Alex Yoong

Its been awhile since my last post. F1 has started with a bit of a bang this year and i think we will have a cracker of a season. Personally, my life has been pretty busy and hence the lack of activity here. Actually learned to cook the other day (well, blend is more accurate really), and no damage so far. Might try it again next year.  :p

Anyway, the below is my preview going into the Bahrain GP. Catch us all on ESPN Star Sports

There will be a few unknowns going into the fourth leg of the 2012 Formula 1 season. A lot has been said in the media over the past few weeks about whether F1 was actually going to make the trip to Bahrain after it was cancelled last year.

And the real truth was that no one really knew if anything would happen until the Monday after the race.

So let’s not discuss the political implications, and instead focus on the racing.

The circuit is about a kilometer less than when we raced there two years ago and the only data teams have will be from the refueling days when cars ran a lot lighter over the course of a race.

It will also be the first time Pirelli will have been to Bahrain and this lack of previous data, should mean that we will see some teams getting the setup and strategy right and some who may get it horribly wrong.

Bahrain has 4 major breaking areas from over 300kph and this will mean brake and tyre wear will be an issue this weekend.

Tyre wear was the big talking point in Shanghai with most people, including myself, believing that Mercedes would have issues with their rubber and that Nico Rosberg would struggle to match his qualifying performance.

It was a nice surprise to see that this was not the case and Rosberg drove superbly, managed his tyres beautifully and dutifully won the race in style.

It was the first pole followed by the inaugural win for Mercedes since 1955 and it perfectly illustrated how open this season will be.

In my view, this year’s championship will go down as the most open and competitive of all. The mid-field teams have never been closer to the front teams and with only 3 tenths of a second separating the top 10 going into Qualifying 3 in Shanghai.

We should see more surprises as the year goes on. We have already seen Sauber finish 2nd at Malaysia and I expect them to go well in Bahrain too. Another mid-field team to watch out for has to be Williams. Their race pace has been good all year and if they qualify well, they will be a true threat to the top four teams.

When I say top four, I mean McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes and Lotus. Ferrari I omit at the moment as they are still struggling for pace and it will be no different in Bahrain.

They are keenly hoping that the big update package planned for the following race in Spain will deliver the performance they desperately need.

Especially Massa – he delivered an improved performance in Shanghai but he is still struggling against the fantastic Fernando.

Perhaps the updates planned by Ferrari, will give him the confidence to deliver the performances that we know he is capable of and thus keep him employed at the Prancing Horse.

Happy New Year!

Its the first day of the Chinese new year and a time for visiting. Today i decided to visit my home town, Kuala Lumpur.

The factories close down, the air clears, the buses, cars and trucks disapear of the road. This is the day she looks her best and i wanted to see her on my bike.

So here are a few pics of my ride around the city.

 

Happy New Year.

Its been a nice break over the holidays and to catch up with family time. Work with Caterham F1 and ESPN Star Sports has been a bit full on in 2011, but after a nice break, i thought it was time to update this site on whats been happening.

In between emails and travelling, it’s been a priority to give more time to the boy (Alister). This divorce stuff has been difficult on him and the Father (me) needed to devote more energy in supplying quality time.

One of the activities we have started, has been to take diving lessons and go waterskiing together. The boy loves the water and even though diving has been restricted to the swimming pool, he can’t get enough of it.

As for waterskiing, its actually been very cool for me personally. Last time I skied was in 1997 and in the excitement of getting wet again, my Sister persuaded me to commit to compeitive waterskiing in the South East Asian (SEA) Games. (The last time the sport of waterskiing was in the games was 1997 and also the last time I actually put on a pair of skis).

I was 80kg at this point and it was becoming hard to breathe when I tied my shoelaces. So getting back into a routine of training appealed to me. I hate working out just for the sake of vanity, but training for competition got my juices flowing. A lot.

