Alex Yoong

I’m here in Macau, pretty frustrated. Just had a conversation with a friend about losing her iPhone and guess what i did 20 min after that? Yup thats right, i lost my new iphone on the way back from the track. Freaking hell!

Anyway, lets change the subject, what am i doing here? Its Nabil Jeffri’s last race of the season in Formula BMW and it takes place at Asia’s most popular motorsport race, the Macau Grand Prix. Its such an exciting track and in my view the best street track in the world.

So, we had a mixed day yesterday. Nabil almost did everything asked of him. He took his time to learn the track and built up slowly and was actually pretty quick for a rookie. Actually ended up 9th out of 28 cars. I say almost because he did, have a small crash into the wall at the end of the practice session.

Fortunately qualifying is tomorrow, so there was plenty of time to fix the car. I am hopeful for a good result tomorrow, if we can keep his focus under control. These young drivers are tricky to get the most out of and i remember words coming back to me from old team bosses, when i was a yoongster.

Its 1030am and i am back home in my apartment with my cat. Unfortunately we had an engine blow at around 7am (7hours into the race), and so i am now at home, freshly showered and very red eyed.

It was a lot of fun and we really took the fight to the works cars. The Rieter Engineering Lamborhgini was leading as i left the circuit from the Joest Audi. But before our blow up we were splitting the pair and looked comfortable to challenge for the lead later on.

Proud of the work the guys did. Really no experience with the car and we struggled with setup in the early laps. But as the track gripped up our car became more neutral and we could attack more.

Lot of hard work for nothing at first glance, but there was some solid stuff there from the team and sometimes that just has to be enough.

Time for a nap.

Its been a strange morning. I have been trying to stay in bed all day and managed to make it to 1pm. The reason being that i am driving in the MME race that starts at midnight tonight. It goes on for 12 hours and with drivers only allowed to do 75min maximum between each stint, it means i won’t have much time to sleep through out the race.

Me in qualifying, note the yellow helmet.

So its 4pm now and i’m here in a coffee shop in KL trying to stop my itchy feet from going to the track too early.

I am racing a Lamborghini GT3 for KK Performance Team and i have 2 great team mates. Marchy Lee and Matthew Marsh, who are from Hong Kong and we have all been friends for a long time.

We are quietly optimistic that the race will go well for us if the car runs reliably. We qualified third yesterday with a Porsche RSR on pole and the factory Rieter Lamborghini team in second. As a privater team we were pretty happy to be within half a second of the factory team and fancy our chances. Its very competitive though as we also have the works Audi Joest team in the race starting from 4th.

Practicing at night on Thursday

Its the only race i plan on doing this year and cant wait for it to start. Its been such a pleasure to be behind the wheel again, sorting through data and working out the best methods to get the most of this 580bhp monster.

I will hopefully post with good news later on.

Ever wanted to learn to drive a touring car properly? We are starting race driving courses soon, using our Proton Neo’s. These are proper race cars with full Motec data logging systems which makes it possible to pin point what each driver is doing including lines as it also has GPS.

For more info, please contact megat@axle.com.my

Phew, pretty long week, again. Car 2 had an engine let go when we were running it in and as it was not our priority we decided to withdraw it.

Car 1 qualified 38th out of 58 cars which was expected as the rules favour the Hondas and Toyotas too much. The Proton Neo’s were 7 seconds a lap slower than pole position, although we were the quickest of the Neo’s.

In the race the team performed faultlessly. We had absolutely no problems from the pitstops and were quick with change overs. The only slight problem we had was the oil temps were too high and so had to limit the revs of the car from 7000 to 6000rpm.

Drivers also made no mistakes and pushed hard all the way. Hiroko was very consistent at the end, and Pipa solid through out the race. Frank resisted some pretty good pressure at the end from a quicker competitor and we were happy to record a 15th position.

Every year we at Axle Motorsport run a couple of Proton Neo’s in an endurance race here, called the Sepang 1000km. Its a local race with a lot of entries (55), and a lot of fun. Our cars only have 135hp at the wheel (built by an old engineer of us, Rueben Wong), but are well prepared and handle very well. With the oposition having 50hp more than us, its going to be hard to beat them, but we feel with a good pitstops and a reliable car we should postion well if we stay out of trouble.

Preparing the car. New Radiators and Lights just installed.

Its been almost a year since i drove anything and i have been getting the itch to drive. So i’ll be grabbing car no 2 and be racing it with Rhommell Singh. A good driver and our data engineer as well. Car 1 will be driven by my Sister Pippa Yoong, Hiroko (another good female driver) and Frank Yee from HK.

Looking pretty with Axle body kit and Dampers on.

