Malaysian Grand Prix 2016 - The trip that almost didn't happen

I was lucky enough to go to Malaysia to watch the live race (thanks dad) and IT WAS FUN. 

First of all, I almost missed my flight. How you ask, funny story. So my flight was scheduled to leave at 12:45am on 29^th midnight and arrive in Malaysia at 7:30 am Malaysian time but we thought that our flight was leaving on 29th night at 11:45 pm reaching the next day on 30th at 7:30 am, but then thanks to my dad (again) we realised that our flight was leaving in about 5 hours and so began a mad rush to get the airport. So imagine how embarrassing it would have been if we had gone to the airport that day night to find out that our flight has already left on the previous day. *cringes* So yes it was a trip that almost didn’t happen.

Okay so back to f1 now. I stayed in Putrajaya which is about an hour from Kuala Lumpur and about 45 minutes from Sepang circuit. The hotel I was staying in also happened to be the place where two GP2 teams -Prema and Carlin were staying at (I saw Pierre gasly during breakfast!).

 Malaysia was hot from hot I mean you could melt (not kidding). One really nice thing about Sepang is that Friday is free for all. You don’t need a ticket and you can sit anywhere in any of the grandstands. So if you plan to go for the Malaysian GP do not miss Friday. 

                                

Apart from this Sepang is one of the few tracks which organises fan forums. It’s normally held on Saturday before Fp3. If you want a good spot then make sure you’re at the venue at least before an hour. I got a few pictures with the drivers and also their autographs (thanks mom :P). Apart from this, there is also an autograph session on Sunday. Sepang had poor crowd management during the autograph session. There was no proper queue and only a few people in the front got the autographs.  

The start was a bad one for Sebastian Vettel. His start was to quote Niki Lauda “Verstappen like”. Vettel ended up hitting the rear of Nico Rosberg which caused Rosberg to drop to 21^st and Vettel to retire due a broken suspension.

                                     

  

         While this was happening Fernando Alonso made up 10 places in 1 lap .  From then on Nico Rosberg’s aim was damage limitation. But he seemed like a man possessed overtaking car after car in each lap and all of a sudden he was right behind Kimi Raikkonen in 5^th. 

                                          

There was so much chaos that Lewis Hamilton had avoided but this is F1 and anything can happen on a Sunday. All of a sudden smoke was pouring out the back of the Mercedes, his engine had failed! 
The only thing that came out of this engine failure was memes. Have a look 

 Now, this meant that Rosberg who had fought his way through the field was in a podium position and shoey I mean Daniel Ricciardo was leading the race! Max Verstappen tried his level best to overtake Ricciardo but Dan’s experience paid off and he was able to defend Verstappen effectively to win the race.

                                  

Hamilton has been a little controversial about his engine failure calling it to sabotage. Verstappen has generally been very rude about the Ferrari drivers and he really needs to tone it down. I mean Verstappen shouldn’t really want the Tifosi also the largest fan base in F1 to be against him.

  FIA have continued their run of inconsistency and have given a 3 place grid penalty to Vettel for causing a collision. Yes, the collision was his fault but the same kind of collision has happened twice before this season with no penalty being given so why this time?  

                                    

The podium ceremony was just fantastic. The crowd began chanting for a shoey from Dan and he responded to it !

                                  

 We not only got Dan’s shoey but also from Christian Horner, Rosberg and  Verstappen. Well he tried to get one from fellow Aussie Mark Webber but that didn’t go too well (Dan had to walk around with one shoe)

                                          

So overall if you are an F1 fan you should go for a live race. It’s worth it, a little expensive but worth it.

                                  

I also saw the whole Ferrari crew and the Mclaren honda crew at the airport. It is very easy to spot them because they’re all wearing their official team wear, Ferrari, for example, were wearing Scuderia Ferrari blazers and carrying Ferrari bags, speaking Italian so not too hard to spot them in-crowd.

                          

Back to back race weekends !! Up next Suzuka. Probably one of the most loved tracks by the drivers ( Felipe Massa, Valtteri Bottas , Sebastian Vettel and more). 

 Here are some of my pictures ( some are of poor quality sorry) of the race weekend

Until the next race,

sayonara