An interesting race, most notable for some very tasty overtaking passes – and re-passes.

However, even the enjoyable action wasn’t all that it should have been – the DRS zone was ludicrously effective and, for the first time, fell foul of what many suspected would be the case at the start of the season where overtaking was too easy and thus demeaned. We’ve had the two extremes then – pretty ineffective at Melbourne, and far too effective here. The other two races have trodden a middle ground, and the powers-that-be need to be more careful in the future.

Alonso and Ferrari had a positive race. Kept Webber honest and was wheel to wheel with the Red Bull at times, but was still nowhere near Vettel. This says far too much about where Webber stands in the Red Bull pecking order – with machinery which is at least comparable, if not perhaps exactly the same, he’s a good 0.4 seconds a lap slower when it matters and that might as well be night-and-day re: a championship challenge.

All the good work of 2010 has been undone in the opening races. He’s a number two, and that’s the end of it.

More negativity for McLaren, who completely stuffed Jenson Button’s race. As I recorded on Twitter, as soon as the first stops had been done and Button was still running around, it was obvious that Jenson was trying to get a pit-stop in his pocket – but to then bring him in after only another three laps was ludicrous. That was never going to work. These tyres have a milage limit, with only minimal variance re: driving style. For my money, I think Button did the very best possible with the strategy, including some very hard overtakes, but it was all ultimately for naught. He was ahead of Hamilton at the time of the first stops, and finished – if you take Hamilton’s botched pit-stop into account – a good 30 seconds down on his team-mate, and that’s a lot more than the 16 seconds a pit-stop effectively takes.

Hamilton was off the ultimate pace from the get go, and that was unexpected. McLaren have been good in the races so far, but today wasn’t one of them. Also unexpected was just how impotent Rosberg was in the opening twenty laps, which from the post-race interviews appears to be largely due to the fuel weight. The other Mercedes was wasted in the hands of Schumacher, who was more interested in playing dodgems for the opening part of the race.

All in all, it was an easy win for Vettel and Red Bull. The 2011 championships are disappearing from reach unless McLaren (or Ferrari) find a fistful of time in a hurry.

Looks like the Red Bulls will be dominant, and will take an easy win. But there is the minor hope that the McLaren’s have been more competitive in the race than in qualifying in all the races so far this year.

It appears to be down to Red Bull having a more effective DRS system, which is in play throughout the lap in qualifying, and thus is a net loss on lap time in the race, but also that their KERS has been pretty lamentable in terms of reliability – gifting McLaren around 0.3 seconds per lap. Add the two together and the qualifying advantage has been largely negated.

However, injecting himself in the mix was Nico Rosberg with a significant lap in the Mercedes. Looking quite competitive throughout free-practice, this was the first time any sort of form had been carried forward into qualifying. Schumacher also looked nicely competitive – until he stuffed his qualifying lap, and ended up on the wrong end of the Top 10. Unfortunately, this is becoming more and more a predictable occurrence – the once metronomic consistency of Schumacher has been replaced by a significantly cheaper, and less reliable source of timing consistency.

You’d have to be brave to bet against a very easy Vettel victory today. So, I won’t be – however Hamilton, Webber and Rosberg likely to be fighting for the other two podium spots, and I’d take Hamilton and Webber with Rosberg fading during the race.

An excellent race, and certainly goes into a theoretical Top 10 of the races in the last five years – this was the first time that the tyre construction/degradation brought strategy to the fore.

Benefiting from the Hand of Pirelli was McLaren, who took a gamble and switched to a three-stop with Hamilton – who took full advantage of Red Bull playing too conservatively. Perhaps because Webber had such a disastrous qualifying, they couldn’t afford to take risks. As it happened, risk was the way to go – Hamilton caught Vettel in a window where he was vulnerable due to tyre degredation, and just as it was looking like Vettel had him covered in the DRS zone, he went underneath at the unexpected Turn 7 – and the Jenson Button-esque early season run was ended.

