2009 Formula One Telefonica European Grand Prix, Valencia - Race Day

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2009 Formula One Telefonica European Grand Prix, Valencia - Qualifying

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Review: 2009 Formula One Santander British Grand Prix, Silverstone

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Review: 2009 Formula One Petrol Ofisi Turkish Grand Prix, Istanbul Park

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2009 Formula One Grand Prix De Monaco, Monte Carlo Street Circuit - Race Day

Button did it again. And this time in Monaco.

On a day we see BMW and Toyota could not catch up the Force India, and the day we see McLaren crumbles while Ferrari took the second best, Jenson Button simply outpaced everybody, his teammate included.

While most of the team chooses to start with the prime hard tyres, the Brawns start the race with soft tyre sets. In a mastery of tactinal analysis, Ross Brawn shines the best by making the right decision for his drivers. In spite the expectation of an early safety car period, they have managed to acknowledge the importance of pulling away at the start as Monte Carlo Street Circuit is not any other circuit where you'll have a lot of overtaking opportunities.

The anticipated safety car period never came, eventhough there are few accidents and kisses with the wall of Monaco. Unusual, yes. Cars that are fitted with the prime should plan to run longer but this doesn't seem to be the case last weekend.

RACE RESULT


Although starting from second and the fact that he run on KERS, Kimi Raikkonen failed to take advantage in the run to the first corner. Both he and his teammate Felipe Massa suffer a wheelspin at the start, causing them to lose half a second during the start. And this caused Raikkonen to lose second place to Barichello and Massa failed to overtake Vettel.

Since only the Ferrari and McLaren run on KERS, the wheelspin therefore is not foreseen. Maybe the street is too slippery for the hard Bridgestone compound and pushing KERS button on the start might aggravate the situation by causing wheelspin. No indication whether the McLarens are having the same issue upon starting the race.

Kimi Raikkonen at one time seems good to take the second spot but on his second pit stop his left front tyre had some difficulties to put on and lose him a few crucial seconds.

Vettel retired after hitting the barrier at Sainte Devote, the same spot where Hamilton crashed during Q1. Massa was promoted to fourth, sealing the best Ferrari finishes combined this season.

Kazuki Nakajima also suffered a crash late in the race. He could have finished in points. Nelsinho Piquet got hit at the back when Sebastien Buemi crashed into his car, retiring both contenders.

Kovalainen suffered another DNF. If we put his DNFs into perspective relative to the number of races so far, he would be Nelson Piquet personafied. Hamilton finished in a lowly 12th after starting from the worst grid position of his career. Steve Slater really feel for this guy, and in his words, "it is better to retire than having to suffer the misery of an underperforming car".

Alonso again finished in points. He really got the hang of monstering the R29. If this is the Champ Car or Indy 500, he could be leading the championship with such consistency.

Monaco Grand Prix signalled the return of form for Ferrari and the dominance of Brawns. In Turkey where we head for a normal race circuit in two weeks time, we might see a different pecking order. Toyota, BMW and McLaren might be going to challenge the midfielders in Monaco.

Hopefully Ferrari can continue to better their current form and fight for the win in Turkey. The championship could never get more exciting!

2009 Formula One Grand Prix De Monaco, Qualifying

Jenson Button seals his fourth pole of the season while Kimi Raikkonen shows how much the Ferraris have improved by securing front row alongside the championship leader.

In a too close, too tight qualifying, Ferrari and Brawn GP gave it their all to top the timesheet.

QUALIFYING


Barichello nearly grabbed the second spot if not for a flying performance by Kimi. All weekend long, Barichello seems to be the faster Brawn as Jenson Button continue having problem setting up his car to maximise the downforce and tyre grip.

If the practice times are any indication, it seems Button have the problem solved by Practice 3 where he was faster than Barichello, which earlier topped Practice 1. Moreover, Practice 3 is usually the time where teams started to run short race simulations and qualifying setup. The time clocked in Practice 3 is never far from the car's top performance.

PRACTICE 1


PRACTICE 2


PRACTICE 3


Nico Rosberg again topped one of the Practice sessions. The last practice session was dominated by Alonso, clocking the fastest time all week at 1:15:164.

Although starting at sixth spot tomorrow, Nico Rosberg did topped the first qualifying session, promising a step forward by the WIlliams. But to the dismay of his fans, the other cars on the grid got faster and faster, noticeably the Brawns and Ferrari, leaving Rosberg settled at sixth. Teammate Kazuki Nakajima made it to the top ten as well.

Both Force Indias made it to Q2, making it an interesting midfield runner while the Toyotas and BMWs never made it past Q1. Alonso is frequenting Q3 as Nelson Piquet struggled to match him.

Red Bull made an upgrade to their B-specs car with new rear wings and carbon-fibre gearbox. The wings are also spotted on Toro Rosso.

McLaren made a similar change to their rear wings as well, making them running near the pace of the frontrunners. But the ever-lucky Hamilton is not lucky this time as he smashed the tyre barrier at the Sainte Devote corner and broke his rear suspension in Q1. A further change to his gearbox made him starting from the last spot tomorrow. Heikki Kovalainen meanwhile made it to Q3 and secured seventh. Hopefully he won't be facing another technical glitch that cost him his list of DNFs.

The frontrunners seems to be having a similar strategy although Vettel will be the first to pit, followed by the Ferraris and the Brawns. Here are the provisional weights of the cars after Qualifying:

1. Jenson Button, Brawn GP, 647.5 kg
2. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 644
3. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn GP, 648
4. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 631.5
5. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 643.5
6. Nico Rosberg, Williams, 642
7. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 644
8. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 646.5
9. Fernando Alonso, Renault, 654
10. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams, 668
11. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 670
12. Nelson Piquet, Renault, 673.1
13. Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India, 693
14. Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Rosso, 699.5
15. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 670
16. Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber, 680
17. Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber, 696
18. Jarno Trulli, Toyota, 688.3
19. Timo Glock, Toyota, 700.8
20. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 645.5

Felipe Massa looked like the faster Ferrari earlier in Q1, but as the track got better Raikkonen steals the show with blazing laps and topped Q2. When he stole P1 from Vettel in Q3 and even Barichello could not better him, it seems finally a Scuderia will get to pole. Out of nowhere comes Button with 25/1000 a second faster.

Alex Yoong put it in the best sentence when he said "Button will start tomorrow's race and think, I believe I'm seeing a Ferrari besides me -- with KERS".

At Catalunya Massa managed to overtake a few cars before settling at third in the first lap. Kimi Raikkonen might be able to pull the same stunt starting at second. The fight to that first corner will be interesting tomorrow.

