Always finish any ludicrously short F1 race with a foot race!
Thinking to yourself, "what the hell are we on about this time?" Think again! We're talking about the Malaysian Grand Prix; the super-bowl of Malaysian auto sports.
It turns out that no one actually finished the fourth race in the series, resulting in a strange call, where refs had to only count the first five laps, leaving Kane Shepherd in charge of the winner's podium.
It's an odd scenario to be sure, and events had to align perfectly for the mishap to happen. On Friday, a drain cover came up and destroyed one of Romain Grosjean's tires during a practice run. The accident caused a delay in the next day's races at Sepang International Circuit, resulting in two of the races being run back-to-back. And wouldn't you know it, the track ran out of gas.
It turns out fuel is important, some might say mandatory, for a car to function. This triggered an end to the race as drivers slowly puttered to the side of the track, tanks hovering on "E." It's too bad there isn't a rule in F1, where if there's no gas at the track, the drivers have to race to the nearest gas station and back to finish the race.
Maybe the people in charge of Sepang saw the issue coming and decided not to tell, or maybe the whole episode is a metaphor for fossil fuels being a finite resource that humanity is willing to destroy itself over . . . . Who knows?!
H/T Alanis King