Tilke's finest: why F1 misses Malaysia and the swoops (and snakes) of Sepang

At this time of year – early April – the Formula 1 circus should by rights be flying not to Japan but to Malaysia, where 19 F1 grands prix were run between 1999 and 2017. Granted, the first two and the last two took place in October, but from 2001 until 2015 they were March or April fixtures, usually run after the Australian Grand Prix, sometimes back to back.

I was there in 1999 to see Eddie Irvine win the first world championship-status F1 Malaysian Grand Prix, for Ferrari, which victory was facilitated for him by the most magnificent example of number-two driving I have ever seen, delivered on a stiflingly hot and exhaustingly humid afternoon by Michael Schumacher, who was making his F1 comeback after having broken his right leg in an accident at Stowe corner, at Silverstone, during the British Grand Prix, three months earlier.

Apart from the majesty of Schumacher’s return to competitive F1 racing, what I remember most was the oppressive climate – we were all sweating from morning until night – and the innovative layout of the circuit, the first Hermann Tilke design included on an F1 calendar. With respectful nods to Austin and Istanbul, which are also very good racetracks, Sepang is still in my opinion Tilke’s finest. Wide and flowing, consisting of 15 turns, it features two long straights separated by a hairpin into which overtaking was possible in F1 even in the pre-DRS era, while Turns 1, 4, and 9 allowed for exciting side-by-side running. Sebastian Vettel won there four times (2010, 2011, 2013, and 2015); Schumacher won there three times (2000, 2001, and 2004); Fernando Alonso won there thrice also (2005, 2007, and 2012); and Kimi Räikkönen won there twice (2003 and 2008). So it was a place where the greats seemed to thrive.

So-called Malaysian Grands Prix had taken place before 1999, although they were not F1 races. Indeed, some of them were not even in Malaysia, but in Singapore, which gained independence from Malaysia in 1965. So it was that between 1962 and 1965 four Formula Libre Malaysian Grands Prix were run on the Thomson Road street circuit in Singapore – where, confusingly, Formula Libre Singapore Grands Prix were also run from 1961 to 1973. However, if it is brutal detail you crave, I am here to tell you that the 1964 Malaysian Grand Prix at Thomson Road was called off after just seven laps as a result of sudden heavy rain, by which point three cars had been wrecked and a marshal killed, with no winner ever declared; and the Singapore Grand Prix of that same year, which was also run at Thomson Road, was cancelled entirely owing to a tropical storm.

From 1968 to 1995 Malaysian Grands Prix were held at Shah Alam, a circuit that was actually in Malaysia, not Singapore. It was the work of John Hugenholtz, whose principal claim to fame was that he also designed not only Zandvoort, in his native Netherlands, but also Zolder (Belgium), Nivelles (Belgium also), Jarama (Spain), and, most impressive of all, one of the greatest circuits in the world, Suzuka (Japan). But the ascendancy that F1 conferred on Sepang from 1999 onwards made Shah Alam redundant – literally – and in 2003 it was sold to a property development company, whose executives ordered its demolition. The D’Kayangan luxury housing complex now occupies the land on which racing drivers and racing cars once held sway.

All sorts of racing cars and racing drivers were entered for those Malaysian Grands Prix at Shah Alam – for in 1968 it was a Formula Libre race, from 1969 to 1972 it was a Tasman Series race, from 1973 to 1975 it was a Formula Atlantic race, in 1976 it was not held, in 1977 it was a Formula 2 race (and I will tell you more about that terrible weekend shortly), from 1978 to 1982 it was a Formula Pacific race, from 1983 to 1994 it was not held, and in 1995 it was a Formula Holden race.

If you are ever setting a motor racing pub quiz and you are searching for a difficult trick question, I recommend ‘Which driver(s) won more Malaysian Grands Prix than any other(s)?’. As I have explained above, from an F1 point of view the answer is Sebastian Vettel, who won four. But John MacDonald also won four, all of them in the 1970s, all of them at Shah Alam, two of them in Tasman Series Brabhams and the other two in Formula Atlantic Ralts. MacDonald was born in the UK, whence he emigrated to Hong Kong, in whose environs he raced motorbikes as well as cars, becoming particularly successful at Macau, on which tricky circuit he won races on two wheels and four.

I said I was going to tell you a bit more about the 1977 Malaysian Grand Prix, didn’t I? OK, here goes. In an ageing Teddy Yip-run March F2 car – a 722/732/752 bitsa, recently fitted with a Lola T360 rear wing and previously raced in countless incarnations in as many corners of the globe by Vern Schuppan, Alan Jones, and Derek Daly — Patrick Tambay won that year’s Malaysian Grand Prix, an F2 race at Shah Alam. Now, rewatching online footage of him spraying bubbly on the podium, all smiles, one can only imagine how bitterly his ardour was dampened when, soon afterwards, in a support race, a local driver, Harvey Yap, shunted his Ford Escort at its maximum speed. As he lost control of the car, it tore its way through the catch-fencing, injuring 23 spectators and killing five, all of them children.