2008 Malaysian GP Practice

OSRN 1

The 2nd Friday Practice session for Round 2 of the 2008 F1 season at Sepang.

Transcript

00:00:00Robert Kubica

00:00:01Who in turn had bumped?

00:00:03Fernando Alonso and now Heikki Kovalainen goes to P1 and the other McLaren Mercedes

00:00:08I mean fundamentally guys, I think anything that takes cars off track has got to be bad for the sport. I'm sorry

00:00:14I don't absolutely see any way around that. It's a show

00:00:17We want to see cars on track can be Reichen and back in action after his problems this morning when the

00:00:23Ferrari just mysteriously cut out now after the chaos last weekend in Melbourne

00:00:28Both of the Ferrari factory cars or rather their engines were sent back to Maranello for analysis Michael Schumacher

00:00:35Who remains as a team advisor told the German press this week that they believe the design of their engines is fundamentally sound

00:00:42But that was all he would elaborate on Felipe Massa in Malaysia said

00:00:48That his car his engine had broken a valve and Steve

00:00:53I think we think that's also what happened to Kimi Raikkonen last week

00:00:55Well, this Ferrari is going pretty quick now, but don't forget to that board a Ferrari blew up last week in Adelaide

00:01:01It's in Melbourne. It's blown up already this afternoon here and Sue Till's Ferrari is blown up here

00:01:05So obviously a bit of a batch problem or something. Well, I think what they're saying is because the heat

00:01:12High ambient temperatures of their experience in Melbourne that they had some sort of bizarre

00:01:17fuel pickup problem or pressure problem perhaps within the spray rail itself

00:01:21And the lack of fuel getting around the inlet valves was causing the problem basically lack of lubrication the fuel itself

00:01:28That acts as a lubrication on the inlet valves and without that they think they had a problem

00:01:33There's John Todd who has recently just stepped down from CEO of Ferrari basically now

00:01:38Walking away from the team effectively

00:01:41Now he is not here. The team is anxious to mention as you see Fernando Alonso

00:01:47Ripping the

00:01:48Legality blank off the bottom of the Renault not here is John Todd because of the problems last week

00:01:53He had always planned to come here his girlfriend actress Michelle Yeoh is Malaysian

00:01:58And he was always planning to be on hand for this event. Nevertheless

00:02:01I'm sure his leadership might be welcomed down there in the Ferrari garage right now. Yeah

00:02:06I'm not sure the engine mechanics are like him poking around in their

00:02:09Sutil back on the track obviously with another engine on board. I think so

00:02:13I was just wondering she certainly had time to swap it out. But would they would they need to?

00:02:21Well, it was pretty dense smoke

00:02:23So we're guessing that he did he saw that big slide as he came around that this is something that we are going to see

00:02:29a lot of this year

00:02:31He didn't suit you. That's not bad. I mean that six sets half a second off, but

00:02:35it's gonna be interesting to see how this force India team goes the

00:02:39Team principal has pledged to spend another 50 million on

00:02:44development, so

00:02:46Which of course is not much compared to BMW and McLaren, but still in all it's not bad money and should make a significant difference

00:02:53Gonna be interesting to see how agent Sutil does this year against Giancarlo Fisichella

00:02:57And it's it I tell you what that force India transformation really is welcome in Formula One

00:03:03Vijay Mallya as Kimi Raikkonen goes p1 by a substantial amount Vijay Mallya the Indian billionaire

00:03:09Who is helping to bankroll that team now has brought a lot of Indian national flavor to it their

00:03:15Debut for their new car and its new colors was absolutely spectacular

00:03:21Bollywood all the way

00:03:23I'm gonna have curry and chips every day for lunch. Well, there you go. Very good curry and well, I'm sure

00:03:28We'll take a quick break and return Nick Heidfeld steering for all he's worth in the BMW Sauber

00:03:34That's the kind of thing we're seeing from Formula One 2008 plenty more to come when we return to Malaysia

00:03:42Speeds coverage of the FIA Formula One World Championship is brought to you by BMW BMW the ultimate driving machine

00:03:50You

00:03:55Welcome back to live 90 minutes of second practice and there is Lewis Hamilton

00:04:00Trying to control a vicious slide from his McLaren Mercedes. Watch this

00:04:04I got that left front locked up misses the apex goes wide, but he's got it under control. Yes. Yes. No, yes, no

00:04:11Lots of sliding around this year

00:04:13We're gonna see Lewis Hamilton second in the session right now to Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari here comes Felipe Massa

00:04:19It was very quick this morning. So expect this time to be another little bit off the pace there

00:04:26Temperature about 90 degrees ambient air temp right now

00:04:31120 Fahrenheit on the racetrack

00:04:33And the forecast calls for thundershowers each afternoon throughout the weekend when they'll come

00:04:40We're not sure it was bright sunshine and blue skies for this morning's opening 90 minutes of practice

00:04:46But the clouds have come overhead you see the play of shadow and sunlight on the racetrack that will affect those Bridgestone tires

00:04:53Bridgestone have brought their hardest and

00:04:55Second hardest compound as you can see contributing to the sliding in these warm humid conditions

00:05:03P2 for Masa now, let's take a look at our BMW track analysis with David Hobbs

00:05:08Well, we see quite a bit of sliding going along. It's three point four four miles long as you can see

00:05:12It's got 15 corners about 180 mile an hour into turn one long long long turn one and as you go into turn two

00:05:19There's quite a drop-off a little bit of a hill there

00:05:21So you get the inside front wheel off the deck then turn three is very quick turn force where you see some overtaking

00:05:26That's where Hamilton got master last year five

00:05:29six seven eight very quick corners that are run down to the

00:05:34Benyaya Tiaman corner number nine some overtaking cut go on going to there and ten eleven

00:05:40Follow on pretty quickly on each other and then unfortunately 12 is a good corner

00:05:44But 13 you've got that slight angled approach to go down to 14

00:05:48So it's kind of difficult to get inside anybody to overtake them there

00:05:51But obviously good run down from 14 to 15 always some overtaking goes on into turn 15 all at all pretty

00:05:58Tough tracking of physically this especially just always hovering around about the hundred mark and of course very high humidity

00:06:05So this is tough on the drivers this place

00:06:07Relatively smooth bit bumpy on approaching three and four

00:06:11On the brakes, but otherwise, it's pretty good

00:06:13There's Nelson Piquet hoping to put his brutal weekend in Australia his Formula One debut behind him and do better this weekend in Malaysia

00:06:21And as he makes his way around let's go to the fourth member of our broadcast team Peter Windsor Peter

00:06:28Thanks very much Bob great to be here had a much better trip up here

00:06:31I think than most of the Formula One mechanics who was shattered after that weekend in Australia

00:06:35I was in one of the new a380 airbuses very nice

00:06:38it was too but moving swiftly on from that the talk at the moment in the pit lane is of the

00:06:43The problem is afflicting Red Bull and of course one element of that was the Renault engine failure on Mark Webber's car this morning

00:06:49But much perhaps deeper than that was a second brake failure on the Adrian Newey designed car on the Toro Rosso this time

00:06:56That was with a Brembo disc Mark Webber and David Coulthard using hitco brakes

00:07:01And so really now we have to exclude the brake manufacturer from that problem

00:07:06So it looks like some sort of design problem around the brake area

00:07:09And then of course we had David Coulthard's problem this morning that was related to a bonding failure on a steering track rod

00:07:15And that is very fundamental

00:07:17that's basically a steering rack failure as a result of which the front suspension then collapsed and the talk in the pit lane is

