Straight From Malaysia

Dear Friends,

If you thought that after 16 years of racing in F1 I had already been through everything, you were wrong. This was the first race in my career that was interrupted before the end. It really had to be cut short because the visibility was very bad and there was an enormous amount of water on the track. Starting a race at 5PM, knowing that the sun sets at 7:10 was really very risky.
In Australia, I was really close to being pole position. I was first in the first two qualifyings. In the Q3, my car started to understeer because of the gas and I was left stranded. During the race, due to the problems I had with the gearbox at the start and with some bumping, I dropped a few positions and Button won the race easily. It was a real pity, because Australia is my kind of track. Then again, Malasia was more his kind of track than mine. I can say this based on the history of results and because of our love for these two tracks.

The weekend in Malasia didn’t start out well. Because of the changing of the gearbox, I had to drop 5 positions and started out eight on the grid. But, I was still determined to have a good race because there was a rain forecast, which brings instability to everyone.
I started out really well and was able to get to the 5th position in the first lap, I overtook Alonso and was 4th.
After my first pit stop, it began to rain and the team and I started to discuss which tires we would use. I wanted the intermediate ones, but the team insisted that the weather forecast said there would be heavy rain. How could I argue with that? I used the rain tires, which quickly ran out. At this time I had already overtaken Trulli, but because of my slow pit stop for my new heavy rain tires, he overtook me. From then on, there was no more race because the safety car came into the track.
Fifth place was good, but it was way below the potential of the car.

Bring on China and Bahrain!

Take care,

Rubens Barrichello

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