In Melbourne we discovered that McLaren and Red Bull are leading the way with Mercedes and Lotus as two very threatening support acts.
In Sepang the key questions are going to be how tight the McLaren/Red Bull battle is? And are Mercedes and Lotus close enough that they can challenge for victories?
Sepang should provide us with more answers, as it’s one of the most demanding F1 circuits on the calendar. With a number of fast corners, a car that is strong aerodynamically will stretch its legs here. Tyre wear is also a much bigger factor than in Melbourne when you combine the fast corners with the high track temperatures usually experienced.
What we know so far is that McLaren are the pacesetters. However what we don’t know yet is how far ahead they are. In qualifying last weekend we didn’t really get a clear indication of how far behind Red Bull are in terms of raw pace.
Firstly Mark Webber didn’t have KERS for the one hot lap he did in Q3. Then uncharacteristically Sebastian Vettel had a scruffy lap on his last run. If both drivers had had clean final laps with no issues then they could have been higher up the grid, and closer than seven tenths behind the McLarens.
In the race Red Bull clearly had very strong race pace. They easily dealt with the Mercedes, and at times were matching the pace of the McLarens.
What was very clear though was that McLaren did have pace in hand when they needed it. Once the safety car came in, Button was able to pull away from Vettel comfortably.

Just as we have been accustomed to over the last couple of seasons Red Bull has a straight line speed disadvantage. They were 12/13 kph down in the speed trap last weekend. Albert Park’s straights are relatively short, however Sepang features three long straights, so this disadvantage will be much more exposed this weekend.
On the other hand they will be able to utilise their strengths in the aero demanding corners. Although having said that looking back at testing in Catalunya it appeared that McLaren were just as strong in this area too. As we saw throughout the Australian GP weekend the RB8 isn’t nailed down to the track like the RB7 was.
Taking all this into account it’s going to be interesting to see whether Red Bull gains on McLaren this weekend, or if the British squad pull away further. The outcome between them in Malaysia could well set the general trend for the season.
Martin Whitmarsh thinks McLaren will be even more competitive: “If you looked closely at ourselves in testing at Barcelona, we were pretty good in the high speed corners.”
He added: “We looked like we were quickest in the high speed corners and, if anything, Red Bull was beating us in [low speed] traction areas. So to come to a circuit like this [in Australia] and see we were reasonably strong in relation to them is good. I think the theory goes then that we should be strong when we get to the next track.”
We didn’t see the full potential from Mercedes and Lotus in Melbourne so plenty of question marks hang over them.

Schumacher on his way to fourth on Saturday (© Mercedes AMG)
Mercedes clearly have a much quicker car than last year. Immediately Schumacher was able to produce his most competitive one lap performance since his comeback to Formula 1, qualifying fourth, just 0.414 seconds shy of pole man Hamilton.
Rosberg made an error on his final run so we don’t know where he could have ended up. In the race Schumacher retired early on and Nico had a race to forget.
Seeing their pace over a single lap this weekend is going to be fascinating. Their new version of the F-duct is clearly very beneficial. With the three long straights in Sepang it should be even more of an advantage for them (unless it gets banned which isn’t the case at the time of writing).
Race pace is clearly an issue though. Throughout testing it didn’t take an expert to notice their lap times dropping off very quickly on long runs. Like the W02 the W03 has an appetite for its tyres.
In the race down under we saw the McLarens easily pull away from Schumacher, and the Red Bull of Vettel was all over him like a rash, until the veteran German was forced to retire. In Sepang this weakness is going to be much more exposed than it was in Melbourne.
With unlimited use of their super DRS in qualifying, chances are they are likely to be a huge factor in qualifying, possibly challenging for pole. However as DRS can only be used in the overtaking zone during races coupled with their tyres going off quickly, they will fall back in the race.
You could perhaps compare Mercedes to Honda in 2005/2006. They regularly mixed with the big guns in qualifying trim but then would fall back dramatically in the race.
There is so much talent at Mercedes now their issues in race trim will be improved over time. Mercedes are a huge factor over a single lap right now, but probably unlikely that they can fight for a victory in a normal race at the moment.
After Melbourne team principal Ross Brawn said: “Despite excellent starts, both Michael and Nico had difficulties from the start of the race with their tyres. With the development of the circuit and track temperatures, we fell out of the working window and struggled with degradation.”
He added: “So we need to look at what happened, unravel the problem and work out where we need to improve.”
Lotus really are the ones to watch out for in this writer’s opinion. Romain Grosjean did a brilliant job to put the Lotus third on the grid just 0.380 seconds behind Lewis in Albert Park. However due to his bad start and clash with Pastor Maldonado we didn’t get to see his race pace.
If Grosjean could put Lotus right up there with McLaren, then the question you have to ask is what might Kimi have been able to do? Due to a miscommunication between him and the team he got knocked out in Q1, and we never found out.
As he was fighting his way through the pack in the race it stopped us from being able to fully analyse Lotus’s race pace. However on the few occasions when the Finn did find himself in clear air he was extremely quick.
When he finally found clean air on lap 14, he was quicker than the two McLarens. Kimi posted a 1:33.066 whilst Button and Hamilton were clocking 1:33.164 and a 1:33.255 respectively. Kimi was also quicker than the pair on lap 15.
The only difference between them would have been that the tyres on the McLaren had also done a qualifying lap, whereas Kimi’s hadn’t. Even so, that is still very strong race pace from Lotus.

The sole Lotus of Raikkonen battled from P17 to P7 (© Lotus F1 Team)
It’s obvious that Lotus have built an extremely quick car, and the mistakes that we saw with the exhausts last year haven’t been repeated.
If they have a clean weekend with no misfortunes and can unleash their full potential, then they’re capable of big results.
Raikkonen said: “There’s much more to come. We’re learning about the car all the time and the last race didn’t really give us a chance to use its full potential. Hopefully Malaysia will be a bit more straightforward.”
They are good enough over a single lap and a race distance that on a weekend where one of their drivers produces an incredible performance, or they find the perfect strategy, they could win races.
Further back and it will be very difficult for Ferrari to repeat 5th place. Sepang will be a track that shows up the issues they have with their car.
As Gary Anderson told The F1 Times recently: “I think the car will be better in Melbourne but I don’t think it will be good. Then Malaysia will be somewhere that will show up the problems again.”
It’s hard to draw too many conclusions yet from the midfield pack as it’s so tight. It’s not impossible that the order in the midfield could be reversed this weekend.
However Sauber do stand out. Like last year the car is very gentle on its tyres, and that will certainly pay dividends in Malaysia this weekend. If they can find more qualifying pace to match as well, they could threaten the top four teams.
In conclusion Melbourne was a fascinating weekend which perhaps posed more questions than answers. Malaysia is going to be an exciting weekend, where we will seek more answer as to what the 2012 season potentially has in store.