Ann Bradshaw, a journalist and press officer with three decades of experience in motor racing, returns for another season of View from the Paddock - offering us a glimpse into the the life of those who spend the GP weekend inside the paddock. This week, Ann remembers her first visit to Kuala Lumpur and confesses who's her favourite for the upcoming Brazilian Grand Prix

Over my 30 years in motor sport I have visited most of the circuits on the Grand Prix calendar on numerous occasions, but my experience in Malaysia is restricted to one race, as the only time I visited the country was in 2000. I was invited there to work in the media centre and although I had never been before, I had heard some amazing stories from colleagues about the country and the track.

The circuit and its wonderful architecture are truly amazing. The canopy to one of the grandstands, which was based on the shape of the country's national flower, the hibiscus, was the most beautiful I had ever seen, but the story behind this track is not an easy one. The biggest problem the organisers face are the violent storms that in minutes can change a completely dry area into a swampy mess with streams of water crossing the track. With backing from the Prime Minister, the Malaysians put the circuit and much of its infrastructure together with help from Frenchman, Philippe Gurdjian. Philippe is well known in F1 circles as the man behind Magny Cours. In France he turned a very flat uninteresting part of the world into a modern Grand Prix track, so was the natural choice for what must have been a gigantic task to construct the Sepang International Circuit.

My first impressions of Philippe in Malaysia were of him doing non-stop inspections of the circuit. He seemed to be spending most of his time going round again and again insisting on the smallest changes that he knew could make a big difference if the rains came. He was always immaculately dressed with his tailor made shirts bearing his initials neatly embroidered on them. I have to admit my imagination became very fertile after witnessing his course inspections at close hand. I even came up with a spoof press release about him doing such an inspection in the dead of night in his monogrammed pyjamas, as he had explained he needed to see how his circuit coped with the Oriental storms, so whenever the rains came he needed to be out there. Needless to say eventually he did have chance to see this first hand during a Grand Prix, and even though at this point in 2001 I was watching the proceedings from the UK, I knew exactly how he would be reacting.

Malaysia is a hot and humid country, and as soon as I arrived and made the short journey to the circuit from the airport in the obligatory local built Proton car I was sticky and uncomfortable. From this moment on there was a see-saw experience for me of being uncomfortably hot and cold. I am not a great lover of air conditioning, but without it life in the cavernous press office would have been impossible. However, it was soon obvious the locals thought we were from Siberian climes rather than good old wet and foggy Europe. As I went to work each morning helping set up the press operation I carried extra sweaters and jackets and ended up sitting in one of the hottest countries in the world bundled up like I would in the arctic.

I spent three weeks in this press office and each day undertook the 15-minute journey from our hotel to the circuit and back. Just when I thought I would never see any more of the country than this I was invited to Kuala Lumpur to watch the Japanese Grand Prix from a sports bar. The circuit is about an hour's drive from KL and the journey between them is an experience of one modern building and development after another along a very up-to-date highway.

KL itself is full of the most amazing hotels, although not quite as tasteful as I had imagined. I thought I had seen the ultimate in vulgarity in hotels in Las Vegas, but they have nothing on some I saw here. The one I visited for a dinner had giant statues of animals standing outside doing the sort of thing you know happens in nature, but do not wish to see reproduced in stone. While these were all land locked hotels, the builders had not let this stop them reproducing the feel of the sea and one evening the press were invited to a hotel to see Jenson Button body surfing in the giant pool that had its own wave machine.

I was beginning to despair of seeing the real KL, when our driver took us into the heart of the city and I found markets full of beautiful silks, and it was then I realised just what a wonderful mixture of different cultures the country is.

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On the motor sport side, I was also delighted to learn the channel that transmitted the races took the ITV feed and so when we turned on the hundreds of TV screens in the press office to watch qualifying from Japan there were Murray Walker and Martin Brundle telling us what was going on. It was home from home.

Sadly my work load precluded many trips out of the press office, but I was assured that journeys into the city could end up with mammoth shopping sessions, with Prada bags being on top of the list of must haves. These bags cost a fraction of the price in Europe and needless to say were not the 'real thing'. Mind you to the inexperienced eye such as mine, I could not tell the difference and the thought of getting something for ten pounds that looks like something worth two hundred and fifty pounds seems like a bargain!

At the end of the day I have to admit leaving behind the steaming heat was not that difficult, but it was wonderful to visit a country that was totally different to any other stop on the Grand Prix circus and also a circuit that did not follow every other one in its lay out and architecture.

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I am sure when Kimi Raikkonen crossed the finish line on Sunday the architecture of the circuit and the cheap shopping were the last things on his mind. He had just won his first Grand Prix and he must have been elated. Well if he was he didn't show it! In the UK we used to have an advert for a business telephone directory called Yellow Pages and it said 'Let your fingers do the walking'. I was reminded of this at the post race press conference when I felt the saying for Kimi was 'Let your driving do the talking'. I was expecting a new revitalised Kimi bubbling over with joy, but we had none of this. Just the usual dour Finn saying that perhaps on Monday morning he would realise he had won his first race. Thankfully his boss Ron Dennis showed a little more emotion and, although he denied it, it definitely looked as if he was shedding a tear as Kimi was about to take the chequered flag.