Cross your fingers, we might see a Scarlett Car leading the field when the camera pan to the Sainte Devote corner tomorrow !

Will Formula One Survive Being Ferrari-less?

Not only Ferrari - Renault, Toyota, Red Bull and of course, Toro Rosso.

Ferrari has been there since the inception of Formula One Championship. It has seen the ups and downs of teams, including itself and the sport as a whole. It is always there to support any initiatives by the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile - from commercialization, driver's safety, regulation changes, participating in GPDA, OWG, and FOTA to road safety campaign and budget cut.



The Scuderia Ferrari team has been the benchmark for other team to compare to, even when they run as midfielder. There are times when they are not winning for years - tens of years in fact - and they are still there in Formula One.

When they won for years that the FIA changed the rules just to give them major disadvantage, they didn't budge.

The fact that Ferrari has been in Formula One for so long, and so successful, and at the same time amassed a huge amount of fans that turn up on every Grand Prix weekend that translate to billions of dollars worth of money, made them virtually Formula One itself.

Without Ferrari, Formula One will lose at least half of its fans. And half of its revenue in total.

Nobody would want to race a Formula One Grand Prix without the Scarlet Car on the grid. It's like English Premier League without Manchester United. It's like World Cup without Brazil. It's like Formula Renault where all the teams are running BMW cars. All the current drivers agreed they could not imagine Formula One without Ferrari and that it would be less interesting to race.

To lose Ferrari is one thing. To lose the whole bunch of teams, is another.

In pursuit of attracting new teams to Formula One, Max Mosley should not simply abandoned the current teams. If he did, then who will guarantee what will happened to the new team once they become old and Max want to attract newer teams? Will Formula One be a second class league where teams come and go - and dare I say it, exists and then perish?

FIA and FOTA really need to find a compromise - and quick. A two-tier FOrmula One is not the solution. And definitely not a smart move. It's like having both GP2 cars and Formula One cars competing with each other in the same race. We know who'll win. It's not Formula One anymore -it will be Formula One and Two.

Many sports critiques and columnists said that the latest furore in Formula One is simply a political manouvre by the teams to steer FIA out of implementing the 40 million pounds budget cap. But for fans out there, they can feel the team. Any laymen can understand why the team would want to pull out if F1 is going to be a two-tier championship.

Here's a hypothetical scenario: If you are an F1 owner and you have 400 workers working for you, and you spent the last ten years to developed that group of people with certain set of skills, would you simply dump them in accordance to the budget cap? If you have 200 million pounds annually to run the whole operation, would you be able to maintain the status quo with a fifth of your current spending?

You ought to throw people out and that means wasting away your investments.

To lose Ferrari for sure will kill away half the excitement of Formula One. To lose them together with Renault, Toyota, Red Bull and Toro Rosso will definitely kill the sport altogether.

No, Formula One will not survive being Ferrari-less.

(Hey, let's watch A1 GP instead! With all the teams running F2004, A1 GP is technically Formula Ferrari!)

Review : 2009 Gran Premio de Espana Telefonica, Catalunya, Barcelona - Race Day

And then there were four.

Jenson Button claimed victory at Catalunya, his fourth out of five race this season, in a rather unconventional Spanish Grand Prix. The last eight pole sitters goes to win the race, but in a straight start-line-to-the-finish fashion. That did not happened to Button.

When the red lights went out, Button lost the lead to Barichello as Massa goes third and held Vattel and Webber behind him. A big crash at the back of the field saw Sutil, Buemi, Bourdais and Trulli got out of the race. Hamilton got off the track for a while but being a very lucky person, he got away from the third corner accident.

It all happened when Trulli, pushed out by Nico Rosberg hurriedly turn back onto the track and caused Sutil to hit him. That alone saw huge debris flying all over the third corner. Then comes Buemi, who, being a rookie and probably never before circumnavigate a big crash in a blink of an eye, virtually stopped on the track. And that caused his teammate to crashed behind him big time.

And being a defending world champion, Hamilton slows down and managed to not only avoid the collision but at the same time circumnavigate the debris on the track.

The Brawns opted for a three-stop strategy at first, since three-stop is the fastest way, but they changed it for Button in the first round of pit stop because they managed to conserve fuel during the six laps of safety car period. And that seal the win for Button instead for Barichello. He must be furious.

Massa defended third position like a true champion would, even after a wheel rim cover spun out of his left tyre. And even after the first pit stop where he and Vettel went in together and go out together in the same position.

In the process of holding Vettel behind him, Christian Horner deviced a different way to diffuse the bottleneck situation for Mark Webber. Webber was fuelled longer so that he will have extra laps when the second pit stop comes. And it worked. Webber stole third position after the second pit stop.

When we all believed that the race will be concluded as they were, something interesting happened. Massa's race engineer contacted him on the radio with an alarming situation - he don't have enough fuel to make it to the chequered flag! It happened to be in the second pit stop the pump didn't deliver enough fuel to his F60. And now the situation where we should be praising Ferrari for a leap of performance turned into a situation where we will be condemning them to the lack of scrutinity.

It's not the lacked of pace that hampered both Raikkonen and Massa. The former was due to electrical failure that shuts down his hydraulic on lap 18. Could be the engineers fault, could be yet another McLaren sabotage through its standardised ECU. The latter meanwhile was due to pure human mistake. In this case, you can sum up both cases as the lack of quality control.

Steve Slater, being a proud British mentioned that this would never happened under Ross Brawn's watch, and dare he say it - when Nigel Stepney was around. There's an air of truth in his view. Before the hoard of British came into Ferrari, even the genius of Jean Todt cannot turn it into a world championship winning team.

It was something imprinted into the Italian work culture. I'm not being racist, but I have the view that each nation and race are gifted with certain skills while the others are not. In the big picture, the key to the future is held by the united people of earth, to cancelled each other's weaknesses.

We need a British or two inside the Ferrari organization.

And these small things caused Massa precious points. He was forced to slow down his pace to conserve fuel, in the process have to let Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso passed him by. Vettel did it on lap 54 and then comes Alonso a few laps from home. A straight to the point solution. It could be even worse if the engineer did not detect it. It could be a catastrophy if Massa end up not having any points at all. He was forced to satisfy with three points, the same as Raikkonen. On the way back to the pit, he was stranded beside the track.

Heidfeld shows where BMW are in relative performance. He score two points, just ahead of Nico Rosberg. Kubica meanwhile finished eleventh, still searching for that few tenths that saw him fighting for the win in Australia earlier in the season.