00:07:22Imagine if that sort of thing had happened going through a Rouge or somewhere really quick

00:07:25So a lot of problems the Red Bull at the moment. They still have major

00:07:29Reliability issues and we thought all that was behind them with Jeff Willis's arrival in the team

00:07:34So a lot of farrowed brows in the Red Bull garage at the moment

00:07:37Well, I bet that are because that's the sort of thing

00:07:40You definitely don't want happening brisk date brisk at break this blowing up like that and steering

00:07:45Arms breaking just not the sort of thing you want to expect on a modern race car

00:07:49No, it's not and if it's a batch failure and you have to assume that all the components are built the same way

00:07:55And that will be a problem for Red Bull

00:07:58Over the last I would say ten years the teams have spent a lot of time developing carbon fiber

00:08:04suspensions where they used to be steel before and the track rods were actually one of the first pieces to be replaced from steel to

00:08:10Carbon because the team's basically thought that they weren't carrying as much load as the suspension components

00:08:16And I remember back in the days when I was working with Bennett in the mid 90s

00:08:19I remember the steering arm itself, which are the steering rack was the first part to go to carbon

00:08:25But there is a titanium link at the end of it which attaches to the outer parts of the suspension

00:08:30Which is just basically bonded in with an agent a bonding agent, and if that breaks free

00:08:35Oh, that's a result with sir on cool. Todd's got very worrying

00:08:39Watching Fernando Alonso the two-time world champion now back with the Renault team

00:08:44Molly Renault is looking pretty good Alonso's fourth and PK's fifth at the moment Kovalainen and McLaren is sixth

00:08:51Hamilton's third, but Hamilton is a

00:08:541.2 second slower than Kimi Raikkonen

00:08:58Who we see sitting in a garage here and right behind him is his teammate Felipe Amasa

00:09:03So it looks like the Ferraris are very very quick here in Malaysia

00:09:07You see the build-up going on

00:09:10There's that repair

00:09:11And looks like a repair were carrying being carried out on cool Todd's car

00:09:15The giveaway to be in a repair work there is that pink plastic wrap that's inside of the chassis

00:09:21Which the mechanics when they use in the carbon composite materials they lay that up around there to stop the material sticking

00:09:28It's a way. It's kind of a nonstick surfaces

00:09:30They use on the components to stop pieces bonding together, and they don't want to be bonded together

00:09:36We also saw a mechanic mixing up a batch of epoxy. Yeah, it was rather evil-looking glue

00:09:41It will stick some things together. You can go Rosberg using the soft tires

00:09:45He was fourth this morning 12th now at the moment

00:09:48Times hot up as the weekend goes on. This is another track where the rubber gets laid down as the weekend progresses

00:09:55Sebastian battle obviously had a replacement disc put on there

00:10:00His teammate Sebastian Bordet

00:10:03Still shown as no time so it appears that the four-time champ car World Series champion

00:10:09May be done for the day which of course is not what he needs because this circuit

00:10:13He's never been here before so he needs a bit of time on the track

00:10:16Although these guys seem to have an ability to learn very very quickly still in all

00:10:20Nothing like going around the track a few times

00:10:22Here comes Jensen button out of the Honda garage button a first lap accident victim a week ago in Australia

00:10:32Yeah, and he must be a bit sick when he sees how well Rubens Barrichello went and if Rubens Barrichello hadn't jumped that red

00:10:37Light in the pit lane. I mean Rubens would have picked himself up

00:10:40Three points here was the

00:10:42star of the Australia weekend leading into the race Robert Kubica who put in a

00:10:47Tremendous lap in his BMW Sauber and got his first career front-row start alongside pole man Lewis Hamilton

00:10:56And he was in a good position to score points, maybe make the podium in Melbourne

00:11:01Until he was run into up the back by Kaz Nakajima's Williams Toyota while running behind the safety car a bizarre incident

00:11:09And it'll cost the Japanese driver 10 spots on the starting grid for this weekend's race in Malaysia

00:11:16Well, well off the pace now to as you saw two of seconds there

00:11:25Just in front of Weber

00:11:27right behind cover line there's

00:11:30Lewis how other dad Anthony and his manager is interesting sir

00:11:35Jackie Stewart who was one of the first Grand Prix drivers to bring legal representation into the sport

00:11:41In fact, he says it cost him a possible ride with Ferrari as soon as Enzo Ferrari saw that Jackie

00:11:46Was bringing guys with briefcases. He said he didn't want him in the team or so goes the story

00:11:51But sir, Jackie said that Lewis was probably making a mistake by allowing his father Anthony

00:11:58to be his manager I

00:12:00Suppose that's open to argument. We'll take a break and return in a moment to Friday's second practice for Malaysia

00:12:11The Malaysian Grand Prix back in

00:12:132003 was a bit of a coming-out party for the two most recent world champions Fernando Alonso started from pole at Sepang

00:12:20Becoming the youngest driver ever to do so, but he was upstaged in the race by McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen

00:12:26Who captured his first ever

00:12:28Formula one race victory at the time Raikkonen was the second youngest driver ever to win a Grand Prix the current youngest

00:12:36That would be Fernando Alonso at the Hungaro ring that same year

00:12:40Alonso would join Raikkonen on the podium in Malaysia after finishing third the first of 24 times those two have appeared together on

00:12:47the podium

00:12:49And there is Kimi Raikkonen in his new role as a Ferrari driver and the reigning world champion

00:12:56About to begin a hot lap currently p1 in the session at 1 minute 36.0 for five moments ago Alonso

00:13:07Not a good thing when the scenery is going by sideways

00:13:11Especially in front of the pit yeah

00:13:14This is in the final corner very tight left-hander

00:13:18Is on the option compound the softer of the two Bridgestones and of course is a very important corner to get right because at the end

00:13:24Of it really is one of your best overtaking opportunities in the track

00:13:27So you want to come off that corner with every red on board that you can

00:13:31Raikkonen just a tad off his fastest lap so far, but that would still be good enough for

00:13:37second fastest which at the moment incidentally is held by

00:13:41Sebastian Vettel in the Toro Rosso after that brake disc explosion

00:13:45Back on the track and running in second spot and not a bad second spot

00:13:49He's just seven tenths of a second slower than Kimi Raikkonen's time

00:13:55Difficult track to get the car to work well around here

00:13:59They obviously carry a lot of downforce see because your top speed considering the length of those straights is not that

00:14:05You know 185 ish

00:14:07You think they'd be going faster than that on these long straights, but they're carrying a lot of downforce

00:14:11Yes, it's kind of medium to high downforce around here. You're right

00:14:14They've got these long straights, which is just where you don't want the downforce

00:14:17But there are some high-speed corners around here where you absolutely do need it

00:14:21Quick adjustment on the steering wheel by Raikkonen

00:14:24The key around here is also you need to control the tire wear and this and this track

00:14:29Simmons said something interesting in the Renault preview going into this race and the track is actually now getting very old

00:14:36Actually difficult for me to think of Malaysia being very old. It seems like it was only introduced last year

00:14:41Of course, that's not the case. But in engineering terms the service is getting old. It's getting very hot out there tire

00:14:47Wears an issue but more than anything it's tire cooling as we're watching Glock in the TF 108

00:14:54You could see at the apex of the previous corner. He just got bumped sideways a little bit

00:14:58He couldn't stay off of that curb on the far side. Yeah, we're gonna hear a radio here in the Renault garage. Yes, we are

00:15:17Getting better and better and it's really the car is really good. We're struggling in high-speed is seven and eight

00:15:24It's the first part

00:15:27It's a bit of understeer and then it it always wants to oversteer in the end I play this at this it got a bit better

