Australian Grand Prix - Vettel on top down under

Crikey, there’s a lot going on in F1 2011, isn’t there? Unless you’re Hispania of course.

DRS, KERS, tyre strategies and degradation rates, plus the fact of that young German chappie bagging pole by a substantial margin (and it then turned out he hasn’t even got KERS on the car) all made for an interesting qualifying session on Saturday. The McLaren boys breathed a planet-sized sigh of relief and finally came good after eating an octopus (or something), Petrov was pretty handily in the top 10, as was Kobayashi, whilst Schumi struggled, Rubens parked it, Sutil miraculously avoided a huge shunt and Heidfeld managed to go out in the first session. Oh, and Lotus were a bit crap, but not as crap at HRT, who didn’t make it round inside a fortnight of the other teams (or is its 107%? They mean pretty much the same thing in F1), and therefore suffered the F1 equivalent of “you can’t play on our track, you smell!”. No mileage = no chance to improve. Can anyone see them lasting the season?

And so, at stupid’o’clock UK time, the first race of the F1 season finally took place. Vettel took off like... well, Vettel really, and rapidly pulled out a lead, whilst Hamilton hung on in hot pursuit. Button found himself stuck behind Massa’s big-assed Ferrari and tried hard for lap after lap to get past, before impatience got the better of him and he had a go that resulted in him using a bit of spare track to complete the move. He later claimed he was in front, but the stewards heard the sound of jingling bells from their legs and gave him a drive-thru. Barrichello pulled off a beautiful move to nip between Kobayashi and Schumi for position, only to undo all his street-cred (and more) shortly afterwards by coming at Rosberg so late, he may as well have started his move last season. Another drive-thru was awarded. As expected, who needed tyres and how often became a central feature of the race, with the likes of Webber needing three stops, whilst newbie Perez somehow got by on one. Hamilton suffered a broken undertray, but it didn’t seem to slow him unduly, Whilst Petrov drove the race of his career to find himself heading for the podium and ahead Alonso, Webber and Button.

At the flag, Vettel won ominously comfortably from Hamilton, with Petrov (and Renault) a delighted 3rd, trailed by Alonso, Webber and Button. Perez and Kobayashi came in 7th and 8th, but later got dumped out of the race for illegal rear wing actuators. Yeah I know. Don’t you just hate it when the rear wing actuators are illegal? Bah. After their removal, Massa, Buemi, Sutil and di Resta rounded out the top 10, the latter getting his F1 career off to a good start.

In the commentary box, Brundle acquitted himself well on his first foray as lead commentator, and DC did OK, apart from saying “and bits and bobs” to end sentences a bit too often. Well, he is 40 now – you mind starts to go. It still seems unwise to let a man like Eddie Jordan have more airtime, considering his propensity to give three answers, only one of which has anything vaguely to do with the original question. Still, it’s bloody great to have F1 back, isn’t it?!

(Playing on the record machine tonight, the 12" version of "Little Lies" by Fleetwood Mac. Damn, those girls had big hair in the 80's!)

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

Unstable Stables: Throw away the key

It’s comforting to know that there is one less threat to the people of Cumbria this week, following the conviction of white supremacist, Ethan Stables. The 20 year old from Barrow had planned to attack the town’s New Empire pub in June 2017, in the midst of a gay pride event. Despite social media posts saying he was “going to war” and planning to “slaughter”, online searches about how to make bombs and chemical poisons, and expressing hatred of Muslims, Jews and gay people, he claimed his online comments were merely to impress far-right friends. Fortunately, following Facebook posts about his intentions, the police were tipped off and armed officers intercepted him as he headed towards the pub. His aim was to kill anyone he found, with a machete. In a bizarre slip-up, Stables had erroneously added an innocent woman to his neo-Nazi Facebook group. When he vented his outrage at the Furness LGBT support group’s event, the shocked woman contacted the authorities. He’ll have ple...

Is it foggy? No.

When I get put in charge (which is bound to happen soon), I'm going to introduce a whole raft of new laws, for I shall be a just and fair ruler. I'm quite liking the title of 'Most Marvellous Emperor Of Sensible Regulations And Bountiful Lovingness Not To Mention Exceedingly Handsome', but it might be a bit long. On that basis, I'll settle for the more informal 'He Who Is Smashing' from my loyal subjects. Anyway, I digress. I do that sometimes - had you noticed? Here, then, is the first law that will introduced: grumpyf1 law No.1 - Turn your fog lights off, you complete git. Don't get me wrong; If it genuinely is foggy, fog lights are quite handy. The reason for introduction of this law is because 96% of the time (based on my own in-depth research) it isn't foggy when some utter cockwomble blinds you. This has always been a bit of a problem but in the last couple of years it seems to have escalated out of control, possibly because of the...

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