Fun F1

In most races this year I’ve bagged the performance of Rubens Barrichello in comparison to his teammate. However in Spain Rubens drove a fantastic race. I just can’t understand how he finished second. Up until Brawn changed Button from a 3 stop strategy to a 2 stop one, Rubens had the measure of Jenson. You really have to question why Brawn changed Jenson’s strategy…

Rubens Barrichello - Good qualifying (given he had a heavier car than his teammate) followed by a good race. The poor guy must be feeling like he’s at Ferrari all over again with his teammate suddenly winning when he seemed to hold all the cards.

Jenson Button - Even though the strategy change was probably the biggest factor in Jenson winning, he still had to put in fast laps to get ahead of Rubens so good job.

Mark Webber - Probably the best drive of the race if you ask me. Really nice to see some solid results (and reliability!) finally.

Sebastian Vettel - Backed Mark Webber up with another great result. Red Bull are certainly looking good for the season.

Fernando Alonso - The man just keeps collecting points. Could come in handy later in the season but unlikely he could challenge for the championship.

Ferrari - Just when you thought they were on top of things and looking fast again they go and balls it up with some BASIC errors that should never happen in F1. First with Kimi in qualifying and then not enough fuel for Felipe in the race - who does that??

First Lap Accident - Hard to tell who to blame for this one but Toro Rosso were certainly an unfortunate victim of events that neither driver started..

In Bahrain Brawn GP certainly did a good job in making our prediction that Brawn won’t be a championship contender seem very wrong I’ll still stick by the call that they won’t be the no.1 team to beat in the 2nd half of the season - but Jenson Button certainly does have a nice points buffer now which he can maintain for quite a long time yet.

Jenson Button - Great victory. Not sure what happened during qualifying but the Brawn GP cars still have the edge during “normal” dry race conditions.

Sebastian Vettel - I wonder if I should place a bet on this guy for the championship… although chances are if I did Red Bull Racing would start having their usual reliability problem :)  But we can’t say enough how much of a talent this guy is

Jarno Trulli - Wow, not much sign of the Trulli Train in this round. Great job following up a super qualifying with a good race!

Timo Glock - Leading the race early on. Finished 7th. What happened?

Lewis Hamilton - Thought he might be able to finish higher than he did, but a good job none-the-less.

Rubens Barrichello - Over 37 seconds behind his teammate? Hmm..

Kimi Raikkonen - Finally some points for Ferrari! Unfortunately they still looked slow..

Fernando Alonso - Probably the most unimpressive round this season. But hey, better than being where Nelson Piquet Jr is now right?

Toro Rosso - Amazing how they performed in the wet in the previous round then here, nothing.

BMW and Williams - Two most disappointing teams of 2009 so far? Both seemed like they could have been right up there leading up to the season… what a shame.

One thing is clear from the Chinese GP - as soon as the “top” teams sort out their new diffusers completely, Brawn GP won’t be a championship contender. It’s a big call I know, but to see how quick some of the teams were with their new diffuser designs straight out of the box, it just shows the Brawn will have to pump a lot of money into R&D to have any chance of staying in the championship.

Sebastian Vettel - Can’t say enough good things about this guy. What a magnificent pole and an even better victory!

Sebastien Buemi - Apart from almost taking Sebastian Vettel out of the race, Buemi was brilliant! It’s so great to see so much talent in F1 at the same time!

Mark Webber - It’s sad but here in Australia when Webber qualifys well you usually hear comments like “that’s good, but will he finish the race?”. Thankfully he finished the race this time and was unfortunate to not be closer to Vettel. Great job both in quali as usual and great to see him follow it up with a good race.

Red Bull Racing - Thankfully the cars held together. I have to say that again - thankfully the cars held together!! RBR looks very good in pre-season testing. If they can get their cars reliable and sort out a nice diffuser solution they really could have a shot at the championship.

Jenson Button - Solid job. Possibly took it easy to be “safe”?

Rubens Barrichello - Really needs to beat Button one of these days if he doesn’t want to relive his Ferrari days as the designated “number 2″.