00:15:42That sounds like some pretty good information from a rookie driver and only his second Grand Prix weekend

00:15:47Two things were good there. I thought Bob one that the technical feedback from him was very good

00:15:52But also his enthusiasm is positive attitude towards driving the car. It's good. It's getting better. It's great

00:16:00But I mean, I'll do that one that they'll all oversteer it turn exit

00:16:04But he has been testing for years. So it's not like he's new to the car

00:16:07So yeah, he's used to working with the car with the team, but he's not obviously used to racing yet

00:16:12I think we said last week was a disaster, but he's been going very well today

00:16:15I mean the humming while on a moment up there in sixth spot just immediately behind his teammate

00:16:20Yeah, that's gonna be is that's gonna be his problem

00:16:23He's got to get used to how to race race craft race strategy and a lot of people have been Sam PK

00:16:29Junior this guy right here. We're saying now he's quick, but not for long. He kind of seems to drift off him a little bit

00:16:36That's where he's got to work and it's got to be consistent lap after lap for a race distance

00:16:41There's Fernando Alonso with his new helmet colors

00:16:44And there's Felipe Massa currently third behind teammate Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel

00:16:53It must be said PK

00:16:55Who had just a brutal weekend a week ago is doing a good job thus far this weekend

00:17:00He's getting his laps in getting that feedback that you just mentioned Steve to his engineers

00:17:04Staying on track and he has been right on Alonso's pace this morning

00:17:09He was less than a tenth of a second off of his two-time world championship winning teammate right now

00:17:14They are sixth Alonso and seventh PK

00:17:17Just call it three tenths of a second apart. Let's ride along with a kick over line into the McLaren Mercedes

00:17:39You

00:17:54Incredible seamless shift formula one gearboxes

00:17:58shifting in microseconds

00:18:01Let's go to Peter Windsor

00:18:03Well, Bob, yes

00:18:05Couldn't resist going up the hectic over line and before practice and saying

00:18:08Becky you know the story of Chris Eamon and the 71 Italian Grand Prix and finally getting to the lead of the race and going

00:18:14to

00:18:14Take the strip off visor off just to get a clear view in the last few laps of the race your first Grand Prix win

00:18:19And the whole visor came off in his hand and he just laughed and he knew the irony of course because that's exactly what happened

00:18:24to Hickey in the

00:18:25Australian Grand Prix got back past Fernando Alonso and in the relief of the moment coming out of the pit straight as we all saw

00:18:31Went to take his trip off off and in so doing hit the speed limiter button just got a slight glitch in the

00:18:37In the performance of the engine and that was enough for Fernando to duck down inside and of course now

00:18:41There is very much an issue of making sure he can never ever ever do that again

00:18:46But the first guy to do that in recent times remember Kimi Raikkonen

00:18:49Turned off the Ferrari engine on the grid once because he was just playing

00:18:52Playing around with the steering wheel basically. I think Juan Pablo Montoya had that problem in the McLaren once as well. Not that switch

00:19:02This button

00:19:03How does that happen Peter? Do you happen to know where that button is as we look at Lewis Hamilton steering wheel right now?

00:19:10I'm pretty sure it's on the right hand side there. Of course, they're all different

00:19:14Yeah from car to car even from driver to driver within the same team

00:19:17But as I understand it, it's on the right hand side and I guess it was just as he put his hand back on the wheel

00:19:22again, he just just caught the switch and it's got a

00:19:26Protecting cover on it now. It's quite an exposed switch before

00:19:31This is it. This is what we're watching right now. This is from Melbourne

00:19:36And you see the McLaren immediately pick up speed there were no almost runs into the back of Alonzo said I found myself laughing

00:19:43It was so bizarre. I remember right looking at some of the steel photographer from Melbourne

00:19:48I think Kovalainen's pit limiter switch was top right hand corner as Peter was describing

00:19:53But it's quite a big exposed switch, which is quite unusual

00:19:56I'm talking to some of the engineers about the common ECU and how the

00:20:01Cut-out system works on the pit lane speed limiter to prevent it being used by accident

00:20:05And it seems that by standard the default setting in the ECU is that you can operate it up until sixth gear

00:20:13Which would be disastrous and then the teams therefore adjust as they as they feel fit or necessary to drop that speed down

00:20:20I think most teams have it set so it'll work in first and second gear only

00:20:24But by default set to sixth gear or maximum six

00:20:27there's Anthony Davidson who said he's been driving the car very conservatively because

00:20:32The team doesn't yet have the spare parts to keep this Honda chassis last year's factory car running

00:20:39So he doesn't want to damage it, of course, he was involved in a crash and had an early exit last weekend

00:20:44No good deed goes unpunished

00:20:46And here he is 19th in this session as he begins to show the legs in the Super Aguri Honda

00:20:53This year's current for race spec gearbox is in the car, even though it's last year's chassis

00:21:00I

00:21:03Have more about that in our Acura pre-race show before Sunday's Grand Prix coming to you beginning at 2 30 a.m

00:21:10Eastern Time. Hope you folks out in, California, Hawaii and

00:21:14Guam or wherever are enjoying the prime time edition of Formula one. It won't last long

00:21:20We'll be back in Europe before you know it stay with us

00:21:30You

00:21:34Welcome back live to Friday's second 90-minute practice session for the Malaysian Grand Prix. I'm Bob Varsha with David Hobbs

00:21:42Steve match it and right now Peter Windsor Peter

00:21:45Well Bob, I just want you guys

00:21:47It's I want to know if you're thinking what I'm thinking look at these on boards of Kimi and Masa

00:21:51I've never seen a more bland looking car in my life. I mean, where is where's the number the prancing horse?

00:21:57There's nothing it looks like an a1 Grand Prix car

00:21:58I know Philip Morris own most of that space and they can't have their logo on but you think they do something

00:22:03He's on board camera shots. You would think so

00:22:07And now we have Timo Glock who's nursing

00:22:11What is not obviously a broken wrist, but he injured his scaphoid bone in the wrist in that very big accident

00:22:17He had in the Australian Grand Prix Timo did a good job that turns out the front wing was broken in the first lap

00:22:23And he drove most of the race to the broken front wing and had a major understeer throughout the race one of the reasons

00:22:28He left the road, of course as we see Nico Rosberg locking up quite a lot

00:22:31But doing a good job keeping the Williams neat and tidy on the road here

00:22:35But when you see Timo Glock's crash there, I mean the real

00:22:39Culprit there was that the way the road had that little gully as he went across that service road and rounds that grass furs

00:22:45That should never happen. I mean

00:22:48boy boy David

00:22:50David if I could just add to that I think you know

00:22:53One of the great traditions now Formula One drivers that they do that the track walk on a Thursday now a lot of interview

00:22:59Sessions have been cancelled. The drivers are always out walking the track for their engineers

00:23:03You would have thought that part of the track walk is to have a look at bits of grass near the edge of the circuit

00:23:07In which you don't want to put your racing car, and I've actually asked a couple of drivers

00:23:11I know it's after the event but a couple of drivers said oh, yeah turn 12

00:23:14You'd never ever want to run the car on the grass for that long

00:23:17So I think some of the blame must go to Timo there for not knowing

00:23:20Yeah

00:23:23Peter said something interesting there about that Ferrari too and all that empty space on the nose the fact that Philip Morris

00:23:29Which makes the Marlboro cigarettes, of course main sponsor for the team actually owns the space on the card

00:23:35It's kind of a unique sponsor relationship

00:23:38Normally the team would sell sponsorship space

00:23:41You get the certain amount of square inches depending on how much money you're paying in the case of Ferrari

