Last Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix was a tough challenge for the Formula One teams. With temperatures of around 40 degrees Celsius most of the three days, the cars were put to the test. Craig Scarborough analyses how they coped with the conditions from a technical and strategic point of view

The second Grand Prix of the year gave a clearer indication of where the teams' strengths and weaknesses lie. However, not everything can be read into the weekend, as the Sepang's track layout and climate are quite unique compared to the bulk of the races held in Europe.

Most of the teams spent Friday assessing tyre choice and race set up. But the running earlier in the weekend was not indicative of conditions for the race due to some bizarre circumstances: in the Sepang area, a peat fire was raging, which covered the track with haze and artificially lowered the temperature by blocking the sunlight.

Conditions were clearer on Sunday and the rising temperature played into the hands of the Michelin runners, as the new Michelin optional construction on offer was more durable on long runs in the heat. This led a few teams to opt for a one-stop strategy over the almost universal two stoppers used previously.

The main winner from this strategy was of course Ralf Schumacher who, along with only one pitstop to make, also benefited from the loss of the other front runners, with the run in between Michael Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya and the reliability issues hitting the McLaren and long time race leader Rubens Barrichello.

At the end of the race, at parc ferme, both the Williams tyres were almost rubbed away to slicks, inducing fears of a protest from rivals Ferrari, but while none has surfaced so far, it must be a question of time before Bridgestone object to the Michelin's performance on worn down tyres.

Technically, Sepang brought few new developments - with the teams shipping the cars from Australia and with no time to run the cars in between, only simple add ons were made. Jaguar is arguably the most in need of development parts and so was most notable for various changes made to the R3. Other teams simply played with existing cooling and wing set ups.

Tyres

Michelin brought two tyre choices to Malaysia: the "A" tyre was a tyre used at Albert Park, and the optional "B" tyre is a new construction based on knowledge gained from the controversial asymmetric grooved tyre. The aim of the new tyre is to limit movement of the block of rubber between the grooves causing the loss in performance in the first laps run on the tyres.

The final result was a good one for Michelin with a 1-2 finish (and nearly a 1-2-3 if it were not for Jenson Button's last lap technical problem). With the data collected this weekend, the French supplier now are working on what tyres to take to the similar Interlagos circuit in Brazil in two weeks.

Bridgestone also brought two tyres to Sepang, and while most of their teams opted for the softer of the two, Ferrari and BAR selected the harder tyre. The Bridgestone performance carried over the weekend as the temperature varied and as more rubber was laid onto the track.

After qualifying, Bridgestone's Hisao Suganuma said: "we saw an improvement from yesterday in terms of wear and grip. I expect further improvement tomorrow." Ferrari's Ross Brawn, however, was more cautious, stating that "the tyres were very good but in the race we are chasing a moving target in terms of what the track conditions will be." He was right, as the race conditions were hotter.

As a result, all the Bridgestone runners opted for a two stop race strategy, but as Hisao Suganuma pointed out, "it wasn't good enough... We will learn from this result and ensure we improve our performance for Brazil," explaining that a new construction will be introduced for the South American race.

Team by Team

Williams

Visually, there was nothing new on the Williams cars; the improvements in lap times were coming from set up and the tyres. As a result, it was an incremental weekend for the Williams team. The car was nervous in faster corners on Friday, and the team also worked on brakes and set up for the race. Come qualifying the team had worked out their problems, and even though Ferrari appeared to have more downforce, Williams topped the straightline speed trap by quite a margin.

The race start was a repeat of Australia, where one Williams is involved in an accident with a Ferrari. This time it was Juan Pablo Montoya's turn to tangle with Michael Schumacher, and as the two cars touched, Montoya's horizontal fin ahead of the sidepods was ripped. This is a minor aerodynamic part and Montoya was able to rejoin the pack following the accident.

Meanwhile Ralf nursed his brakes and tyres on the heavy one stop fuel load, and later described the car as perfect - "especially the second stint, where there was even more rubber on the circuit," he added. With the long stints the tyres did go off a little towards the end, but the lightened fuel load brought still quicker lap times and the car retained its balance.

Ferrari

Ferrari again ran the older F2001 in Malaysia. Their specification was unchanged from Australia, except for some small revisions in the cockpit cooling system, aimed at coping with the extreme Malaysian heat, which was evident in a small opening in the nose cone. For the race, Rubens Barrichello had large holes drilled in the small windshield around the cockpit. Likewise, Michael Schumacher had returned to Europe before the Malaysian GP weekend where - in order to keep up his acclimatisation to the hot and humid conditions - he has a climate controlled gym in his home which replicates the Sepang conditions.

Like most teams Ferrari concentrated on tyre choice for the race and therefore ran a race-type set up on Friday. But the choice of which of the two tyres options to run for qualifying and the race was proving difficult and while the team succeeded on Saturday's qualifying, they were not as confident of the same result in the race; their poor starts in Melbourne placed them under pressure from the Williams and McLaren drivers behind them, and their two stop strategy and tyres put them at a disadvantage compared to their opponents.