Can’t wait to trade some paint out there.

Reaching the peak in any sport is a challenge of skill, endurance, tenacity, determination, discipline, hard work and a fair amount of luck. In the sport of motorsport, this is especially true and is made even more complicated because of the obscene amount of money needed to succeed. Successful drivers who make Formula One will roughly spend 14 years and around 5 million euro on racing in the junior formulae to get enough experience to considered for F1.

This means it is especially important that drivers develop as much as possible in Karts (where it is relatively cheap) before moving up into cars such as Formula BMW. In South East Asia Formula BMW is very healthy with grids of 20 or so cars entered and a very good quality of driving. Past drivers have gone on to good success in Europe such as Daniel Ricciardo who won the British F3 championship last year and is earmarked to be in F1 in a couple of years.

This year sees a record number of Malaysians taking part in Formula BMW, with as many as 7 young drivers taking to the grid at the first round (as a support race to the Malaysian F1 GP). Look out for Calvin Wong who races for Petronas Mofaz as a potential winner this year. He was quick on occasion last year but was sometimes a bit rash and crash happy. Another one to look out for if Nabil Jeffri who despite being a rookie this year has shown very good speed in testing. He was last years Rotax Max Asia Junior champion and also won the opening round for the senior class just two weeks ago. A very well rounded individual that shows potential to follow in Jazeman Jaafars footsteps (Jazeman was Malaysia’s only F BMW champion in 2007 and will be doing British F3 for the first time this year).

Other than Formula BMW, Malaysian Karting is the only other place where you will see good quality driving through out the grid and in the last couple of years, karting has been going from strength to strength. We have the Yamaha SL series and Rotax Max series as good local championships.

Above that is the Asian Karting Open Championship, also known as AKOC. Despite the unfortunate abbreviation, this championship is an important one, because it uses the same regulations as the CIK-FIA Karting World Championship, which as the official series in Europe, all the best karters in the world go through. Our best in Asia all need to eventually test themselves against the best, and that means the CIK championship and the best way to get them ready for it is by doing AKOC.

Another country which has a good karting background is Japan, and we too have a driver there. Brian Mehta is a very promising talent who has been identified by Toyota as a potential champion and are grooming him there. We will be following him closely this year because with Toyota support and the right results, Brian’s progress could be sped up quite dramatically.

This week i have been coaching young Malaysian Nabil Jeffri at the Sepang F1 Circuit. He is a promising young talent who after a successful Karting career is racing in cars for the first time this year. The picture here is of him in a Formula BMW (I’m the idiot wearing jeans in 40 degree heat).

Formula BMW is really very competitive this year with over 20 cars entered and 2 teams from Europe coming over to compete against the best Asia has to offer. It is a good little series and the only one in Asia (outside of Japan) where you see quality driving, with many of these youngsters going on to international success.

Its the first time in a couple of years that i had done some coaching and it was personally very satisfying to try different techniuqes in getting Nabil to learn the right lessons. Driving is a stressful environment, and its very easy to pick up bad habits. I was training with a view that Nabil hopefully would go all the way to Formula 1 and it was important he not just be quick, but understand how and why he was going faster. More importantly was to get rid of any bad habits that crept in and to reinforce the good ones.

For most of them, its the first time they use data and its crucial you learn how to look through it so that you take the right lessons from what you see. Driver feedback at this stage is usually poor for all of them and it is an area we will work hard on through out the year.

If you consider F1 like getting a PHD and Karting like high school then F BMW is like being at your first year of college. Its a big step for young drivers and what they learn here will serve them well through out their careers. As they go up the ladder closer to F1, the pressure and costs rise dramatically, and there is less room for mistakes. Which makes what they do here very important as it allows them to explore what is possible in a single seater with out too many repercussions.

What is clear is that although talent is important, what is more important is how you mould the driver and what sort of head he has on him. Drivers that get frustrated or confused easily learn slower. When you first start testing a good first year Karting graduate around Sepang he usually does 2 min 16′s. Then over the winter where a driver usually does 15 to 20 test days (before the start of the season), he or she gradually gets faster till hopefully they are on the pace and able to lap in the 2 min 11′s.

All previous champions at this stage had one thing in common and that was they had immaculate preparation with lots of testing with good people to teach him. Testing and being prepared is not a guarantee of success, but without it winning is not possible.

So far, Nabil has done 15 days testing and we were all pleased when he finished the last day 3rd quickest (2 min 11.7). More importantly he did that time without the benefit of new tyres. It’s encouraging because some of the drivers, including the two ahead of him have done at least 20 days of testing and/or one year of racing in F BMW. But, this does not mean we are in the clear, because rookies tend to be inconsistent, and you need everything to be perfect to win races and championships, especially consistency.