00:23:46Philip Morris owns the car and they in turn sell space to other sponsors. So a great big check to the team

00:23:52They don't have to worry about their sponsorship. They move on and it's up to Philip Morris to put whatever they want on the racecar

00:24:01Here comes Nick Heidfeld

00:24:03Coming off that podium if he sounded a little downbeat in interviews afterwards, that's because somebody probably told him

00:24:09He just tied the record for the most second place finishes in a career without ever winning a Grand Prix

00:24:16Yeah, still hanging around there 15th him and his teammate Kubica's 13th height was 15

00:24:24And that was Heidfeld sir personal best lap. So

00:24:29Funny, you know, I mean they were so good at Melbourne a couple of weeks ago

00:24:33But you know as it's Friday, you just never quite know what these guys are up to

00:24:37It could be testing all sorts of right things the systems and obviously endurance test

00:24:43There's a look into the Ferrari garage Peter Windsor

00:24:46But Bob as you were saying that BMW a big surprise in Melbourne and everybody very impressed with the speed

00:24:51But here coming into this race Felipe Massa and Kimi both very confident that they won't have that same pressure from BMW for one simple

00:24:58Reason this track is a lot more

00:25:00abrasive

00:25:01And they can get the tires to work on that one lap run much better here

00:25:04Than they could in Melbourne and the conventional wisdom in the pit lane is that the BMW at the moment is a very fast

00:25:10At the moment is a very very good car when it's difficult to get tire temperature for everybody on the grid

00:25:15They can get that one lap tire temperature

00:25:17Look at the amount of aerodynamic furniture on the car for a start

00:25:20But of course as we saw in the race in race conditions

00:25:23The Ferrari very light on its tired able to run the soft

00:25:26Bridgestone for half a race distance on a full load of fuel whereas the BMW behind Lewis Robert started oversteering after about three laps

00:25:34Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're right. You bring up a good point there Peter

00:25:37That's something that I throw typically over the last few years was pretty good on its tire wear, but they've been working that

00:25:44rear suspension

00:25:46over the winter period from the

00:25:482007 car to the f2008 and also to get it work better over the curbs as well

00:25:52And it's certainly something that Ferrari have worked on and works well

00:25:56But I do think you know and I've been saying it in Melbourne as well that they are going from strength to strength BMW

00:26:01And I think they are there are superior chassis to what a lot of people are thinking they are

00:26:05Well, the BMW engineers and the drivers have all said that the car is very difficult to set up the balance

00:26:12Extremely difficult to balance extremely difficult to set it up, but once they get it set up

00:26:16It's really quick

00:26:18But of course as you go from track to track if they get off track or if they get you know off

00:26:23On the wrong track then they can't they can't get it back in time

00:26:26Well, this is a big race weekend for BMW of course their major sponsor patronus

00:26:32Based right here in Malaysia teams were busy with sponsor commitments in Kuala Lumpur the famous Petronas tires

00:26:40Towers I should say the honor truly is currently 7th, which is pretty good, and he's also just done his personal best first sector

00:26:49Not just a good second sector important that he could pull it out of the bag list that he might jump up

00:26:54one or two spots

00:26:57This is another car that seems to operate on a razor's edge if it falls off that magic setup

00:27:02They go backwards and as we heard Steve saying last week, you know these guys fiddle around

00:27:07I mean they raise the ride height like half a mil and

00:27:11It transforms itself if you go go the wrong way. It's very difficult to find your way back to the setup

00:27:18No laps yet for Sebastian Bordet or David Coulthard

00:27:23Everybody else has plenty everybody up in the double digits. We'll be back to practice in a moment

00:27:30Come back live to Sipang International Circuit

00:27:33You may be watching the conclusion of the fastest lap of the session thus far and the busy hands of Kimi Raikkonen

00:27:39who went very wide in one corner, but he may just

00:27:44Know he wasn't able to do it that cost him time that he went off at turn 14 that last

00:27:49Vital torrent turn onto the long back straight before the hairpin onto the front straight

00:27:54It was purple in the first two of three sectors meaning best time of the session and it went away

00:28:13Fernando Alonso sounds like he's working hard in the cockpit heard him breathing heavily

00:28:17What they say got two second gears

00:28:19Broken can't do second gear and that will cost him dear if they have to work on the car. Well

00:28:25Today, they're okay

00:28:28If they're gonna have gearbox problems today is the day Friday is not under the four race gearbox rule

00:28:34But what I'm thinking is as the gearbox is going to be identical the one they're using today to the one they're gonna be using

00:28:39Tomorrow if they have a batch problem again or an unreliability issue with a bearing or something of that nature on the car

00:28:45And they can't cure it today. It may well reappear tomorrow

00:28:48That's the worry who will have more on that and the four race gearbox and the rpm segment will be shown on Sunday's race broadcast

00:28:57Meanwhile, Fernando Alonso has fallen behind his junior teammate Nelson Piquet on the time charts Peter Windsor

00:29:04Well Bob and Steve and David it's not my imagination

00:29:07Is it we've got a lot more?

00:29:08Engine and gearbox issues this year than we've had in the last couple of seasons and of course the common factor has got to be

00:29:14This standard ECU we can't blame the standard ECU. It's the team's

00:29:19Unfamiliarity with a number of parameters which they now have to work

00:29:21But Steve I'm interested to get your input on

00:29:24The location of the ECU because we know some of the teams have got it on the side of the car

00:29:29Where it's quite easy to extract the hot air quite a few teams have got it under the drivers legs where it's a lot more

00:29:34Difficult to get rid of that heat and for sure in these first two recent races

00:29:38The heat is an issue for the electronic engineers. You're right. You're absolutely right Peter

00:29:42It was something that we saw in last week's rpm when Jeff Willis from Red Bull Racing was showing us the common ECU

00:29:49it is quite a big component and

00:29:52To keep it as cool as possible

00:29:54the ideal solution would be to as you suggest to put it on the side of the car somewhere near the radiator duct and then

00:29:59Feed air down to it to cool it

00:30:01But the mechanical engineers want to put it as low down as possible and as close to the center of the car as possible

00:30:08Which means right under the drivers knees basically can't get it under his butt because he's already sitting right down on the carbon floor

00:30:14So they like to put it underneath his knees when the drivers knees are bent and the problem with that is cooling it

00:30:21We may see it every now and again

00:30:23Well good. Look at the McLaren the mp4 23. They have an extra cooling duct

00:30:28Underneath the keel of the chassis very similar in size and shape

00:30:33To the hole that they have in the front of the nose to keep the driver cool that little grill that we see that feeds

00:30:38Air back inside the nose section a clarinet of an additional secondary duct mounted underneath on the keel section

00:30:44I believe that that is to try and cool the ECU, but you're right. It is a problem and

00:30:51It is taking the team's a long while adapt to it and nobody nobody likes the idea at all

00:30:56I mean none of the teams. I don't believe any of the teams are in favor at all of running this

00:31:00Believe I believe it. I mean obviously, you know

00:31:03Modern engines are controlled and run and the whole car is run by the ECU

00:31:08I mean the same thing applies to road cars. So if you've been designing your engines over

00:31:13That's just the radio

00:31:16Richard, I think I need another two turns of the front flap for the high-speed

00:31:22Roger

00:31:26Felipe Massa picked up one spot on the lap

00:31:28You just saw him finish up to second thing about those ECU's is that you spend years developing the engine and the ECU

00:31:35Side by side and then suddenly you get a standard ECU. I can imagine it being a tremendous problem to everybody

00:31:42Well, I was talking to some of the Reno David go ahead Peter

00:31:46Sorry, Steve

00:31:47I was just going to say it's quite amusing now in the pit lane that they're just talking about the standard ECU is the

00:31:52MES system the McLaren Electronics

00:31:55System there seems to be no mention now the Microsoft word and as I understand it

00:32:00Two years ago when the tender was put out Magnetti Morelli were very very confident of winning this tender to the point

00:32:05We've actually employed quite a lot of new people to run the whole program

00:32:08But the award went to

00:32:11McLaren mainly because of the Microsoft element and McLaren Electronics at that point

00:32:16We're working quite closely with Microsoft on some other projects

00:32:19And I think the powers that be in Formula One thought it would be great to have the Microsoft name in Formula One

00:32:24Well, guess what?

