Australian GP - Button up down under

If one thing was clear from pre-season testing, it was that nothing was clear at all. Except that Ferrari seemed to be only marginally quicker that an HRT which, considering they hadn’t actually managed to build a car at that stage, was reasonably bad news.
 

Quali for the Oz GP proved that the established order of 2011 did seem to have received a bit of a shake up, with the initial shock of Raikkonen’s return resulting in him dropping out in Q1. Alonso binned it in Q2, leaving him in a lowly 12^th, whilst Massa only managed a hopeless 16^th. He’d better start checking where his nearest Job Centre is. Maldonado managed to haul a Williams into the top 10, whilst the front end of the grid didn’t feature any pointy fingers, with Hamilton bagging pole from Button with Webber and Vettel only 5^th and 6^th. In-between the McLa’s and Red B’s, Schumi bagged a tidy 4^th, but the returning Grosjean popped into an impressive 3^rd.

The BBC’s coverage of quail, considering it ran for a grand total of 75 minutes, was pretty effective, although I though the new opening titles were a bit duff. I want the merging cars back and the spark plug noises! Ben Edwards was OK (although I did miss Brundle) and Gary Anderson slightly hard to follow, and obsessed with tyres.

For the race, I found myself a bit startled that Vettel caught Alonso up so rapidy following an off-track moment, before realising, with a heavy heart, that a couple of laps had gone AWOL. As expected, the main problem was missing the subtle ebb and flow of gaps between drivers, and the chance to see cars just running at speed – everything was chopped and changed pretty rapidly, but I guess that’s the nature of the beast. Some graphics showing the grid pre-race would have been nice, and it would have been useful to know Perez had dropped to the back because of a gearbox change. I am trying to run a FF1 contest, dammit! Not seeing and post-race press conference was a bit disappointing – I’d have preferred that to another 5 minutes of EJ’s babbling. And the moments when the drivers leave their cars and head to the podium is always revealing, but we didn’t get that either. Solution? Drop most of the chit chat, and stick with the action. Chances of this happening? As likely as EJ wearing a sensible shirt.

The race itself was a belter! Button out-dragged Hamilton to the first corner, with Hulkenberg’s F1 return ending at the same place, whilst Webber found himself squeezed from both sides and was lucky to survive unscathed.

As Button gently eased away, Grosjean’s great weekend ended dramatically when Maldonado robustly defended his position, breaking the Frenchman’s suspension. I suspect we’ll be seeing more of the Grosjeangenie as the season goes on, though.

Schumacher had an off track excursion as a result of gearbox problems, causing him to retire early on. With Button 3 seconds ahead by lap 12, and as the first pit stops took place, Hamilton found himself stuck behind Perez, who seemed to be in some kind of contest to see how long you can make a set of tyres last. Sergio also managed to hold up Vettel and Alonso too, the fluffy-eyebrowed one having a better race than quail had suggested.

Petrov parked on the pit straight, bringing out the Safety Car mid race, but Button got a good re-start from Vettel and Hamilton to maintain his lead.

Massa’s special trouble-attracting paint-job did the trick again, keeping up his disastrous form from last season, but this time it wasn’t Hamilton but fellow countryman Senna who got sucked in to a lengthy entanglement, Bruno already being royally shown up by Maldonado (which is a bit like being show up by your Gran at breakdancing) in the sister Williams. Senna managed to limp round to the pits and get going again, but Felipe parked it up in the Ferrari garage.

Remarkably, Maldonado was battling Alonso for 5^th, but despite heading for more points that Williams managed all last season, he tried a bit too hard and lost it on the last lap, crashing out in spectacular fashion. Somewhere in the UK, Patrick Head broke a coffee table in half by swearing loudly.

Rosberg’s race went wonky too, as his seemingly went into free-fall down the pack, and whilst JB crossed the line for a well-deserved victory, Ricciardo, Vergne, di Resta and Perez (who was running what was left of only his second set of tyres) provided a thrilling finish as they battled over the last few points positions.

Kobayashi had a battling race for 6^th, many of them with Raikkonen, who heralded a quality return with 7^th.

All in all, a great way to get 2012 under-way, and we look set for an exciting and close season, if this race was anything to go by. And we only have a week to wait to find out, too. Happy days!

So... how was Sky’s coverage then..? (Answers consisting only of ‘longer’ not welcome...)