2011 Melbourne GP

The big story is Sauber having been disqualified for breaking a rule about rear wing area. They are going to appeal, but the FIA aren't going to back down. A real shame since everyone knows that the Kobayashi and Perez drove an absolute blinder and that the minor infringement wouldn't have given them that much (if any) advantage.

Vettel won from pole. No surprises there.

Barrichello was driving like a nutter this weekend, first spinning it in Q2, then spinning it in lap 1, then barging Rosberg like a n00b. Maybe he's getting old and has got cataracts or something.

As an interesting aside, I bet a friend £5 that Williams would place higher in the constructor's championship than Mercedes, but neither team saw either of their drivers pass the finish line. Not such a good start given that we were both confident that our team would be clearly ahead of the other. I'm on slightly more unsteady ground given that Barrichello is driving like he's been down the dog and duck all morning.

I think Schumacher isn't going to meet with much success this season. He hasn't got that fire in him anymore. If he had a race turn out like this in the 90's he'd be fuming, but in his post retirement interview he seemed quite apathetic towards the whole situation. The only sign he was still alive last season was when he tried to murder Barrichello in Hungary last year!


If Petrov keeps driving like that, expect to see him around a lot more. Especially now the Russian GP is going forth. I wouldn't be surprised if a Ruski oil billionaire buys up Hispania (let's face it, they are dying anyway) at the end of the season and runs it Branson style.

The lead up to Australia

The first GP is just days away! Melbourne, Australia plays host to the world's greatest racing drivers for one weekend and handy that it happens to be this one. We will get to see just how badly the Mclaren performs, how many backmarkers fall out of the new 107% qualifying rule  and just how stilted the KERS/ajustable rear wing system makes overtaking. But the trouble with Australia is that its bloody ages away which means that there is an unfortunately large time difference. The BBC is playing it live at an ungodly hour of the morning if you can be bothered to watch it then, otherwise its on at the usual midday timeslot on BBC1HD(omfgHD!!!!) which is still too early for me, so I'll watch it on sky+ and the forum on iplayer if they are still uploading it after last year's trial which I hope they do.
Tomorrow: My tips for the season.