German Car Forum

My problem is the lack of excitement in the form of competition. Button is a skilled driver but Rubbens, Trulli and Glock are not good but not great. Right now it feels like I'm watching GP2 or something.

Actually, 31 laps were completed

lol and heres another mistake by ferrari, how stupid can they be!!! they couldve got pole if they didnt screw up with raikkonen

True, none of the top drivers have any real shot (excluding a freak show) until at least Spain, and that's best case scenario.

I really can't see much changing in Spain. Sure they fiddle with the car here and there and perhaps install a new diffuser but they will still lag behind Brawn, Toyota and Williams in performance. The MP24 and F2009 are very premature compared with Brawn's car which began development in early 2008. Changing the diffuser is a major technical task and affect the entire balance of the car potentially resulting in poorer performance, especially with no in-season testing.

There is no possibilities for the rest of the teams in making giant leaps forward. We can all see how much Ferrari and Mclaren are struggling at the moment. It's really that bad, and not until next year will the order be fully restored. If the current hierarchy remain until the summer, Mclaren and Ferrari might be better off starting work on the 2010 car to regain their positions.

Isn't Mclaren getting whole new cars for spain??

LOL i think im changing teams..
I dont care abt Mclaren..
Brawn MERCEDES

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS

The Malaysian Grand Prix
Sepang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;
56 laps; 310.408km;
Weather: Sunny, then wet.

Classified:

Pos Driver Team Time
1. Button Brawn GP (B) 55:30.622
2. Heidfeld BMW Sauber (B) + 22.722
3. Glock Toyota (B) + 23.513
4. Trulli Toyota (B) + 46.173
5. Barrichello Brawn GP (B) + 47.360
6. Webber Red Bull-Renault (B) + 52.333
7. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes (B) + 60.733
8. Rosberg Williams-Toyota (B) + 71.576
9. Massa Ferrari (B) + 76.932
10. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) + 102.164
11. Alonso Renault (B) + 109.422
12. Nakajima Williams-Toyota (B) + 116.130
13. Piquet Renault (B) + 116.731
14. Raikkonen Ferrari (B) + 142.841
15. Vettel Red Bull-Renault (B) + 1 lap
16. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) + 1 lap
17. Sutil Force India-Mercedes (B) + 1 lap
18. Fisichella Force India-Mercedes (B) + 2 lap

Fastest lap: Button, 1:36.641

Not classified/retirements:

Driver Team On lap
Kubica BMW Sauber (B) 1
Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes (B) 0

World Championship standings, round 2:

Drivers:
1. Button 15
2. Barrichello 10
3. Trulli 8.5
4. Glock 8
5. Alonso 4
6. Heidfeld 4
7. Rosberg 3.5
8. Buemi 2
9. Webber 1.5
10. Bourdais 1
11. Hamilton 1

Constructors:
1. Brawn GP 25
2. Toyota 16.5
3. Renault 4
4. BMW-Sauber 4
5. Williams-Toyota 3.5
6. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 3
7. Red Bull-Renault 1.5
8. McLaren-Mercedes 1

Glory supporter

The later push teams of 2008 Ferrari, McLarren and Renault have all lost a lot during winter.
BMW might have a chance, and for me that will do, if it will be Kubica the no.1 driver. Also RBR have a Renault engine, and they're also fast, with Vettel there could be OK if they catch up.

How could they have gotten pole? They were way off the pace. Unless they had given him a dry tank.

Great race untill it started raining imo. And Ferrari... Embarrassing weekend!

Some Ferrari heads must fly.

I wonder how Michael Schumacher feels to see what he built actually comes tumbling down.

Ferrari shot themselves in the foot again for the 2nd race in a row. Unbelievable.

As for the FIA, congrats for making this into a farce race. Moving the time from 3pm to 5pm during the monsoon season for better European viewing? My foot!

The FIA had plenty of warning on this. Even the Sepang CEO said that it has been raining terribly for the past 2 weeks during race hour, yet the FIA did not make any time changes. really strange. The FIA should have either moved it back to it's 3pm race, or just 4pm.

Yes, but that didn't affect the Schumacher era, did it? I think Ferrari and Mclaren are just looking for excuses here. Sure, Brawn started the 2009 project a bit earlier than the big 2, but, it's just not the diffuser that makes the car fast. It's the whole package.

Ferrari cock-uped for the 2nd race in a row now. Sending Kimi out on extreme wets at that point of time was the dumbest thing to do. Asking Massa to save soft compounds by just letting him do 4 hot laps is another dumb thing.

Both Ferrari and Mclaren have 2 weeks to get their act back together. China is very much like Malaysia, their long straights might just suit the KERs runners again.

As for Heikki, he's really proving to be as useless as PK.

Except for the Trulli-Gate, Mclaren are doing quite well. Lewis has managed to finish in the top ten with the second worst car on the grid. That's pretty good IMO and does account for good skills in working with what you have. Ferrari on the other hand are a wreck at the moment. So I'm still with Mercedes.

^well hamilton rocks..as always..

I say bring HWA to F1 and make an all german Mercedes team..
and steal hamilton from Mclaren

I was up even after the thing. After posting in this thread, I just got off the computer since no one was online. It was definitely a disappointing race. I got excited when the rain came down because of all the variables but then the shut down the race and I was like DAMMIT!!!

The real idiots in this race were Ferrari, but I guess they took a risk and paid for it.

It wasn't just a bit earlier, it was more like 12 months earlier. A new consumer car has a development phase of approximately 5 years. Imagine having just 5 months to develop and test an entirely new car with Christmas break and holiday in between. The 2009 car isn't an evolution of the predecessor, it's a new car from the ground up. Williams and Brawn have had close to 18 months of time to test different solution, play around in the lap with double diffusers and what now while Ferrari and Mclaren were under pressure to simply get a car ready for the season. They didn't have the liberty and time of testing different engineering solutions.

For me it's been the opposite. I like to see an underdog win and someone come out of nowhere.

As blasphemous as it is to say, and as terrible as I feel saying it, it's nice to see someone other than Mercedes and Ferrari leading the races. -- And this is coming from someone who thinks the hierarchy of cars consists of Mercedes and no one else

While I don't agree with you about Mercedes as being the best, I do agree about it being good to see someone other than the top teams on top.

I'm happy for the Brawn team and I'm glad they're winning simply because this is a smack in the face of the top teams.

Frankly speaking, this is shaping up to be one of the best seasons in F1 history. Williams and Toyota have definitely taken the fight to Brawn, while Ferrari and Mclaren are really struggling.

I'm a big Ferrari supporter, but then again, i'm really excited that new teams are emerging to challenge the top 2 teams now. I've grown tired, in the past 10 years or so, it was just Ferrari and Mclaren's race to lose. Then we had Renault for a while. Now, imagine BMW, Toyota, Williams, RedBull and Brawn challenging not just for podiums, but for wins as well.

This is like back in the old days of F1, where 4-5 drivers have a genuine shot at the WDC. The changes the FIA brought to the cars aero wise, and new rules have really worked. I've never seen so many overtaking moves in the past 2 races, compared to the whole of last season.

Malaysia last year was a snorefest, but this year, even before the rain came, we saw how Webber and Hamilton having a go at each other so many times. It was really interesting.

Ice Cream Man

Yeah I saw that too, it was pretty funny. I guess it makes sense seeing that it was like 90 degrees Fahrenheit and 95% humidity...LOL