Super GT: Sepang race marred by conditions and policy decisions

It was an irony: the only people who got a taste of wine - or even beer, for that matter - at Sepang this weekend were the winning drivers. The rest of us walked all over the track, misled by stall-holder after stall-holder, each saying that beer was available somewhere else. Forty minutes search later, outside the gates, we were told that beer was not available at the circuit for the duration of the event.

In a further irony, the series is sponsored by Singha beer who had a stall filled with cans they were not allowed to chill, open or sell, banner ads around the circuit, girls in uniform and even giveaways. But no beer for parched spectators.

Yes, there were the usual Malaysian standbys of heavily sweetened soda-pops, and bottles of water, but to deny racegoers a beer in soaring temperatures is, simply, outrageous.

And the temperatures soared - as did the humidity: which is why the beer was important. It is an excellent rehydration fluid - in small doses. Strangely, standing water was present at various points - and there were off-line damp patches on the back straight. In air temperatures of more than 33 degrees, and direct sunlight, this made no sense and gives an indication of why racing at Sepang is such a challenge.

And so it proved for one of the GT2 Asia drivers with three of the 54 laps to go in a race that lasted more than an hour and three quarters. Spinning, he first tried to get going but as the field streamed past, sitting stationary and with no airflow into the cockpit, the temperature rose rapidly. As the sun poured through the windscreen, turning the car into an oven, the marshals waited for a break in the traffic but when one came, the driver stalled. That, it transpired was a good thing. He opened the door and fell out of the car, making it to the grass where he collapsed. Carried away from the edge of the track, first the medical car and then the ambulance came. Immediate rehydration measures were applied but even so, when the race finished some seven or eight minutes later, he was still unable to stand.

At the time of writing, we had not found out which of the two Triple A Gallardo drivers had collapsed - it was either Hideshi Matsuda or Yuya Sakamoto.

Fans, too, sweltered. Several of the gates to stands were chained - meaning that many walked in the sun, trying to find how to get into the shade. There were no signs saying which gates were open. Drinks were not delivered to or sold in the stands - again, customers had no choice but to go to stalls and stand to queue in the sun.

There was some great racing, and the Super GT class organisers have done a superb job of creating a formula that brought cars together at the end so that there was non-stop racing for position for the last ten laps or so.

Eventual winnders Quintarelli and Yasuda ran away from the green light and seemed to have a car in a class of its own.

Formula One refugee Ralph Firman and team-mate Izawa were third behind Kaneishi and Tasukoshi. And the delight of the day is the "real racing car" scream of the Honda NSXs - with four cars in the top three, clearly their days are not numbered, and a very good thing too. As the NSXs screamed, the GTRs - not slow - and the Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porches - still very quick machines - sounded like buses in comparison.

And no matter what anyone says, real racing is at its most exciting when there's the scream of a high powered engine.

In that, Honda's now obsolete NSX is keeping the spirit alive.

The Sepang track works hard to get international series like this there: and this is the only Super GT (formerly Japan GT) event held outside Japan.

It needs to get more of such events, and it needs to attract more and more international spectators.

And telling us we can't have a beer is not going to encourage us to spend our money to travel to Malaysia for such events.

Even with those glorious NSX engines screaming.