There was a lot of change over the F1 off-season. New tires, rear wings, aero regulations, more power for the stewards and of course politics by the truckload. However last night all that mattered for nothing and the cars ran in anger for the first time.
Discovery-one, not much changed. Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull is the class of the field. If his maturity can match the speed of the car then he looks like he will be hard to beat. Not only did he win, he won in style. Vettel took pole by a huge margin, led from green light to checker flag.
Discovery-two, the new regs made a difference. The Drag Reduction System (RDS, or the “flappy rear wing”) is interesting and seemed to allow cars to have a decent run at each other under braking. The purist in me has issues with this, I think you need to earn the place and this aids the overtaking driver. However, in reality, it was awfully fun to watch cars overtake each other.
Hamilton had a great race; he had some undertray problems at the end, but was quick enough to hold a relatively untroubled second place. After the really poor showing in testing over the last 6 weeks McLaren have put in a huge amount of work, simplified a few things and found a lot of time.
Clearly this weekend Vettel was the class of the field.
Third place and maybe the best performance of the weekend was Vitaly Petrov in the very, very sexy looking Lotus-Renault. Kept away from the drama and stayed in front of Alonso’s Ferrari.
Ferrari looked to be close to Red Bull in testing and have to come away from the weekend disappointed with their performance with Massa unable to do better than eighth. However it was nothing compared to Mercedes race, Schumacher could not even make the final qualifying session and was out qualified by Rosberg. Neither car finished, Schumacher got a puncture early on and eventually retired, while Barrichello’s Williams took out Nico Rosberg.
Another team that looked good on the track was Sauber. New driver Sergio Perez made it a one-stop race, the only driver to do so. The tactic paid off when he finished seventh, one place in front of Japanese driver Kobayashi. Unfortunately the Saubers were later disqualified for technical infringements over the wings.
Lots of overtaking, clearly Vettel was the class of the field, and by some margin too. The circus arrives in Malaysia in a couple of weeks, a very different style of track. Some teams obviously have catching up to do; it’s going to be a busy two weeks for the teams.