[jfxavier]

The last Malaysian GP (possibly) is here.



Sepang will not feature in the next year's calendar.
So, enjoy while it lasts.

Ferrari has done well here over the past and they need a good show this time around too.
They were expected to do better at Singapore too where Mercedes had struggled in the past.
The forecast looks like it will be rains through the weekend.
Hamilton has won the last eight wet races in a row and will be looking forward to this race too.

Timings:

29th Sept 2017

08:25:00 - 10:00:00 - Practice 1 LIVE

12:25:00 - 14:00:00 - Practice 2 LIVE


30th Sept 2017

11:25:00 - 12:30:00 - Practice 3 LIVE

14:25:00 - 15:40:00 - Qualifying LIVE


1st Oct 2017

12:25:00 - 14:30:00 - Main Race LIVE

Track data:



Tyres Selection:



Mercedes has gone for the relatively harder compounds which they found easier to manage.

Drivers' Championship Standings:



Constructors' Championship Standings:

[Fullrevs]

Pierre Gasly will make his debut in the Toro Rosso. Dani Kvyat has been asked to step aside.

Heard a lot about Gasly. Will be interesting to watch how he handles the weekend.

[Reinhard]

I hope it doesn't rain too much & the race time has been planned properly to take the daily evening showers into consideration.

One more Herman Tilke relics going off the calendar. I don't think anyone is going to miss this one from the calendar. Waiting for the day when the likes of AbuDhabi GP are off too. Everything except racing.

I guess Ferrari will opt to start both cars from the pit-lane this time around.

[jfxavier]

FP1 timings:

Not too bad for Honda
Not really representative as it was just FP1 on a rainy weekend.

[nkrishnap]

Vettel topped the FP2 with 1.31.261 on super softs. With 15 mins to go, Roman Grosjean blew the rear tyre and crashed at turn 13. Incident happened due to the protruding drain cover on the kerb damaging the right rear wheel. Session was called post this incident as this now needs repair overnight to have the track ready for use Saturday morning.

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

Vettel topped the FP2 with 1.31.261 on super softs. With 15 mins to go, Roman Grosjean blew the rear tyre and crashed at turn 13. Incident happened due to the protruding drain cover on the kerb damaging the right rear wheel. Session was called post this incident as this now needs repair overnight to have the track ready for use Saturday morning.

I guess I'll stop complaining about the mis-aligned / poorly installed drain covers / chamber covers in Pune now.

Off late, every year at least one race sees this problem. Even the prestigious Monaco GP. If they can't do it for a million dollar event, can't complain about for city roads in Tier 2 cities in India...

[shibujp]

FP2 timings are not a real indicator but what is interesting is to find Fernando Alonso in P5 splitting the Bulls and the Silver Arrows.

Ferrari would do their best to land their cars 1-2 tomorrow to limit the damage done at Singapore. However if it rains the Red Bulls are going to have the upper hand over both Ferrari and Mercedes.

Looking forward to seeing how Force India's stegosaurus fins work out in Malaysia.

Drive on,
Shibu.

[Reinhard]

Oh dear... Vettel out in Q1 without even running. Seems like they couldn't quite install the new engine in time to send him out.

With Torpedo Kvyat out of STR, Vettel's championship is as good as over now. At least he'll reach the first corner tomorrow hopefully contrary to Singapore though.

Good show by young Gasly in Q1.

[Hatari]

Top stuff by Lewis to get on Pole. Blew Bottas away. This clearly has Merc a bit worried, giving him only yearly contracts. But there were days that the same thing happened to Nico.

Good show by Ocon, Vandoorne and Gasly. Perez apparently is slightly unwell.

Curious on what happened to the aero/floor update on Fernando's car today, didn't work like it did on Friday.

Shame for vettel, it will make the race a bit spicy. He should get upto P6 easily.

[shibujp]

A double whammy for Ferrari - Singapore and now Malaysia. Raikkonen almost clinched pole but Hamilton pulled something out of the last sector to pip Raikkonen by 4 tenths of a second to pole. Hamilton is really being made to work for those pole positions these days.