So that was in June/July and man oh man was I dumb. I had forgotten how time consuming training was. Waterskiing like all sports involves a lot of practice, or in this case time on the water. And time is not a luxury I have

The other thing i forgot is how tough the sport is on the body. It seemed every time I got on the water, it would end with a new injury. I blame it on the fact that I did not have enough muscle tone and not age as some people unkindly suggested.

Due to the “lack of muscle tone” (and not age), I also developed an allergy to the water in the Putrajaya lake where we skied. This is the first time I have ever been allergic to anything and it involves turning my nose into Niagara Falls. It’s freaking ironic and no exaggeration by the way. After a days skiing, I would have to spend the night with a towel over my pillow due to the constant flow of fluid leaking out of my nose.

It was good that a friend introduced me to one heck of a strong anti histamine that reduced the crap coming out of my nose.

Not completely, but enough that I could actually breath and therefor sleep. But bad because it’s on the banned list of drugs in the International Olympic Council. Oh well, who needs sleep anyway?

Did I mention my Sisters?

Lets start with little big Sister (Pipa) or LBS for short. After giving birth to two daughters, she went back to skiing 3 years ago and it her fault I started this madness. Then there is little small Sister (Aaliyah) or LSS as I prefer to call her. LSS is 8 and is a bit of a phenomenon. Despite her young age and the fact that she only comes up to my knee, she is very talented and fearless.

You know, one of those very annoying skiers that learn a trick on their first go.

Anyway, back to introducing Tournament Waterskiing. It basically involves three disciplines.

The first one is trick sking. Due to her age, LSS only does tricks as it is not so hard on the body compared to the other two disiplines. Tricks involve rotations and flips within two 20 second periods. This is the discipline closest to Wake Boarding, the main difference being you can do toe tricks, which involves doing rotations with one foot strapped to the handle.

Then there is slalom, which involves the boat going through a course of buoys. The skiers have to slalom behind the boat on a single ski while going around all the buoys. The skier that can manage the most buoys at the fastest speed and shortest rope wins. LBS has become quite good at this lately as she just won the Asian Waterskiing Championship in this discipline.

Jumps involve a skier cutting out on two skis and hitting a large ramp at speed. The competitor that goes the furthest wins. This ones fun as you often end up hitting the ramp at 110kph. It’s hard on the ole body, but the sensation of flying is pretty cool. Jumps demands total respect of the ramp though, as you can imagine the repercussions for getting this one slightly wrong

Skiing really seemed to collapse at the end of the nineties in South East Asia but recently has started to revive, with more and more people doing it, especially in Indonesia, hence the inclusion into the SEA games. I used to do it competitively as a kid before I started driving and the fact that there were hardly and three event skiers in Malaysia anymore, resulted in me getting picked to go.

So anyway, i had one warm up competition, which was the Asian Waterski Championships a month before the SEA games. Suffice to say it was shit. I skied like crap, Tricked under 1000 points, did not clear my first pass at slalom, etc. I was freaking frustrated and despite putting in the time and effort, the progress was not there. In the heat of the moment, i even told LBS to forget it and that i was not going to the SEA games. Once i had cooled down however, i realised i was being unreasonable in my expectations. So we continued to train as much as we could, with me joining both Sisters at 8am every morning.

The games took place mid November in the city of Palembang in Indonesia. I ended up missing the first familiarisation day as I was flying out of Singapore after commentating on Formula 1 the night before, but luckily there was one more day of familiarisation before the competition, so it did not penalize me too much.

The SEA games in Indonesia have been plagued by reports of bad organisation, but in all honesty, I did not see that in the Games Village. It was clean and the organisators tried to make it fun for the competitors. There was even a music concert every night that went on from 7 to 10. The athletes of all the 11 countries that make up South East Asia mixed very well and there was a pleasant atmosphere.

