We’re only four days removed from the start of the 2012 Formula One World Championship. Despite how the pecking order looked after testing and qualifying, the top two teams were still McLaren and Red Bull. After that is anyone’s guess. The Mercedes are fast but lack reliability. The two Ferraris are difficult to muscle around a single lap but much quicker over the course of the race. And, most importantly, does last weekend’s race on a street circuit indicate the course this season will take?

#1 Jenson Button (Last Race #2)
Jenson thinks he has the car to beat again this weekend: “I think we’ve got a car that really works well in the high-speed stuff – we saw that throughout winter testing. So I think the challenge this weekend will be to find the right balance – at this stage in the year, you’re still learning about the car and how to get the best from it. But I think the engineers understand how our car is strong – I know they’re really looking forward to extracting the maximum from it in Sepang this weekend.”

#2 Sebastian Vettel (LR #1)
The two-time defending WDC says that the track is really, really hard. He’s just trying to explain a likely trouncing this weekend: “The Malaysia Circuit is actually more difficult than it seems. It has big run off areas and a broad track, meaning it appears easy, but it’s not. The heat, high humidity and weather aren’t the only challenges, as the main thing is to find the ideal car set up. There are two straights of almost one kilometre, but you also need a lot of wing on the car to create enough downforce for the corners, so it requires skill to find the right compromise. It’s good to go there off the back of Australia and I hope we get another strong result.”

#3 Lewis Hamilton (LR #3)
Lewis explains how Jenson trounced him at Albert Park. When all else fails, blame the tyres: “Yeah, after the race in Australia, it was difficult to understand exactly what happened. I was generally happy with the car all weekend, but just lacked a bit of pace compared to Jenson in the race. Afterwards, I sat down with my engineers and we went through all the data. There was a small issue with the clutch at the start: it wasn’t my fault, but we now understand and know how to improve in the future. My race pace was pretty much identical to Jenson’s, but he was able to switch the tyres on extremely well, which explains how he was able to pull a gap so quickly at the start and also after the restart.”

#4 Mark Webber (LR #5)
@AussieGrit has something nice to say about a Tilke-drome. I want some of what he’s smoking: “Malaysia is obviously very, very hot, so the track temperature is very hard on the tyres, which needs managing. The track is beautiful to drive on; you really get to feel the sensation of a Formula One car, particularly in the middle sector. It’s a great venue and, as a track, it has different demands to the Melbourne circuit, so that’s something we’ll be looking to get on top of very quickly.”

#5 Michael Schumacher (LR #9)
Old Seven-Time knows that the season really starts this weekend: “After the disappointment of how the first race in Melbourne turned out, I am flying to Malaysia with a big sense of anticipation, because we saw in Australia that our car is capable of putting us in the mix. Of course, we haven’t forgotten that the circuit in Melbourne is not really representative of the true competitive picture, but nevertheless the car gives me a good feeling for the season ahead. Sepang will be interesting for everybody because it will be the first clue to the real relative strengths of all the cars.”

#6 Fernando Alonso (LR #4)
Fernando’s eyes are on the skies this weekend: “There is no other place in the world, the Formula 1 world that is, where it can go from sunshine to torrential rain in the space of a few minutes. Not even at Spa is the variability so acute. Those on the pitwall will have to keep their eyes peeled and look at the radar carefully to be ready for any possible change in the weather. At the moment, the forecast is for a high chance of rain, both for qualifying and the race, but honestly, I don’t have much faith in the forecast… The only thing you can be absolutely certain of is that it will be hot, very hot.”

#7 Felipe Massa (LR #7)
How will Phil catch up with Fernando this weekend? Ferrari is shipping a new chassis out to Malaysia for Massa to drive. After getting outqualified by Alonso by about one second last week, the team is trying to see if the performance gap between the teammates is Massa or the car. With the Scuderia already eyeing Robert Kubica and Sergio Perez for 2013, Phil better hope that it was the car that was holding him back.

#8 Nico Rosberg (LR #8)
Keke’s boy knows to take care of the sponsors. I’m surprised he didn’t just repeat Petronas over and over again: “I always look forward to coming to Malaysia for the Grand Prix. Sepang is one of my absolute favourite tracks on the calendar and it is the home race of our friends from Petronas. The circuit has two long straights which should suit us this year, and the conditions will be very demanding as always due to the high heat and humidity. I’m confident that we can improve our performance here, and we will have a successful weekend in front of all our Malaysian supporters.”

#9 Pastor Maldonado (LR #18)
I like how Pastor says something about being in the Top 10 again. Well, he might have a chance this time out because he’ll have to spin it really far off-track to put it in the wall: “The next race in Malaysia will be a real challenge for all the teams due to the hot and humid conditions we find there. The team is feeling positive and our car looks competitive, so we’ll do our best to be in the top 10 again… I want to carry the momentum we had in Australia forward to get a good result in Malaysia.”

