 1 Sunday 21 October 2012 Sunday race day. We park ourselves under the giant TV which happily is on top of the Ducati factory team garage. |
 2 Sunday 21 October 2012 The Avintia Blussens garage of Yonny Hernandez (left) and Ivan Silva (right) |
 3 Sunday 21 October 2012 Casey Stoner's garage |
 4 Sunday 21 October 2012 One of Casey's mechanics pushes his bike back into the garage |
 5 Sunday 21 October 2012 Moto3 morning warmup begins. Fahmi Khairrudin finishes in first place. |
 6 Sunday 21 October 2012 The NGM Forward team of Colin Edwards (on the left) and the Speedmaster team of Mattia Passini (on the right) |
 7 Sunday 21 October 2012 MotoGP approved photographers gawk into Rossi's garage |
 8 Sunday 21 October 2012 Moto2 morning warmup begins. Pol Espargaro the pole-sitter is in front. If Marquez wins today, he becomes world Moto2 champion and he's sitting in third place - looking good. |
 9 Sunday 21 October 2012 MotoGP riders leave the paddock for morning warmup. |
 10 Sunday 21 October 2012 Hayden and Rossi prepare to leave in full sunlight. |
 11 Sunday 21 October 2012 Nicky enters the fray . . . |
 12 . . .as does Valentino . . . |
 13 Sunday 21 October 2012 . . . and Stefan Bradl. Note the carbon front disk used only in dry weather. The white band around the tyre means that this is the softer of the two Bridgestone compounds. |
 14 Sunday 21 October 2012 I didn't take this picture for salacious reasons. No siree! I took it to show that for a Muslim country, things are quite normal in Malaysia. |
 15 Sunday 21 October 2012 Ben Spies leaves the box for morning warmup. Ben crashed during the race and badly damaged his shoulder. It put him out for the rest of the 2012 season and, when he rode for Ducati in 2013, he crashed again at Austin and extended the damage to his shoulder. This led eventually to his retirement. |
 16 Sunday 21 October 2012 The riders usually come in after a lap or two to change bikes or make last-minute adjustments. Sometimes all they want is one lap to scrub the tyres in. |
 17 Sunday 21 October 2012 Casey wants something adjusted by the look of it. |
 18 Sunday 21 October 2012 Rossi still not doing anything triumphant. The usual three are at the top. |
 19 Sunday 21 October 2012 One of Rossi's mechanics rushes forward with a jack to lift the rear wheel off the ground. A spare wheel sits waiting with a tyre warmer on. Looks like a tyre change coming up. |
 20 Sunday 21 October 2012 Rossi's team, many of them Australians, is recognised as being one of the best in the business. The guy in the black shirt is Rossi's Ohlins (suspension) technician. |
 21 Sunday 21 October 2012 Rossi walks past his spare bike while a mechanic undoes the axle nut on his first bike. |
 22 Sunday 21 October 2012 Gerry Burgess, gesticulating, is Rossi's long time crew chief |
 23 Sunday 21 October 2012 Dani Pedrosa rejoins morning warmup. |
 24 Sunday 21 October 2012 Jorge Lorenzo pits. |
 25 Sunday 21 October 2012 Rossi rides by as Jorge dismounts. Rossi must be looking at the Yamaha M1 green with envy. |
 26 Sunday 21 October 2012 Shortly after, Cal Crutchlow pits. |
 27 Sunday 21 October 2012 After warmup finishes, it's time for the punters to do a pit walk. Jorge walks past with some fans in hot pursuit. Jenni and I did the pit walk one year and it was fun. |
 28 Sunday 21 October 2012 Australians make themselves quite obvious in Malaysia. It's nice to be patriotic, but . . . |
 29 Sunday 21 October 2012 The pit walk crowd clusters around Rossi's garage. Look at all the red Rossi Ducati shirts & caps and yellow Rossi shirts & caps. |
 30 Sunday 21 October 2012 The crowd walks past Casey Stoner's garage without stopping . . . |
 31 Sunday 21 October 2012 . . . and gather in front of Rossi's garage. Even when he is losing, he's still the most popular rider in the paddock. |
 32 Sunday 21 October 2012 These are Ducati two-seater rides organised by Randy Mamola to raise money for "Riders for Health". This a charity that provides motorcycles and training for health and medical support services in rural Africa. |