Whilst Vettel not winning the race in 2011 was the big news, Webber coming up from 17th to 3rd – and within a few laps of a probable win was more remarkable. In a drive which will redefine F1 2011, the advantage obtained from the fresh tyres he didn’t use in qualifying enabled him to drive through the field of better placed qualifiers with some ease. For years we’ve gotten used to the mantra of “track position is God” – this is now no longer the case. Track position is nothing unless you have enough tyre performance to put the power down through a corner.

The other reason the race will be remembered is the huge error made by Button, diving into the Red Bull pit box – losing valuable time, and gaining an awful amount of blushes. Apparently this error was compounded because he should have been in the pits the previous lap – which put a spanner into when Hamilton was supposed to stop. For Jenson, this was a very uncharacteristic – not fatal, but not ideal to happen in a race won by your teammate.

So, conclusions? Strategy now potentially looks more interesting. McLaren look to be the closest contenders for the title after Red Bull, but Red Bull themselves threw the race away with a safe strategy. This isn’t an about-face of form in 2011, but it does send the paddock into the three week break with some optimism that Vettel won’t be champion by the end of the European season.

A much better race than Melbourne, which was moribund in many respects.

Tyre degradation was significantly higher than in Melbourne, but this basically only really affected Mark Webber who ate tyres and did a four top – everyone else worth the mention did three other than Hamilton but you got the feeling that was completely unplanned due to accident damage. As such, I’m not entirely sure just how much the tyres are bringing to the party, other than avoiding the prospect of a one-stop race and a Trulli-train for a significant number of laps. DRS opened up a more overtaking action, given the length of the straight, but I think this time it was overdone. Not that everyone maximised this – Hamilton again seemed not to grasp that if he was catching someone in the middle of the lap to the point where he was being impeded, then what was the point in blowing half the KERS battery before the DRS zone? I’m just perplexed about this, as it appears to be straightforward. When we saw it properly used, it was utterly devastating – but too easy.

So to the front-runners. Any possible challenge to Vettel was negated by Heidfield jumping Hamilton and Button at the start – that dictated too big an advantage to make the race complicated for Red Bull. “Quick” Nick did a good job this week, after a horror-show at Melbourne and brought home a podium. Not entirely on merit, as Alonso, Hamilton and Webber were all faster – but you take your luck when it arrives. Hamilton looked very solid – until he put on the hard tyres, which was a bit puzzling as the next set of tyres were also hard – surrendering a second per lap advantage for that entire stint. You could see the wisdom if the final set was the softer compound, so there would have been a greater differential in terms of time between himself and Vettel – perhaps making a pass easier to pull off. But the way it was played made no sense.

Not that it made a lot of difference, given he fell horribly off the pace on the last set, got hit by Alonso and destroyed his tyres, perhaps due to the accident damage – but we’ll find out more in due course. Alonso made the best of his situation, until brain-fade resulted in him losing his front wing against the rear of Hamilton and costing another stop. It was unnecessary as it was obvious Hamilton was in a bad way and wasn’t going to last much longer, so this was just foolish. However, unless Ferrari bring some significant upgrades to the next races, it won’t matter what happens with their development cycle unless Red Bull has a mini-meltdown in mid-season.

The big winner today was Jenson Button, who took a tidy second place. Until the last run in Q3, he appeared to have the legs of everyone other than Vettel, and the first stint was gubbered by far too little front wing – which was corrected after the first stop. From there, he looked a serious runner – but unfortunately the damage was already done in terms of disadvantage to Vettel. It will be interesting to see what happened to Hamilton, as even before the accident Button demonstrably had the legs of his team-mate, and was disappearing up the road – and looked to be held up in the third stint whilst Hamilton had the harder boots on. Massa was pretty anonymous as previous, there-or-thereabouts but certainly not going to trouble the sharp end of proceedings. Unless Ferrari want to run a proper lead-driver team, you have to think that his time is coming to a close at the end of this season.