Hamilton finishes outside of the points, sealing the fact that in the first round of upgrades McLaren are already fallen behind. I'm going to say this again - we could see the worst attempt at defending a World Championship yet.

Timo Glock, the last Toyota in contention did not finished in points either. One third of the diffuser gang, the TF1.09 clearly lack the pace in high speed corners of Catalunya. Trulli, lost the race in the third corner, means that Toyota came out of the Spanish Grand Prix empty-handed.

The next round will be the tight corners around Monte Carlo, Monaco - where aerodynamic and car balance is nothing and fuel load doesn't mean anything. The further up you are, the better you'll perform. Unless there's safety car period. Or rain. Or a big red Ferrari crash in your behind.

Review : 2009 Gran Premio de Espana Telefonica, Qualifying and Practice Sessions

As predicted, everybody on the paddock was running various testing all Friday. Catalunya saw teams like Ferrari and BMW with major updates on their cars. Small parts did come for Force India, Renault and Brawn, but it seems McLaren are not introducing new updates on the MP4-24. The Red Bulls and Toro Rosso are similarly going to be fine tuned, rather than adopting new parts.

Friday practice sessions nowadays is not a definite indication of relative team performances. It's not like a few years back where the practice sessions are not that far off. Saturday session give somewhat a better clue.


PRACTICE 2



Nico Rosberg again topped the second free practice, but this time in style. Nakajima complete a one-two, pressing the fact that they might have got their act together that both cars are showing promising pace.

Alonso, facing a home crowd, is definitely going to monster the car as high of grid position as he could. He clocked the third fastest time in Practice 2.


PRACTICE 3



In Practice 3, the one that might shown the real pecking order of the week, the Ferraris topped the timesheet. Both the F60s clocked under the low 1:21:00, lower than last year's pole.

If previous practice sessions throughout the season are any indication, the Brawn should get a few tenth of a second than the time they set in the last practice. Even half a second slower, if they can find that few tenth, it could mean that they are still in front.


QUALIFYING



Qualifying is a big blunder for Ferrari again, and this time, it involves Raikkonen. He failed to qualify for Q2 and got stuck at 16th. It is a shame because the Ferraris do have the pace - Massa qualify third and have the pace of the Brawns and Red Bulls. Steve Slater insists that Raikkonen still have gremlins on the car but the team chose to hide it via a calculated tactical blunder, a 'smokescreen' to the real problem. A lighter chasis for Raikkonen does not mean anything after an electronic, hydraulic or mechanical malfunction.

The more surprise is that the McLarens are not far off from Raikkonen, and there's nothing or no one at fault. Kovalainen at a low 18th and defending world champion Hamilton is at 14th. If the season evolve like this, we could see the worse defend of a world championship yet. McLaren have finished their upgrade and it doesn't put them anywhere in the point scoring position. When the upgrades kick in for the other teams, they are simply left behind.

A near one-two for the Brawns saw Jenson Button lead the grid tomorrow. The fact that Jenson and Barichello are on the cleaner side of the track tomorrow will probably left the pack lead by the Brawns.

But being the only KERS-equipped car in the top ten, Massa is a big threat to the others, especially upon startup. If things goes okay for him, we could see the Scarlet Car jumping ahead the queue and simply take the lead. And being a little bit slower, he might just hold off the other car behind him.

One more thing, the Ferrari is heavier than the other four car! A delight in the Ferrari camp that without the extra weight, they might be as fast as the pole sitter! Here are the rest of the field at post qualifying weighing :

1. Jenson Button, Brawn GP, 646kg
2. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 651.5
3. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn GP, 649.5
4. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 655
5. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 651.5
6. Timo Glock, Toyota, 646.5
7. Jarno Trulli, Toyota, 655.5
8. Fernando Alonso, Renault, 645
9. Nico Rosberg, Williams, 668
10. Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber, 660
11. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams, 676.6
12. Nelson Piquet, Renault, 677.4
13. Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber, 676.3
14. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 683
15. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 678
16. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 673
17. Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Rosso, 669
18. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 657
19. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 675
20. Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India, 656

Anybody who took Steve Slater advice regarding the Toyotas to shine at Catalunya, I pity you all. Behind the Toyotas are a group of heavily fuelled cars - some of them might run a one stop strategy and finish in points.

Alonso, fuelled light for the Qualifying, secure eighth. Previous years saw Alonso to have good startup in Catalunya and similar circuit. He might overtake a fer cars in the process and seal a higher point score.

Catalunya have a short pit lane, some of the front running cars might do a three stop strategy as usually done by Ferrari in the Schumacher era. Fast flowing corners emphasize on the benefit of KERS. Only two teams opted to run KERS - Ferrari and McLaren. Renault and BMW chose to abandon the technology for Catalunya.

Review : 2009 Formula One Air Gulf Bahrain Grand Prix, Sakhir - Race Day

Jenson Button made it three wins in four races. As competitive as the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel could be, he cannot challenge for the win. And in my opinion, Button has Jarno Trulli to thank for.

In the second part of the race, after the first pit stop, Vettel and Barichello got held up by the Toyota of Jarno Trulli, which is on the prime tyre. Since the Toyota is clearly under the pace set by Jenson Button and the fact that it took some time for Vettel to make it pass the TF109, it created a quite comfortable gap between Button and Vettel. And on the last stint when both the BGP001 and RB5 change to the prime tyres, it is simply too far a distance for Vettel to catch the leading Brawn.

Alex Yoong, supported by Steve Slater in his blog, stated that the win is clearly a win for Jenson Button and not Brawn. They simply concluded that the Brawn is not that competitive as indicated by Barichello, sidelining the fact that Barichello was held up not only by Trulli, but Timo Glock as well in the earlier part of the race. The only thing right Jenson Button had done is to wrestle the third place with Hamilton earlier. He passed the McLaren on the very second round, on the first corner. Had Hamilton maintain the position, Button may have one hell of a difficult time to overtake the KERS-equipped MP4-24. When the Toyotas pit, earlier than others as expected, Jenson assumes the lead.

And thus, marking the first win in normal race condition for Jenson Button. The first win is in the wet in Hungary 2006; the second is under the safety car in Albert Park; and the third is sitting still on the starting grid as the race got red flagged in Sepang.



Hamilton made a superb run to third upon starting the race and ended up in fourth. On the option super-soft, he nearly challenge for the podium. After changing to the prime medium-hard tyres, the McLaren simply went off pace as Hamilton went further and further away from Rubens Barichello.

Raikkonen scores the first three points for Ferrari this season, thus not making history as the worst season ever for Ferrari. The crucial moment for Raikkonen was when he wrestle back the seventh place he lost to Timo Glock when the Ferrari driver comes out of the pit lane. A few laps later Nico Rosberg makes his last pit stop and comes out ninth, just behind the last point scorer Fernando Alonso.