On the first day of competition, all three events would go through the preliminaries with the finals on day two. I was grateful for the first day as it was still hard to get my “game” head on and the prelims allowed me to work on that. Sking is very tough mentally as there is no room for error. If you make a small mistake it is often impossible to recover. I skied reasonably well and made it through to the finals. Not as well as i hoped but better than the Asians a month before. LBS and LLS skied well and made it look easy. Although LBS did look a bit nervous in Slalom as she was easily favourite to win.

Day 2 started with a lot of drama. LBS let the favourite tag unsettle her and she fell on her second pass in slalom. Not good as she was expected to go a lot further. Fortunately for her, the other strong skiers did not do too well either and her score tied her for first with Sascha from Singapore. Because there was a tie, both of them had to ski again. LBS was fortunate to get this chance to atone for her earlier mistake and did much better. She skied to a new SEA games record of 1 buoy at 13m, and another gold to add to the one she won back in 1997 in the same discipline.

This seemed to inspire me and i skied beyond my expectations. 4 buoys at 14m was a result i had achieved in practice (infrequently), but with so little competition training my form was very inconsistent and the result was beyond my expectations. I got the Silver and i wore a huge smile for the rest of the day.

On to tricks and LLS skied to her full potential which netted her the gold! Aaliyah Yoong became the youngest ever winner of a gold medal in SEA games history and we were very proud. She was unfazed despite the big occasion and i am still incredulous about her performance when i think about it now. LBS also skied well in what was her weakest event to snatch the bronze.

In 1997, i had managed to get Silver in this event and i thought i had a good chance for a medal again. It was so hard to predict though, because with very little rotation tricks in my run, i had to land both flips to have a chance. I got one but not the other and my toe run was very sloppy. I finished 4th with around 2000 points i think. Much better than the Asians a month ago but not really good enough. It was exciting in a way because i had no idea how i would ski every time i got into the water.

We then had the jump final, and there was plenty of drama there too. Two skiers ended up leaving the water on stretchers and it really illustrated how dangerous Jumping could be. LBS was sking with a bad knee that she has had for years and jumped conservative, but still managed the Silver. I had a great time too and really enjoyed the Jumps and managed another silver. Unexpected as i had not been jumping well, and it was fortunate that i was hitting form just at the right time. 40m was a good 5m further than the Asians a month earlier.

The final day of the competition was for the overall medals, where skiers would have to do all three events again to see who was overall the best. LBS skied well and snatched the Gold easily. I again had a very good day and skied beyond my expectations. Especially in Tricks, where i landed both flips to finish with a score of 3000 points. This was the platform that allowed me to just win the gold by a narrow score.

Great fun, good training, unexpected results and best of all, i lost 7kg

Abu Dhabi will witness the penultimate round of the 2011 Formula 1 World Championship this weekend, and what a difference a year makes!

Last year, four drivers went into the last round of the championship all with a shot of winning it. Fernando Alonso was a heavy favourite, but his failure to pass Vitaly Petrov in the race meant that Sebastian Vettel won the championship with a faultless drive. This year, we have seen Vettel add consistency to his armory and the result has been one of the most dominated championship wins we have ever seen.

Red Bull have had the quickest car this year, especially in qualifying. Although we have had some weekends when they had not the quickest car, Vettel still strove with great maturity to still go on and win those races. McLaren and Ferrari looks to have caught up to Red Bull as the year progressed, especially McLaren, who seems to have closed the gap properly with a pole positon in Japan and another front row in the last race in India.

But that being said, Vettel has driven magnificently to win the Championship, and if anyone is to going to wrestle the crown from Vettel in 2012, they definitely need to raise their game and show that form now, in these last two races of the year.

Despite Abu Dhabi having the longest straight on the calendar, overtaking was not so prevalent last year. With two DRS zones, we can surely expect a lot of overtaking this weekend.

What I hope not to see however, is too much tyres degradation. Conventional wisdom is that high tyre degradation leads to more overtaking, which is true, but it also makes for poor racing in my opinion. Good racing, in my opinion, is when two drivers battle it out on the roads, lap after lap with a chance of re-overtaking.