So, we move to China next – and that’s only in a week. You’d expect the same status-quo to be honest, with next to no development time. By the time Europe will start, Vettel will have a couple of races of misfortune in his pocket – and I’d certainly not expect the Red Bull to be caught before mid-season at the very earliest. Without the errors of the opening of 2010, gifting points to the opposition, you get the feeling 2011 will be a more straightforward affair.

“When the flag drops, the bullshit stops.”

So goes the time-honoured saying relating to the numerous times winter testing hasn’t told the full story – or has told a completely erroneous one. And this time, the talking points are McLaren and Ferrari.

In the case of McLaren, there can be some leniency as the team came to Australia with a completely revised floor, having ditched the nest of vipers which passed for their trick exhaust system. Whilst theoretically slower, the predictability (and reliability) appears to have gone up, meaning the drivers have been able to push more. It’s just a pity that McLaren wasted so much time – 20 testing days – with a busted concept.

Ferrari – well, that’s a much bigger question. The stories coming out of winter testing were that Red Bull was ahead, but Ferrari wern’t all that far behind, and were probably kinder on the tyres regarding a long run. However, the Pirelli tyres have been better behaved in Melbourne than might have been anticipated, and Ferrari’s basic pace has been behind McLaren all weekend, never mind Red Bull. Any gains with the tyres are going to be less acute unless they can make up a whole stint on tyre wear – not likely given the race is now anticipated to be a 2 or 3 stop affair.

Talking of Red Bull, Vettel basically whipped out his World Champion phallus, slammed it on the table and said “measure that” in qualifying – team-mate Webber just looked sick, depressed, shell shocked. Apparently neither Red Bull driver had used KERS either, for “reasons that remain within the team” – which basically means there is a fault or reliability issue with their system as otherwise there’s no way Webber would have been forbidden to use it when the McLaren’s were nipping at his heels – and his performance was certainly the biggest under-performance. He needs a strong race tomorrow, badly.

Hamilton did what Hamilton does, and maximised the car and took second. However, until then he’d looked the slowest of the two McLaren drivers and Button appeared to mess up his Q3 runs – he was as fast on the hard tyres, and the softer tyres are known to be a second faster. Something for him to address but, other than that final 10 minutes, you’d have to say it was otherwise honours even between the two over the course of the weekend.

Alonso looked to be pushing hard, but in a blunt instrument. Massa picked up in 2011 where he left off into 2010 – which is to say, unfortunately, poorly. The Mercedes were scrapping around the final top 10 places – Schumacher just missed out getting to Q1, and Rosberg just about got in by a tenth or two. Another journeyman year beckons, and Ross Brawn is already inching closer to the exit. Biggest surprise was Petrov, qualifying in sixth. But you have to wonder what Kubica might have done in that car – certainly not gone out in Q1 like “Quick Nick” Heidfeld.

How the race will go – well, tyres are still an unknown. But they appear to be wearing relatively well, and we’re looking at likely two or three stops for the runners – not the anticipated four. However, Vettel will be up the road and gone, assuming Hamilton (or quite possibly the under pressure Webber) do something rash at the first corner.

I’ll be up early to watch. But I have a feeling all these rule changes may very well do not all that much come the final analysis and normal service will be resumed.

Writing about testing is a mug’s game – far too often the times are either disguised or optimistic on low-fuel. However the print media have to fill column inches, so the world of Formula 1 never stops. Unfortunately, he printed word hasn’t been that inspiring. Autosport has been of dubious quality over the break, none more so than the issue emblazoned with an interview with Kubica on the cover – when it was two sentences delivered via third-party from his hospital bed, surrounded by around two thousand words.

Talking of Kubica, obviously we must wish him well re: his injuries sustained whilst rallying. It’s a cruel blow, to both him and his team. But here I’m going to take a different view to the norm, and put the blame for this situation squarely at his door. First, he was the driver and he lost control. Second, he – like Mark Webber both in 2009 and 2010, but himself in a position which might hinder his “proper” job. That’s just not professional, however you slice the cute arguments about “keeping sharp” at the wheel of a rally car, or keeping fit whilst biking over various questionable terrain. Kubica may now very well never race in F1 again, and Webber very likely blew his World Championship with an injury before the final few races of 2010 – at which point his performance did take a hit.

