2009 Malaysia F1 GP - Prediction

Malaysia, my home.  The race will be held on this Sunday 5th of April 2009.  For me, it will be different from last year, I will be stuck in front of the television monitoring all corners on Sepang F1 Circuit.  Sadly, I will not joining the crowd on the track this year, its ok at least I will not suffering from sun-burned (sour-grape)

Malaysia GP expecting to be a hot and humid race, apart from the speed, engine reliability is the key to success in the race. 

 

Everyone is expecting Brawn GP to dominate again, I will think so too, but definitely will be a closer, tougher fight compare to Melbourne last weekend.

Renault will be competitive, watch out for Alonso.

 

I don’t think the big boys (McLaren Mercedes and Ferrari) can do wonders in one week time, but Ferrari should perform better than McLaren team.  We will see.

Williams-Toyota and Toyota themselves should continue the great performance last weekend, too bad that crashed at the closing stage of last race.

Red Bull Sebastian Vettel should perform will, but due to the 10-place grid penalty as the incident with Robert Kubica,  it will be a tough race for him.

Last but not least, BMW Sauber.  This will be home of major sponsor Petronas, and do not forget, last year they collected 11 points in total in this same circuit

 

The teams running KERS - Ferrari, McLaren, BMW Sauber and Renault - may enjoy more of an advantage here thanks to those long straights, but now that air extraction chimneys have been banned, the heat may prove too challenging for those teams that have marginalised their cooling systems in the interest of aerodynamic efficiency.

 

Brawn will still be running without KERS, if the car is fast enough to win the race, they can take their time.

Little bit on KERS…

New in 2008 Season - Summary

There are several changes made by FIA, all the changes are work towards cost saving, safety, enhance racing experience, enhance viewer experience, and environmental issue...

Let's glance through one by one:

1. The infamous Saturday "fuel burning" round in qualifying reduce from 15 minutes to 10 minutes, and there will be no refueling. It will be all out to create more excitement.
   


2. Rookies get extra "young driver training days" if they not raced a Formula One car in the preceding two years or tested a car for more than four days in that period. These training will fall outside the Friday and Saturday practice limitation.
   


3. Electronic driver aids such as traction control and braking assistants will be banned. The drivers are on their own rather than relying on the technology.
   


4. A standard Electronic Control Unit (ECU) supplied by Microsoft and McLaren will be used by all teams.
   


5. Teams will be allowed to go unpenalised on their first engine change of the season. This is intended to ensure that a minor glitch doesn’t compromise a championship campaign. All subsequent engine failures will receive the usual 10 grid-place penalty.
   


6. Gearboxes must now last four races (calculated as the Saturday and Sunday of a Grand Prix), and failures will result in five grid-place penalty.
   


7. T-Car (spare car) banned, teams are now rely on two cars per race.
   


8. All cars now have the sides of their cockpits raised 20 mm and lengthened in order to improve drivers’ head protection. (thanks to the 2007 Albert's Park incident between David Coulthard and Alexander Wurz)
   



9. There are further restrictions on parts that teams are allowed to develop under the current engine freeze, which will help to switch development programmes towards the Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) that will come into effect in 2009 under the FIA’s long-term plan to make the sport more eco-relevant. Hand-in-hand with this, teams must use fuels which have a minimum of 5.75 per cent content from biological sources.