Just as in Melbourne, both cars were poor off the line and after his run in with the Williams of Juan Pablo Montoya, Michael Schumacher ran the full lap without his front wing, smoking his tyres into the corners, trying to limit the time he was losing. The nose was duly replaced and his two-stop strategy would prove useful in maximising his pace as he worked his way through the field.

Rubens Barrichello took the lead and slowly worked out an advantage over the other Williams of Ralf Schumacher, their relative pace indicating initially that they were on a similar strategy. However, this was not the case as Rubens was to be stopping twice against Ralf's once.

During the pitstop sequence Rubens lost the lead but that was to become immaterial as his engine blew spectacularly - the second engine failure of the weekend for Barrichello (he lost time on Friday with another blow up). Barrichello later commented that the tyres were working well before the blow up, but there was no way he could match the race pace of the Williams.

McLaren

The MP4/17 was largely unchanged from the previous Grand Prix, except for modification made to the gearbox selector fork, which caused David Coulthard's retirement in the Australian GP.

Friday was the best day for McLaren, and the drivers topped the time sheets despite a number of problems. Although generally Kimi Raikkonen had a trouble-free day, his car had excessive oversteer leading to some spectacular tail out cornering and trips across the gravel. David Coulthard had a more serious problem when an ignition coil failure led to the exhaust overheating and setting fire to the bodywork; the small blaze was extinguished and David took upon himself to push the car one kilometre back to the pits in the heat.

The weekend deteriorated for the team on Saturday as a result of the lost track time on Friday and a car that looked edgy and awkward to drive. Coulthard said he was "not at all happy with today's performance and it has been difficult from the start of the weekend," adding that he suffered from a lot of oversteer and was unable to attack the corners in the way he would have liked. Raikkonen had equal problems with the balance of the car and also looked forward to a better race set up and performance. Norbert Haug optimistically remarked: "I think that our race performance will be better than what we showed today."

For the race, both drivers cleared the incident at the first corner and settled into their race pace. Like Williams, the McLarens were on a split strategy with Coulthard running a two stopper and Raikkonen on a single stop strategy. But the McLarens were slowly left behind Williams and Ferrari.

Coulthard soon reported a misfire which was getting worse and was called into the pits by the Mercedes technicians to retire; Raikkonen later went a similar way, when the engine let go completely while he was braking for the last corner.

Before the season began, Haug revealed to Atlas F1 his dissatisfaction on the reliability of the car in 2001 and stated that two engine failures in a season was not acceptable to them. Unfortunately he has now had two in a single race. He therefore stated after the race: "we certainly need to do a much better job next time. We will now analyse in detail what caused the engines to fail to ensure that these problems don't occur again."

Renault

After showing promise in Australia the team came to Malaysia with a newly developed aerodynamic underfloor and with some support for Jarno Trulli, confirming his spin in Melbourne was indeed on oil laid down by his own teammate.

The drivers had different feelings from the car on Friday, and while Jenson Button was quite happy with the feel of his car, Trulli reported that he was struggling to find a decent handling balance. Going into the qualifying session, Button had an engine problem on one of the runs and resorted to using the spare car for his final run, though still managed to improve his time.

Trulli, in contrast, was still searching for balance from the chassis and struggled to post a top time. He admitted: "it hasn't been a good weekend for me so far." Denis Chevrier, the French team's operations manager, was happy overall. "Today, we saw the car's potential confirmed as we find ourselves in the same position as in Melbourne."

In the Sunday warm up, Trulli made some set up changes and improved the car's feel. Off the lights both cars made good starts - Trulli gaining several places. However, nine laps into the race he pitted with overheating. The sidepods were cleared but the car still ran too hot and lost power and Trulli was eventually called in to retire before any damage was done to the car.

Button meanwhile drove a consistent race, reaching third in the closing stages of the race. However, the car had a mechanical failure in the suspension and the Briton had to settle for fourth. Pat Symonds explains: "telemetry told us the roll stiffness distribution went somewhere it shouldn't" - a broken anti roll bar was suspected, and Button ran the last two laps with the car cornering on three wheels and bouncing of the bumps in the roads, as the car's weight transferred uncontrollably across the axles. He lost 14 seconds in the last two laps and had to let Michael Schumacher through, but escaped the Saubers snatching his place as they were a lap down.

Sauber

Sauber showed up in Malaysia with what appeared to be a revised aerodynamic treatment to the suspension mount, but no photography showed the changes clearly as they were hiding the barge-boards. Nonetheless, it looked like carbon fibre extensions have been added to the twin keels under the nose of the car, akin to those used by McLaren. These could be used to control the airflow under the nose and around the sidepods and underfloor.

The car behaved well on Friday, both drivers reporting they felt good but not 100% balanced. In qualifying Felipe Massa had a suspension problem with his car - the left front suspension appeared to collapse and the car had to be driven slowly back to the pits, where Massa switched to the spare car, which displayed more understeer than his race car. Furthermore, although the team were confident of cooling, they added small chimneys to the sidepods for the race.

