The one-off double header of Malaysia and Singapore, to recover the Bahrain Grand Prix at a guest venue, made sense from a logistical and financial point of view, but it also offered the F1 community an opportunity to explore one of the more interesting parts of the calendar.
Most sensible people would take the one-hour hop along the Malacca strait to cover the 360km distance between the two cities. But Valtteri Bottas is not like most people. When the Finn’s partner, professional cyclist and Australian gravel champion Tiffany Cromwell, suggested Bottas should jump on his Canyon gravel bike, it was not an idea he instantly dismissed.
“I think Tiffany mentioned it as kind of like a joke. ‘Hey, you could just ride from there, it’s not that far.’ And then I was like: ‘Hmm, maybe I could…’,” Bottas explained on Thursday after making the trip in the three-day gap between the two events.
Bottas, an avid gravel cyclist who qualified for the world championships, but couldn’t take part as they clashed with Singapore, explored the idea and secured the help from local gravel racers who knew the route like the back of their hand. The Cadillac driver made sure the adventure wouldn’t hurt his weekend performance, front-loading his trip with longer rides on Monday and Tuesday before tapering off with a shorter ride to Singapore on Wednesday.
“I obviously had to check the distance, how the roads are, the timings, and then just made a solid plan for each day,” Bottas explained. “All the routes were planned. I also planned that the two bigger days were Monday and Tuesday, so they’re not too close to the race weekend. If I would do a big day on, let’s say, Wednesday, then that could already compromise my Friday in terms of recovering.
“But yesterday ended up being more like a recovery ride and today I can have an easy day as well. So, it was all well-planned and well-executed.
“I obviously wouldn’t do it if I knew it would hurt my performance. So, for sure I’m pretty well acclimatised. The amount of sweat in those days was quite impressive. Definitely, you get used to the heat the most time you spend in the heat, so that can help me hopefully a little bit.”
If anything, the Finn feels it could actually help his biorhythm, having opted to complete some of his rides at night to get used to the late timetable of the Singapore Grand Prix. But that night ride was not without its thrills.
“I always started around 2pm, so the first two hours were always the hardest because of the heat,” he explained. “But then it starts to cool down a bit, and a little bit at night as well. The wildest part was riding at night in the jungle. The noise in there is like… your mind starts to play games. Who knows what is out there, but then you just need to crack on and keep going. Riding with your lights at night, that was probably the most epic part in the forest. I’ve never really done that before. So the first part was a bit stressful.”
On his wildlife encounters, he reported: “I saw some snakes, which I was a little bit worried about, but actually they were pretty chill. They were just doing their thing. I saw one cobra. I saw one python just crossing the path in front of me. I saw some of those big lizards that you also see here. One was on the path, I had to jump over it with a bike. because I saw it last minute.
“I got chased by one dog. Got stuck behind a group of cows on a small track. Eventually they moved away.”
“At least you know that in the wild there’s nothing that is going to hunt you. I don’t think there’s any tigers or anything…
When pointed out by a well-travelled journalist that tigers do actually roam the Malaysian jungle, he responded. “Oh, good to know now… Nobody told me about it, so in my head there was nothing…”
Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac Racing
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
News of Bottas’ trip quickly made headlines, which amused the Finn as he is known to be a keen cyclist used to much longer distances, And it could be argued that despite its oppressive climate, Malaysia is actually more bike friendly than many European countries.
“The locals, the cars, they were really polite. They always would leave lots of space,” Bottas said. “Once the news started to break that I was actually doing it, there were always some locals cheering me on, which was cool.”
The real reason for Bottas’ adventure was not so much physical but mental, the Malaysian jungle offering a chance to disconnect from racing while exploring a host country while most colleagues tend to get stuck in the Bermuda triangle of circuit – hotel – airport.
“It definitely cleared my mind immediately,” Bottas said after a tough Bahrain GP at Sepang in which he spun off on slicks on a damp track. “It was a disappointing race, so I got rid of the frustration very quickly on the bike, which is kind of nice.
“During the ride, I had lots of time to think, which was mostly about this weekend. It’s a sprint weekend, which can be really an opportunity for us. And hopefully, I can have a better weekend.
“I’m really glad I did it because I saw almost the whole of Malaysia in four days, and the wild side of it. Without my bike I would never see those things.
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