Mark Hughes: Trackside View

The blast of track between Sepang's turns 12-14: a throttle-wide-open rodeo ride through switchbacks, dips and bumps, with the downforce from sixth-seventh gear speeds trying to grind the tyres into the hot, hot surface.

Hang on tight through 12, slightly downhill, sixth gear, the camber falling away on exit, threatening to spit you off. Oversteer's not something you want through here and most have a set-up that allows for a small measure of confidence-boosting understeer.

But Felipe Massa's got a rhythm going, the Ferrari slicing through 12 beautifully poised and balanced, a huff of entry understeer relaxing through to neutrality by the apex. By the time it's kissing the exit kerb its traction control is hacking in alarm.

The engine coughs briefly, keeping it all on course, Massa still hard on the gas swooping downhill across to the other side of the track for the approach of 13, an upchange just after the apex before brief braking violence and the downchanges for 14, the car still tracing a geometrically perfect line through the multiple sweeps of the sequence.

Compare and contrast. Here's Ralf Schumacher's Toyota. He's got more understeer through 12. Maybe a little too much. Once he's through he can't sweep across to the left as early as he'd like, ready for 13. So he's a little late for his appointment there and a little off line going in.

There's no more distance available to get over to the extreme left for the optimum approach. Instead he's forced to turn in with a metre of track to his left. The shallower angle of attack induces yet more understeer. He makes the apex but runs wide with an earlier exit.

By the time he's got it braked and downchanged for 14, the car's unbalanced and nervy, Ralf forced into reaction rather than planning.

There's an angry black line of rubber down and it's about four metres wide. Ralf's at one extreme of it, Massa the other. And it's all built from a difference in line of a centimetre or two just a couple of corners earlier. The snowballing of mediocrity.