FLN Report: 2016 Malaysia GP
Waking up at 2AM to watch a race on a small computer screen is never worth it, but I have a problem. That being said what a race, folks. What a race. Malaysia tends to be a snooze fest the last Malaysian GP that was enjoyable was the 2012 one where Sauber’s Checo lost in the last lap to Fernando Alonso. That seems so long ago, Ferrari winning races. In any case this year the excitement for the race started before the first lap. The weather was so hot that cars were breaking before the formation lap. Felipe baby didn’t manage to stay cool and his car stalled as all cars left for the formation lap and he had to start from the pit lane. At the end of the formation lap Jolyon Palmer reported he was losing power which raises the question, how can a Renault lose power when it had none to being with? As if those two cars messing up wasn’t enough right before the start Carlos Sainz’s Toro Rosso died, thankfully it was defibrillated back to life by its own hybrid system in the last second and the race started.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there is nothing better than a First Lap Nutcase. This time it was Seb’s turn to play the role and he did it to perfection. Going into the first corner he was side by side with Max “Young Max Verstappen” Verstappen when Nico Rosberg who was ahead of both closed the space and Seb hit him causing him to spin and fall to last place while Seb crashed out completely. Raises the question of exactly what version of Ping Pong Seb was playing. This trigged a Virtual Safety Car and left Lewis in P1 followed by Ricciardo and Checo in P3. The real hero of the start was Fernando Alsonso who somehow made up for his 85 grid place penalty and was up in the points by the second turn.Max survived the scuffle and waxed poetic about how big of an idiot Sebastian was on the team radio. Seriously, the kid went on for about 4 laps. Things resumed until in lap 9 Romain Grosjean’s Haas brakes breaked(his words) and he painfully slid into the gravel. After another VSC Manor’s Esteban Ocon was up in the points in what can only be described as a “Rio Haryanto like” performance, unfortunately this didn’t last and he was quickly passed.
Elsewhere in the race, Nico Rosberg dashed up the grid much like on does in the F1 video game on easy mode. Williams was anonymous. The Force Indias fell back, Kimi was completely mediocre. Sauber continued their great race with Renault to see who could be more irrelevant. Manor played at the back and Esteban Gutierrez in the sole remaining Haas did his best to avoid blue flags…and was Toro Rosso in the race? Yeah I guess they had to be. The real entertainment of the race was in the 2nd and 3rd place fight between Dan “Shoe Drinker” Ricciardo and Max “NO” Verstappen. After saying for the 11th time how much of an idiot Seb was on team radio Max went on the charge to try and overtake his teammate. This led to a great battle between to the two Red Bull’s that ended with some wheel to wheel action and Dan sticking out his elbows and not letting Max through. This turned out to be a great move on Ricciardo’s part because one lap later Hamilton accidentally hit the after burner button on the wheel and his engine blew up. Fire came out the back and Lewis screamed as he moved to the side and jumped out of his car and prayed to some God in what can only be described by the British media as a “crushing display” but to the rest of us it was a great moment.
There was another safety car during which Haas tried a radical three wheel strategy, and the race ended with Ricciardo, Max, and Nico “Pls nerf this car” Rosberg rounding up the podium. Shoes were drank out of, and then thrown off the podium. I think the shoe drinking has run its course. Of note in this race was the fact that Jolyon Palmer scored the first point of his F1 career in a real surprise to everyone.
FLN Power Rankings
- First Lap Nutcases
- Jump starting F1 cars
- Engine exploding conspiracy theories
- Almost falling asleep watching the race then someone crashes
- New England Patriot’s third string QB
- Breaking brakes
- Not drinking out of shoes
- Ferrari capitalizing on their rival’s bad luck
- Rio Haryanto
- Renault Power Unit
