Sidepodcast

The weather is good in Malaysia, but we want some rain! The opportunity to see TC free cars sliding around in the wet stuff has been on the cards all week, but thus far the weather’s held. All the signs suggest the track is due a downpour, but will it happen before the race is run?

On the flip-side to this, the mixed up grid is set to provide a great race regardless of what mother nature throws in the direction of the Kuala Lumpur circuit. Hamilton is sitting directly behind Alonso in 9th, while sat beside him is his current teammate Kovalainen. If ever Lewis needed a good first corner, today would be it.

Near the front we also have the prospect of an out-of-position Trulli. It’s been awhile since we’ve had a potential road block so close to the front of the pack, what part will the Toyota driver play in today’s result, and can he deliver on his pre-season promises?

UK television coverage kicks off in less than five minutes. It feels like we’re up at a vaguely normal time compared to some of the sessions we’ve sat through, but let us know if you’ve set your alarm early for this one!

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There’s barely time to catch our breath as we jump straight from FP3 into Qualifying. Significantly today’s practice session was a quiet one in comparison to the component failures, miscommunication and general poor driving we saw on Friday.

All cars made it safely back to the pits in one piece, although Barrichello’s chassis spent a significant amount of time in the air, minus its wheels.

Surprisingly the softer tyres don’t appear to be giving the one lap performance advantage that everyone had expected, although the overcast conditions at the end of the session suggest qualifying could be wet at some point anyway.

We’ll be watching ITV’s qualifying coverage on an actual television, the build up starts at 5:15am. If you’ve braved another early start please do let us know where you’re following the action. As ever comments, insights, opinions and questions are all welcome. We’re quite addicted to following F1 the live comment way, so please do keep ‘em coming.