Felipe Massa meanwhile have issues with his ECU and had to turn off his KERS device, making him stopped earlier and thus losing precious place in the race. The earlier stop for the KERS saw him fuelled and made his F60 heavier than the rest of the field. And the extra 30kg without the precious 80bhp, making him seem very burdened to monster the car. As suspicious as it could be, Ferrari has been having problems with the ECU misfiring a lot and at the same time damaged the KERS device from functioning in normal parameters. Note that the ECU is a standard unit produced by McLaren.

Ferrari did not install any new parts on the F60, but they focused on fine-tuning the car - and in some way it paid off. Compared to McLaren that has been spotting interim parts on Hamilton's MP4-24, the Scarlett Car is not that far off.

Nelson Piquet made quite an improvement as he secure tenth, closing the performance gap to his teammate. Piquet has been consistently out-qualified by Alonso 4-0 this season. If we take it from last season, Sakhir mark the 20th back-to-back race where Alonso has out-qualified his teammate.

Alonso's drinking water pump malfunctioned early in the race, he virtually dehidrated when the race finishes. He brave the car to secure eight place although at the time, he was probably on the brink of losing conciousness. When he parked his car on the parc ferme, he fell down and has to be attended by the medical team. Luckily there's no permanent damage.

Mark Webber, impeded by Sutil in qualifying and started 18th on the grid, manage to finish 11th. Has he started further up the grid, we might see some drivers losing their points.

The worst qualifying turns out to be the worst ever race result for the BMWs. Both BMWs are forced to pit early to change their front wing assembly as they damaged their nose cones. The fact that they already opted for a one-stop strategy when the race started made them almost three seconds off the pace of the front-runners and they have no way defending against the rest of the field. Their strategy, is definitely a one-stop although they eventually forced to do a two-stop, the first one being only for front nose change. A two-stop strategy might see them secure better results as they are running on KERS and lighter on fuel. This is simply because on the long run, the Force India and Toro Rosso will definitely left behind; the KERS will make the difference. Furthermore, Sakhir featured three long straights.

The run-in with Kazuki Nakajima didn't do any help for Kubica, who in pre-season was aiming for the championship. Nakajima later retired from the race. It nearly became a rare event where all the car made it to the chequered flag.

Sakhir mark the last of the first flyaway races. When the Formula One circus comes back to Europe, we might see a different pecking order. And most probably the order that will last until the end of the season.

The circuit of Catalunya bears hope for teams like McLaren, Ferrari, Renault and BMW that their upgrades will translate into a better performance. It is time for them to take back the lead, to claim what they know to be theirs - glory.

Review : 2009 Formula One Air Gulf Bahrain Grand Prix, Qualifying

It was hot, dry and dusty. In the first 30 minutes of the first practice session, it was reported that no teams are willing to go out, as everybody only have 14 set of tyres each in a race weekend and they would not want to ruin their tyres by running on the dusty track of Sakhir. The first car will effectively became the sweeper to clean the track.

And that role falls on Giancarlo Fisichella, the first VJM02 to run. Then the whole field follow suit.


PRACTICE 2



Lewis Hamilton topped the first practice, giving a much needed motivation to the McLaren team. Not only they are having issue with the car's pace, they are also in the midst of the lie-gate scandal which the result will be revealed on Wednesday. The fact that Hamilton topping the timesheet also meant McLaren are going in the right direction with their upgrades, as shown by the improvements they made in China a week ago.

For Practice 2 Nico Rosberg again topped the timesheet. This is officially the seventh time he did that this season. In an interview Nico said that the Williamses performed marvellously in a single lap but not over a race distance. The time 1:33:339 is just slightly a tenth the time Kubica clocked when he secure pole position last year in Sakhir. But the trend built up in the season so far dictate the time to be much lower in qualifying.


PRACTICE 3



Practice 3 indicates that the track have improved much better, as the times clocked are under the 1:33. Raikkonen, Hamilton and Massa seems to have found the pace that they need to challenge for a better spot in Q3.

The fact that Practice 2 left rubber laid onto the racing line improved it, shows what will happened in qualifying and in the race itself. Besides the dust, Sakhir is known to be slippery and in the path of crosswinds. It will not be as slippery on race day as the track has been cleared of dust and rubber laid in. But crosswind will challenge drivers' skills, especially on corners. Luckily Sakhir don't have high speed corners. It only depends on whether the wind is strong or not. This happens the same on the famous Silverstone.


QUALIFYING



In qualifying, I noticed that McLaren have somewhat a new structure for their air intakes. Either they have a new car or it is just an accessory to the air intake, neither can be confirmed as of now. In Australia, Malaysia and China, they spot air intakes which is similar to last year's MP4-23, but in Bahrain it looks more like the one on the BGP001.

No other source of reference mentioned about this either.

Trulli and Glock score a first Toyota 1-2 and earned it at the very last minutes of Q3. Sebastian Vettel, who secured third, was adamant that the Toyotas are running light. And he is right, as shown by the post-qualifying weighing :

1. Jarno Trulli, Toyota, 648.5 kg
2. Timo Glock, Toyota, 643
3. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 659
4. Jenson Button, Brawn GP, 652.5
5. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 652.5
6. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn GP, 649
7. Fernando Alonso, Renault, 650.5
8. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 664.5
9. Nico Rosberg, Williams, 670.5
10. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 671.5
11. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 678.5
12. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams, 680.9
13. Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber, 698.6
14. Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber, 696.3
15. Nelson Piquet, Renault, 677.6
16. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 678.5
17. Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India, 652
18. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 656
19. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 679
20. Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Rosso, 667.5

From this list, we can expect Timo Glock to pit first and Trulli a lap later. Assuming the average amount of fuel per lap, that is about 3.3 litres, Vettel have more than three laps to create enough gap for him to take the lead before pitting.

All other top ten drivers are on a conservative fuel load, except for the Ferraris and Nico Rosberg who seems tu run significantly heavier. The Scuderias might opt to run a different strategy since they know they are not there with the top runners.

Interesting to note is that the option tyres are performing better than the prime here in Sakhir. According to the teams, they recorded almost a second per lap slower for the prime tyres.

We can safely say that the Ferraris will be starting on the super-soft Bridgestone thus expecting to run longer on it. This will lessen their time running on the prime, at least theoretically. The strategy will be much the same for other top tens, except the Toyotas. They might be forced to use the prime on the last stint. This is simply because the other teams are running longer on the super-soft, and thus are most likely to have the luxury to use the prime on the last stint.