00:32:25Nobody seems to be talking about Microsoft now and of course their involvement is pretty minimal in terms of actually in the field

00:32:32Operating and indeed the conceptualization of the ECU in the first place

00:32:36Yeah, I think I think that's a good point Peter and I personally I think probably one of the worst thing you could do would

00:32:42Be to get one of the teams to produce the ECU

00:32:45It should be an absolutely independent third party in a way away from all the teams

00:32:50But the fact that it's got McLaren's name

00:32:51Tagged on to it

00:32:52Even if it's a separate company as opposed to the McLaren racing operations for current electronics

00:32:58it still falls under the umbrella of

00:33:00McLaren and of course people if they're not happy with the how the ECU is working will point a finger at McLaren

00:33:07Yes perception is reality. Yeah in this case. It is. I think if it was just Microsoft's involvement so much the better

00:33:14Well, it's the way things can work in Formula One

00:33:19You see Sebastian Vettel off and on his teammate Sebastian Bourdais has not yet had a lap in this session may not get one

00:33:26After stopping on his out lap earlier, we'll take a break and return

00:33:56You

00:34:13Welcome back live to Friday's second 90-minute practice for Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix a little under 36 minutes to go

00:34:20There's Mark Webber and the Red Bull Renault. We saw him spin earlier

00:34:23He's back on track now everybody having a tough time with that turn 15 the final corner

00:34:29Well, it's such a tight corner your approach a terrific lick down here

00:34:33And of course you want to make the most that corner coming off it. So it does lead to

00:34:39So I got that wrong we just it does lead to a lot of desperate movement

00:34:43Of course, this is showing up that lack of

00:34:46traction control there too

00:34:48It's a long corner

00:34:54Well

00:34:56Mark Webber doing the lone job for Red Bull Renault in this session because David Coulthard long since gone back to the hotel

00:35:02No chance of rebuilding his car after that incident this morning when he suffered a major

00:35:07Steering failure on the car should be rebuilt for tomorrow, of course

00:35:09But David did say that he would come back to the track around four o'clock just to get some input from Mark and see how

00:35:15The car went but in the meantime, he was off to the swimming pool and no surprise because it's very very hot here in Malaysia

00:35:20So making me get a bigger I thought that's that's dedication from the team's driver for

00:35:26First sign of trouble of the church in the taxi and back to the swimming pool. Okay, fix it boys

00:35:30I'll be back later on to find out what you did

00:35:34Well

00:35:36Weber currently 12th. This Hamilton has moved up to second behind Kimi Raikkonen

00:35:43The

00:35:45Order in the session Raikkonen Hamilton then Massa and Vettel Sebastian Vettel in that Toro Rosso hanging right up there in fourth spot

00:35:54Haki Kovalainen is fifth Nico Rosberg sixth followed by Robert Kubica Jensen Button

00:36:00Jarno Trulli and Nelson Piquet in 10th one spot ahead of his teammate two-time world champ Fernando Alonso

00:36:08and then Weber

00:36:13Speed fans your wait is over all the new speed swag store

00:36:18Check your look your best with speed merchandise polos jackets hats t-shirts. You name it. Check it out today speed tv.com keyword swag

00:36:28Or as I heard someone say recently swag is an acronym for stuff we ain't getting presumably free

00:36:35Robert Kubica as you can see there at seven finally dragged himself out of 13th spot where he was for such a long time

00:36:41But his teammate Nick Heidfeld is still down in 15. It's not like he hasn't done many laps. He's done 19 laps

00:36:48I think you know, we take the say this every race broadcast. They don't know what are they doing on a Friday down here?

00:36:55We've remembered no traction control on the car

00:36:56And as you were saying that is affecting the cars a lot tire degradation is a problem here

00:37:01Tire degradation is a problem here always has been and that's with the electronic assistant

00:37:06So these guys are we doing relatively long runs on quite a lot of fuel to just look at the tire degradation

00:37:12And I think the tire degradation will be the key of how long they can have that first stint for this race on Sunday

00:37:19So that's a lot of what they're doing slow running

00:37:21They have a set of the soft tires and a set of the hard tires or the prime and the option tires that they must give

00:37:27Back to the FIA after Friday's running. So there's no nothing to be gained by not running on these tires

00:37:34So you can't keep them for the rest of the weekend?

00:37:36But that's gonna be the issue around here the heat particularly the heat mechanical reliability on the cars

00:37:41This is a cool shot. Look at it. He's a great

00:37:57More

00:38:00Suspension movement and we've seen a long time to me and you hear them playing with the throttle

00:38:05Yeah, I'm gonna be very delicate with his right foot

00:38:09Because he no longer has traction control or engine braking

00:38:13If Rubens Barricada had not been disqualified for running that pit lane red light a week ago in Australia

00:38:19All six Formula One engine manufacturers would have scored points in that race

00:38:24As it was with both Ferrari engines that is the varsity the the works cars suffering engine failures

00:38:31It was the first time that Ferrari had lost both cars

00:38:35since the

00:38:361994 Belgian Grand Prix

00:38:39Peter Windsor

00:38:40Well Bob as we watch the last of the right foot breakers in Formula One after that great Australian Grand Prix Rubens Barrichello

00:38:46All ended in tears, of course going through the red light out of the pit lane

00:38:49But before we condemn Rubens too much

00:38:51we should also talk about the standard ECU because apparently now the system when you come out of the

00:38:57Pitbox and go down the pit lane on the Honda is about four more

00:39:01Processes the driver has to go through and Ruben said it was of course it was his fault

00:39:05but he actually had his head down looking at the dash trying to remember what to do and

00:39:08Didn't look at the light. That was the the reason he went through that red light

00:39:14Yeah, it was just a bad situation for Honda's we're saying, you know

00:39:17Engineers there on the pit wall whose job it is Ryken and taking p1

00:39:2224 of a second under but yeah, you can't really just blame the driver. There's a whole pit wall there of engineers whose job it is

00:39:29Somebody's job is to look down and make sure that the pit lane is open before the driver is released

00:39:34And well, it was just a failing on everybody's behalf really under there

00:39:38You see Kimi Raikkonen quickest in all three sectors. That's what we mean when we say he was purple everywhere

00:39:45And he tops Lewis Hamilton by 0.787 seconds, we'll be back

00:39:54Let's get you up-to-date on Friday practice thus far during the morning session one of the highlights David Coulthard apparent steering failure

00:40:02It resulted in front suspension collapse and a wild trip into the gravel traps

00:40:08For the oldest driver in Formula One notice that right front wheel the tether actually breaks that shouldn't happen

00:40:13Kimi Raikkonen coming off a weekend of engine problems in Australia has another one in Friday morning's practice

00:40:20And they were able to haul the car away once they figured out how to lift it without breaking the nose off