#10 Daniel Ricciardo (LR #10)

#11 Kamui Kobayashi (LR #14)
Kobayashi Maru thinks that he’ll do just fine in this season’s first trip to a Tilke-drome: “I have good memories of Malaysia. Last year I finished seventh, two years ago for the first time I managed to make it into Q3, and I also won there in my time in GP2. So it’s really a good place for me. I think we have a good chance to score points there because our car showed a lot of potential in Melbourne, and the characteristics of the track should suit us. It will be the first time that we will be driving in really hot ambient temperatures, but that shouldn’t be an issue. Looking at the performance of our car, I’m really optimistic for this race”

#12 Jean-Eric Vergne (LR #12)

#13 Kimi Raikkonen (LR #6)
The Kimster thinks that Sepang will show the true pace of the Lotus: “The car feels very good. In the race I was stuck in traffic a lot so it didn’t show so much, and who knows what might have happened if we had a better grid slot. There is a lot of speed in the car. As long as qualifying goes well we could be fighting for podiums. There’s much more to come. We’re learning about the car all the time and the last race didn’t really give us a chance to use its full potential. Hopefully Malaysia will be a bit more straightforward.”

#14 Romain Grosjean (LR #11)

#15 Paul di Resta (LR #13)
Dario’s cousin explains when the heat is the worst in Malaysia “It’s up there alongside Singapore as one of the toughest races of the year, simply because of the heat and humidity. While you are driving it’s not too bad because you get some air flow through the car, but you really feel the heat when you’re sitting in the car in the garage with the heat soak from the engine and the tyres. That’s when you’re most uncomfortable in the cockpit.”

#16 Sergio Perez (LR #16)
The one stop strategy helped Perez again but I’m not sold on his speed quite yet: “In Melbourne we did not have a straight forward weekend due to the gearbox failure in qualifying, but nevertheless we have proven the C31 is a fast car and we can be competitive. So I hope in Malaysia we will be having a more consistent weekend in terms of weather conditions and reliability, as there is still a lot more to learn about the car. The Sepang International Circuit is a nice one. It is one of the most physical circuits of the season. The heat is demanding for the drivers and also in terms of tyre degradation.”

#17 Nico Hulkenberg (LR #15)
An interesting perspective from Hulkenberg on getting back in the car right after not even getting through one racing lap in Australia: “I’m glad that we have back-to-back races because I just want to get back in the car. Seeing how the race developed it was frustrating not to be out there fighting for points, but it wasn’t meant to be. I’m now fully focussed on Malaysia because there’s no point thinking about what might have been.”

#18 Bruno Senna (LR #17)
Bruno Senna is expecting to star in a production of Some Like It Hot this weekend: “It is a very tough track, very physical and the heat is a big issue in Malaysia. It will be important to get acclimatised to the heat ahead of the weekend and get a good car set-up for these conditions. We will then try to chip away and continue what we learnt in Australia. I’ve been to Sepang before so I know the track, and I’m looking forward to the race weekend.”

#19 Heikki Kovalainen (LR #19)
F1’s weird safety car line rules means that Heikki loses five spots on the grid thanks to a penalty. I guess that’s more of an effect of F1’s glacially slow officiating process: “I’ve accepted the penalty I was given for passing Vettel under the safety car – it was definitely a bit harsh but the rules are set and it’s just unfortunate I made a small mistake that will put me back five places on the grid at Sepang. It’s not really a problem – we know we can pass the cars that will probably be ahead on the grid and I’ll just have to do my best to put myself as far up the grid as I can on Saturday so we can minimise the effect of the penalty in the race.”

#20 Vitaly Petrov (LR #20)
Comrade Vitaly wants to put on a show for the team’s Malaysian home fans: “Putting aside the weather, which affects everyone the same, the track itself is a good challenge, and with KERS on the car for the first time for the team in Malaysia I think we can show how we have progressed since last year in front of our home fans. We should be looking to get more out of the package in qualifying than in Australia, and in the race itself it would obviously be good to avoid the sort of incident that held us up at the start of the Melbourne race and be right in the fight from lap one.”

#21 Timo Glock (LR #21)
Tim O’Glock is looking at this race as the first proper test for Marussia’s first properly designed car: “Malaysia provides another good opportunity for us to learn about the car in these early days for us. Sepang is a completely new track layout which will give us the chance to see how good the car is in the high speed corners. This is one of the hardest races for the team and the car as it is one of the hottest and most humid on the calendar. It will be a tough test for all of us, but from a development point of view it is very good that the second race follows so quickly because we can then head home with a mountain of data to work with during the three-week break before China.”

#22 Charles Pic (LR #23)
It seems as though Chuck is thinking of the start of the season as testing which is making up for the team’s lost time: “I flew straight to Kuala Lumpur after the race on Sunday. I was happy with how things had gone in my first race but there is no time to think about that as we have so much work to do to look ahead for the rest of the season. I learned so much about the new car in such a short space of time and I want to maintain the momentum, so it’s good that I don’t have to wait two weeks to get back in the car.”

#23 Pedro de la Rosa (LR #22)
Pedro could’ve saved a lot of time by saying that he’s too old for this shit: “Our two main priorities for Malaysia are to have DRS and improve the power steering in this short time that we have whilst being away from Europe. In Australia we were only able to complete 7 timed laps so I need get more track time, get to know the car better and improve the set-up. If we can achieve this then we could have a good Grand Prix.”

#24 Narain Karthikeyan (LR #24)
Narain says that he’s hoping the team can sort out the car’s reliability issues before this race. Maybe he should worry about driving the car fast enough for the team to find any car issues: “It wasn’t an easy first weekend for us in Melbourne but the team is working hard and we hope to complete the maximum amount of kilometres with the new car so that we can have it in prime conditions for qualifying and the race. The team is working on solving the reliability issues that we encountered, so I’m confident that things will go better in Malaysia.”