"Just collecting your ticket in Singapore is an experience," he told me.
"People pay a lot of money for their tickets. Here you get paper, in Singapore you have high quality plastic cards with lanyards in a cool box that one would like to keep sealed," he said.
His disappointment in the way the last few F1 races at Sepang have been organised is a far cry from how he felt just four years ago when there were F1 parties aplenty, free food in KL's clubs, fireworks, and F1 wherever you looked.
"It was the Mega event. Now, it seems that the thunder has been silenced in recent years," he said.
Just last year he told me he had to wade through knee deep mud at the Malaysian Grand Prix to catch the entertainment headlined by an artist who hasn't been popular since Y2K.
"Virtual insanity", indeed. (That's the title of his hit song in 1996 in case you forgot).
This year my friend isn't optimistic about Sepang and it's not because Beyonce isn't part of the show.
Having booked his ticket online already, a confirmation mail read: "All advance booking will be closed by 28th March 2010. Ticket collection at SIC Ticket Counter at the Circuit or in KL Sentral by 2nd April 2010."
However, what the mail failed to say is that the tickets are only available mid-March which he found out after a trip out yesterday to collect the tickets.
He now has to go back again. Such a simple thing, yet not considered.
"The poor sales girl told me that many people complain about having to come here, and not being able to collect the ticket," he said.
"The only reason I am going has nothing to do with Sepang’s F1 promotion. Schumi is back. That’s it," he said.He's also puzzled by this year's tie-in with a shoe festival to sell F1 tickets.
Needless to say, my friend is now contemplating spending 25 times more to watch the F1 in Singapore instead of KL.
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