Sepang held its maiden grand prix in 1999. This was the year Michael Schumacher broke his leg in a crash at Silverstone and sat out the next six races while Mika Salo filled in for him. Team-mate Eddie Irvine became an unlikely championship challenger to McLaren’s Mika Hakkinen…
Malaysia was the penultimate round and Michael was pressed into service again as number two to Irvine. Urban legend has it that Michael had very little interest in doing this so he kept telling Ferrari his leg hasn’t healed yet… until Luca di Montezemolo telephoned his house, Michael’s daughter answered it, and said “Daddy’s out playing football”. Whoops!
In the race, Irvine led a Ferrari 1-2 but the cars were then disqualified when their bargeboards were found to be illegal. Mika Hakkinen was the champion!
Then the results were reinstated on appeal, via the argument that if you measured the bargeboards from a certain angle they were legal. Mika Hakkinen wasn’t the champion! Until Suzuka anyway.
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