Formula 1: Can This Wild RED BULL Be Tamed

Sebastian Vettel started the 2011 campaign with a very convincing victory in the Australian Grand Prix. He once again showed his supremacy over the circuit by continuing his winning streak of the last season. The next race up on the calendar is the Sepang, Malaysian Grand Prix. The last race gave the teams and the drivers, kind of a warm welcome to the 2011 season with a much driver friendly track and the weather and track conditions also supporting the drivers. Now is the first real test for the drivers and it is a circuit where a clear difference between the cars will be exposed. It is a very demanding track, an overtaking friendly track as they say with a couple of high speed straights. The conditions in Kuala Lumpur are always hot and humid during this time of the year which is tougher than anywhere else on the circuit they drive on the calendar. a weather forecast also predicts some rain during the three days in Malaysia making the situation even tougher for the teams and more exciting for us. A race in the wet conditions has always brought out the best in the drivers’ capabilities to handle the car.And with the cockpit temperatures of over 40 degrees, the fitness levels of the drivers will play a very crucial role in their performance. One of the things that the drivers will have to take care of is that they would have to keep their bodies hydrated as dehydration leads to loss in concentration and in extreme conditions, loss in visibility.

Team HRT is also looking forward to improving upon their performance of the Australian Grand Prix and maybe the first priority of the team would be to drive more and more miles that they can and have a better understanding of the car. Hence qualifying the new 107 percent rule which they failed to pass at the Albert Park and also finishing the race will be their key objectives for Malaysia. This will be a very important step for testing the reliability of the car. Narain Karthikeyan who has some some good memories of the Malaysian grand prix will be hoping to get the team its first points of the season. Even though the last time Narain Karthikeyan raced in Malaysia was way back in the 2005 season but the fastest Indian might also have some added advantage as he had been training in India where the conditions are quite similar to Malaysian Grand Prix.

Force India drivers Adrian Sutil and Paul di’Resta performed brilliantly in the Australian GP and had ended the race at 11^th and 12^th positions respectively. They had a bit of luck rolling towards them after the race when the post race tests on the car were done. Because of the violations of technical regulations, team Sauber was disqualified from the race and both its drivers Perez and Kobayashi were also scrapped from the positions which they had acquired. This helped the Force India drivers to move up one position to the 9^th and the 10^th position in the final driver’s standings giving the team a total three points.

But again the question for the moment is whether we will see an ever dominant Sebastian Vettel or will there be other drivers challenging his supremacy. Ferrari is working on improving its qualifying timings while Fernando Alonso seemed pretty upset about his performance in the beginning race of the season as he felt he could have secured a podium finish if he had not made some wrong decisions during the race. And I think that this race will make the situation quite clear of who is pretty much going to perform how in the rest of the competition. As of now, it may appear that the main contenders for the constructor’s championship are Red bull racing , McLaren , Ferrari and Renault but we surely cannot underestimate team Mercedes with talents like Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg behind the wheels. And I think that maybe Force India will be the surprise package of this season. We can just wait and watch when the practice sessions starts tomorrow.