00:40:25Mark Webber's Red Bull Renault suffering engine failure

00:40:29And a brief campfire s'mores for everyone

00:40:33The Toro Rosso of Sebastian Vettel broken right front brake this second week

00:40:38We've seen that from one of the Red Bull sponsored cars

00:40:42Yeah, it was Mark very nasty thing that night, okay on to session two

00:40:48Sebastian Bordet trying to pull into the pit lane nearly

00:40:51Center punch Nick Heidfeld's BMW Sauber moments later

00:40:55Don't know whether that was one of the reasons but four days Ferrari engine just appeared to lock up entirely

00:41:04Fernando Alonso trying to get the most out of his Renault on the softer the two Bridgestone tires spun down in turn 15

00:41:10Fastest man of the session Kimi Raikkonen manages to keep the fire and carry it to the finish line in his Ferrari

00:41:18He is now down into the 1 minute 35 second zone with a 135 627 to lead the current session. Here's Lewis Hamilton

00:41:27in third place

00:41:29Replay here. This is where David Coulthard had his disastrous off. He made sure he got back on the road there before he got to

00:41:36That's one of the Air Force India cars that I must say watching the replay of David Coulthard's accident

00:41:41They didn't look to me like he had steering failure

00:41:45Before he went off track, you know, I look to me like this suspension broke as a result of him just a shock

00:41:50Yeah, just just shot. But I mean there was a lot of suspension broke then

00:41:54I mean, I may have missed something but to me it looked like he caught I just ran wide

00:41:59He didn't run wide as a result of steering failure by the look of that shot

00:42:03Well, it looked like he's gone run wide then thought well, I was straight line this because it's not gonna do any damage in them

00:42:09But on the other hand if the steering is broken

00:42:12And that might have been the reason why he ran wide in the first one. Yeah

00:42:17Carlo Fisichella off at the first turn of 2008

00:42:21Never to return almost rolled the car boy. It is after he was hit from behind. Oh

00:42:27Boy you can see how things break when they go over those curbing

00:42:31Yeah, they've come up from the back of the curve like David Coulthard did of course, he's got a very steep back side

00:42:39I know some people like that. Yeah

00:42:42Bad choice of words for she killer 15th at the moment

00:42:48Timo gluck behind him but in the

00:42:50In the Toyota, but oh, yeah, no, no, no, no

00:42:54In the Toyota, but oh, yeah, no truly in the second in the first one is not doing too badly up intense spot

00:43:05See a bit bumpy there on approaching that turn one there a bit and as you turn into this turn two, there's quite a drop

00:43:12We'll look at now

00:43:14Who runs wide there?

00:43:17Oh boy, you can see the marbles building up off line there. Yeah, something already ripple strips more like rip open strips. Yeah

00:43:26Yeah

00:43:28They do get your attention I'm sure

00:43:31Felipe Massa just done gone purple in sector one

00:43:36He matched reichen in times in sector one 24 7 but just fractionally fracturing faster

00:43:41Hamilton's time last time through sector one 25 9

00:43:45Just a little bit down in sector 2 31 5 reichen and 31 7 for massive

00:43:50And that is massa's best middle sector yet. You see how much time he lost to his teammate

00:44:03He comes down the back straightaway

00:44:06Incredibly wide this truck is

00:44:10Over 75 feet at its widest point

00:44:12Can be divided into two sections right at that point turn 15

00:44:17And so there is an auxiliary pit area on the back side

00:44:21Much like uh spa francorchamps

00:44:27Stay second

00:44:31But only by six hundredths of a second

00:44:35On board with lewis hamilton peter windsor has more on him

00:44:39Well, yes, bob as we watch lewis hamilton doing a pretty long run here on the soft tire

00:44:43no doubt trying to see what that's going to be like and what sort of stint they're going to have that in race conditions, but

00:44:48Interesting talking to the photographer darren heath yesterday one of the great photographers in formula one

00:44:53And he's been working recently on a on a advertising agency shoot for bridgestone and they got four rear tires

00:45:00From four of the top runners after a test in barcelona recently including one from lewis

00:45:05And he said it was just amazing how perfectly

00:45:08Worn the lewis left rear was compared with the other three and one of them

00:45:11I think was a ferrari tire

00:45:12One of them was a nelson pk tire covered in a few blisters and a bit of grainy as you can imagine

00:45:17but lewis's tires beautifully

00:45:19Beautifully worn and I know david

00:45:20This is something that you would identify with because I remember dunlop used to say this about jim clark as well

00:45:26And recently I was talking to sam posey and he said it was a similar situation in formula 5000 his rear tires

00:45:31He always noticed were beautifully worn the hobbs tires. So posey said very blistered chunks out of them scrapes against the wall, etc

00:45:38Etc, but about three laps in front of sam's that was the thing

00:45:45Oh boys

00:45:49Well, of course that tire wear is a huge issue, um

00:45:53For these guys and of course a lot of it's down to the driver

00:45:55But a lot of it's down to the car too. And of course it's he who sets his car up best

00:46:00So there's a lot of work goes into this between the driver and the engineers and of course the car

00:46:05As it comes off the drawing board and can you improve it?

00:46:08Is it going to get worse as the year goes on? You're going to make it better?

00:46:12Well, a driver can save himself a lot of work in the race by getting the setup right in practice well i'll say

00:46:21Here's old

00:46:22Seb vettel in still lying fourth. So, uh, sebastian vettel doing very very good time

00:46:27Here's kaz nakajima also on the second on the softer tires

00:46:34Nakajima at the moment down in where maybe the 13th spot

00:46:43Parking some odd at miles per hour

00:46:46So

00:46:51Wow jumps to six

00:46:55Right in front of uh, nico rossberg his teammate

00:46:59old cars

00:47:00Good time. Yeah

00:47:02But again, we don't have much fuel. He's got on board. Oh, that's right

00:47:05I thought i was looking at that such a great stat or how smooth his tires are will be at the end of this lap

00:47:11Coming out of last weekend's race the second of kaz nakajima's formula one career and he scored points

00:47:18Just the way his father satoru nakajima did all those years ago

00:47:24Nakajima was asked if uh, he spoke with his father about running into the back of robert kubic's bmw

00:47:31He said oh, yes dad brought that up before we got to my points

00:47:40So

00:47:44Welcome back

00:47:46Friday practice at malaysia as you just saw felipe. Masa now tops the time charts over his ferrari teammate. Kimi raikkonen

00:47:54And masa's on another hot lap just went purple in sector one lewis hamilton is third sebastian. Vettel

00:48:00Hanging right up there the ferrari powered toro rosso in fourth

00:48:04Then heikki kovalainen kaz nakajima and the williams toyota up in sixth ahead of his teammate nico rossberg

00:48:10Then jensen button who just completed a lap in eighth in the honda factory car followed by robert kubic's bmw

00:48:17And his teammate nick heidfeld

00:48:20I'm, bob varsha with david hoff steve matchett and peter windsor now purple in sector two for masa

00:48:26The international television feed apparently electing not to cover the fastest guy on the track right now

00:48:33Oh, he's coming fastest to as you're on the track

00:48:36Oh, no, they aren't that would be nakajima

00:48:49Good enough. Oh, yeah

00:48:5235 to now you're getting down some seriously quick times the quickest time ever here was a

00:48:59Pole for alonzo at a 132 back in 2005

00:49:04He's had a lot more horsepower

00:49:15Three complex of corners right there, isn't it? Yeah, truly currently 11th

00:49:23I think the toyota's running quite a lot of wing on the car

00:49:26You do need as we were saying before quite a lot of downforce

00:49:29Quite a lot of downforce, but they've also had to open up quite a lot of the area behind the car to try and call it