So, there is much more to do, but i think Nabil is off to a good start for this, his rookie year.

Friday, 05 Mar 2010

With pre-season testing over, the results are in. Its been very close with no one seemingly having a clear advantage unlike last year where Brawn GP dominated testing. Its difficult to know who is the quickest because of the different fuel loads all the teams were running through out testing. On a full tank of fuel, a team could have as much as 160kg of fuel on board which would be roughly 5 to 6 seconds a lap slower than with qualifying fuel in.

What the long runs seem to show is that Mclaren and Ferrari seem to be a bit in front, with Red Bull and Mercedez just behind. Maybe a couple of tenths of a second a lap from them are Sauber, Force India and Williams with Torro Rosso a tenth or two behind them and Renault a few tenths further back.

In qualifying it should be very close and we may have all 9 teams within a second or two. Of the new teams, Lotus has proved to be quickest with Virgin about a second behind them, although they will be bringing an update package to Bahrain which should allow them to close the gap. The 12th and final team H.R.T (previously known as Campos) have yet to run and it remains to be seen how well they will go at the first few races.

With the official entry list out, it has shown how international the field has gotten. Most of the teams are still based in the UK, but a lot of them are now running under foreign ownership.

You have Red Bull running under a Austrian entry, Mercedez under Germany, Force India under India and of course Lotus racing under a Malaysian entry with their license being granted by the Automobile Association of Malaysia. Its starting to look more and more like a world cup of nations, which gives everyone a team to cheer for.

I believe 2010 will be one of those years we look back upon with fond memories. One of those years that the competition and quality of the racing was so high that it stood out amongst the rest. Years like ’87 when you had Prost versus the Williams duo of Mansell and Piquet with a young Aryton Senna in a Lotus. 2007 was also a classic year when we had both Ferrari drivers versus the two Mclarens with Kimi Raikkonen winning the championship by a single point.

This year we potentially have 8 championship contenders fighting out, as 4 teams have been very close in pre season testing (Ferrari, Mclaren, Red Bull and Mercedez). In previous years, there have sometimes been 3 or 4 teams capable of fighting for a championship but normally they would only have 1 driver capable of delivering the goods.

This year 7 of these drivers are proven race winners and capable of mounting a championship challenge. Only Nico Rosberg in the Mercedez is a relatively unknown as he has never had a car capable to challenge for a title until now (hopefully).

First of all we have the greatest driver ever back in the fry with Michael Shumacher reunited with Ross Brawn at Mercedez. Brawn has said its the Michael of old, which means that if Mercedez can deliver the car, there could be an unprecedented eight title for the 41 year old German.

Then there are the last two world champions, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton in the Mclaren. I would like to think that Jenson has the capability to take on Hamilton in his own team, although he will have his work cut out.

With Ferrari, there is 2 times world champion, Fernando Alonso back in a competitive car. He is raring to go and looks very relaxed during preseason testing. He is relishing driving the scarlet car.

We also have Massa back from a life threatening accident, which in a normal year would have been a great story to follow just by itself. Massa before his accident had shown that he had it in him to a true World Champion and hopefully nothing has changed.

Red Bull were the form team in the second half of last year and have been quick in preseason testing although there are some doubts whether they can take the fight to Mclaren and Ferrari over the long runs when fuel loads are high. I would also put Mercedez in the same sub group as Red Bull, but one thing is for certain, is that they are close enough to Ferrari and Mclaren that they will be a threat.

Whoever is quickest at the first couple of races does not mean they will be favorite for the title in my book. Its a long season and whichever team can maintain the highest level of development through out the year should be World Champion

So what’s it going to be? A sensational return to championship glory for Schumacher; the start of a new Alonso era at Ferrari, a second title for Hamilton, or Button; an emotional return to success for Massa; or a record-breaking surge from Vettel (or Webber) at ambitious Red Bull?

Of course here in Malaysia we have another reason to watch this year, with Lotus Racing taking part. Add to that Petronas’s involvement and Air Asia at Williams and we have potentially 3 teams for Malaysians to cheer. Mercedez Petronas and Williams are proven teams and should give a good show, however Lotus is a brand new team this year that has built up a team and car from scratch in five months.

So understandably the team has been concentrating on reliability and not so much performance. This means they will not be so competitive at the start of the year, but i think if they can show continued improvement through out the year, they will have done very well.

An article i wrote awhile back. Thought i’d reproduce it here.

