In racing terms, the Malaysian Grand Prix cannot be described as exciting and it is even difficult to define it as a race as there was so little overtaking.

The drama started for the McLaren boys on Saturday when they were both penalised five places on the grid for impeding Nick Heidfeld. After completing their flying lap, they were saving fuel on their in laps but for some ridiculous reason, were doing this on the racing line whilst others were completing their flying laps. This was such a stupid error to make the team deserved the penalty. However, Kovalainen starting in eighth and Hamilton in ninth would not have normally been the end of the world but somehow, Mark Webber’s Red Bull which started in sixth, appeared to be the size of a bus as nobody could get past him. Lewis made a good start jumping from ninth to fifth but was held off a long time behind Mark Webber. Then, having got past and put himself in a good position for a third place finish, he had a problem in his pit stop. He had a great fight with Trulli up to the home straight but could do no better than fifth. Team mate Kovalainen however got his first podium finish for the team, coming in third.

The Ferraris locked out the front row with Massa taking pole and Kimi starting in second. Massa’s position at Ferrari is already being attacked which seems a little unfair as we are only two races in. However out of two races, he has not finished either race and it seems that it has been driver error on each occasion. Now that Todt is no longer the main man, Massa is not protected and although he is contracted to 2010, he is highly unlikely to be in the Ferrari race seat next year. It is a shame because he is a good racer as was seen when he and Kimi battled into the first corner and he kept his nerve and his lead. Kimi only managed to overtake him in the pit stops. Kimi then had a clear run to finish first.

It was another strong showing for the BMW’s who should be a thorn in the side of McLaren and Ferrari this year. They certainly have the ability to take points from them. Kubica qualified fourth with teammate Heidfeld fifth. Kubica than ran a good race to take second, his best ever finish. Heidfeld took the fastest race lap but finished sixth having run wide attempting to pass Trulli. He had a good battle with Coulthard and Alonso early in the race.

It was another strong weekend for Trulli in his Toyota qualifying third and finishing fourth. The car has taken a massive step forward this year and although he came under attack from Hamilton in the closing stages of the race, the weekend was not so good for team mate Glock who qualified tenth and did not finish the race having been hit by Rosberg on lap one, which caused his rear suspension to break.

It was another weekend of mixed blessings for the Red Bull team. Coulthard qualified in twelfth after having his car disintegrate on him, in the practice sessions. Team management were called to the steward office to explain the reason why the car had disintegrated and to confirm it was safe to race. He made it up to ninth but still finished outside of the points. Webber started in sixth and although still managed to finish in the points, he lost a place and finally came home in seventh. He had some good battles but mainly because people could not get past him, rather then him doing the attacking and making the moves. The car however is looking strong so there is some hope for the team, for the rest of the season.

Renault appear to have made little progress over the winter months. Alonso seems to be sucking every ounce of speed out of the car that he can and Piquet is making no impact at all. Alonso started in seventh, although it has to be noted that he was promoted two places by the McLaren penalties. He finished eighth so managed to score a point. What is interesting, is he is already bad mouthing the team openly acknowledging in the Spanish press that the team are far off the performance that he would want, that he has a get out clause in his contract, that he is basically waiting to step into a seat at Ferrari. The problem with Alonso is he could not cope with a strong team mate last year, he cannot cope with a bad car this year so he has absolutely no chance of coping in the Ferrari team, up against Kimi who surely, would take number one status. Alonso has got to learn to concentrate on his racing and stop whingeing to the Spanish press. Team mate Piquet qualified thirteenth and finished eleventh and the best he could manage to say was he was happy to finish. That says a lot about the state of the car.

After such a strong start in Australia, it was a disappointing weekend for the Williams boys. Nakajima was penalised for the accident in Melbourne and a ten place grid penalty meant he started in twenty-second. He finished seventeenth. He had a puncture and had to stop early which compromised his strategy. He also came off the track and so to get the car home in one piece was in fact a victory of its own. Rosberg qualified sixteenth and finished fourteenth and was in fact lucky to finish the race at all. He caught Glock on the first lap causing him to pit early for a new nose and that basically destroyed his race.

Both Hondas finished the race but made no impact. From Jenson’s comments, it seems as though he was treating it more as a testing session. He qualified eleventh and finished tenth and stated that it was good to finish the full race distance as they got a lot of “very useful information” from the weekend. Barrichello qualified fourteenth and finished thirteenth although had a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. He complained the markers in the pit lane to indicate where the speed limit ends were not clear enough, but no one else seemed to have a problem.

Bourdais in his Toro Rosso is having a horrible introduction to Formula 1 with his second DNF. He spun into the gravel on lap one ending his race. Team mate Vettel also failed to finish with problems with shifting gear and power steering and then the back end caught fire as he pulled over to stop.

Both Super Aguri’s finished albeit Sato in sixteenth and Davidson in fifteenth. For these boys, it is good to finish a race as reliability is key. The same could not be said for Force India. Fisichella actually had a great race qualifying seventeenth and finishing twelfth. He did well to get through the field. Sutil however qualified twentieth and did not finish retiring with a mechanical problem.

This is going to be a long season, the title race is wide open. We just need to hope at other tracks, we are actually going to see some racing!