00:49:35as well

00:49:36If you look the area try and have a look at the area around where the radiator

00:49:41Exits are and where the uh, oh wow where the exhaust exit. Wow

00:49:48Which is going to cause a lot of drag

00:49:49I mean

00:49:49There's a lot of drag on this car all around but there you could see it those panels look well

00:49:53Removed each side left and right to try and keep it cool

00:49:56Of course in this heat, you know, you gotta keep because these cars as you've always said see they're so tightly packaged

00:50:01There's just no room for any

00:50:03Boy, you got that right rear up in the air over the curb

00:50:07Yeah

00:50:09This was just the aftermath it all happened at the previous corner

00:50:19Picking up one of the ferraris again boy, there's a neck stretcher recorder

00:50:23It literally looked like it was speeding up films on this is kimmy

00:50:28Who hasn't put up any kind of flashy number in the first sector or the second for that matter, but boy sure looks quick

00:50:37His teammate felipe massa did those hot laps after a number of laps on the harder of the two bridgestone compounds

00:50:44softer ones with the white stripes on reikonen's car

00:50:47And of course as peter has said earlier these ferraris

00:50:52Certainly last year and at australia to kimmy reiklen

00:50:56Ran an incredibly long stint on these soft tires and nobody else seems to be able to do that

00:51:09Second a little earlier on we're talking about the toyota and the cooling panels on the back

00:51:13A little earlier on we're talking about the toyota and the cooling panels on the back

00:51:16But this is the area i'm looking at right here. Look at this

00:51:18They've taken all that there's little bits of carbon panel there

00:51:21But basically they've opened up the entire back area around the radiators to try and keep it as cool as possible

00:51:26Which the mechanical engineers will love because it stops the engine from blowing up

00:51:30But as we say the aerodynamicist will hate it because the awful drag that it causes

00:51:36But what do you do well you want to get the car to the end of the race and it's a compromise it's always a compromise

00:51:42This is federal still fourth

00:51:48Peter windsor has more on toyota

00:51:51Thanks, bob. Yes, steve

00:51:52Just continuing our discussion on the toyota and that battery problem

00:51:55They had in the australian grand prix very unusual for something as basic as a battery to fail on something as sophisticated

00:52:01As a formula one car, but it turns out again. There's an ecu problem there because apparently this ecu is a lower voltage

00:52:07Uh unit than the one that then say the magnetti morelli one that was run by toyota and obviously ferrari too last year

00:52:14And as a result completely new battery requirements the electronic engineers thought they had it completely covered new

00:52:22Voltage regulators in place, but as it happened the battery not up to the job

00:52:27And it was just simply a case of the battery exploded in that race

00:52:30It just couldn't cope with the energy required of it and its location peter presumably very close to the driver in the car

00:52:39That's right. Yeah right behind the driver. Yano truly felt pain from the heat and the small of his back almost as the race began

00:52:46Uh, he had that terrible sinking feeling that it was going to get worse from there on in and of course it did

00:52:51So all credit to him. I mean he hung on to heidfeld pretty well in the first

00:52:54Phase of the race and he got out of the car. He's a fit guy. He was absolutely shattered from the heat

00:53:01Well, let's hope we don't get

00:53:03another off-track

00:53:05conundrum like last year in the shape of the

00:53:08standardized electronic control unit

00:53:11As peter mentioned earlier, it was supposed to be a joint effort between mclaren and microsoft the microsoft end of things seems to have become a

00:53:19forgotten story

00:53:22How well we'll learn as time goes by

00:53:25Formula one fans stay up to date with mobile text alerts all season long speed mobile gives you the latest news and results

00:53:31Write to your cell phone text f1 to speed three

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00:53:42Let's ride along with nelson. Don't call me junior pk

00:53:55So

00:54:11You notice how that bridge wing on the reno

00:54:15Doesn't flex like the mclaren one used to and it's something we pointed out at the last race that they have a little strut

00:54:21Bonded to the car from the nose section to the underside of the bridge wing to stop that vertical movement

00:54:27remember where mclaren started to run that last year and we started to see it flexing and

00:54:31Who was going to protest because you're not allowed to have any movable aerodynamic devices

00:54:36I've talked to several aerodynamicists about that and they said well, you know

00:54:39We won't complain because it's not a performance advantage, but purely in terms of aerodynamic performance

00:54:45You want a single profile?

00:54:46You don't want it moving and you want to keep it as stable as possible if you can and you look very carefully

00:54:52There is a little bridge piece a little titanium strut bonded between the nose and the bridge wing on the reno

00:54:58So the line comes pk, nope, no particular improvement

00:55:04It remains in 14. We'll take a break and return to malaysia

00:55:07Malaysia

00:55:15Welcome back less than eight minutes remaining in friday's second 90 minute practice in preparation for sunday's malaysian grand prix in between of course

00:55:23Three rounds of knockout qualifying coming your way here on speed beginning at 2 a.m. Eastern time tomorrow

00:55:30Here's robert kubica in the bmw sauber

00:55:35Hoping for better than he got a week ago

00:55:38In australia, the order is masa raikkonen lewis hamilton third sebastian vettel still fourth

00:55:45Heikki kovalainen fifth truly sixth kubica seventh followed by nakajima rosberg and button

00:55:57Coming down to the end of the session now just seven minutes to go

00:56:01A lot of bit of action on the track. Here's robert kubica on the softer tire

00:56:05Not uh having the run they had in australia

00:56:07But as we said, this is a difficult car to set up once you get it, right

00:56:10It's very very quick, but it takes a bit of getting right

00:56:15Yeah, still a second and a half off the pace so

00:56:19And that was his uh, his job to seventh

00:56:23Seventh but 1.46 seconds off the pace lewis hamilton has just come up to speed. You see him purple first sector

00:56:31Uh, so he's uh trying a low fuel run i'd say to try and uh go to bed tonight with the quickest luck

00:56:37in his pocket, but

00:56:40It's six and a half minutes ago time for ferrari to go out again. Yeah

00:56:44You know, it's interesting a moment ago while we were in break. We saw this car pull out of the garage

00:56:48He basically fired it up. It idles at a fairly high level probably 7 000 rpm or so

00:56:55But then as the mechanics waved him out the car eased forward without hesitation without jerking

00:57:01And the engine note never changed

00:57:03It was like he just engaged the clutch at idle and it rolled straight out some of the other drivers nick heidfeld among them

00:57:09Has noticed that the mclaren does great launches because they can launch the car from very low rpms. Well, that's their ecu unit

00:57:17well, exactly

00:57:20So coming down this last crucial corner, this could be the fastest lap of the day so far

00:57:26But this is a tricky corner. You're in it a long time

00:57:28This is where the old traction control would really help you just lamp on the old gas pedal there going in

00:57:34Now you see how he stays to the left of the picture

00:57:36Which is what I would think would be the obvious thing to do. Look at that 35 flat almost

00:57:40So that is a pretty quick old time

00:57:42Mm-hmm

00:57:45Is he gonna go for another one or you're gonna call it a day on that

00:57:48Kind of a little lock up a turn. Is that a ferrari right behind him?

00:57:53I think so. Yeah, I believe it. Yeah

00:57:56Yeah a good time by hamilton, but on the soft tires

00:57:59If you remember masser now bumped down into p2 because of that time masser was on the hard tires

00:58:0535.2 for massa 35

00:58:08Dead pretty much for hamilton

00:58:10I'm interested to see how quick you can go on this lap to see how much these tires degrade in that one quick lap

00:58:29Tight old corner now, yeah, well not much off but a little bit off

00:58:40So straining every city that is a very fast complex. Uh-huh

00:58:49Those are big corners true and radius that the car just whips through there

00:58:55Giancarlo fisichella jumps up to eighth. Oh, wow, that's good in the force india car. Very good

00:59:02What's his teammate sutil?

