#2 F1 is back! (Round 1: Australia)

Hey ho, the new season of Formula 1 kicked off in Australia and what a great opening race we were offered. Ignore the fact that it's been about a year since my last Sports Thoughts and read on for some of my thoughts on the race at Melbourne and the rest of the championship.

Now this year sees a big shakeup in the rules and regulations in terms of car design, I won't repeat them here as a quick internet search will give you all the answers you need. What I will add is that there has been controversy surrounding the design of the rear diffuser - an element at the base and the back of the car. Three teams have interpreted the new rules differently and produced a radical design, which while has been confirmed legal for Australia, an appeal has been made and a decision will be made after the Malaysian GP.
One team to profit from adopting the controversial design are Brawn GP and they are responsible for the wonderful fairytale story at the season opener.

Last year Honda announced that they would be withdrawing from Formula 1 - since becoming a full fledged constructor they failed to achieve the level of success they were hoping for - a competitive season in '06 resulting in Jenson Button's first win, but there's been little to write home about in the last 2 seasons - the team pretty much making up the numbers towards the back of the grid.

Brawn GP take their name from Ross Brawn, who was brought out of sabbatical into the Honda as technical director, and now holds the position of team principal in the new team. Since the Honda announcement, Brawn and Fry have appealed for a new owner to buy the team, but have had to form the team on their own. During the frantic months at the start of '09, they have managed to secure Mercedes engines for the year and a very hasty sponsorship deal with Virgin (they were still applying the decals to the cars and trucks on race weekend) meant that they could race at Australia. Button also managed to keep a race seat and with minimal testing and time against them, the team opted to retain the services of Barrichello for the second seat. Bruno Senna was looking like a strong candidate but he lacks experience and personally believe he has made a lot of progress through his career off the back of his name.

Going with the veteran Rubens ultimately paid dividends with Brawn GP securing an unbelievable 1-2 finish, Button driving a near-perfect race out of front, and Rubens recovering from a poor start, to literally battle his way onto the podium with a pinch of luck for good measure. Ever since the car was run during pre-season testing, it has been very quick, pretty much topping every timesheet. Having arrived at Melbourne the Brawn GP cars continued to dominate. The other teams who went with the radical rear diffuser (Williams, Toyota) were also very competitive. Brawn GP locked out the front row, with Jenson taking the Pole. Rightly so, they were tipped to clear up in the race, bar an iffy moment during his second pit stop, Jenson drove a perfect race. Rubens didn't get off the line cleanly and survived a first corner incident with minimal damage to his front wing. He later had a coming together with Raikkonen and thanks to a Vettel and Kubica taking each other out, he managed to drive to 2nd.
Vettel has since come out as the guilty party which having seen countless replays, believe to be unfair. Vettel gave Kubica the opening when he made a mistake on the previous corner, but he still had the inside line against a much quicker car in the BMW. Vettel was pretty much cutting the corner to try and avoid Kubica who didn't leave anywhere near enough gap. Robert was not smart; he was on the better tyre, and even if they were side-by-side coming out of the corner, I would have predicted him to come out on top. Vettel has also been fined after driving a damaged car - he did just lose his front wing in the collision, but dropped it on the white line to crash - if only he could have kept it together, crept back to the pits, he may have been able to salvage a point or two.



The fact that the Brawn GP cars are so quick shouldn't really be that much of a surprise to anyone. Remember that Honda turned up to the start of the '08 season knowing there were fundamental problems with the car that could not be realistically addressed. Knowing this, the team pretty much abandoned development of the '08 car and looked ahead to this season and the potential of the new rule changes leveling the playing field. McLaren and Ferrari were obviously competing for the title to the very last race and so couldn't switch their priority for this season until it was pretty much over.

Probably my biggest disappointment was the Renault. They were allowed to improve their engine to bring it up to parity with the other engines - supposedly it was 30-50BHP down on a lot of the other engines. The fact that Alonso was able to win twice with an underpowered car reaffirms his credentials as a world class driver and also the aero development which had to claw back that performance deficit.

It would have been just a single week until round 2 at Malaysia, and provided the Brawn cars handle the heat, I expect them to be as dominant. The teams would not have had any real time to develop the cars, plus the majority of teams are probably now stalling to see the outcome to the diffuser issue - if it is deemed legal (which I hope so, it would be a shame for Brawn to be disqualified), then the other teams will shift their designs to take advantage like the trailblazers already have.

The Red Bull looks promising, the extra time Newey spent designing has paid dividends, and the non-KERS BMW of Kubica has a lot of potential. Ferrari will be there or thereabouts and if they can get their cars to the finish, they will almost certainly pick up a fair share of points. The McLarens will suffer again this weekend, and I wouldn't expect to see an improvement until Barcelona which is the point where the teams aim to bring the first major aero update.

With 2009, there is a ban of testing during the season, means that the headstart the Brawn team have in terms of development could have them net a number of wins early on until everyone else catches up. With that in mind, my prediction for Malaysia is Jenson for the win (FTW!)



In closing, a quick mention about the BBC's coverage now that they have taken over the reins from ITV, and overall I'm a little disappointed in their lack of ambition. My biggest criticism of ITV's setup was the lack of studio and the BBC have continued that trend. The pitlane before race and quali sessions are not a good place to broadcast from, those cars can get pretty loud. Joining Jake Humphrey are pundits David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan - good choices in my opinion. That being said, DC is playing it too straight for my liking, there's no personality in his comments where he has proved to be impressively observant and wise in a lot of interviews I've seen/read during his time at Red Bull. Eddie Jordan, on the other hand, is a perfect pundit, incredibly opinionated, not to mention knowledgeable about the sport and its politics. Turning to the commentary team and the BBC have retained Martin Brundle (as well as Ted Kravitz reporting from the pitlane) who is joined by Jonathan Legard (great name :D). Jonathan did drop into horse racing commentator mode at the end of Q3, but other than that the pairing seems to work well. Another positive is the disappearance of ad breaks and for your nostalgia gland, Fleetwood Mac's The Chain is back.

There were a few technical slips, some tech guys creeping into shot and also a lost of picture for a short period. Thankfully the BBC did broadcast the entirety of the first press conference following the podium proceedings, I hated the way that ITV would return after hearing from the race winner. Another great option is the 1 hour forum that follows the race on one of the BBC interactive channels. I stuck around for that which was cool. Again with the red button options, and the commentary can be toggled between the TV commentators and Radio 5's coverage. There is also the option of switching to the in-car cameras as opposed to the main race feed. That kind of stuff is a great start, to add the timesheet information like in the applet (and that seen/used by the teams) would be awesome for people like me that would geek out on all the stats and timings etc.

Here's looking forward to Malaysia, it should be less damaging on my sleep patterns...