On a track like Abu Dhabi, there should be lots of overtaking with two long straights and two DRS zones.

High tyre degradation will take away from the spectacle because it will disadvantage overtaken drivers as they won’t have the ability to fight back because his tyres would have worn out.

I expect some of the teams to be trimming their wings out to maximise the speed for the long straights in the first and second sector in Abu Dhabi, but if you really want to be quick here, the secret lies in sector three. Last season, this was the point where Vettel was strong.

There is an old Chinese saying, “Failure is the mother of all successes”. For the sake of Vettel’s fellow Red Bull racer Mark Webber, I certainly hope this is true. He will be concentrating on this section surely, as there is no doubt that he is hoping to break his winless streak, especially as he is keen to overtake Button for second in the championship.

Below the big three, the mid field battle is also heating up. Torro Rosso have certainly brought the goods in the last few races and now, they are truly in the battle for the 6th place in the championships along with Force India and Sauber. In these final two Grand Prixs of the year, I expect fireworks to erupt from these three teams.

It’s a big weekend for Formula 1 as we head to the Buddh International Circuit for the first ever Indian Grand Prix.

Both Championships may have already been taken by Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull, but with the inaugural race taking place in the world’s second largest populated country, the win is bound to be highly coveted.

It’s hard to know what to expect from a circuit no one has driven on, but the signs are there that it will be a good one. Drivers walking the circuit have all commented on the fast corners with long sweeps.
Overtaking should be good too, with a track that is 20m wide.

Most importantly, there is quite a bit of gradient which is different from the usual flat modern F1 track. Up and down with quick corners blending into one another is what gets drivers going, and the simulations show that is what we should expect this weekend.

The track seems smooth from preliminary walks around the track, so tyre wear should not be too bad. Pirelli have brought the hard and soft tyre (instead of hard and medium) for this weekend, which means we should see a big time difference between the two compounds.

This coupled with the fact that tyre wear should be low, should see most drivers starting on the soft, then stop two or three times before a short stint at the end of the race on the hard tyres.

Teams must run their drivers in the race on both compounds, and the time loss per lap on the hard tyres will negate any advantage by doing a stop less and using the hard tyres  at the beginning of the race.

Red Bull may have won the last race, but we have seen an upturn from McLaren. Their updates certainly have worked and if Hamilton had not lost 10 points of front down force, I feel he would have won at Korea. He will start as my slight favourite over the Red Bulls this weekend.

As for the rest of the field, we will see them experimenting with different settings and updates with an eye on next year’s cars. All except for Sauber and Force India, who are in a close fight for 6th place in the championship.

Also expect there to be a lot of focus with Force India as it will be their home Grand Prix.

It also will be a good weekend for Narain Kathekeyan as he races for the first time in his HRT in front of his own countrymen. With all this local interest, Formula 1 couldn’t have hoped for a better entry into the Indian market.

The Singaporean Grand Prix this weekend, despite being only in its fourth year, has quickly become one of the best GPs of the year.

Only Monaco rivals it for the glamour and prestige as celebrities turn out in large numbers for the race. Additionally, big companies are also present with their huge hospitality tents as they aim to maximize the chance to be a part of the thrilling race around the streets of downtown Singapore.

Singapore is also alone with Monaco as the only true street track, with armco barriers or concrete walls all the way around the track and no room for error. Nonetheless, Singapore is probably the toughest challenge on the F1 calendar.

The 23 turns around the track for almost two hours of racing makes it a supreme test of concentration and focus for all the drivers. Add to that the incredible heat of this tropical country, and you have a recipe that makes getting through the whole race without a mistake from the drivers incredibly difficult.

If it stays dry during the weekend and the track rubbers up as it usually does, then the track is not a high tyre wear circuit, which means that some drivers will only go for one stop while the majority will be on a two stop strategy.

The length of the pitlane is also long, which will penalize drivers who do too many stops and as we saw in Monaco with Vettel’s win, you can make the rubber last.

