This week, it is my turn to publish an F1 article in the local Mypaper. The English version is published below. I focused on the areas for improvement. Do give me your feedback.

On Saturday, a dejected driver told the world he needed a miracle to win the Singapore night race. On Sunday, the 500 million race fans witness this miracle unfolding. As though he was worried of falling into oblivion, Renault’s Fernando Alonso engraved his name into racing folklore as the first ever night race champion. After suffering from a fuel injection problem during qualifying, he had to start from 15th on the grid. Even he had written his own chances off when being interviewed prior to the race.
Arguably the most complete and best driver in the current group of drivers, Alonso’s spectacular feat was a combination of skill and luck. The Renault car is about 30bhp underpowered compared to the Ferrari or Mclaren machineries. It is neither the best handling nor most powerful car on the grid. Fortunately this new and unknown circuit places more emphasis on car set-up for proper handling and the driver’s ability to adapt quickly.
Many observers have given Alonso the “complete” driver tag. The two times world champion title bear testimony to his driving skills. However, hidden from the fans’ view, his sound technical ability to aid engineers in setting up the car is the final piece of jigsaw to the “completeness”. While many other drivers struggled to adjust their cars’ setting to cope with the bumpy track but Alonso was already setting the fastest times in the practice sessions.
Starting from 15th, Alonso elected to use a strategy that was different from the rest. Lady luck smiled when teammate Nelson Piquet Jr. crashed heavily and brought out the safety car. Having already pitted earlier, he moved up the field as others pitted. For the rest of the race, Alonso’s scintillating performance ensured his place in the history books.
In this race, FIA’s stewards once again showed inconsistency in their decision making. While leaving the pits, Massa almost collided into Force India’s Adrian Sutil. Coincidentally, many fans will remember the Valencia race where he also drove into Sutil’s path under remarkably similar circumstances. Interestingly, the penalty was vastly different in both cases. In Singapore, he was given a drive through penalty after investigations concluded. By then, he was already in last place. In contrast, he was given a €10000 fine and a warning for the Valencia incident. This allowed him to preserve his race win and the important championship points. Why was there such a glaring inconsistency? With so much recent debate on being Ferrari-biased, I am sure it will do FIA good to clarify this situation.
This Singapore race was considered a success and many are looking forward for it to become the crown jewel event of F1. To reach the stage, I believe there are some improvements which are vital. Firstly, the quality of the track has to be improved. All the drivers had a common complain that the race track was too bumpy. Evidently, the bumps issue is very severe as the chassis of many cars grinded the road surface creating visible sparks. These bumps not only damage the cars but it also affects the handling performance of the cars. For the drivers, this also places a lot of strain on the drivers’ back which affects their concentration and safety. The organizers will have to be more stringent about the evenness of the track surface for future races.
The other aspect of track quality would be the amount of leaves on the road surface. I have never seen any other F1 track so heavily covered with dead leaves. Dirty tracks are seemingly harmless, however the air intake of the cars are like giant vacuum cleaners that suck the leaves in. A large build up of leaves in the radiator compartment can potentially cause the engine to overheat and ultimately breakdown. Trimming the branches that intrude the track is most likely the best solution to eliminate this problem.
One last aspect which I found lacking was the experience of the marshals. When incidents occurred, most of the local marshals looked lost and did not react swiftly. In one incident during practice when Raikkonen spun, the marshals who attended to the incident did not seem to know the correct method of pushing the car. This delayed the clearing of the car and hampered the progress of the track returning to a safe condition. Training was provided prior to the event. However, I believe it may not be sufficient and coupled with inexperience, the track crew might have been a bit overwhelmed by these incidents. Having hosted one race, we will now be able to provide better training to future marshals. The organizers can also identify a core group of track crew and send to regional competitions or even the Malaysia Grand Prix. For the local race, each of these experienced marshals will lead a group of volunteers to take charge of one sector of the track.
The Singapore night race is a milestone in motor racing. It has been shown that night race is possible and has been successfully held. This should give the FIA greater impetus to include more night races in future. As the local race organizers work on areas for improvement, I believe we can one day become the blue ribbon event of F1. For now, I am already looking forward to next year’s race!