Motormouth: My F1 trial by fire - Sepang’s heat and Marina Bay’s haze.
Malaysia's unrelenting heat made me sous-vide in the sweltering sun, after which I had to catch a breath of fresh air amongst Singapore's hazy atmosphere after a whirlwind week of festivities and events.
When Formula 1 announced that Sepang would play host to the Bahrain Grand Prix earlier this year, you could imagine the excitement I felt upon hearing one of my favourite circuits return to the F1 calendar after a nine-year absence.
However, the lead-up to lights out at Sepang was every bit as twisty as the track itself. The website where we had to purchase the tickets for the race weekend, trackside parking and pit-lane walk was haphazardly set up and riddled with glitches. The lack of information leading up to the release of all tickets, the webpage and queue system crashing, and how hard it was to obtain tickets would foreshadow the disaster-class that was the Bahrain GP off-track.
Obtaining the tickets was just about as easy as teaching a newborn how to do calculus. The ticketing queue was beyond salvageable, and as such, I had to resort to contacting the Bahrain International Circuit’s online chatbox to have one of their staff send me a ticket confirmation link to my email, which ultimately went to spam.
I had the opportunity to get behind-the-scenes and tour the Aston Martin garage at Sepang!
Thursday rolled around and I was lucky enough to visit the Aston Martin Formula One Team’s garage with a few friends. Given free reign with our borrowed paddock passes, we took in the vibes and preparations that the teams were doing ahead of the Sepang race weekend.
Trackside action was plentiful, with Lewis Hamilton springing a surprise P2 during qualifying in his Ferrari, much to the delight of the Malaysian crowd. The F4 feature races were great too, with a surprising amount of overtaking and tense wheel-to-wheel battles from the younger drivers.
On Sunday, a torrential downpour came just before the national anthems were sung, providing a heartwarming experience when the locals sung Negaraku with their hearts out. When the cars went round to warm their tyres up on the formation lap ahead of what was set to be a thrilling race, a decent chunk of the grid experienced power-loss issues plaguing their cars due to a software bug.
Oh, the irony of having controversial new engine regulations and having an even more embarrassing mistake pop up.
Hearing the roars from the crowd every time Lewis drove past gave me goosebumps.
A roller-coaster of emotions hit me as I watched a strategy call from Ferrari for the softs failed to pay off at the start, with Charles Leclerc diving into the pits after sustaining front wing damage, and Lewis having to gamble on the softs, ultimately recovering from 17th to an impressive third place after Red Bull's Isack Hadjar faltered from Lewis' hot pressure hunting him down.
Outside the circuit, however, I definitely wasn't prepared for how awfully the Bahrainis managed the traffic and post-event procedures. With roads seemingly closed on a whim and local policemen having zero idea of what the organisers were up to, we were forced to take a nearly two-hour detour to the Sama-Sama Hotel, one that would usually take just 20 minutes.
Sepang shenanigans aside, it was time to head back to Singapore to rest and reset before the coming week’s Grand Prix, though fate had different ideas. On our three-hour drive back down, a massive jam at Machap resulted in a traffic delay of two hours, and then further catastrophe occurred just before the border when our friend’s car had a coolant pipe shear off at the petrol kiosk.
Phew.
Meet my hero Sir Lewis Hamilton? Consider it done (while the staff were rushing me, hence this iffy image).
With the Singapore Grand Prix being my home race, I was super excited to attend an exclusive Shell event where I got to meet the driver that I had been supporting since I was four - Sir Lewis Hamilton!
I had the pleasure of having a brief chat with Lewis and told him a short summary of how long I’ve been a fan of his, congratulating him on his recovery drive in Sepang and finally wishing him well for the night race ahead.
Festivities aside, Singapore played host to its first-ever sprint race weekend. The Sprint was a surprise thriller, given that the Marina Bay Street Circuit is infamous for being a tad bit boring on the overtaking front.
The first shocker came with another torrential downpour before the race started, just like in Sepang. It seemed like the racing gods above would have wanted some chaos, and chaos we got.
Parts of the circuit were almost bone-dry, whereas the first sector would be absolutely soaked. As the lights went out, the Lewis fan within me was extremely delighted to see him catapult from sixth straight into third, eventually finishing in second position after Mercedes' George Russell crashed out.
You'd think that with the choking skies and smell of race fuel, I would hold in my exhilaration, but that was definitely not the case. I ended up needing some soothing salt candies and overpriced bottles of coconut water after the sprint was over to soothe my well-worn throat upon celebrating.
My favourite shot of Lewis on my phone throughout the Singapore GP weekend.
With a bombshell sprint race under our belts, qualifying was another exciting spectacle for me. With Lewis promising good one-lap pace, it all fell apart when his car started to snap mid-corner due to a setup change.
The race was disappointing too, with a Hamilton podium on the cards that ebbed as the Prancing Horse failed to make a much-needed pitstop under the Virtual Safety Car, eventually finishing sixth. If I had a swear jar, I'm quite sure I'd be able to afford next year's Singapore GP tickets by the end of the weekend.
The F1 Singapore Grand Prix night race, however, proved to me that the 41-year-old still had it in him to fight for a world championship, despite all that has been thrown his way.
All in all though, having to contend with Sepang’s sweltering heat and irrational traffic management, and then head back home for a whirlwind week of events and hazy weather, was not for the weak.
Would I do it again? Definitely. Do I need a chiropractor and new lungs? Most certainly.
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