Alonso again demonstrate his mastery in driving his R29. While Piquet forced to satisfied qualifying in Q2 for the first time, Alonso managed to monster his machine further up the grid, securing seventh place.

It is another bad qualifying for the BMWs, as they struggle to find grip with their F1.09. The BMW opt to run with KERS on both cars, as well as Ferrari. NIck Heidfeld was never at the pace with the car, KERS or no KERS. Kubica, meanwhile might struggle to cope woth the extra 30kg at the back. The 80bhp might not propel him as fast as the other light drivers.

Force India fare better, emptying the last spot for the Toro Rosso of Bourdais. With a few more upgrades, the VJM02 might become a regular midfield contender. In the process, they might secure their elusive first points.

The track and ambient temperature registered to be hotter than last year and it could be as well the hottest race this season.

Review : 2009 Formula One Chinese Grand Prix, Shanghai - Race Day

It is definitely Schumacher-esque.

A superb drive in the rain legitimise Sebastian Vettel's status as the wet-race master. Two career wins, both in the rain, and both in Red Bull chassis. To make it sweeter, Mark Webber made it home second, completing a first Red Bull 1-2.

The performance so far, however, is not surprising as Vettel has shown remarkable pace since the opening race in Albert Park.

Jenson Button provide half of the entertainment in the race as he got to fight wheel to wheel for second place with Mark Webber. In the post race interview he later confessed that his BGP001 simply lack the pace in the rain.



The race started under safety car, which work well for the Red Bull strategy, but not so kind to Fernando Alonso. Alonso, although starting second on the grid, did not make most of his strategy. His Renault is only two lap lesser fuelwise, but his first pit is enough to stranded him in the midfield. He misses the point by finishing ninth, just in front of Raikkonen.

Kimi Raikkonen meanwhile, finished in his best result so far, a mere tenth place. The Ferrari team got it all wrong again this weekend as the rain forced Raikkonen to be under pace and to make it worse, got held up in the midfield after his pit stop.

Felipe Massa, running as high as third, retired with an electrical failure, which caused his F60 to misfire a few times before halted to a dead stop. At first it was thought the car got issues with the KERS system but later it was confirmed the issue is with the ECU unit.

Ferrari, according to principle Stefano Domenicalli, will not be integrating new components before Catalunya. It appears they will take longer to come up with a double rear diffuser solution, as the car have issues with KERS, which must be address first. BMW, McLaren, and Renault has been working on the rear diffuser for some time now.

Both McLarens finished in points, pointing out the improvements they made with the car. They used new front wings and an interim double diffuser at the back to provide extra downforce. This goes the same with Renault, with a new rear diffuser for Alonso.

The last of the big boys, BMW finished a low 12th and 13th. The car simply lost the handling in the rain, aquaplaning everywhere as shown by the BMW of Heidfeld. Robert Kubica have a suspense moment piggy backing Jarno Trulli in the front. Luckily he was on the way to the pit lane, and thus saving him time. But Trulli end up in the pit garage as his rear wings are destoyed in the crash.

This is the second time after Malaysia that BMW with all its Computational Fluid Dynamics research, do not handle well in the wet. A few races ahead has the risk of raining, i.e Spa-Franchorchamps and Fuji. Mario Theissen has a lot to think of in terms of improving the BMWs.

Glock was the best Toyota, finishing seventh as Trulli retired. The Williamses seems to be the only diffuser gang that has failed repeteadly to make use of the double diffuser. Although topping the timesheet in practices, they failed to deliver in racing distance.

Review : 2009 Formula One Chinese Grand Prix, Qualifying

A new force has arrived in Shanghai. No, it is not Force India.

The Red Bulls have dominated the qualifying session like they know how it will end. Mark Webber, who topped Q2, like the rest of the field went out more than 20 laps in the qualifying session, including in-laps and out-laps. Sebastian Vettel meanwhile, went out only 10 laps. In qualifying laps, that means three laps : one lap each for Q1, Q2, and Q3. And he got pole.

In one of the most exciting qualifying since Silverstone 2007, the Brawns have been relegated to fourth and fifth. And this time Barichello has out-qualify Button. And who out-qualify them instead? Fernando Alonso - the technical genius.


PRACTICE 2



Practice 2 saw Jenson Button topping the timesheet and teammate Barichello went third. Usual suspect, Nico Rosberg, did not continue his practice time streak when he topped the time in Practice 1.

It was also reported that in Practice 1, Fernando Alonso's R29 was running on interim rear diffuser and they broke. That must have compromised other components on his Renault, as he clocked two second off pace in both Practice 2 and 3.


PRACTICE 3



In Practice 3, Nico Rosberg continues his dominance as he topped the timesheet the sixth time in nine practice sessions. Formula One analysts and followers will be having tough times figuring the Williams performance. Are they competitive or are they not? Most of us already agreed that they are like the Scuderi Ferraris - just plain bad luck.

It is noticeable that both Hamilton and Kovalainen are clocking better times. The MP4-24 of Hamilton is on new aero package, explaining his better pace. McLaren are really quick turning their performance his season, as proved by Heikki Kovalainen's car. While Ferrari, BMW, Renault and Red Bull busy protesting the double diffuser, McLaren have long develop a rear diffuser solution for their machines.

The Ferraris are as usual lingering withing the reach of top ten places. But plain bad luck and error in strategies made them unable to maximize the F60 package.


QUALIFYING



Back to qualifying. Alonso's mechanic are to be praised for. They have managed to repair the Renault to the extend that the double World Champion grabbed front row.

The Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel reportedly have mechanical concerns, that's why he minimize his qualifying laps. The issue occur on Mark Webber's RB5 as well but the mechanics solved it. If it happen Vettel did not finish tomorrow, then Fernando Alonso will have a bright chance to secure his first win of the season.

The Brawns are a little bit under the pace. To me it is simply Ferrari doing Massa's qualifying. They have broken the cardinal rule of competition - they underestimated their rivals. That alone is more than enough to push Barichello and Button to fourth and fifth respectively.

Felipe Massa did not make it to Q3 as well as Kovalainen. The surprise of the season, aside of the Ferrari, is the performance of the BMWs. Especiallt Robert Kubica, who struggle without the KERS. Although he run as high as third in Australia, it is obvious he's not going to be in point scoring pace. Heidfeld fare better, almost made it to Q3.

According to the weather forecast, there is 85% chance it is going to rain in Shanghai tomorrow. If it does rain heavily, it might halt the startup. If it is just a mild one, they might start behind the safety car until Charlie Whiting believes it is safe to go race pace.

