malaysian grand prix

So this last weekend was the Malaysian Grand Prix.

As I mentioned on Friday, I couldn't remember if it was a good one or not, but when I saw the circuit I realised it was one that can produce some interesting races. It's the worst race for the drivers from a physical point of view, as it's so humid, so you can get lapses in concentration.

Also, the circuit has some tricky corners where the drivers might make a mistake, giving the possibility of overtaking. And finally, the weather can produce a bit of randomness, as rain is quite frequent. Of course, some years it's torrential and has delayed races/qualifying and I seem to recall one year the race being stopped as it was too heavy.

So yeah, it can be a good one, but also this year we have all sorts of new toys Firstly there's the Drag Reduction System or DRS, which is actually a moveable rear wing. The idea is that by tilting a part of the rear wing you reduce the amount of drag, allowing the car to go faster. This small speed boost is intended to help and encourage overtaking. The implementation of it is complicated, though, as they've tried to do it so that the teams won't just be able to use it all the time, like they do with the KERS.

KERS is back this year, which is essentially a version of regenerative braking that you get on some newer road cars and can give a little speed boost. This can be used for around 6 seconds or so per lap, and unlike the DRS, it can be used anywhere. This is it's flaw, really - for those that have it, it essentially just becomes a routine thing used in the same way and the same place every lap, defeating it's supposed purpose as being like the old turbo boost back in the turbo days. Also, there's no particular penalty for using it under the new regs - if you don't have it, you just have to put ballast in the same place.

Finally there's the new tyres, which are designed to be quite grippy for a short number of laps and then to suddenly loose grip - phrases like 'falling off the cliff' have been used. The intention with this is that some drivers will be kind to their tyres and so they'll be grippy for longer, requiring less stops, but then other drivers will get more out of their tyres and be able to catch up while they're still grippy, so maybe having a stop will be better for them.

Last time at Melbourne, these new toys didn't really seem to impact on the racing. The track was quite cool and so the tyres didn't seem to do quite what was expected. Also the DRS seemed to not give quite what we were expecting. However, it was suggested that this was in part due to its positioning - on the corner it activated, it was difficult to get behind another car and the straight wasn't long enough and the following corner not helpful enough to really help overtaking.

In Malaysia, the straight used is huge, with a preceding corner that worked better and a following corner that was already a reasonable overtaking spot. As such, DRS really did seem to enhance the racing.

Also, the tyres seemed to work as advertised, being good for around 15 laps or so and then really degrading - you could clearly see people making up a lot of ground because they'd got fresher tyres, and people were finding it difficult to defend because they had poorer tyres. So yeah, I think these two worked, though DRS I think is going to be highly circuit dependent. It will suit some, like Malaysia, but not others, like Australia.

KERS I think is still a bit naff - it needs a different approach, making it more powerful or restricting how and when it can be used. As I say, the current version just because a fixed thing used every lap in the same place.