Malaysian GP this weekend
Sepang
Circuit Malaysia
Following on in quick succession after
Australia is the Malaysian Grand Prix at the Sepang circuit.
Last year the heavens opened and the race had to be red
flagged after only 31 laps. Hopefully that will not happen
this year, and with the earlier start, we should (hopefully)
miss the late afternoon monsoon. Jenson Button won the
shortened race last year. Can he do it again? I very much
doubt it.
Qualifying is on the Saturday at 3 p.m.
and there will have been some feverish work for a couple of
the teams to get ready for Malaysia, with only a few days
break since Melbourne.
The race begins at 3 p.m. Thai time on
the Sunday and we will be watching as usual in front of the
big screen at Jameson’s Irish Pub, Soi AR, next to Nova
Park. Join us for (very) late lunch and a couple of beers
before the GP starts. The easiest way to find us if you
haven’t been to Jameson’s is to turn right into Soi 4 from
Pattaya Second Road and follow it up and around for 200
meters and Jameson’s is on your left hand side.
What did we learn from the Australian
Grand Prix?
Last week I suggested that if you were of
a religious bent, then to pray for a more exciting race in
Australia than we saw in Bore-rain. Well, you did it, thank
you! A much better race in all respects, though ‘rain’
played a major part in it.
The rain at the start certainly changed
the whole running order. Vettel (Red Bull) stayed in front
from pole position, but Massa in the Ferrari had a superb
start, leapfrogging Mark Webber in the other Red Bull and
Ferrari team mate Alonso, to the displeasure of the
Spaniard, who was then hit by eventual winner Jenson Button
in the McLaren-Mercedes. This produced a chain of events in
which Michael Schumacher lost his front wing after a clout
from Button and had to pit, effectively ending his race;
however, after rejoining in last place, he did not drive
like an ex-champion.
Major gainers were Kubica (Renault) and
Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren-Mercedes, who came from his
lowly 11th place after a woeful
qualifying to be challenging in the front pack.
Unfortunately, after being brought in for a second set of
slicks he lost too many places, with not enough laps left.
Hamilton was not a happy bunny, complaining loudly about the
team decision, but stopped short of saying that the team was
favoring Button.
It wasn’t Hamilton’s weekend in
Australia, having his Mercedes road car confiscated by the
over-enthusiastic Australian Police for dropping a
‘wheelie’. Congratulations Constable Plod for making
Australia a laughing stock.
Until his brake failure, Vettel in the
Red Bull looked as if he had this one sewn up too, but to
finish first, first you have to finish! His team mate Mark
Webber drove in front of his home crowd as if he had to
deliver the goods at any cost. He didn’t, and the last
minute lunge on Lewis Hamilton was never going to come off.
This was not the confident race-winning Webber from 2009.
The Ferrari challenge did not come from
Alonso, who had to sit behind team mate Massa all the way to
the chequered flag. Massa gave no quarter, and in fact, his
driving was quite erratic at times, verging on dangerous.
The Spaniard will be muttering again behind closed doors.
The driver of the day was Robert Kubica
in the Lada (Renault), a car which was not as good as the
other front-runners, but he kept it all together, and
everyone but Button behind him. He deserved the second
place.
It was interesting to note that in the
first half of the race there was much slipstreaming and many
passing manoeuvres (the air in Melbourne was ‘clean’ at that
stage?), but in the second half there was very little
passing and ‘dirty air’ was named as the culprit. I suggest
that perhaps driver fatigue may play a large part in this.
Only 14 of the original starters actually
finished the race, with the final runner being Karun
Chandhok in the HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy), shaking
hands with himself at being still running at the end, even
though he was five laps down. This is the pinnacle of motor
racing? I don’t think so. The slow bunch should be made to
qualify within 107 percent of the estimated pole time before
even getting anywhere near the grid.
The non-finishers included the usual
bunch - Petrov (Lada), Trulli (Lotus), Kobayashi (Sauber),
Hulkenberg (Williams), Senna (HRT), Glock (Virgin) and Di
Grassi (Virgin). The Virgin F1 team must be an embarrassment
to Richard Branson (or is it a tax dodge?) and the failing
front wings on the Saubers need to be fixed before Malaysia
this coming weekend.
Nissan
first in with the eco car
Siam Nissan Automobile Co (SNA) launched
Thailand’s first locally produced eco car, the Nissan March,
a petrol miser.
SNA president Toru Hasegawa said the
Nissan March is a small vehicle with a 1,200cc
three-cylinder engine with carbon dioxide emissions less
than 120 grams and able to use fuel more efficiently at
around 5 liters per 100 km.
Ugly Nissan March
Nissan expects to increase vehicle
production in Thailand from the previous 63,000 units in
2008 to 200,000 by 2012.