If Raikkonen manages to repeat his Singapore launch it would interesting to see how the race pans out. Not to forget our young lad Verstappen on the second row. It's a long drag to the first corner though. Last year both Palmer and Bottas used a single stop strategy to their benefit so Vettel may be able to use the same. However it remains to be seen how much this compromises his pace at the start.

Force India look set to retain their position in the constructors championship with Williams not seeming to be able to do much about challenging them.

Has McLaren booted out Honda at the wrong time? Both the cars are in the top ten though Vandornne has beat his more illustrious team mate. They are within 2 seconds of the leaders too in qualifying. I am not so convinced about their switch to Renault. Except for Red Bull, none of the other Renault power teams have been putting together any impressive results. Anyway if Honda has really come through it would be McLaren's loss and Toro Rosso's gain.

Drive on,
Shibu.

[vb-saan]

Brilliant drive by Max - a great way to get into the 20s!
And as expected quite an eventful drive by Vettel to charge from the back and finish P4. And he provided the moment for the last race in Sepang

[sgiitk]

Seems that Ferrari reliability has become a myth. However, Seb did a fantastic job. He has no tyres left otherwise third was his for the asking.

[reignofchaos]

Seems now Vettel needs a gearbox change due to damage from that incident. There goes his chances up in smoke!

[GTO]

I thought it would be a boring race - how wrong could I have been .

At the start, it seemed like everything Hamilton could ask for was happening. Vettel at the back and Kimi in the garage. But then Max showed his & the Red Bull's pace with a clean overtaking move. And the way Vettel stormed through the field . It was just brilliant driving - the stuff of champions. I'm just wondering about the kind of performance from that Ferrari. Yes, Vettel drove well, but even on soft tyres, he was overtaking the super softs like they were standing still.

I think Alonso behaved like an idiot by coming in between Daniel & Vettel; Sebastian couldn't have chopped him better than by saying what he did ("I thought you were better than that").

And the action didn't even stop after the race. Seeing Vettels car like that on the cool down lap was crazy. Lewis got a strong 2nd, but Max & Vettel are the drivers of the race for me today.

[shibujp]

Beware what you wish for. Yesterday I remarked that it would be great if Raikkonen could repeat his Singapore start. Well he did - he was so fast that he started, finished the race and was back in the garage even before the rest could start.What a bleeding shame!

Lewis must have felt surreal. Firstly having a car in front of him that was not silver and secondly not being able to do anything about it. Anyway overtaking the Bulls on the slower and twistier section of the track is pretty difficult given that they are so good on the brakes.

And that cocky teenager Max saying "that's how it is done" after passing Hamilton. But he did good by rocketing off at a pace that Hamilton had no answer for!! Hope to see more top step finishes from this irritating bucket dripping with talent.

I would rate Riccardo's pass on Bottas the best of the day. Such tenacity from Ricciardo and full marks to both of them for some hard but clean racing.

The Williams in general had one of their better races except for Stroll being involved in that crazy incident with Sebastian. However Force India did better with both cars in the points. Vandoorne bringing in some useful points for McLaren. That Honda engine seems to be coming of age. Looking forward to 2018.

And Vettel, great race from him. Given the pace of the Ferrari he made it look quite easy. But what impressed me more than that is the way he went about rallying his team after a DNF in Q1 yesterday. Champion stuff!! It's still within reach if Ferrari extracts similar pace in the coming weekends. However I wonder whether the softs would have been a better choice given that the super softs were pretty much done by the time he caught up with Riccardo.

Gasly did good. Grojean complaining about new drivers was amusing. He seemed to have amnesia about his first years in F1.

To me the championship is wide open. Red Bull is the spanner in the works but Ferrari is really taking the fight upto Mercedes who are having their hardest championship battle in the last three years. Actually, I doubt I have seen them fighting so hard ever since they took over from Brawn GP.

Drive on,
Shibu.