[Hatari]

Originally Posted by a*ed

They don't degrade like they used to earlier but they still do depending on how much you're pushing and also the gradient of the track.

I don't see what's wrong in what Seb mentioned about Alonso.
Alonso is a pretty talented driver but he can be a pain sometimes.

Im not defending what Alonso did and I didnt say there was anything wrong with what Seb said. But he never mentioned Alonso cost him the race.

[Aditya2703]

I was at the Sepang circuit for the entire weekend and it was an amazing experience. To be honest, I am not someone who follow F1 regularly, it was my friend Salil who convinced me to tag along and it did turn out to be a fun trip. We got the tickets from the F1 website for the main grandstand. Once you enter the main grandstand you have access to the north and south stand and the grandstand tower. The north side offers you the view of the starting grid, the podium and the pits. From the other side you get to see almost the entire south side of the track, but the best portion was turn 9 and uphill that follows. I personally feel that turn 9 was the most amazing section where the men and machines were truly tested.

You can feel the difference in approach of every driver, maybe it was my perception but I found Seb to be braking very late and pushing the car at max torques out of the corner and uphill. I also found the sound of Max's Red Bull car to be the sweetest when pushed hard, while the Williams car was most annoying, very harsh metallic.
As I said I have very little knowledge of F1 but I found Hamilton's approach to be overly defensive, like once Max passed him in the 4th of 5th lap, he hardly made any effort to reclaim the top spot, he was content finishing second. In fact, the Red Bull was so fast that Max maintained a healthy lead throughout. Maybe it was a strategic decision in view to maintain the overall standings, but as a spectator I felt he should have demonstrated a bit more, anyway...
Needless to say Seb was amazing, to finish 4th after starting last in the grid was awesome and quite obviously he was the crowd favorite. I have a video of Marcus Ericsson carrying Seb on his Sauber car after Seb's car got hit in the cooling lap, not sure how to upload a big size video.

Here are a few snaps from the track.

The Mercedes F1 car displayed before entering the grandstand.


It rained before the race, but the Porsche cup race happened and swept most of the water off the track.


The starting grid section.


The south view with my favorite turn 9 and uphill section.


Spectators on the track after the race.