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.
Valtteri Bottas cycling
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 Valtteri 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...'," Valtteri Bottas explained on Thursday after making the trip in the three-day gap between the two events.
Valtteri 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 Formula 1 Team 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 Grand Prix 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," Valtteri 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."
Source: Motorsport
