The Malaysian Grand Prix

As I write, Jenson Button has jumped out of his Brawn GP car as winner of the Malaysian Grand Prix. But he has only won five points instead of the usual ten.

Sepang is a circuit that is very vulnerable to rain. With less than half of today's Grand Prix run, the deep grey clouds let loose the rain upon the very suspecting victims below. The drivers dived into the pits to change their tyres from slicks to full wets for maximum grip. But the rain was not yet coming down so hard that they were really necessary. Timo Glock, in his Toyota, realised this and opted for intermediate wets. He was somewhere in the middle of the field when he came in. Within a few laps he had zoomed up the leader board to third.

The big loser of the day was Raikkonen of Ferrarri. As the clouds closed in, he was the first driver to put the full wets on. But the rain had not yet come and he was forced to drive two laps in the dry. This ruined the tyres and forced him to pit again.

As the rain continued, the drivers changed from full wets to intermediates. But the rain was getting heavier and heavier. With admirable speed, Glock swapped his intermediates for full wets. Hamilton followed him, as did others. 

But so bad were the conditions becoming that it was not long before the safety car came out. It had not been on the circuit for long before Charlie Whiting, the race director, red flagged the field. 

The cars stopped on the start / finish line of the grid and, although we did not know it at the time, that was the race won. The FIA waited a while to see if it would be able to continue the race - even if only under the safety car, to allow the drivers to finish three quarters of the race and claim full championship points - but this turned out not to be possible. Thus, Button won the race and just five points instead of ten. Hamilton finished in seventh place, although appropriately enough in the generally confused atmosphere, he thought he had finished fifth! As long as he doesn't get banned, I'll be happy.

Finally, in accordance with FIA regulations, the placings were sorted according to who was where on the penultimate lap. This was hard on Glock who reached second place on the last lap. Still, in such dangerous conditions, he will have been glad not to have crashed.