The Sepang International Circuit (SIC) is a racing circuit in Sepang, Selangor, Malaysia. It is located near Kuala Lumpur International Airport, approximately 60 km south of the capital city Kuala Lumpur. It is the venue used for the Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix, A1 Grand Prix as well as the Malaysian Motorcycle Grand Prix. It is also used as a venue for many other major motorsport events, including the Grand Prix Online Malaysian Grand Prix.

Sepang (c) Wikimedia

After an exciting race at Sepang, we have a view at the podium right now. From left to right we meet second place driver for Millennium Grand Prix – Sven Hesse. Race-winner Stuart Fields from GRIDline Racing, accompanied by his teammate in third place Michael Pieneman.

What Sepang means to Michael:
Michael has always been interested in Sepang.

“Because it is such a nice fast and flowing track, I really like it. The quick turns and two long straights with hairpins after them, is just brilliant, and this makes you push your car to the maximum to be fast.”

Not having a race in The Netherlands, Michael considers both Sepang and Suzuka his home races, and always tries to perform even better than usual here.

Free Practice:
Going into the free practice session, the Telemetry data looked good compared to the days before, looking incredibly quick on race fuel, and near to perfect stability.
Doing no qualifying tests didn’t get Michael less confident in his car, instead, he learned the car much better than was possible on Qualifying fuel.

“Compared to the previous testing stints, the car felt much better and I noticed I kept going faster. Gaining a lot of confidence in the car, I also kept pushing myself further.”

is what Michael stated. We were happy with his pace, and were wondering what he would do in Qualifying.

Qualifying:
Going into qualifying, the team was prepared and ready to leave when the pit light went green.
After a couple of laps, the quick times came, and the final qualifying time was 1 minute 36.434. Bringing him to the seventh place, which isn’t bad but not too good either. Though the team was happy to start in the top 10.

Race:
Starting from seventh place, he had a bit of wheel-spin getting of his place. going into turn one, he lost one spot. Having to struggle from some damage received in lap 1, he quickly regained confidence in the car and started pushing again. Quickly catching up after finding the pace again, he started to make serious progress throughout the field. Using Sven Hesse to draft, he kept going faster. In the final few laps, Michael was closely behind Malcolm Rice and Robin van Brenk. When Malcolm made a mistake, it created a gap for Michael to overtake the both of them in T2. Putting Michael in third place. he was driving away from both guys quite fast. Though driving a higher pace than Sven Hesse, he was unable to get close enough to even see him.

I was quite quick, and I am very happy with my result. Finishing in third place scores critical points, not only for me, but also for the team. Having Stuart finishing first, is just brilliant, he managed to win his first Sprint race and I’d like to congratulate him for his excellent racing.

This makes Michael’s second third place.
Michael will not be competing in China, due to personal reasons.

We hope to see you for Spain!