Thursday, 24 Sep 2009
Over the last week, I have had one question continuously directed at me. “How is a Malaysian F1 Team possible?” Its an exasperating question, as I constantly find I have to bite my tongue as it would be very easy to be miss quoted. Its a complicated with too many variables to give a clear yes or no. It’s possible but in reality very, very difficult unless certain attitudes within Malaysia are able to change.

Now before you get on your high horse, let me try and qualify these oversimplified answers.

Lets start with an easier question. Why do we want a F1 team? Well the obvious answer is to show what we Malaysians are capable of. Ok, so how do we measure that? Is the answer to that, just to be in F1? Well, no problem, we are there. In fact you could argue we are already there with the Petronas sponsorship of BMW. But what if you want more? What if you want to actually own a team and be successful? To win races and challenge for championships… wow, what a step. Well then, you go out and buy the best team on the market, a team like BMW or Williams and leave them to it (like Force India has done).

But then is it Malaysian, you ask? It may say 1 Malaysia on the side but is it really malaysian? Well, the answer is no isn’t it? Its an English (Or swiss if you bought BMW) team, based in their own countries with their own countrymen running it. If you really want to call it Malaysian, then it has to be based here, with a good percentage of Malaysians working in it. A bit like A1 Team Malaysia, or more relevantly like what Tony Fernandez is trying to do with the launch of our own Malaysian F1 team.

His plan is for our Malaysian F1 team to eventually be based here at Sepang. At first there would be a base in Norfork, UK to build and run the cars before building a centre here to eventually take over. A grand idea, as it then means we have a proper Malaysian team. An if we actually won a race and the Negara Ku played out over the prize giving ceremony, it will actually mean something. But can we have success with Malaysians running a Malaysian centre in Malaysia? That is where this thought exercise get infinitely more complicated.

Lets eventually get to attitudes and to compare what the differences are between motorsports in Malaysia and F1. But first lets look at two case studies, Toyota and Honda. Both are from companies with their base in Asia, looking to have genuine success in Formula One. And to do that, they have decided that their teams need to be based in Europe. Not only because all the infrastructure is there, but because the best people are there too. And everyone knows its people that make success, not just money. Even with the most money, without the best people, you will never have success, ala Toyota. The interesting thing about this, is that both Toyota and Honda toyed with the idea of basing their teams in Japan but decided against it. Now Japan has a huge motorsports industry, that is only second to the UK and perhaps the US. So with a fully developed motorsports industry in their own countries, they still decided to be based in Europe.

Now we do have one certain advantage over Honda and Toyota, which is that our government is completely behind us. Willing to do anything for our own Formula 1 team to help them in their quest for glory. I think.

It’s difficult to quantify how much support the Malaysian government will eventually give the team, because that depends on you. When i say you, i mean the person reading this article. If you can make a difference and say that you support a Malaysian F1 team and enough of you say it, the government will listen and hopefully throw their might behind our efforts. I say “our” because it will involve everyone on some sort of level.

Ok, now for attitudes. In Formula One, only the best are hired. From the driver, to the guy who cleans the toilets back at the factory, they will look for the best that they can attract (money and working environment being important factors in obtaining personal). Also the people in Formula One don’t just hire the smartest people they can find, self motivation and a huge curiosity to improve are vitally crucial too (education while important is not enough). An ability to question and seek improvements for the betterment of the team are also important. An employee who comes up after a failure on the car and says that he could have done it better would get sacked in a formula one team. To know a solution and keep it to yourself is not someone who lasts long in this industry.

Does this sound like an environment that would work here? I’m not going to state the obvious, either you get it or you don’t.

If we want a Malaysian Formula One team to be successful and not just run around at the back of the grid, then it needs to adopt the mentality of a country at war. No quarter given, no compromises on quality allowed. Results are all that matter.

I applaud Tony and his partners vision in trying to do this. It’s the sort of vision that will allow Malaysia to make big strides in becoming a 1st world country. Malaysia is a beautiful country and i’m sure Tony will be able to attract very good people. Mike Gascoyne as technical director is a very good step forward.

Tony now needs to attract the best Malaysians that he can find to join him. For example, if an engineer that is hired to do a specific job needs to be told twice to do something, he or she becomes a liability.

Standards cannot be compromised to teach people who cannot learn quickly. Mark Webber once said “Formula One is not a finishing school” and that applies to everyone within the the team, not just the drivers.

F1 Malaysia needs to hire the best people on merit, regardless of your background or who you happen to know. Over the years Malaysia has had a big brain drain as a lot of our smartest people leave to find better opportunities elsewhere. We need to get them back, because there is a place for them here.

There will be growing pains, and it will not be smooth, but as long as our F1 team maintains the standards it sets without compromise, then i believe we will succeed. It wont be easy, but anything worth doing well, rarely is.