Alonso has won here twice now and will fancy his chances for another win, but it will be tough against Vettel, who is driving supremely well at the moment. Red Bull also start as favorites because of their incredible record in qualifying where they have been on pole for every race this year.

But Singapore is not traditionally a Red Bull circuit because there are no fast long corners here, which should neutralize their advantage in qualifying. As a result, it will be a very close fight between Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren.

However, we have said that before and come Saturday, Vettel always seems to give 100%, which was a feature of another great qualifier, Aryton Senna.

Silverstone is truly a quick circuit, with lots of long sweeping corners. Aero efficiency is the key here and when I say efficient, I mean that you need a car that generates a lot of down-force without creating too much drag.

Another circuit like that is Barcelona and we all know how quick the Red Bulls were there.

What will hinder the teams will be the banning of the exhaust blown diffuser which is in place this weekend.

Pretty much all the teams use it, and not being allowed to use the exhaust gasses to make their diffuser work better, and therefore create more down-force, will hurt all the teams. Some have estimated it to be up to 1.5 seconds a lap around a high down-force track like Silverstone.

But will it change the order of the cars? I’m not so sure, even though Red Bull have said it will hurt them as they have designed this year’s car around the exhaust blown diffuser, and they seem to have such a efficient car.

What will make a difference will be the upgrades brought to the race as all of the teams will be expected to do. For some of the smaller teams like Lotus and Virgin, this will be the last round of updates before fully concentrating on next year’s car.

For the bigger teams like Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren, the updates will be significant as they push on for the championship.

We are now almost half-way through the season and it is really crunch time for the teams. If Red Bull continues to dominate like they did in Barcelona, then it is really all over and I don’t think anyone will touch Vettel for the championship this year.

But if Ferrari or McLaren make a big enough step to overhaul Red Bull, then with ten races left there might still be a fight for the championship. If not the Drivers’ then at least the Constructors Championship.

As for Silverstone, this year we see the pits being moved to the back part of the circuit and pretty much everyone involved has praised the new facilities.

But for the drivers, once you are on the track, it is pretty much the same as last year. Look out for the Maggots-Becketts complex, because there is no other sequence of corners like those ones. These four corners switch quickly left to right and back with up to 4.8 G’s and speeds of up to 240kph.

Historically Silverstone has not been an easy circuit to overtake on, but with the new rules for this year, including DRS and the Pirelli tyres, it certainly should be pretty exciting to watch.

And with the pressure building amongst the top teams, expect drama this weekend.

The Monte Carlo Grand Prix this weekend, also known as the Jewel in the Crown in the Formula One calendar. Rightly so as it has been hosting Grand Prix races since the 1930s.

It is also the tightest, most unforgiving and mentally toughest race of the year. Famously described by one ex-F1 driver as “trying to ride your mountain bike around the living room”, it’s a complete contrast to last week’s Barcelona leg, which had open spaces and fast sweeping corners.

Monaco is the only true street track other than Singapore on the calendar, with proper armco barriers completely around the track. Other tracks like Valencia, Montreal and Melbourne are more half street track-half road circuits, with some areas having lots of run-off.

While Monaco is not as hot as Singapore, it is tough due to the constant sequence of corners with no straights to relax on. Even the start-finish straight is a curve, with the first corner appearing into view a fraction of a second before you have to hit the brakes at nearly 300kph.

With this year’s race likely to go close to two hours, it is going to take the maximum concentration from the drivers not to make a mistake and end up in the barriers.

2011 has been an overtaking fest, with lots of action on the track. Mostly, this has been down to the Pirellis having high degradation, but will it help here?

While I believe we should expect one or two passing moves more than in previous years, the tightness of the track should mean there will not be as much overtaking as we have come to expect this year.

That said, there will be plenty of drama and high tension, mostly because the slow speed nature of Monaco means that Red Bull will lose their advantage in the high speed corners. They should still be the favourites to win, but expect the McLarens to run them close. Even a bit of Alonso magic in a struggling Ferrari could see him upset the form book.