Fernando Alonso - Unbelievable qualifying effort regardless of fuel loads. Not sure whether Renault could have managed the pitstops better though. I mean look at the position Force India managed to get Adrian Sutil in by pitting early during the safety car… Still, at least there’s a lot of potential for the future.

Adrian Sutil - So close to grabbing some serious points! It was like Monaco 2008 all over again. Heartbreaking

Lewis Hamilton - You have to give it to Lewis - he always seems to get the maximum out of the car. The results don’t reflect it, but without his spins off the track could he have been on the podium? Which step I wonder…

McLaren - Can someone confirm McLaren had a new diffuser and were running KERS? If so they could be a threat very soon…

Ferrari - Come on Ferrari, you shouldn’t be last of these points and you definitely shouldn’t be last in the race (or thereabouts). With that said I don’t think the panic surrounding Ferrari is justified. During the race they’ve been in some good positions on the track and often have quite good pace. Just get on top of that reliability and make sure Massa gets into Q3!!

I have mixed feelings about the Malaysian Grand Prix. It started off great and was building up to be fantastic with people running different strategies. The rain came, the excitement stayed high, yet the finish was a bit of an anti-climax.

Jenson Button - Did a great job to hold everything together and take the win.

Rubens Barrichello - I dunno… I wish they would have put Bruno Senna in the car this year

Nick Heidfeld - Didn’t really drive a race worthy of 2nd place, but hey, sometimes the cards just fall like that and today was his day

Timo Glock - Timo seemed very happy in the wet and did seem to have everything under control. He’s starting to impress me this guy

KERS - The KERS teams suffered quite a bit in the wet. However I’m actually confident with enough experience they’ll be able to sort out the balance of the cars. Then, when they have learnt how to set it up properly they might actually have an advantage..

Red Bull Racing - If these guys work out a new diffuser, watch out! Very impressive once again.

Williams - Seem really strong in qualifying but don’t know what’s happening in the race? Brawn GP and Toyota are leaving them for dead in the races.

Lewis Hamilton - Seemed to make the most of his equipment but the McLaren is still an extremly lacking car.

Ferrari - I put Ferrari as the last point on this list because they deserve to be after sending Kimi Raikkonen out on monsoon tyres on a virtually dry track. Insane. As for Massa, not much better..

Yes, we’re back for 2009! But unlike Brawn GP, we didn’t manage to have our challenger (new web site) ready for the first round of the championship!

Thankfully Brawn GP got their act together and did an absolutely amazing job to not only make it to the grid but to dominate the race weekend.

Key points:

• Brawn GP, Williams and Toyota really have to take advantage of having an advantage in terms of their diffuser while they can because as soon as the other teams come up with a solution their cars will no doubt be quicker than all these 3 teams.
• Ferrari were very strong despite the end result. If they come up with a new diffuser (or the “diffuser 3″ teams get their one banned) they’ll be very strong indeed.
• Lewis Hamilton showed some nice pace during the race but in the end it was just luck that gave him Third. Fernando Alonso meanwhile didn’t show anything special but I expect him to bring Renault up higher in the next few races.
• Where did the pace from BMW Sauber suddenly come from!? They showed nothing all weekend then were quite competitive on Sunday. Good recovery.
• Rubens Barrichello was a bit wild during the Grand Prix. I guess he was just excited having a fast car again - no real reason to penalise him or anything
• Sebastian Vettel - Given the lack of pace the Red Bull Racing machines seemed to have earlier in the weekend, he had some great pace. Shame the car will be hard to put a revised diffuser on even with the genius of Adrian Newey behind it.
• KERS - I think the jury is still out on this one. We really need some on screen telemetry showing us when drivers are using it during the race. They showed when it’s charging up in practice, but if we could see side-by-side indications during race when the button is pressed that would be fantastic
• New aero regulations - Hard to tell whether it was KERS or the new aero that helped some drivers slingshot past others, but the combination of rules seems to be very promising.

There are heaps more points that could be touched on, but all up these first few rounds are going to be a bit “random” in terms of results as the new regulations pan out and everyone gets used to them. But what a great start to the season. A lot of new names up there and you have the feeling that going into the next round anyone could win the race (ok, maybe that would require the Brawn cars to retire but hey… :))