Jordan

The team completed their usual program on Friday with untroubled runs. Giancarlo Fisichella said the balance was not perfect, oversteering into the entry of the corners and understeer mid-corner. Takuma Sato was able to simulate a race distance of over 40 laps, the team deciding - according to Sato himself - "to do long race simulation runs, which was good not only for the car, but also for me to test how physically demanding the race will be."

After an easy run through the first two days, the race proved the undoing of the team's weekend. After the start the two Jordan clashed, resulting in both pitting for repairs.

BAR

The cars reappeared in their Australian format, except for detail changes to the rear wing mount that failed in Australia. Various technical issues and mechanical problems prevented running on fresh tyres on Friday, Jacques Villeneuve commenting: "We're a little slow but the car isn't bad to drive. We just need to work on the set-up and find a way to be quicker."

While the set up work made the drivers happier with the handling of the car, the car's ultimate pace was down on expectation. This was further complicated by a gearbox oil leak for Olivier Panis, who eventually ran in the spare car although it was previously allocated to Villeneuve and had his set up. Moreover, in the warm up Olivier suffered clutch problems, stating that "this weekend has been a nightmare and my car is not better in race trim."

The team changed the car's sidepods to aid cooling for the race - the right hand of the sidepod sported a cooling duct while the left side had the panel removed, leaving a large hole to allow cooling air to escape.

At the start both cars got away well, only for Panis to suffer a reoccurrence of the clutch problem leading to his DNF. Villeneuve continued in the race with steering problems and complained the car had no grip. After the race, team boss David Richards ominously said: "we very clearly have an enormous mountain to climb and we won't achieve our goals without some radical changes."

Jaguar

Jaguar were the only team with significant developments on the car for this race, although the changes were largely unnoticeable on the underfloor and bargeboards. On the other hand, two front wing formats were tried to regain some downforce, and there was a two element wing and a development of the three element wing, where the third element was a cutaway between the drop plates. The aim of this cutaway section may have been to improve the flow to the underfloor or for cooling, and while the team did not clarify its benefits, it was nonetheless the three element wing they preferred for the weekend.

To aid cooling there were small chimneys added to the sidepods. These were only run in the race, and the chimneys also formed the outer mount for the distinctive asymmetrical winglets. With all these untested developments the team ran Friday as a test session and little set up or race tyres selection runs were tried. The team were happy that the set up is improving, but the car's weaknesses were exposed more than in Melbourne.

Qualifying emphasised the problems and lack of set up work on Friday, with Eddie Irvine still switching front wings and struggling to establish a balance with the chassis. Nevertheless, the car remained unaffected by technical problems and Pedro de la Rosa also had a session free of reliability problems.

Following the race, it seems now that the team are in a similar position to last year - the car cannot qualify well, but is flattered in the race. However, with so much work to do the drivers are getting involved in desperate driving to gain places, as was evident in the case of Eddie Irvine lapping Minardi's Alex Yoong.

Toyota

With limited testing between the races, no major new parts were on the Toyota car this weekend. Mika Salo was quick to get on the pace on Friday, while there were troubles for Allan McNish - although both drivers complaining of a lack of grip on the slippery track and also on new tyres.

The pattern continued in qualifying, where Salo qualified inside the top ten underlining both his talent and the car's basic speed. Again McNish struggled, this time with a differential problem on his first run that forced him into the spare car, but he never got the set up to his liking and the car was visibly unsettled in the corners - the rear end bouncing up and down and stepping out under power.

Fortunes reversed for the race, however, and McNish was finally getting to drive the car problem-free. Salo, however, had an electronic problem with the traction control after the first pitstop and required some further pitstops to rectify this, before rejoining to finish the race albeit quite a distance between McNish.

Arrows

The team had a revised front suspension for Malaysia; Friday brought a few problems, such as an electronic problem for Heinz Harald Frentzen and a spin for Enrique Bernoldi. The team were running on heavy fuels loads, getting to grips with the new chassis and were happy with progress. More trouble free running in qualifying allowed for more progress.

At the start of the race, Frentzen had a problem with the launch control electronics which prevented him from making a clear getaway. The car was started, and Frentzen ran a lonely race to the end. In contrast, Bernoldi had a reasonable start but was eventually disappointed with fuel pick-up problem, retiring the car on the 21st lap.

Minardi

The Minardi came to Malaysia still without a power steering, which is under development, but had provisions for improved cockpit cooling for Sepang. Following Melbourne, the team explained that the new car's aerodynamics give it a lot more downforce than the old car and the new construction allows ballast to be run for the first time to help set up the chassis. But despite reliability in Australia, Friday brought the first Asiatech engine failure.

At his home race, Alex Yoong was disappointed with last place on the grid - a mix of set up problems and Yoong being unable to string together one full tidy lap. Teammate Mark Webber had a better run but the car lacked pace on this power circuit. Both cars ran without any problems, which did allow the drivers to work through the race set up programme.

The smooth running on Saturday led to a race with several problems. The fuel rigs failed to deliver the correct amounts of fuel and the cars seemed to struggle to engage first gear after the already lengthy stop. Yoong lost fourth gear and subsequently fifth and sixth and had to park up on the edge of the circuit. Webber also retired his car with a technical problem that was not related to the engine.