Renault, as a consequence, now have “Quick Nick” Heidfeld in harness, which is a trade down. Many, many millions of dollars has now been blunted by a journeyman driver. That said, the car does look quite interesting with the trick exhausts and they look to be 4th or 5th placed of the teams.

Red Bull and Ferrari look to be the class of the field, with Red Bull having the outright pace and Ferrari maybe a little kinder to it’s tyres. Tyres will be the dominant factor in 2011, as the performance drop off is almost vertical past a certain point, so if you can get another couple of laps per set out of the tyres on heavy fuel then this might allow one less stop than the others – who will be likely doing three stops. At present however, it looks like these two will pick up where they left off at the end of 2010, and I’d expect the title to distil to Vettel and Alonso by mid-season. Webber isn’t going to benefit from the type of unreliability Vettel had to endure last year, and you just can’t see Massa lifting himself from the broken shell of a driver who trudged around in the back half of the year. Both teams have definitive number one drivers.

Unfortunately, McLaren appear to again be playing catch-up. Which is the second time in three years, and bottom line unacceptable. The car simply hasn’t worked, and it’s broken down too often which has made the situation worse. To be harsh, heads need to roll and the peer review processes need to be strengthened. Ron Dennis might have been an arrogant so-and-so, but McLaren have gone off the boil under Whitmarsh. There’s less “edge”, more acceptance of problems. Maybe an update will unlock all the technical potential of the car, but at the moment it’s not looking like such an update will arrive in time for the first race. The issue appears to be the front wing not delivering the simulated airflow to the rest of the car. There are plenty of tricks on the McLaren, including a very elaborate blown exhaust around the underfloor which sounds incredible. However, if the front wing isn’t delivering then the rest of the car is basically moot, and at present the exhaust is overheating the rest of the car.

Hamilton and Button have been setting very similar times over testing, and it’s impossible to know who will come out of top. You’d have to say that Hamilton will have the first lap and qualifying pace, but there’s rumours of Button managing the tyres better over a run. A tenth here or there from Hamilton on raw pace would just be annihilated by getting a lap or three more out of the tyres. It’s an interesting situation.

Mercedes have been in the mire over testing, but the final test appears to suggest that they’ve turned it around with a final upgrade package bringing the aerodynamics in-to line with expectations. However, because the car was akin to a boat for the first three tests, it’s impossible to know it’s position in the pecking order. You’d suspect ahead of McLaren now, and maybe with Schumacher having a slight edge – especially since the car turns into an over-steering point-and-pivot affair when the tyres start to go off. However, I wouldn’t like to put money on which of the drivers will come out on top. I’m rooting for Schumacher though – partly due to wanting to see the old warhorse back in the saddle, but also because Rosberg just doesn’t seem to have the killer edge. He’s quick, but there’s something missing.

Lotus appear to have caught up to the tail of the midfield, and Williams appear to be the best of the rest. Barrichello is a proven, quality performer (albiet comprehensively blown-away by Button before he tensed up in his World Championship season) but they’ve ditched Hulkenburg and replaced him with a potentially promising but unknown GP2 pilot. This smacks of a little desperation in the financial department, and lacks the sort of raw ambition which Williams have been classically known for. But the car looks tidy and, if reliable, I expect solid points opportunities at most races. Force India and Torro Rosso have gone well in testing, but you always need to take these times with a pinch of salt. Teams looking for sponsorship can be a little loose with the ballast during the unregulated period. However, if you take the times as advertised, the midfield will be Williams, Torro Rosso, Force India, Lotus.

