn't pit, and nor did any of the 11 cars immediately behind him. After the double off, Rubens was third, only 3.3s behind Trulli, while Michael was seventh, some 6.8s behind.

Obviously most drivers felt that the situation was not yet disastrous, or were told by their pits not to come in. But even as this group of cars dashed past the pits, the main straight was hit by a deluge. Seeing this, from the back half of the field both Benettons, both Jaguars and both Minardis dashed in for tyres.

Down at the first corner the rain stopped almost as soon as it had started, leaving the track only a little greasy through the first and second corners. Indeed, the patented Cooper rain gauge - the sogginess of my notebook - showed that it was nothing to worry about.

But the giant TV screen told a different story. As close as 200m from where I was standing, a wall of rain fell on the track for two or three minutes, and the place was completely awash. The Sepang drainage has not been properly tested on an F1 weekend, and it was obvious that in places it had nowhere to go. Cars flew off the track in every direction, and the FIA's Charlie Whiting reacted with admirable speed, and sent the safety car out. It was just in time to trap the first group of cars that had pitted, except that of Giancarlo Fisichella.

The frontrunners were unhindered by the safety car through lap 4. Not that they could run any faster than the Mercedes - just about everybody went off on this lap, and many of the incidents weren't caught on TV. At the end of it leaders Trulli and Coulthard both went off, but David resumed quickly enough to be able to get to the pits in front. The first 10 cars, or basically everyone that hadn't pitted on the previous lap, and had survived, came straight into the pits. Barrichello and Schumacher were now third and fourth.



Initially it appeared that McLaren had got things just right. For the first time the team put its winter strategy re-think into practice, pitting both cars on the same lap with impressive efficiency. The team chose wets, although intermediates did apparently make a brief appearance in the pit lane, according to Ferrari sources.

Meanwhile, it all went wrong for Ferrari. The digital TV screens on the pit wall had shown Rubens going off for a second time on dry tyres, and since Michael had only been three seconds behind on the previous lap, the team assumed that the World Champion had got in front. In fact Michael's own indiscretion had gone unnoticed. Thus when the two Ferraris arrived in the pit lane, the mechanics were told by Ross Brawn that Michael was in front. The reason this is significant is simple - tyres are marked for an individual driver, and if the wrong tyres go on the wrong car, disqualification will follow.

The mechanics were too focussed on the job in hand to notice the helmet of the driver they were servicing, but then panic set in. The only good news was that the team realised its mistake and Rubens was not sent straight out. I assume that henceforth the Ferrari drivers will be told to tell the pit who's in front when they are both on the way to the pitlane...

When Barrichello's tyres were found, the right front was initially missing, which cost extra time and suggests that the team was concentrating so much on Michael that Rubens would in any case have had a poor stop. While he was stationary the team removed a barge board damaged in his wild ride across the gravel (Michael's were still OK after his 'controlled' off), and of course emptied debris out of the rads. Michael then rolled forward and was serviced in normal time.



Brawn admits that it was his mistake, but in his defence he was more than occupied with the choice of tyre. Wets had been considered initially, but then he and the drivers agreed on intermediates. This saved the day for Ferrari. Ross knew that the safety car was out, and that any rivals that beat the team out of the pits would soon get caught behind it. It may not have seemed like it to the agitated mechanics, but there was in effect plenty of time to get things right.

The other significant thing about the safety car was that for an unspecified number of laps the cars would run at slow speed. If the drivers could get through this treacherous stage without problems, then intermediates would come into their own on a track that was known to dry out quickly. However, Ross had to be pretty confident that the worst of the weather was now over, and that the conditions could only get better.

"I said to the crew, we've got a problem," said Brawn. "Let's at least make sure we've got the right tyres on the car, because we've got a safety car, and maybe we can recover something out of it. At that stage your mind is more about maybe scoring a few points. Luckily we tried these tyres at Fiorano last week, and we knew that the intermediate was a very, very good tyre.

"We were talking about it as they were coming in. We knew there were dry parts of the track and we knew there were wet parts of the track and we knew the tyres were very good in the morning as well. We knew [the intermediate] was very good and we knew it would go into the dry. I think the drivers were very keen and I was very keen, so it wasn't a very difficult decision."