If it rains, most probably Vettel will repeat his performance at Monza last year, even more, he is starting from pole. But we cannot brush off both the Brawns and Alonso, as Malaysia is not a definite reference to this year's cars performance in wet.

And since we know the weight of the cars, we can expect a few surprises if it does rain.

1. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 644kg
2. Fernando Alonso, Renault, 637
3. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 646.5
4. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn GP, 661
5. Jenson Button, Brawn GP, 659
6. Jarno Trulli, Toyota, 664.5
7. Nico Rosberg, Williams, 650.5
8. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 673.5
9. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 679
10. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 673
11. Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber, 679
12. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 697
13. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 690
14. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams, 682.7
15. Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Rosso, 690
16. Nelson Piquet, Renault, 697.9
17. Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber, 659
18. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 648
19. Timo Glock, Toyota, 652
20. Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India, 679.5

Alonso is the lightest in the top ten. That might not be good in rain pace, or if they started behind the safety car. Heikki Kovalainen and Felipe Massa is heavier than the rest, they might score some unexpected points tomorrow.

Review : 2009 Formula One Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix, Sepang - Race Day

A torrential Malaysian Grand Prix. Something that has not happened in a while. Thank you to the FIA for moving the race later in the evening, which all of us know, a time when rain is expected. Almost unavoidable.



Congratulations are in order for Jenson Button, the other Briton, who won his second consecutive Grand Prix. Even with all the chaos ensues because of the rain, he still manage to come up top when the race was red flagged. At the start, he was overtook by Nico Rosberg who lead the pack for quite some laps. As we can see on the above lap chart, Button took the lead back on lap 17.

Equally impressive are the two world champions, Alonso and Raikkonen. They had wonderful start, passing a few cars each. Alonso passed 5 cars. Raikkonen initially was behind him but got hold off a few turns later before he got to see the back of the Reanult. Alonso had his R29 under the race pace, but he manage to hold off Kimi Raikkonen for some time before both Raikkonen and Webber secure the 5th and 6th place by overtaking him. Alonso, at one point ran wide off the track, managed to navigate the boundary of the gravel trap and ashtonishingly got back into contention. As good as he is, this could be the first time in recent memories a driver managed to out-trap the gravel trap!



The big gainer is Nick Heidfeld. With just one pit stop, he manage to cater the car for both wet tyres and fuel. The situation played into his hand when the race was stopped and later declared over. At first there was confusion that Heidfeld is the third place driver, but the FIA officials re-arranged the field in possibility of a restart.

Timo Glock, who did a splash and dash pit stop, gained the most strategically. This is because he simply don't have enough fuel to continue the race all the way. The race stopped means he can keep his third place. In accordance to FIA rules, all the drivers that finished in points will be only awarded half the point as they didn't run at least 75% of the race laps.

Malaysian GP also saw tyre strategy at its best as most drivers have to pit 3 times to change from slicks to intermediate, and then to full wet. Renault doesn't seem to have the advantage of superior accurateness in meteorological forecast like previous seasons anymore. Usually we can see that rival pit crews peeking at Renault weather forecast to decide when to call in the cars.

Astonishingly, Raikkonen was the quickest to change to full wet. Again, this is an example of Ferrari making error in strategy. Kimi was forced to run the full wet the entire 3 laps before it got to rain. And only one side of the track is wet! And even then most drivers are running on intermediate. The track was simply not ready for full wet. In the first few laps, the track surface temperature is about 50 degree Celcius. So you can imagine how his full wet Bridgestone Potenza must have deteriorated.

At the end Kimi was classified 14th, blatantly the last on the grid. When the race was red-flagged, he don't even have the patience to wait. While most of the other drivers are still in their cars waiting for a restart, he changed into his shorts and was seen eating ice-cream in the Ferrari motorhome. Even Malaysians don't eat ice-cream when it rains!

Maybe he knows or has been advised by somebody experienced that the race will not be restarted. Only if he has that advise on changing to wet tyres!

As predicted, the slick tyres did saw a few drivers spun out of the track quite dangerously although Nick Heidfeld later in the post race interview mentioned they were running at 50km/h at the most. I wonder what kind of incident will we see if it rains again in Shanghai, Spa-Francorchamps, or Nurburgring? In 2007 the German track saw eight cars forcefully 'parked' at Turn One, the Castrol S, including rookie Hamilton due to severe aquaplaning.

This emphasis more on the correct decision on what time is the most ideal to change to wet tyres. If the driver is far from the pitlane, he might not continue the race altogether. The cruise in wet on slicks will probably see drivers spun out or hit another car.

All in all, it was a shame the rain had force Charlie Whitting to stop the race. A hot Malaysian GP, always touted as the hottest race on the calendar, is better and more entertaining. A poker race like this one is also entertaining but on a more lower level. A wet race is good, but it is only good if they actually made it to the checquered flag.

Review : 2009 Formula One Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix, Qualifying

In Practice 3, Nico Rosberg reestablish himself as the fastest driver, with the Ferraris securing 4th and 7th palce, the latter being for Kimi Raikkonen. Equally impressive is the form of the two RB5. Mark Webber outperformed his teammate Sebastian Vettel to put both Red Bull in a comfortable position.



The Qualifying saw the Ferraris having a hard time translating their Practice 2 form. It appears they have issues on the second and third sector of the Sepang circuit, most probably due to their front wing design. The Malaysian leg of Formula 1 has favoured the Scuderias many times before, so it is quite a surprise they have issues with this circuit.

The Ferrari has also made an error in judgement relating to Felipe Massa's strategy. Although Steve Slater speculate that he have mechanical issue with his F60 and therefore explains why he didn't do censecutive runs in Q1, we at home has been aware that it was simply a strategy error. The team believes the time set by Massa is quick enough to qualify for Q2. To save the engine, gearbox, tyres, etc., thwy chose to not to run again. That's how Massa goteliminated in Q1 and only manage to secure the 16th spot.

Button did it again for Brawn. Barichello has been penalised 5 grid position and going to start 9th, elevating Raikkonen to 8th. Vettel is on 10 place penalty as well, making him 13th on the provisional grid, thus Hamilton will start at the 12th spot alongside Kazuki Nakajima. That elevated Raikkonen to 7th and Barichello 8th, as well Alonso and Heidfeld.

