KUALA LUMPUR — The Formula One circus arrived in Kuala Lumpur Thursday for the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday and it was promptly treated with a massive contrast in atmosphere to that in Melbourne last weekend: As I write, the air temperature is above 30 degrees Celsius and the humidity 68 percent.
The teams and drivers met the media today and discussed mostly their results from last Sunday’s race. Most of the drivers — like Sebastian Vettel, who finished second in the race for the Red Bull team — were resigned to the fact that their cars will not undergo much development and they will have to make due with what they have from last weekend.
“Milton Keynes is kind of far away,” said Vettel, referring to the location of Red Bull’s team factory.
It was more a day about atmosphere than anything else, and the huge contrast in arriving at the circuit in Sepang, near the airport and just half an hour by train from downtown KL. One thing that struck me, and that I have been thinking over for several days, is how this city and country have accepted the race — and what it means to them. As I will write in one of my preview pieces this weekend, there was not a great deal of car racing culture in Malaysia when the race first started here in 1999.
It is an interesting contrast to Australia, for example, where there was quite a big racing culture before the Grand Prix began there in the 1980s. But both Australia and Malaysia have of late been debating the value of the race to their country. I wrote a story about the F1 debate in Australia on Monday,. But what struck me in Australia was that despite the controversy and letters to the editor and talk in the local bars about Melbourne not really wanting the race, the impression I got going to the race was the very opposite.
Crowd figures were at their highest in 5 years, the public I encountered on the tramways and in the hotel and bars were wonderfully enthusiastic about it and many had come from far away; the city seemed to embrace the race on many levels. Check out this glimpse of the spectators waiting for the tram on Friday morning in Melbourne when they were only going to a practice session — not even a qualifying run or the race itself.
Malaysia is a much more difficult case in point, but I did walk right into a couple of pieces of evidence Thursday morning on my way from my hotel to the circuit to show that there is a Formula One culture and an effort — at least by the Petronas sponsor — to promote the race, and a lot of people crowding around to take photos:
The key question, of course, is how many fans will show up over the weekend.