MARCH 15, 2004

Ground-breaking at Sauber

The Sauber team always has a lot to do before the Malaysian Grand Prix, thanks to team's title sponsor Petronas and this year has been no exception.

The Sauber team always has a lot to do before the Malaysian Grand Prix, thanks to team's title sponsor Petronas and this year has been no exception although the team has managed a first in Formula 1, running one of its cars in Kuching, the capital of the Malaysian state of Sarawak. This may not seem to be very exciting except when one considers that Sarawak is entirely separate from mainland Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Perhaps the most impressive statistic however is that so exciting is the concept of F1 in this remote area that no fewer than 120,000 people turned up to watch, which is not bad at all when one considers that the entire state of Sarawak has a population of only two million people and they are spread out over an area of 125,000 sq.km.

"It is Petronas's philosophy to bring their own passion for motorsports to all parts of the country and to educate the people about their involvement in this kind of sport," explained Felipe Massa.