Bringing up the rear is HRT, and ahead of them Virgin Racing. Virgin look to have made progress, and this is to be appreciated. But I suspect not enough to hang on to Lotus. That said, Virgin are paragons of excellent compared to HRT – who are making a mockery of F1. No testing last year, no testing this year. A car, revealed to the media, with a distinct lack of sponsorship – this is a team just content to survive, occupy their slot at the table and I don’t expect any tangible performance gains. In fact, I rather suspect they’ll be going in reverse and will be an even bigger mobile chicane than in 2010. Drivers have to qualify for a Super-licence, which can be withdrawn – the teams need a similar system. Up to now, only them going bust has been the consideration.

KERS won’t make a lot of difference either way. In 2009, it was either the presence or absence which was the factor and particularly at the start of the races. With it being on all the front-running cars, I certainly feel, the minimal differences between the different systems won’t be of  consequence.

However, lastly we have the other rules-change talking point of the hydraulic rear wing, which can effectively open and stall at FIA mandated times – to improve overtaking, to improve “The Show”. Obviously every part of a car is fundamentally artificial, and all the teams spend millions on each little trick, but this just feels wrong to me. To have a system twice as powerful as the McLaren F-Duct operating on a chasing car but not afforded to the car leading, who has earned the fight to be there – for me – just lacks racing purity. It’s basically the same as mandating the ECU will retard the throttle response out of a corner – wrong. And it’s lazy. The issue, as everyone really knows, are the front wings stalling in turbulent air flow – so change the front wing designs people, and make them much simpler, or purely for balance. It may work well, but conceptually I dislike the idea.

We await first practice in Melbourne in 5 days – how time has flown.

Alonso was quite gracious when Lee MacKenzie thrust a microphone at him in the post-race interviews, but let’s make no mistake – the decision to bring him in was utterly foolish.

I tweeted that in never in 25 years of watching Formula 1 had I seen such a stupid decision. Alonso just had to play the percentages and his points advantage would see him through. Not take silly risks and surrender track position – but for some incomprehensible reason, his team just took all leave of their senses. At the time I was howling at the TV screen re: why on earth they’d do such an absurd thing. Not because I have any love for Alonso, but all my F1 experience just screamed that it was totally incomprehensible – the only consideration would have been a safety car, but without another one then he was doomed, and even with one – with the delta split times which the drivers must obey – the chances of losing a race due to a safety car is now much, much less than a couple of years ago.

Bringing in Webber a few laps earlier was perhaps slightly more understandable, but only just. Webber had to force some artificial advantage on Alonso but even so he was never going to win the WDC by surrendering that much track position, particularly after the first safety car put a number of runners acting as roadblocks in a un-malleable midfield – forcing should have been done at the first safety car, not five or so laps later. That was just nonsensical, because he then had at least two more runners which he’d have to pass to break even on his existing fifth place, never mind get far enough up the field to overhaul Alonso’s points advantage.

The story post-race will, of course, be Ferrari. The F1 Forum has started on the Red Button, and hopefully Eddie Jordan will find some poor men in red to explain themselves, but the sheer, utter, blinding foolishness of the decisions taken by team management today has P45 written all over it.

Vettel winning the World Drivers Championship was probably the right conclusion to the season. Yes, he’s made a lot of mistakes. He’s also been bloody fast and accumulated his points by brute force. I must say that I’m not keen on various aspects of his character – the spoiled brat of Red Bull image has stuck – but against the team-orders debacle of Alonso/Massa, Button’s general lack of speed at key points and Hamilton’s and Webber’s mistakes certainly not being any better than those inflicted by Vettel on himself, you’d have to say the right man won.

As he made a sudden realisation, the face of Christian Horner spoke volumes. He, probably due to internal pressure, has handed Fernando Alonso his third championship on a silver platter. All Alonso needed to do was not make a mistake, or for his Ferrari to suffer a mechanical misfortune.

In order words, the destiny of the 2010 Formula One World Drivers Championship was out of their hands.

The qualifying line up was delicious – you couldn’t have predicted it, but simply it injected the most discomfort possible into the lives of Red Bull. Vettel, despite a race win, is impotent without an Alonso failure. Webber needs to outscore Alonso by more than eight points – which basically means Webber has to win, and Alonso has to finish no better than third. And given he’s starting fifth with genuinely quick cars between him and that goal looks unlikely at best.

