The FIA have finally managed to do something right for the sport. The new raft of rule changes over the closed season have made a massive impact! It has literally turned the grid upside down from what it was last year; gone is the Ferrari/McLaren dominance and in comes Brawn GP, Red Bull and Renault. Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel knocked his team mate Mark Webber off pole position with a minute left. Then the Renault of Fernando Alonso knocked Webber off the front row after the chequered flag had dropped. The Brawn’s are back in fourth and fifth with Rubens getting the better of Jenson for the first time this season. Although I expect the Brawn cars to be running heavier to be that far down the grid, I won’t be surprised to see the Renault powered cars pitting early in the race. Jarno Trulli continued his good start to the season qualifying in sixth place behind the Brawn’s. The Toyota powered Williams qualified in seventh behind the factory team car of Trulli. The highest of last years leading cars was the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen closely followed by current world champions Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren. Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi rounded out the top 10 with the other McLaren’s and Ferrari’s in 12th and 13th respectively. I’m really looking forward to F1 races again after many years of having two horse races, it’s nice to see other teams and drivers challenging for poles and race wins, exciting stuff!
On a side note, I have been generally impressed with the Speed TV coverage of Formula 1. I expected it to be very Americanised with lots of NASCAR / Indycar commentators that didn’t know much about the intricacies of F1. But the commentary has been as good as what I saw on ITV last year, very knowledgeable and informative. The only thing I don’t like is the amount of advertising, for example they put an advert break in the middle of Q1 and Q2, which is highly annoying as these sessions are only 20 minutes in length. But all in all I have been impressed.