"This is the race where a disciplined training programme really pays off," Wurz confirmed, "In last week’s test, I covered over 200 laps in two days which was a good test for me and for the reliability of the car in such extreme conditions, which will be the toughest part for the majority of the drivers. Malaysia is a very cool race track, but it is very challenging to get the set-up right. The race simulation we did went very well, but we won’t see the true performance of the teams until the race weekend."
Technical director Sam Michael has predicted that pit-stop strategy will 'most likely be a standard two-stop affair', as the track layout is hard on tyres so the degradation levels don’t normally permit a one stopper, and the pit-lane is too slow for a three stop race."
Scuderia Toro Rosso – Vitantonio Liuzzi (#18), Scott Speed (#19):
With hardly any testing under their belts before the season started, Toro Rosso was not expected to create any surprises in Melbourne, and so it proved, with both Scott Speed and Tonio Liuzzi dropping out early in qualifying and then racing over the minor places on Sunday. Speed suffered a high-speed retirement when a front tyre went down, while Liuzzi soldiered on to 14th, happy that his car was at least reliable.
The main aim of last week's group test was thus to put as many miles on the cars as possible ahead of the Malaysian race weekend, as well as evaluating tyres and some new aero and suspension components.
“In some ways, this was like an extension of winter testing for us,” chief engineer Laurent Mekies admitted, “We had four busy days and reliability was okay for this stage in the season, but we still have a lot of work to do. The new aero and suspension components produced positive results and we hope to use some of them as early as next week’s race.”
Spyker F1 – Christijan Albers (#20), Adrian Sutil (#21):
After a disappointing race debut two weeks ago, the newly-rebranded Etihad Aldar Spyker team is hoping that its decision to miss the Sepang group test will bring some sort of reward.