The race itself is almost immaterial compared to the ultimate prize on offer. You’d have to say that Vettel has the legs of everyone, but Hamilton has nothing to lose and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some strong tactics employed at the start – and maybe an accident. Button looks quick enough and you’d suspect his long run pace will be good but not good enough to take the win on pure merit. Alonso looks to have a better set-up than Webber, but equally Webber is behind on points so something banzai and fatal on the opening lap won’t do him any favours – other than gift Vettel the Championship.

The 2010 season has been a classic, but only for the failures of the main protagonists. It also has re-defined the poise of Button in 2009 to make the best use of his equipment when it mattered – something the Red Bull drivers have singularly failed to do given, and this is the stark reality, that they had a bigger advantage than Button and Brawn did for the majority of the season, and were certainly never overhauled and overtaken.

But more of that in a later post. For now, race start is a mere 35 minutes away…

It’s time to get back on the horse with my thoughts on all this Grand Prix.

Practice and qualifying were pretty much over before I’d gotten out of bed on both days, but you had to say you kind of suspected the order before you closed your eyes. And obviously this race will go down as the day/night race without any lights – as I’m typing this as the podium celebrations are mid-swing, you have to say it’s most definitely dark.

But does that make this a good race? Well, it was certainly pivotal. Alonso moves to the top of the standings, Webber blew a golden opportunity to seal the deal, Hamilton clinging on and Vettel and Button now out of it. Fourty minutes before, Vettel would have been on top of the tree and looking inexorable – one engine failure later, it’s looking more like the abyss of deep despair.

So, it boils down to an Alonso and Webber battle – with Hamilton hoping against hope for mistakes. But it boils down to this – Red Bull now simply have to back Webber for the title, or they’ll lose it. Webber has to win the last two races, and Vettel has to act as rear gunner. Alonso has to finish – the ultimate destination is out of his hands. Red Bull have the faster car, but they don’t have enough of a faster car for Vettel to have a realistic shot at it. Mathematical to be sure, but not in any way, shape or form in the real world – despite a superb performance, cruelly ended by his engine.

Button was anonymous, and it was his worst race of the year – surprising when he’s usually superb in the wet. He has these sorts of non-events, and they have to stop. He’s done an awful lot of good work this year to confirm his position as World Drivers Champion – but he’s also had a few too many races where he’s also undermined it. At this level, he simply cannot afford to be this sensitive to his machinery.

But again – was it a good race? Wet, dark, safety cars? For my money, no it didn’t. I thought it was tepid. The wet caught some people out – notably Webber with a face palm mistake of the season. But basically it strung the contenders out in the spray, and very little was actually happening. Usual case of dodgems at the back of the field, but people with nothing to loose can always be relied upon to make daft choices and inevitably bang wheels. That’s not enough.

So, for me – this was a pivotal race in the championship, the sort of race every season has. But it wasn’t a good race for my eyes as a purist. It didn’t grip me for the action on the track. The politics and shifting sands of the championship added flavour, but it was processional where it mattered, and I can’t see it being any better in the dry when the teams return next year.

Lewis, Lewis, Lewis – another DNF and that’s probably that for his championship.

It was pretty obvious that the McLaren wasn’t in the same league as either the Red Bull or Ferrari, so when the safety car came out and brought Hamilton on the tail of Webber… well, Lewis just couldn’t resist the restart. Problem is that Webber isn’t the type to move over, even if the move was in favour of Hamilton at the time of the impact. Webber got away with a brutal chop, Hamilton didn’t.

On such events, championships turn. Webber looks stronger, Hamilton’s has been fatally wounded.

Alonso and Vettel amused themselves at the front, and were largely untroubled throughout. Whilst the championship, you feel, is a bit out of their hands if Webber continues to collect regular and sizeable points, a couple of Hamilton style blunders would bring both into the mix.