Qualifying confusion

We’re pretty sure that Giancarlo Fisichella and Jenson Button will start Sunday’s second grand prix of the season from the front row of the grid for Renault and Honda respectively. It also seems likely that the sport’s new Poster Boy, Nico Rosberg will start from P3 (assuming they don’t announce engine changes later.)

But after that, confusion reigns, as getting these new V8 engines to last two race weekends is proving problematic. At the moment, and in no particular order, Michael Schumacher, Felipe Massa, Rubens Barrichello, Ralf Schumacher and our own David Coulthard all needed engine changes. This means in simple terms they all start at the back. But deciding which driver actually starts at the back of the front, which one at the front of the back and which at the back of the back, is something that the brains of the FIA are currently working on. If one applies the rule about dropping ten places, it would seem that some cars might line up for the start somewhere on Runway 1 at the nearby Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

So the F1 journalists were all busy scratching their heads and counting on their fingers, but we reckon they had an easier time than the man commentating on the Porsche race that followed F1 qualifying. While the relatively straightforward Mr. Oyoung was in the lead, second place belonged to someone by the magnificently tongue-twisting name of Charoensukhawatana. At the back of the field in the race was a gentleman called Proost. He did not seem to have any of the driving skills of famous French racer Alain Prost, but given he was at the back, perhaps he had more in common with famous French writer Marcel Proust, whose most famous work was called “In Search of Lost Time;” something this Porsche racer could definitely do with finding.