While Vettel has been the form man this year, Monaco is not a circuit he has gone well at, with his team mate comprehensively beating him last year. Let’s see if Mark Webber can put Barcelona behind him and go on to win for the first time this year.

But I have  a feeling that Hamilton could sneak a win here. He has been driving very well this season, pushing the McLaren car into results it should not be capable of, and I fancy his confidence to be high enough to not only challenge for Pole Position, but also the win.

With the super soft tyres being run for the first time this year in Monaco, there will be some trepidation amongst the teams on how well they will last.

I do expect most of the front runners to risk starting on the softer tyres; although they run the risk of wearing out their tyres too quickly, the hard to pass nature of this track means it’s key to get in a good qualifying session.

With my 8 year old son, i have adopted a non interference attitude in his beliefs. I wanted him to make up his own mind up on sensitive subjects as he grew older without any influences from me. In my idealistic way, i hope he will then grow up to be an adult, who can know his own thoughts and make is own decisions on what is right and wrong without being led by others.

So the other day he came back from school and declared that he was a believer in Christianity and that non believers in God would go to hell. A bit extreme in my view, but it did not bother me. I did not say any differently and just suggested that he try and look at other ways of thinking which may be just as applicable.

Feeling all good about myself that i was trying to take the high road, it all slapped me in the face a couple of weeks ago when he came back and declared himself a Chelsea football club supporter. As a life long Liverpool fan, this has not pleased me.

In his closet are now stacks of Chelsea shirts and every time i see them (like today) and imagine the future fights in front of the TV in weekends to come, i seriously reconsider my non interference plan.

There has been a lot of debate on how exciting Formula One has been this year and what has contributed to it. Mostly how the FIA and Pirelli have got it right with the Drag Reduction System or DRS and the high-degradation Pirelli tyres.

I for one, have been praising Pirelli’s bold desire to increase the overtaking opportunities by making their tyres degrade more than usual. Drivers complaining about tyres going off and ruining their race have been a usual occurrence since racing on rubber first began.

But all drivers and teams are aware that to make racing exciting, we needed tyres that go off quicker. And so now we have that, everyone has been working hard to praise the new tyres instead of complaining about it.

The DRS has been very good in my opinion, although some say that it has made the racing a bit artificial. I don’t believe that to be the case. In motorsports, whether on two wheels or four, there has always been an advantage for the following competitor due to the slipstream effect. Meaning there is less drag when you follow a vehicle as it cuts through the air, affording an advantage to the chasing car.

Since wings came became more efficient around 20 years ago, this started to change as cars following now had a disadvantage as they could did not receive clean air, which allowed their wings to work properly.

So in a way since wings became attached to race cars, the racing has been made artificial as it allows the car in front to stay in front despite being a second or two a lap slower than the car trying to overtake him. That is why we have had processional racing for all these years, until this year that is.

The DRS is a device that tries to get rid of the advantage the leading car always had.

There is still a bit of work to be done, on making sure that the overtaking does not get too easy. In Turkey, cars were able to overtake from a long way back and drivers were not able to defend. So I can see next year’s DRS zone in Turkey being a little shorter and less effective.

I would also like to see Pirelli, making their hard tyres last a little better. At the moment, the softer tyres are quicker over a single lap, but they both seem to last the same amount of time too. Harder tyres being a bit slower should give a trade-back by lasting longer.

We are now in Barcelona this weekend, and it has similar characteristics as Turkey with long sweeping corners. This should play into Red Bulls hands and they will be the favourite.

Hopefully, McLaren and Ferrari’s updates should help and if that happens, we might have a three-way fight for the win. Fingers crossed.

One thing different about Barcelona as compared to Turkey is that it does not have a massively long straight, and in years gone by, there has been very little overtaking.

DRS and the Pirelli tyres should work again in changing that, and hopefully we have a cracker of a race compared to the usual snore fest that is usually associated with the Spanish Grand Prix.