Nissan is also the first contender in the
eco-car market among the six companies that have received
investment privileges to make these vehicles in Thailand.
The March has a base starting price of
375,000 baht, with six variants priced up to 537,000 baht
for the full spec model.
The March comes with either a five-speed
manual transmission or the Xtronic continuously variable
transmission (CVT). The manual transmission versions will be
offered first and the CVT versions from early June.
Thailand joins China, India and Mexico as
one of the global manufacturing hubs for the March, which is
also known as the Nissan Micra in Europe and some other
markets. Nissan was thus able to utilize the development
work done by its other manufacturing regions.
Toshiyuki Shiga, chief operating officer
of Nissan Motor Co. said that, “Producing and selling the
eco-friendly Nissan March in Thailand, as well as exporting
it to other countries, will create jobs and contribute to
the country’s progressive auto industry development.”
Nissan aims to sell about 20,000 units of
the five-door March hatchback in Thailand this year and to
export 70,000 to ASEAN, Oceania and Japan within 12 months
of the debut. The manufacturer claims it had 5,000
pre-launch bookings even before it announced specifications
and price.
Having looked at the Nissan March in the
metal at the motor show, I can report that it is dead-set
ugly. It takes just as much time and effort to make a good
looking car, so why make an ugly one? Nissan should shoot
the design team
Autotrivia Quiz
Last week I asked what was the connection
between the famous aviator Louis Bleriot and automobiles?
The connection was acetylene gas lights for the early motor
cars, which first were used in 1898. Louis Bleriot
apparently made the best ones.
So to this week. Did Karl Benz work for
Gottlieb Daimler, or did Gottlieb Daimler work for Karl
Benz? Their legacy is of course the Daimler-Benz company
which builds the Mercedes cars.
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be
the first correct answer to email [email protected].
Good luck!
Some notes
from the Bangkok International Motor Show
While I am writing this, my motorcycle
correspondent Alan Coates and I are at the Bangkok
International Motor Show at BITEC (Km 1 Bangkok-Trat Road),
which will be running until April 6. We will be giving you a
detailed run-down on the offerings at the show itself over
the next couple of weeks, but here are a few preliminary
jottings and impressions. Let me start with Press Day and
the push-up bra.
Push-up bra time!
I must be getting old, but I go to motor
shows to look at motor cars. If all I want to do is to ogle
at some dizzy dame with a push-up bra, in a ridiculous
outfit, there are many streets in Pattaya and Chiang Mai
which could more easily cater to my taste or push-up
perversions. In those self-same streets, I could even handle
the merchandise, without a push-off, never mind a push-up.
However, after sifting through the 31st
Bangkok International Motor Show, there were some gems
amongst the frizzy hair and come hither looks. Along with
the world’s economic melt-down, many dealerships seemed to
have indulged in an automotive ‘pass the parcel’ and the
exotics seem to have been snapped up by small enterprises,
and their offerings were not in the main halls populated by
Toyota, Honda, Mazda and Mercedes, but hidden away beside
motorcycles and a couple of ocean-going motorboats.
Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Ferrari, Porsche, Lotus and a
wonderful red Audi R8 were there if you looked for them.
Venture down through the tools and accessories and Mr
Meguiars presented the eager auto buff with a brilliant
black Lamborghini Gallardo, which just looked sensational.
Mind you, also hidden away, and should have been ritually
buried before the show opened, were the unbelievably crass
Mitsuoka’s complete with faux Rolls front on an original
Nissan Teana donor car.
Copy Rolls
You have to feel sorry for Volvo, falling
from Ford’s table before grace was even over, and also
falling from the main hall to be banished to the basement
with the Wuling Scorpions as bed-mates. Yes, how the mighty
have fallen.
The Japanese auto industry, when you give
it free rein, can come up with some amazing machinery. Tonka
toys for bigger boys seemed to be one of the themes, with
the incredibly ugly Suzuki and Toyota Rin being at best
tongue in cheek automotive jokes. Or I hope that was the
reason.
Scotsman contemplating a Chery
One Japanese offering which had generated
much interest was the Nissan March (Micra in some
countries), their entry level Eco-car. Having stolen a march
(couldn’t resist the pun) on the other manufacturers, they
showed their new little baby in a depressing range of
colors, when this should have been the time to show them off
in outrageous colors like Mazda had done with their Mazda2
variants.
Cheery Chery, the Chinese automaker was
exhibiting their wares again this year, though the Chery QQ
seemed basically unchanged from last year. Taking a leaf
from the history books and E.L. Cord’s strategy to shift old
stock from the 1930’s, stickers and stripes were applied
with gay abandon, including a Bumbee Tartan model for
impecunious Scotsmen.
More on the motor show next week.
