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"Malaysian GP Predictions"

Here's my predictions.

Ferrari go into Malyasia after dominating in Australia. The gap probably won't be as big with McLaren and Williams developing their new cars. Schumacher will expect a win with Barrichello aiming to challenge him after his disappointment in Melbourne after pole position.

McLaren are not quite with the pace of Ferrari but should be closer than Australia. Coulthard will probably outqualify Raikkonen. They should get at least a podium.

Williams did alright in Australia. Montoya wants to stay ahead of Michael this time out while Ralf will want to score well to keep up with Montoya. Hopefully they will challenge Ferrari for the win.

Sauber qualified quite well in Australia with Massa surpisingly beating Heidfeld. These positions will probably be reversed. Sauber should qualify around 10th and may challenge for points depending on reliability.

Jordan also had a shortened race but Fisichella was fast in qualifying, while Sato had a disaster. Sato still needs to prove himself but Fisichella will have his sights firmly set on beating a Williams or McLaren.

BAR were disappointing in qualifying in Australia and Villeneuve was slower than Webber in the race. They have a lot of work to do and don't have much chance of points unless a lot of drivers drop out.

Renault were promising in qualifying and Trulli ran second in the race before dropping out. Points will be expected and they should pick up one or two.

Jaguar had a nightmare qualifying and a lucky race. Irvine's 4th could be their only points of the season unless the car gets dramatically better. Irvine could be getting prepared for some more outbursts.

Arrows qualified well by their standards but didn't start. Frentzen was brilliant in Malayasia last year and this could be their best chance of a good result all season. However points are unlikely.

Minardi will go into Malaysia (one of their 5 home races) on a high after Webber's 5th. It would be hard for them to pull off a repeat performance, but if the rain comes lightening may strike twice...

Toyota were fast in a straight line in Australia and better than expected. More points are unlikely but McNish will be eager to prove himself after his race finished in Melbourne on lap one

If the same kind of thing happens in Brazil, a driver can be punished by losing 10 places on the grid for the next race. This just shows how they only care about the top guys crashing into each other. For people like Yoong losing 10 places would make no difference. I suppose it is fairer because if the person who cause an accident retired the punishment would be pointless.

why on earth JPM got that penalty is beyond me. He was at the very least level with schuey as he went in the corner but my eyes showed me he was a good bit of a nose infront. Then shuey goes and veers out from the corner with *understeer* and hits Montoya who gave Schuey exactly the same amount of room he gave Button when he was racing him. It was just another desperate move from Schuey knowing the stewards wouldn't punish him. Always happens, unless schuey's involved in the first corner incident or another Spa 98 crash happens they won't restart the race and if anyone dares to try overtake him he'll just hit them and escape without a penalty cause we can't penalise michael schumacher can we?.
Also Barrichello suspiciously went near to crossing the yellow line after the first pit stop.
Maybe it's one rule for Ferrari and another for everyone else.

Anyway good to see Schuey lose seeing as how he didn't have the best car this time and the williams pair totally out drove him

Sato is causing Jordan a lot of problems. He's slow, he crashes and he takes out his teammate and this is only race 2. The only good thing was he overtook Montoya early on but lost the place within a lap. In Brazil he won't get anywhere near Fisichella as Interlagos is a Fisichella track.

What is chocolate-squeezy?

I thought Button v Montoya was great, that'll show critics of JB that he has got what it takes, despite all his problems last year.

Nice to see McNish finish, just a shame he couldn't get in the points, but it shows that Toyota are pretty reliable, unlike Ferrari and McLaren...

Schumacher is just THE luckiest person around. Still managing to get on the podium after the incident with JPM - who did NOT deserve his drive through penalty that he got.

All in all an interesting race.

I just hope that DC wins in Brazil with neither MS, JPM or RS getting any points at all (yeah right!) because the title fight will be REALLY open!

Did you hear James Allen describe one of Michael Schumacher's overtaking manoeuvres as: "Easy peasy chocolate squeazy"? - Bring back Murray!

I so wanted Button to finish 3rd. It would have shoved all his critics words back down their throat.

I wanted Jordan to do well and then Sato hit Fisichella. Fisichella had a certain points finish in the bag. Well, Brazil is a different ball game. It's one of the few tracks (perhaps the only track) that goes anti-clockwise.

It all worked out nicely in the end. Williams now have the top spot, while Schumacher still leads the driver's championship. Today's race showed that F1 isn't a one man match and it was nice to see some interesting finishes, although you have to feel so sad for Button who missed 3rd place by such a small amount.

But that's Formula 1 for you, not always predictable!

MikeAll wrote:
> Forgot a bit. Predicted grid order:

1. Michael Schumacher YES
2. Barrichello 3RD - 1 OFF
3. Coulthard 6TH - 3 OFF
4. Ralf Schumacher YES
5. Montoya 2ND - 3 OFF
6. Raikkonen 5TH - 1 OFF
7. Fisichella 10TH - 3 OFF
8. Trulli 12TH - 4 OFF
9. Button 8TH - 1 OFF
10. Heidfeld 7TH - 3 OFF
11. Massa 14TH - 3 OFF
12. Sato 15TH - 3 OFF
13. Villeneuve YES
14. Panis 18TH - 4 OFF
15. Frentzen 11TH - 4 OFF (EVEN BETTER THAN i THOUGHT HE'D DO)
16. Salo 9TH - 7 OFF
17. McNish 19TH - 2 OFF
18. Irvine 20TH - 2 OFF
19. de la Rosa 17TH - 2 OFF
20. Webber 21ST - 1 OFF
21. Bernoldi 16TH - 5 OFF
22. Yoong. YES

Average error 2.363636363636363636363

Fully committed? Nothing compared to last year however he was still more committed than everyone else. That was Schumacher at his spectacular best.

Wwll, Schumacher's pole lap was stunning. Fully commmited through turns 13 and 14. Wonderful to watch. Coulthard was pathetic (once again). It looks like Williams V Ferrari in this race. Renault look like threatening to pick up points.