00:59:05Beautiful cross way got it. Well and truly crossed up there

00:59:09Because that's what really wear your ears out if you're not careful. Yeah

00:59:21That's where you know now with the loss of traction control and the uh, a lot of the electronic technologies on the car

00:59:28It's a replay with hamilton. This will be through that. This is it

00:59:32Oh that left front road stopped. Yeah right about the point david said he was doing beautifully, but he does

00:59:37He does apply he does apply the steering input very smoothly. You see some of the other drivers, uh much much quicker

00:59:44Hacking at the wheel more. Look at that. It just actually holds it on the throttle there beautifully done that that was

00:59:49But having lost that ability the engineers having lost that ability

00:59:54Where are you going robber

00:59:58Kubica had to have seen him all the way down the straightaway and then he darn near turns into it hardly missed it

01:00:04Could he exactly?

01:00:06They've been sutil coming out three minutes together

01:00:18That's unable to do much with hamilton and matt moss is on the softer tire now

01:00:25Well massa and both uh, reichen and massa have had a go on the soft side, but that's not what it is quick that way

01:00:32All right

01:00:34He's gabbing

01:00:37Wants to get some space behind hamilton

01:00:40So is uh

01:00:42Is he gonna do it on the last lap?

01:00:44He's gonna have kovalainen coming up. It must be the last lap of the afternoon this. Yeah

01:00:50Race engineer chris dyer looking on then. Come on, mike. Give us some welly

01:01:00Massa calls back and says please tell me what is welly

01:01:05Is

01:01:07Two minutes to go in the session time for a final thought from peter windsor

01:01:11Thanks, bob. Yes. Well very impressive that run from lewis hamilton there

01:01:15We've seen the ferraris quick throughout this session indeed this morning as well and lewis as we now can see was running

01:01:21Obviously a lot of fuel and did a lot of homework

01:01:24So that should put him in good shape for the race, but good to see the ferraris right back

01:01:27They're on a more abrasive circuit

01:01:29They're not having any problem getting a quick lap time now out of the hard tower and the soft tower as we see felipe

01:01:34Massa now on a quick lap, too

01:01:36So it's going to be very very close as we've been saying all winter as they're going to qualifying here at sipang

01:01:42I tell you the surprise of this session has to be p4. Sebastian. Vettel has not turned a lap

01:01:48In several minutes, but he remains fourth granted. He's nearly a second and a half off of hamilton's

01:01:54Session leading pace, but he also has not been

01:01:57Rooted out of that spot by guys like keiki kovalainen robert kubica nico rossberg

01:02:04nick heidfeld

01:02:06fernando alonso now 14th

01:02:09But back ahead of his rookie teammate nelson pk who was 15 and weber who was so good in prattson qualifying

01:02:15Well would have been good in qualifying australia if that disc hadn't exploded was uh is down there in 16th

01:02:19I thought they might be showing a bit of turn of speed

01:02:23Uh, robert kubica, like you say seventh spot

01:02:30Oh masa just sliding it along that's fun to watch it does add to the show not having those electronic driver aids

01:02:39Six six one off the pace no improvement there for masa 30 seconds to go

01:02:46lewis hamilton heads for the mclaren pits

01:02:48Oh

01:02:52It looks like that'll be it for the australia winner and current world championship leader

01:02:58Let's look at the mechanics rushing out there with the fans to cool the brakes and the wheel hubs

01:03:03Fire extinguishers looking under the back of the car boy. Let's make sure it's not going to explode

01:03:08Good job, rich actually

01:03:11Yeah, well, of course you need to put all those fans on here, especially because the heat so it just helps you enormous

01:03:18Oh, wow

01:03:19Sebastian vettel is finally bumped by jensen button that seemed unlikely

01:03:24Jensen button will be very happy that he did qualify second here back in oh six

01:03:31That is a big step up for gents and finish third

01:03:36There is sebastian. Sebastian. Maybe he's got one lap left in him yet

01:03:41But in ever it's a very very very good time for the young german

01:03:46The youngest driving the field is 20

01:03:51Also on the soft tires you can see

01:03:58Sebastian vettel was asked this weekend of his teammate sebastian bordet had been asking him

01:04:03Many questions in order to ease his transition into formula one from champ cars. Vettel said nope

01:04:08I think after this session

01:04:11Poor old sebastian who has not turned a lap when his engine seized up

01:04:15It would appear on his first out lap may have a few questions for his young teammate

01:04:21That's just for poor old sebastian bordet. That's a terrible way to start because as we said he hasn't been here before so

01:04:28He's not familiar with the circuit in any way

01:04:31And it's going to be very valuable time lost got one more session tomorrow morning before

01:04:36qualifying

01:04:39Well, you know truly doing a good job in the toyota there up to six

01:04:44Miss hamilton looks a little subdued there as he heads for his debrief that'll only take a couple of hours

01:04:54Here comes rubens barrichello in the honda

01:04:59And he heads for the pits so the order

01:05:02unofficially hamilton and massa reichanen and button vettel and truly

01:05:07Kovalainen and kubica fisikella and nakajima the top 10

01:05:13Since the button comes along to join his teammate he too will lay down some rubber

01:05:18To give him maximum adhesion during pit stops on sunday when it counts. We'll be back in a moment

01:05:29Welcome back. There's a beautiful look down on the

01:05:33Home of the malaysian grand prix time to start wrapping up our session

01:05:38Kimi reichanen a late arrival in the pits in his ferrari after the session ended

01:05:43Don't know if there's a story there or not

01:05:44But here are the way they timed out while louis hamilton cranked out that lap with just a few minutes to go

01:05:50135 zero the fastest lap of the weekend so far in mass in the friday kimi reichanen

01:05:55Jenson button did that right at the end in the in the honda for sebastian vettel is quick all afternoon

01:06:00Jarno, truly looking very good in the toyota high kick. I will learn the second

01:06:03Robert kubica not as good as he was last week

01:06:05But still hanging right in there and fisikella doing a very good job in the force india and nakajima the first of the williams toyotas

01:06:11Not bad at all

01:06:14And rubens barrichello

01:06:16Iko rosberg william the heidfeld fernando alonso back with reno 14th

01:06:22Nelson pk's teammate 15th and mark weber for red bull 16th

01:06:27There's the rest of the runners poor old davy cool todd no time because of that huge accident

01:06:33And sebastian bordet with mechanical problems that'll do it for our coverage of friday practice for the malaysian grand prix

01:06:39And stay with speed for formula one action all weekend join us tomorrow beginning at 12 30 a.m

01:06:44Eastern for speed's formula one magazine show inside grand prix

01:06:48Then at 1 a.m

01:06:49We'll look back and analyze the australian season opener as we begin our second season of formula one debrief here on speed

01:06:56Immediately following debrief at 2 a.m coverage of knockout qualifying from sipang

01:07:02Finally joined david steve peter and myself

01:07:06Sunday at 2 30 a.m

01:07:07Eastern for live coverage of the malaysian grand prix beginning with the acura free race show peter live on the grid

01:07:13Then the race the podium the interviews and beyond for now for david hotz steve matchett and peter windsor

01:07:20I'm, bob varsha. We'll see you tomorrow for qualifying for the malaysian formula one grand prix

01:07:26Join us then. Thanks for watching. So long everyone

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