Having criticised Kimi for not showing the sort of exuberance we see from the likes of Michael and Rubens, it was interesting to see he took a swig of the champagne before he started spraying it around!

It was great to see another exciting race and also a very different result after qualifying. I am sure the Spanish were beside themselves at their first ever pole position for Fernando Alonso, who at 21 was also the youngest ever polesitter. A nice touch was that this was the first race for a long time that had been transmitted live on Spanish TV. I know nothing about Alonso, but it is obvious from the weekend that Renault F1 in general and Flavio Briatore in particular have a real star on their hands. I know all national press defend their 'home grown' drivers, but the British press did go a bit over the top in their condemnation of Renault when Jenson Button was dropped in favour of the young Spaniard. I am certain Jenson is a very good driver and will be winning races one of these days, but the majority of his 2003 press so far has been because he has slagged his teammate off and not because he has set the world alight in the BAR. I do hope some of them will have the good grace to praise Alonso, but in the early press reports from the race the majority are concentrating on taking swipes at Michael for causing the second corner debacle rather than praising two youngsters who are giving the old guard a run for their money.

Having said the above, the man who does deserve praise for bravery, that could almost be described as touching on stupidity, is Justin Wilson. The tall lanky Brit has fought hard to be where he deserves to be in F1, so excruciating discomfort caused by his HANS device and seat belts was not going to get the better of him. Sadly for him his bravery came to nought as he was forced to retire 41 laps into the 56-lap race when he lost all feeling in both arms. He was taken to hospital and I don't think any of us watching the race from the comfort of our own homes can imagine just how uncomfortable he would have been. First of all the ambient temperature was in the region of 30 degrees Celsius, which translates to the mid 90s Fahrenheit. The drivers are wearing triple layer suits that would keep a polar explorer fairly comfortable in his sleeping bag, and although they have drink bottles in the cars quite often these give up - Jenson admitted his didn't work from lap 11 - and if they do the fluid coming out of them is usually horribly warm and sweet and not the equivalent of a refreshing gin and tonic loaded with ice! Add these factors together, bear in mind he was perhaps the only driver in the race without power steering, and you can only imagine the hell Justin must have been going through.

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The next stop on the Grand Prix tour is Brazil, and here I am hoping the youngster I am involved with, Antonio Pizzonia, will have a better race than he has in Australia and Malaysia. I am doing some personal PR for Antonio, having been asked to get involved by his manager and long time friend of mine, Jayme Brito. Jayme is Mr TV Globo here in Europe and a couple of years ago branched out into driver management for his fellow Brazilian while he was still in F3000. I was delighted to join his team as I got to know Antonio when he was driving for the Petrobras Junior F3000 team in 2001, which was the WilliamsF1 supported team. While most Brazilian drivers have come from Sao Paulo, Antonio is the only one to come from a place called Manaus. For those of you who have never heard of Manaus, let me educate you. It is set in the middle of the Amazon jungle and so not the sort of place you would expect to find racing drivers hailing from. What Antonio has done is play on his background and so he is 'officially' known as Jungle Boy. One journalist, who saw him referred to by this name, was quite worried that this may be seen as an insult to the young boy's sensitivities. He was quite surprised when I told him that, despite us being in a 'politically correct' age, it was a nickname that he was more than happy with and was even on his own web site.

I know I may be a bit biased, but I find Antonio a breath of fresh air. I took him along to the Grand Prix party and the Autosport Show in Birmingham in early January and thoroughly enjoyed spending a couple of days with him. He spent hours talking to the press and the public and not once complained about anything. He had his own camera with him and when he was doing his various appearances got me to take his photo for posterity. He also had one of these new phones that take photographs and then send them to anyone lucky enough to have one of the same devices. I am sure his girlfriend would have been quite surprised to suddenly receive photos of him from the Grand Prix party sitting with chart topping British band Busted and also shots of the Cheeky Girls strutting their stuff on stage.

With that in mind I shall sign off and hope that in the next column I shall be reporting that my Jungle Boy has got a good result in his Jaguar.

About the author:
Ann Bradshaw - Annie - began her motor racing career as a teenager, helping out her brother in local rally races in England, where she grew up. In the 1970s she organised motor racing events in England, and was later the press officer for the RAC MSA - the motorsport governing body in Britain. In mid 1980s, she became press officer to team Lotus, where she worked with Ayrton Senna. Shortly after, she moved to the Williams team and was working there for several years, when once again she found herself working with Senna. She worked with Damon Hill after the Brazilian's death, and moved with the British Champion to Arrows. She also worked with the Panoz team in the United States, before becoming a freelance press officer, now working with Compaq and BAR among others. Annie joined Atlas F1 as a regular columnist in April 2002.