After Kimi Raikkonen eased to victory in Australia, and set the pace in Malaysia on Friday, the forgotten man of Lotus is Romain Grosjean. The Frenchman suspected his problems in Melbourne were due simply to going the wrong way on setup in limited practice running. But "We're seeing the same phenomenon as in Melbourne and we just don't understand it," Germany's Auto Motor und Sport quoted Grosjean as saying on Friday. Team technical boss James Allison has one explanation -- 2007 world champion Raikkonen was […]

Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber hit out at the state of the tyres after second practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix. Vettel was second fastest in Sepang, with Webber sixth, but both drivers fear the weekend is revolving solely around tyres. "It looked pretty OK but quite a mess if you look at how long the tyres last," Vettel told Autosport. "It doesn't look very nice I would say. I hope we have enough tyres to survive the race. It is not a lot of […]

Humidity? Check. Constant threat of biblical rain? Check. Colourful gravel? Check. It must be Sepang...

Felipe Massa is enduring the longest victory drought in the history of all Ferrari drivers, according to an analysis by Italy's Autosprint. Dating back to his title-losing win in Brazil 2008, Melbourne last Sunday marked 68 consecutive races in which the Brazilian has entered a grand prix but failed to triumph. Massa therefore takes the unenviable record from Jean Alesi, who failed to win a grand prix for the fabled Maranello marque between his Ferrari debut in 1991 until Montreal 1995 (67 races). 31-year-old Massa, […]

The ninth season of the GP2 Series roars into life this weekend in Malaysia. Here's our preview.

Giedo van der Garde believes that high temperatures in Malaysia this weekend will help his team. Van der Garde finished in eighteenth place in Australia, the last of the classified runners. "On track Sepang gives us an interesting challenge", said the Dutchman. "We haven’t seen track temperatures in pre-season or in Australia close to what we’ll have this week and as the circuit evolves quite a bit over the weekend managing degradation levels from Friday through to Sunday will be critical, but we saw in […]

Williams technical director Mike Coughlan says that his team can bounce back from a disappointing start to the season in Australia and aim for a double points finish in Malaysia. Valtteri Bottas qualified in sixteenth place in Melbourne and raced to fourteenth place, ahead of only the Marussia and Caterham drivers. Team-mate Pastor Maldonado failed to make Q2 and spun off during the race. "Following a difficult opening to the season in Australia, the team has regrouped and been working hard to solve the problems […]

Force India team principal Vijay Mallya is confident that his cars can score points in this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix. Adrian Sutil led in Australia before finishing in seventh place, narrowly ahead of the sister car of Paul di Resta. "We have scored points in Sepang the last three times we raced there, including a double-points finish last year, and I believe we can build on the early-season momentum to bring home a valuable result," he said. "Last weekend’s race in Melbourne was a great […]

McLaren believe that rain is their best prospect during this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix. Jenson Button and Sergio Perez finished only ninth and eleventh in Australia and don't expect further progress in Sepang. "Australia was obviously a tough weekend and, despite getting the maximum out of the car, it’s still clearly not where we want to be. There's a lot of work to be done but we all know that this team won’t stop working until they get it right," said Button. "“For this weekend, […]

Marussia team principal John Booth believes that his team can take the fight to the midfield runners. Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton finished fifteenth and seventeenth respectively in last weekend's Australian Grand Prix. "The out-of-the-box reliability and performance of the MR02 has been very pleasing to see, especially as the car is quite a significant evolution of the MR01 and we have had to make the necessary modifications to accommodate KERS for this season," said Booth. "Having said that, one race does not make a […]

Lotus's Romain Grosjean is hoping for a better performance as he heads to his favourite circuit for this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix. Grosjean qualified eighth in Australia but slipped back to tenth in the race. "Sepang is probably my favourite track of the whole season," he said. "I first raced there in 2008 as part of the GP2 Asia Series and I really loved the circuit. It’s nice and wide, with fast flowing corners and a lot of undulation which makes it great fun to […]

After his success in Melbourne and now the dust has settled, the Iceman talks us through just how good that win felt, and how he will prepare and look forward to trying to achieve the same in Malaysia. What are your main memories of Sepang as a circuit? Malaysia has been good and bad for me in the past; I’ve had a few bad races there but I’ve also won three times at the circuit including my first Grand Prix victory so it’s nice to […]