A very cool step taken by the FIA this season is to make public the weights of all cars ahead of the race start to help give an idea of relative fuel loads. Bear in mind the minimum weight allowed for the cars is 605kg. Here is the list :

1. Jenson Button, Brawn GP, 660kg
2. Jarno Trulli, Toyota, 656.5
3. Timo Glock, Toyota, 656.5
4. Nico Rosberg, Williams, 656
5. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 656
6. Robert Kubica, BMW-Sauber, 663
7. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 662.5
8. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn, 664.5
9. Fernando Alonso, Renault, 680.5
10. Nick Heidfeld, BMW-Sauber, 692
11. Kazuki Nakajima,Williams, 683.4
12. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 688
13. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 647
14. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 688.9
15. Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Rosso, 670.5
16. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 689.5
17. Nelson Piquet, Renault, 681.9
18. Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India, 680.5
19. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 655.5
20. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 686.5

We can see that Vettel is so light, no wonder he is so fast. And he didn't sweat a bead after qualifying. In post qualifying interview, he said "Yeah thanks. I'm still young...". Assumingly, he has the same fuel load as Mark Webber, only that he is skinnier.

Noticably, Alonso, Heidfeld, Nakajima, Massa and the two McLarens are heavy, most probably carrying extra fuel load. We can also extrapolate that Raikkonen and Kubica will be pitting later that the top 5, if they have no other issue like graining or even worse, a collision. But Sepang has seldom see the Safety Car being deployed. The local newspaper reported that since 1999, only once the Safety Car has been leading the field.

Rain is highly expected. As of now, we don't have any info on how the cars will behave in rain. Furthermore slicks will cause the car to slide more compared to the grooved tyres.

Jenson Button is expected on the podium, but strategically, Alonso and Raikkonen can create a surprise. Don't count them out yet.

Review : 2009 Formula One Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix, Practice Sessions

PRACTICE 1

Nico Rosberg made it four in a row for topping the timesheet in Practice 1 in Malaysia. Instinctively many will assume teams are maximizing pratice times as mini testing sesion. Therefore, not much are expected from the times clocked. It will be like earlier winter testing where each teams were running different programs, and hence, different lap times. However the Scuderias are giving quite promising pace compared to teams that are running controversial rear diffuser.

Felipe Massa in an interview mentioned for the time being, the flyaway races are almost definitely going to be dominated by the Brawns and Toyota. It appears the Williams having issue maximizing the rear diffuser in racing condition. Jenson Button, the championship leader, however remain humble and realistic when he says "the Ferrari will catch up, they always do...". And the other teams must not let them. Simply because when they did in the past, no one can catch them up back.


PRACTICE 2

Surprise, surprise. The Ferraris are at the top of the timesheet for Practice 2. But being realistic, this doesn't imply anything concrete. As mentioned before, teams are most likely running different programs, i.e the McLarens are testing new rear wings. And therefore most definitely explains the lap time. Sebastian Vettel seems to be testing race runs for his Red Bull. And he is third. If it rains, he will have the first chance to experience the Red Bull in the wet. If it's not for the 10 place penalty, he will definitely be a threat to the front runners.

Review : 2009 Formula One ING Australian Grand Prix, Albert Park

As usual, the Australian Grand Prix seldom reveal the true pecking order in Formula One. Not only it is a street circuit, making it less technical than purposely built circuits, but also because there exist wheather variance that did not occur on other circuits, which all of them located on the northern hemisphere, except for Sao Paolo and Albert Park of course.

Last year we saw what would probably be the bushiest trimmed grass for any circuit at Albert Park, that might be the cause for few accidents last year (but nobody even bother blaming the untrimmed grass). This year, besides the much cooler temperature, the twilight condition was also brought up by few drivers. Who knew that it will get dark so soon in Australia besides the Australian themselves?

Starting the race, Barichello reportedly have issues with his anti-stall system. It has left him to lose a few places. As expected, those with 'holes' in the rear diffuser - no pun intended - command the race, bar the Williams, sadly. Nico Rosberg did not fulfill his topping three practice time expectations, and so does Nakajima.

Surprisingly, the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel and the BMW of Robert Kubica do have the pace to keep up with Jenson Button, although they don't even have neither KERS nor double rear diffusers on their respective cars. Although they eventually got out of contention, this might prove a crucial point. Given the right condition, a good driver can cope without KERS or hole in their rear diffusers. On a very technical circuit, say Sepang, KERS might be a big advantage. But maybe, not the rear diffusers.

Noticably, Fernando Alonso is already comfortable with the KERS. although his R29 is lacking the pace, he managed to deter Timo Glock from getting a clean overtake. So, KERS actually can nullify the threat from elevated, double rear diffuser. Alonso knows that very well.

Although Lewis Hamilton claims every driver use the KERS on every lap, Kimi Raikkonen candidly said he only used it for the first few laps. Maybe some driver finds it hard to add new routine to his driving, but those who can adapt faster is certainly a step ahead.

Tyre wear is something different this season. Bridgestone had promised to have a wider difference from the option and the prime tyres. Instead of providing medium and soft compound, they provided the teams with medium and super-soft tyres at Albert Park. That means tyre wear will get two fold on the option. Massa and Raikkonen learned this first hand as they are forced to pit earlier due to graining on the slicks.

As we all know, Trulli was initially denied the second runner-up, but later was reinstated by the Sepang stewards. Shockingly, this is because they gain new evidence that Lewis Hamilton had misled the stewards at Albert Park to think that Trulli had overtake him under Yellow Flag (Safety Car), while the truth remains , he was instructed to let the Toyota passed by. The consequence could be that he will disqualified altogether from this season's championship. In our lifetime, this could be the first time a driver caught lying to the stewards red handed. In laymen word, he lied to the stewards. This might left a deeper scar in his career, more than Jerez 1997 hurts Schumacher's image. And we all now how lucky Hamilton was with his first world title - he rammed into the back of Raikkonen's F2008, late brake at Fuji's first corner, dangerous overtaking manouvres, illegally overtook Raikkonen at Spa-Francorchamps, and the list goes on... If you put it into perspective, you might lean to think he was attacking Raikkonen all year long! 

He really need to have a senior teaching him.


Let's go back to Albert Park.



Judging from the lap chart, the Brawns were the consistent ones, and the Toyotas were the biggest gainers. As usual at Albert Park, Safety Car period made it quite a chaos pecking order-wise. Even Lewis Hamilton who started at the back of the field made it to fourth, although later disqualified.



Qualifying proves the Brawns are not running light. Although the rear diffuser comes under protest, it doesn't explain why the other two cars with such diffusers are not as fast as the Brawns. Most probably the air intake design that gave it the speed. The other teams seems to adopt the intake design and principals from the previous seasons, while the Brawns brought in something from the 90's.

