Malaysia F1 GP 2008 - Testing

After both Ferrari’s made it to the top of the time charts in Friday’s 1st practice session, it was Lewis Hamilton who topped the 2nd practice session in fine form.

Jenson Button had a good outing posting the 4th fastest time. Even though these sessions are much like in testing with times not really telling too much of a story, Honda really have made some improvements that are beginning to show.

It was Sebastien Bourdais, after very nearly taking out Nick Heidfeld exiting his pit who paid a coincidental price with a transmition failure soon after. A little more luck for Bourdais is all he needs to show what he is really made of.

Giancarlo Fisichella had a great outing with a top 10 finishing time and continuing to show that Force India are not going away and really do have some good potential. I hope for good things from him in qualifying and the race as long as he isn’t punted off the track like Australia.

Both Renaults were either a big disappointment or they had an agenda other than posting a quick time as Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet (jr) were significantly slower in session 2 than in session one with 14th and 15th best times.

It was reliability problems that struck Red Bull throughout Friday practice when Mark Webber in the RB4 had an engine burn out in session 1 and then David Coulthard with a steering malfunction. He ran wide in turn 12, over the curbs blowing out his front suspension.

This starts the story of the day. Back in the Australian Grand Prix when David Coulthard and Felipe Massa came together, the damage to Coulthard’s front suspension did seem a little exaggerated considering the impact. Now, with another front suspension blow out, the F1 Stewards are wondering if the RB4’s suspension is too fragile to race. Here’s their request:

“Following a verbal report from the Race Director, the Team Principal and the Technical Representative are require to report to the Stewards of the Meeting to discuss the incident involving Car no. 9 during practice session 1 as soon as possible, after the end of practice session 2.”

Further to this and after the meeting:
“The Stewards, having met with the Team Principal and Technical Representative of Red Bull racing in relation to the incident involving Car 9 in Practice 1, have requested that the competitor provide to the FIA Technical Delegate a report verifying that the integrity of the suspension is such that the car should not be deemed ‘of dangerous constructions’ under Article 2.3 of the 2008 Formula One Technical Regulations.”

To be brief, Article 2.3 does say that ‘The stewards of the meeting may exclude a vehicle whose construction is deemed to be dangerous‘.

This definitely leads to a possibility (although a slim one at most) that Red Bull could be excluded from the Malaysian Grand Prix. Not likely to happen because the super charged David Coulthard just may want to kick the *$%& out of someone