After the race Ron Dennis expressed a different viewpoint:

"You couldn't possibly change to intermediate tyres with that amount of water," said Dennis. "Even on rain tyres the drivers were saying we've got massive aquaplaning. We were informing Charlie [Whiting] that the drivers were complaining of aquaplaning. He had to take a view on how long the safety car should stay out. Obviously all the main water was dispersed when the safety car came in, and it played to an intermediate tyre choice. But at that point we had to decide, that was the right decision. You can't put a driver's life at risk. You could see how wet it was by how many cars were spinning, and if you're stood in the pitlane and it's really tipping down, how can you fit a car with anything other than wets? It was the right decision then, but the wrong decision if you look at the large quantity of laps behind the safety car."

As you imagine, Brawn was not impressed with that argument:

"Ron made a comment about Ferrari being irresponsible fitting those tyres. We had the information that they were very good tyres even in fairly deep wet. So I think that's a bit of an unfortunate comment for him to make without the facts or information that was needed."

Ron has a point, but there's more to the story than meets the eye. It was interesting to note that in the post-race TV interviews Coulthard said that he'd put on wets and 'the safety car then came out', implying that his decision might have been different. Later in the press conference he confirmed that 'we hadn't seen the safety car come out at this point', and 'had I known that, then I would have gone for intermediates.'

Doh! In fact the safety car was dispatched long before he came into the pitlane. I don't have a video to study as I write this, but as mentioned previously Bernd Maylander came out and trapped Jenson Button as he left the pits. According to the FIA's timing, that would have been at around 15.18.27. And DC came in at 15:19.34...

McLaren would surely have seen that the safety car had been dispatched on their TV screens, and thus one can only assume that nobody bothered to tell David. And presumably DC did not see the flags and boards around the track that indicated it was out...



When it was all sorted out, Coulthard led and Mika Hakkinen - one of many to spin before pitting on lap four - was fourth. The Ferraris resumed in 10th and 11th places, and were the last cars on the track before the safety car came round. Their positions would have been worse had Button, Burti, Marques and Alonso not been trapped behind the safety car (these guys were eventually waved by, and were able to line up behind the Ferraris).

As he tried to catch the queue, Rubens went off again on his first lap out, which allowed Michael to catch him up. Both Rubens and Michael completed lap five, the one that included the pit stop, in 4m17s! And at the end of it they were 85s and 87s respectively behind leader David Coulthard, who was also still trying to catch the queue...

The safety car saved Ferrari's bacon of course. It took the red cars a couple of laps to catch the queue, or rather it took Rubens that long, because Michael had no choice but to sit behind him. On lap six the Brazilian lapped in 2m26s on a clear track; Hakkinen, who was also unhindered and trying to catch the queue, did 2m19s. That underlines just how tricky the intermediates were for those first few soaking laps, and shows that had there been no safety car to even things out, the tyres would have been a disastrous choice.

The safety car stayed out until the end of lap 10. It was supposed to come in a lap earlier, but ironically the FIA responded to a message relayed by e-mail from the McLaren pits - race leader Coulthard said that it was still too wet to re-start the race. That extra slow lap did Ferrari no harm...



When the restart came, Rubens and Michael were still 10th and 11th. When they swept across the line when the green flag waved, they were only 7.4s and 8.5s behind Coulthard. On the first flying lap they passed Gaston Mazzacane and Giancarlo Fisichella, but actually lost a few seconds to the leader. At the start of the next lap they passed Jean Alesi, and then came one of the more spectacular moments of the race. Rubens was momentarily wrong footed behind Trulli, and Michael took advantage and swept by them both.

This did not sit well with Rubens, who had told the team that, since intermediates were still a bit tricky, Michael should not push him too hard.

"There was just a little bit of confusion perhaps," said Brawn. "Rubens said to me before the safety car went in that we needed to be very careful at the beginning, because the track is quite difficult in places. So he said, 'Ask Michael not to hassle me because I'm going to need to be a bit careful at the beginning of the race.' I spoke to Michael about it, but then Rubens got behind Trulli and got caught, and Michael drove round the outside."

However, another Ferrari insider hinted with a smile that no such message was passed on. Whatever the truth, one can assume that the intended recipient would not have paid much attention! Michael was simply quicker, helped a little by the fact that Rubens had lost a bargeboard and his car was in far from pristine condition. But as we've seen, that was no co-incidence...