There's also a wide performance difference from the two Red Bulls and BMWs. The slicks and lower downforce has left the season to be dominated by drivers that have braver driving style. Kubica and Vettel are known to be harder on the kerbs and adventurous at braking. Vettel is also exceptional in the wet, although this season might prove different with new cars.



The Brawns dominated both the qualifying and the race with classy 1-2. Other than those running with controversial rear diffusers, it seems Red Bull, BMW and Ferari are the teams who can challenge for the win, if the status quo remains.

If the FIA decided the diffusers are legal, then we will see more of the teams using it in Barcelona. Maybe Bahrain at the earliest.

TOP 10 NEWS WORTHY OF YOUR ATTENTION : THE 2009 PRE-SEASON

In plain, laymen words. That is how we intend the blog to be. Well, maybe not so laymen, as you need to be a seasoned F1 follower to capture the excitement together with us. Here are our top 10 news, to encapsulate all the events and speculations that has been going on in pre-season :

1- SPONSORS OUT, COST TO GO DOWN
Both ING and Royal Bank of Scotland has confirmed to not to continue their current sponsorships of F1 teams and races once the tenure has ended. Too bad for the sport! Not only Honda pulled out at the end of last season (but was saved by team principal Ross Brawn, which owned the team right now), it seems the global economic crunch has left the sport with lot less money to spend. Incidentally, the FIA has been exercising the cost cut since last year and the economic crisis just emphasis more about the need to cut cost. Even drivers got less salary. Excluding Kimi, maybe...

2- WEBBER IS ALRIGHT
Mark Webber has recovered ahead of schedule from a broken leg which he got in an accident. He got hit by a vehicle while participating in his own charity triathlon. Not only he recovered, both he and teammate Sebastian Vettel clocked awesome runs in their new Red Bull, at the moment seems to be the prettiest car in F1 paddock. Their pre-season form has left Christian Horner confident they'll be challenging for many wins this coming season. Hey, Vettel can win in a Toro Rosso, why not the reliably fast Red Bull?

3- McLAREN MP4-24s ARE NOT THAT FAST
Not only that, they also have problems with reliability, rear diffuser reliability and tyre wear. In spite of all these, Bernie Eccelstone still believes McLaren are sandbagging. Alonso might be right about the Ferraris sandbagging in testings in 2007, but that is simply because in initial testing they were supebly fast. In the McLaren case, they have never really been the fastest in any testing. But that remains to be seen since they have advanced computers to process any data they collected during testing. That might leave them the room to appear sandbagging. If they are really that slow, people will start to think that McLaren-Mercedes do gain advantages from Ferrari data during the spy saga and the most important thing of all, Hamilton is not that excellent of a test driver. Maybe he is missing the genius input from the man who ended Schumacher's reign, Fernando Alonso. Come to think of it, Alonso did play a part in developing the 2008 car, right? Hmmm...

4- SUPER FAST BGP001
The Year of The Dark Horse? Most probably, maybe. Although there have been unofficial protest by Flavio Briatore and Stefano Domenicali regarding their rear diffuser, they still clocked the fastest time in all their testings. For both Jensen Button and Rubens Barichello. Reminiscing the era of Michael Schumacher, the man behind him on both his Benetton and Ferrari title wins, is Ross Brawn. He's about to do it again.

5- RON DENNIS OUT OF McLAREN, JEAN TODT OUT OF FERRARI
Ron Dennis has left the team principal seat at McLaren and now Martin Whitmarsh is in command. Jean Todt has also resigned from all his Ferrari posts, after more than 15 years at Ferrari. The two men resemble one of the longest and exciting rivalry in Formula One. Statistically, Jean Todt beaten Ron Dennis hands down. According to Dennis he will still follow F1 races as he is still the CEO of McLaren Group.

6- FORCE INDIA ASPIRE TO BE MIDFIELDER
After a pointless season, Force India, with renewed confidence in McLaren engine and gearbox, declared they are aspiring to be midfield team in 2009. It is not an empty promise as they have clocked times in testing that are worthy of being a midfield team. The teams that are most probably swap places with Force India as backmarkers will be Toro Rosso, Williams, and not surprisingly, McLaren Mercedes. But it remains a speculation from the runs they clocked during testing. Who knows, maybe both Force India and McLaren are sandbagging. Then we will see them fight for the championship!

7- THREE SEBASTIANS
Of course there are slight differences in the spelling, but who cares? Bourdais remains to prove his worth in the Toro Rosso, but the likeliness of the slick tyres in 2009 to the one he had in his ChampCar years might prove a big advantage. The other two Sebs has proven themselves. Buemi is knows to be very good in testing last year and Vettel not only got the first ever pole position for Toro Rosso and the first Grand Prix win afterwards, he also collected points more than his 'seniors' in Red Bull. He might be as well fighting for podiums regularly this season. Just hope the Steves on ESPN Star Sports will not mistaken the Sebs from one another!

8- MORE WINNERS EXPECTED
Last year has been one hell of a season. There were 7 Grand Prix winners in all - Lewis Hamilton, Heikki Kovalainen, Kimi Raikonnen, Felipe Massa, Robert Kubica, Fernando Alonso, and Sebastian Vettel. This season, we can expect more GP winners, provided there are no teams that have total domination, like in 2002. Raikkonen and Massa are expected, but Hamilton and Kovalainen might stay out in their current conditions. Alonso seems to be strong, twice as better as his teammate. Vettel is hungry for more, and the BMWs and Toyotas seems to be genuine frontrunner. In this kind of scenario, reliability is the key.

9- SCHUMACHER, COULTHARD AND BARICHELLO
The three of them began their Formula One career at around the same time. Two of them has retired and currently still serving their former teams. Schumacher will be given more task and are expected to give more input to Ferrari, even at the pit. The Scuderia is getting serious after losing last year's driver title by a hair's width. Coulthard will be the official reserve driver for Toro Rosso and Red Bull in the first two races. Other that that, he is attached to BBC as commentator (or pundit as they prefer to be called...). But Barichello, he is still a spirited stallion. Already being the longest F1 career in history, he is going to take the record further. Well, he seems set to be going well this season, he might stay another year or two!

10- STILL THE SAME OLD POINT SYSTEM
The proposed medal system will have to wait until 2010. This means the most win of the season might not be the World Champion. Ironically they have the system changed in the first place so that people who cannot win races but consistent throughout the year can also become World Champion. Now they are reversing it back. When most of us are still in primary school, the winner got to get 10 points and the runner-up, 6 points. Then they changed it to 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1. Next year will be different. Kimi says we might have a world champion who got less points that a runner-up or third place. Meanwhile, Alonso says FIA should not change the rules and regulations so regularly. Simon didn't say anything...