 33 Sunday 21 October 2012 It's race time. The Moto3 grid assembles in bright sunshine. The clouds don't look at all menacing. |
 34 Sunday 21 October 2012 The riders wait on the grid for 15 minutes. Five minutes before the race is due to start the alarm sounds and the grid clears. The riders then do a sighting lap and reassemble on the grid. When the red lights go out, the race begins. |
 35 Sunday 21 October 2012 The race progresses and Giukian Pedone (Switzerland) is about to overtake Kenta Fuji (Japan) and push him from third last to second last. They are about 1 1/2 minutes behind the leaders at the moment. |
 36 Sunday 21 October 2012 Sandro Cortese, Germany, wins the race on his KTM. Local hero Fahmi Khairuddin finishes .028 of a second behind on his KTM which delights the crowd. |
 37 Sunday 21 October 2012 Jonas Folger Germany comes a close third only 0.247 seconds behind. |
 38 Sunday 21 October 2012 The weather looks like it might threaten the Moto2 race which is next. |
 39 Sunday 21 October 2012 The Jumbotron is right opposite us - not by accident. We got here early and plonked ourselves in front of it. |
 40 Sunday 21 October 2012 A large crowd welcomes Fahmi Khairruddin into parc ferme. You can just make out the Malaysian flag on Fahmi's helmet. |
 41 Sunday 21 October 2012 The rain comes in and is a full-on tropical downpour. I mostly keep the camera under cover to protect it hence not too many pictures from here on. |
 42 Sunday 21 October 2012 The Moto3 podium ceremony is conducted in the pouring rain. The downpour delays the Moto2 race for 1/2 an hour due to a flooded track. |
 43 Sunday 21 October 2012 The Moto3 riders accept their trophies in the downpour. |
 44 Sunday 21 October 2012 Malaysia is a Muslim country but they are not strict like the Sunni Muslims in Qatar where champagne is banned from the podium ceremony |
 45 Sunday 21 October 2012 Moto2 gets under way after a half-hour delay but the rain is relentless. After 16 of 19 laps the red flag waves (visible near the red lights) to stop the race. |
 46 Sunday 21 October 2012 Alex De Angelis (San Marino) wins the shortened Moto2 race. Alex is very experienced having ridden MotoGP in 2008, 2009 and three MotoGP races in 2010. |
 47 Sunday 21 October 2012 Anthony West, Australia, came second and Gino Rea from the UK took third. Anthony West is one of the best wet-weather riders in the world but during dry races he mostly loiters around mid pack. Anthony is wearing the white helmet in parc ferme. |
 48 Sunday 21 October 2012 Handing out the trophies at the Moto 2 podium ceremony. Marquez and seven others crashed out while pole-sitter Pol Espargaro finished a lowly 11th. |
 49 Sunday 21 October 2012 The garage doors remain closed while the MotoGP teams wait for the weather to become less bad. |
 50 Sunday 21 October 2012 The MotoGP race gets underway on a wet track, with steady raining falling. Earlier downpours delayed the Moto2 race by 1/2 hour which then delayed the MotoGP start |
 51 Sunday 21 October 2012 The flag marshall waves the red flag to stop the race during lap 14 of 20. The rain worsened and caused many crashes including Stefan Bradl, Cal Crutchlow, Randy de Puniet, Ivan Silva, Colin Edwards and serious injury to Ben Spies. |
 52 Sunday 21 October 2012 Casey comes in. Because two-thirds race distance had not been completed, the Race Director considered a restart, until he decided that conditions were too dangerous to continue. Despite the dreadful conditions, Casey rode brilliantly to third place. |
 53 Sunday 21 October 2012 Pedrosa comes in. Because the race was not restarted and, being ahead at lap 13, he was declared the winner. Jorge Lorenzo took second place. |
 54 Sunday 21 October 2012 We don't see the podium ceremony because we have booked a taxi. The driver, a most unpleasant man, doesn't show for over an hour and we get soaked to the skin during the wait. The downpour damaged Dean's and my passports and I was lucky to get back to Australia. Meanwhile, my ankle has given up and I can barely walk. |
