F1 season start - Melbourne

The season has begun and the absence of driver aids has made it thrilling and full of suspense. A driver could be leading the pack and could loose it all out by getting onto the gravel in the last turn or a little too much speed and the attempt to control it could end the race. This year's season is going to be dependent on the driver more than the technology as we've seen in the past 5 years. Being a McLaren fan it was disappointing to see McLaren car bear numbers 23 & 24, I've never seen the car go below 10 in the last 11 yrs that I've been following F1. But, if this was a fight between the Big Daddy of FIA (read Max 'the rat' Mosley) and Ron Dennis the first round has gone to the latter. Kimi had engine problems at the end of Q3 and was barred from taking part in Q2. Massa did a splendid drive to get a position in the second row for tomorrow. Lewis Hamilton continued his top run and took pole, Kubica did an awesome drive by taking P2 despite the huge oversteer and subsequent run out of the kerbs into the last corner.

The new qualifying format allows all cars to run in Q3 (20 minutes), six slowest cars drop out at the end of Q3. The remaining 16 cars will then run in 15 minutes at the end of which the six slowest cars will drop out at the end of this session. The final session Q1 will run 1o cars and lasts for 10 minutes which will determing the positiong of the cars from 1 to 1o on the race the next day. The fuel burn in lap has been done with and cars can have as much runs as possible in any qualifying window the most important being how well a car does in Q1 if it get's through the other two sessions. The year has begun well, over to the race tomorrow. If one has to go by McLaren's form last year and the look this morning the race is theirs.