Michael's subsequent progress was astonishing. Here's a summary of how he got into the lead, showing the gap to leader Coulthard:



Lap 10: 11th (- 7.4s, green flag at end of lap)
Lap 11: 9th (- 8.5s, passes Mazzacane, Fisichella)
Lap 12: 6th (- 9.8s, passes Alesi, Barrichello, Trulli)
Lap 13: 3rd (- 8.9s, passes Frentzen, Ralf, Hakkinen)
Lap 14: 3rd (- 6.2s)
Lap 15: 2nd (-0.1s, passes Verstappen)
Lap 16: 1st (+ 5.4s, passes DC at start of lap)
Lap 17: 1st (+ 6.0s)
Lap 18: 1st (+ 7.3s)
Lap 19: 1st (+ 9.2s)
Etc...

I'm not making this up, but on the lap that Michael took the lead, a streak of lightning shot across the sky. Honestly...

This was miraculous progress by any standards, but to give Barrichello his due, he got up to second and was only 9.2s behind his team mate at this stage. He did this with a less than perfect car, although he probably had less fuel on board. Rubens came in for dry tyres on lap 21; the second damaged bargeboard was removed, and extra time was lost cleaning debris out of the sidepods, as temperatures were a major concern at this stage.

Incredibly, just as it appeared to be time for Schumacher to switch to dries, it sprinkled with rain. Or at least it did down at Turn One. That may have been just enough to give his worn intermediates a new lease of life, and indeed around lap 26-27 most people lost a few seconds by backing off. Not Michael...

He stayed out until lap 30. Again, I'm not making this up, but while he was in the pit road another streak of lightning flashed across the sky - the second of only two such instances during the race!

It was now clear that unlike Rubens, he could get to the end without another stop. When he came in for dry tyres, his lead was an incredible 67s over his team mate. And he was just a few seconds shy of lapping Hakkinen. Like Rubens Mika had already stopped, but we are talking about laps in the 1m50s bracket...

This awesome lead meant that for the last 25 laps, when he was on the same tyres as everyone else, Michael was in cruise mode. He was well below his potential pace and was merely keeping an eye on the dash (overheating caused by blocked radiators was still a potential concern for him as well). As it turned out DC did not pit again, and nor did Frentzen, but Rubens and the others who made the points did need a second stop. Michael was only 23s ahead at the end, but it could have been three times that.

And how about this for an eye popping statistic:



Lap 5: - 85.700s (just after first stops, with both men trying to catch the safety car)
Lap 29: + 89.673s (just before Michael's stop, but after DC's)

Of course there were unusual circumstances, but that is probably the most impressive turnaround in F1 history. But I'm not going to be the one to check...

And as mentioned earlier, Michael completed lap five in 4m17s. I could be wrong, but I suspect that it's been 25 years since the last time a Grand Prix winner ran a lap in a longer time than that - when James Hunt triumphed on the old Nurburgring...



There's no space for a detailed examination of everyone else's race, but let's conclude with a couple of examples of teams knowing the rule book inside out. When Juan Pablo Montoya failed to get going when the cars left on the green flag lap, I was surprised to see him dash to the spare and jump aboard, since I thought that it was too late to make a change. After the race I asked senior personnel from other teams, and they either had no idea what the rule was, or agreed that Williams was in the wrong.

Indeed, the rules used to say that you couldn't change cars after the green flag flew for the start of the final formation lap. But a couple of years ago the wording was apparently altered to say that you can't change after the start, and Williams team manager Dickie Stanford was on top of that. It's still a little hazy, of course. Does the change officially occur when the driver gets out of his race car, when he gets his bum into the spare, or when he drives it out of the garage - possibly after a delay while belts and pedals are adjusted? Just wait until Ferrari or McLaren face such a situation...

The other example of quick thinking came at Jordan. Two years ago Frentzen finished third in Brazil and then ran out of fuel on the slowing down lap. For obvious reasons the rules say that you have to finish with enough fuel in the tank for a post-race analysis by FIA officials.

Fumes aren't much use for this purpose. And yet at Interlagos Eddie Jordan and his boys somehow talked their way out of the situation, when by rights they were in an impossible spot. HHF was not excluded, and it amazes me to this day that none of Jordan's rivals picked up on what remains one of EJ's finest moments...

In Malaysia Frentzen had to work hard to stretch out his fuel load for 34 laps and avoid a second stop, and when he crossed the line in fourth place, he was pushing the limit. Thus the team ordered him to stop at the end of the pit wall after taking the chequered flag. It turned out he had 4.5 litres in the car, and had he completed the relatively long slowing down lap, he would not have had enough fuel to pass the test. A second reprieve would have been unlikely. Good job lads...