Off the pot

Few sports can deliver such interest and excitement outside their arena of competition as Formula 1 does. Last week, the possibility of BMW quitting the sport or Michael Schumacher racing again would have seemed about as likely as… well, about as likely as McLaren taking a dominant race victory. But all of those things – and, shockingly, F1’s most serious accident for a long time, perhaps since 1995 – have taken place since them.

Today’s developments have made my last F1 blog post hopelessly outdated. Schumacher is putting his life and his reputation at risk… but neither very seriously, probably. It’s great news for Hamilton, Vettel and other new drivers from 2007 onwards, who now have a chance they must never have expected to race against Schumacher; less good for Raikkonen, who will surely be toast in F1 if Schumacher can jump into the car with no testing and beat him. Less good for Nelson Piquet, too: with the possibility of Alonso moving to Ferrari gone, he can surely expect to be sacked.

But the BMW news is in some ways more interesting, as it’s less easy to understand. The need to sign a new Concorde Agreement probably put BMW’s board in an impossible situation: should they commit to F1 for another few years, with their momentum lost and a total lack of results, plus apparent political instability and arguably an image problem after the Mosley spanking scandal, or should they chuck away their investment? Neither option can have seemed very attractive, but the new Concorde Agreement effectively obliged them to go or get off the pot.

BMW’s F1 operation has always had a slightly funny character about it, ever since the Williams tie-up. Everyone today has been talking about their targets-driven philosophy: when Williams failed to meet targets the partnership was dissolved. This was in spite of circumstances: two of the three the years when the partnership should have started producing big results – 2002, 2003 and 2004 – were years of Ferrari red-wash; in the other, Williams had a genuine tilt at the title. Mercedes stuck with McLaren for the long-term, despite the latter struggling apparently even more than Williams in 2003 and 2004 with the chassis side. But BMW bailed.

Targets were order of the day in their new team too. They were met up until last year, when Mario Theissen opted to switch the focus to 2009 despite being in with a shout at the 2008 title. If the team could maintain its progress, it would be a clear front-runner by 2009, rather than a close third-place car as in 2008. But it was a colossal “if”: a new set or regulations was bound to make things unpredictable; and even leaving that aside, there is no guarantee that a new car will be fast just because last year’s was – BMW’s slump this year is not unlike Honda’s in 2007, after a strong 2006.

Yet Theissen ignored the tendency of motor racing not to run to script, and gambled it all on heavy development of the 2009 car and the new KERS system – retained only at his insistence against the other teams’ doubts – and lost everything. Theissen’s problem is that he almost certainly didn’t realise he was gambling at all. Nor did he probably realise quite how F1 historians will judge a man who had a chance at a world title and did not pursue it – despite his neat and logical demeanour, in motor racing that decision marks him out as a raving eccentric.

So, will the team survive? It seems quite likely. Peter Sauber might take it over again, though he is not a young man; it’s quite possible that BMW will do a Honda and provide the finance to keep it going for a year. Failing that, one of the failed entrants for the new grid slots, such as Lola or Prodrive, might be interested in some sort of hook-up.

But will it hang on to its drivers? My comment that the driver market looks rather big may be about to be proved wrong: if Renault walk away too (and it’s noteworthy that they have not joined Mercedes and Toyota in reaffirming their commitment), will all the old teams really be kept on the grid as well as all the new ones? We are a long way away from knowing what teams will be racing in 2010.

Missing Massa

The nastiness of Felipe Massa’s accident in qualifying last Saturday is only just becoming clear. The head injury is serious enough – twenty years ago it would most probably have been fatal, and further complications could yet occur – but it is now reported that his eye is damage, which could finish his career. It would be a deeply sad way for Massa to leave the sport, as he is probably one of the most liked and respected drivers on the grid, not just for his apparently effortless cheeriness, but for both the way in which he developed his driving from speedy but erratic to championship-challenging, and the sportsmanship he displayed when he ultimately lost out to Hamilton last year.

Still, life goes on: hopefully, for Felipe Massa, that means a long and happy future whether in or out of the cockpit; for Ferrari, it means they are a driver short. Who will get that seat has become something of a vexed question. The driver market has been near-static in the last year or so, with only David Coulthard and Sebastian Bourdais having left the sport, so there are no obvious drive-less drivers knocking around. Nor are there any obvious up-and-comers to pop in the car… not that Ferrari would be likely to do that.

Test drivers are normally the first port of call in situations like this. Marc Gene and Luca Badoer both had the odd season for Minardi, but both a decade or so ago. Gene filled in at Williams for a few races in the mid-2000s, but he’s not exactly race sharp. Badoer was passed over for the race drive when Michael Schumacher broke his leg in 1999; it’s hard to see him getting the nod now.

So, what are the other options? Well, this is classic F1 off-track intrigue. One theory speculates Michael Schumacher could be invited back. As far as I can see this is pure invention, but it’s a lovely idea: he’s not yet 40, and could surely have a creditable go at it. With Spa and Monza in the offing, slick tyres to play with and a Ferrari team apparently bouncing back, it might just be attractive to him… Then again, we’ve just been reminded that he would be putting his life at risk – is there really that much attraction to it that he would do such a thing? It’s a lovely idea, but it would be pretty astonishing if it were to happen.

The other hot theory is more complicated still. Fernando Alonso’s contract with Ferrari is spoken of as solid gold fact by many people better informed than I; add to that Renault’s suspension from the next race, and perhaps they could get him in the car half a season early, and either retain him alongside Raikkonen next year, or ditch Raikkonen if Massa is sufficiently well to race again…?

Now, Renault might have a thing or two to say about that, of course… But Renault is itself rumoured to be selling up to a Russian oligarch and getting out of F1. Would losing Alonso jeopardise that deal? It would certainly jeopardise some Alonso-dependent sponsorship… Then again, if Ferrari get their chequebook out, all those problems could be made to go away.

In this scenario, what would Renault do for drivers? Other things being equal, they’re about to sack Nelson Piquet and put Romain Grosjean in the car. Finding two new drivers would not be fun; having two drivers to the end of the season who have no experience of the car must seem even worse. Then again, would it be any worse than having the hapless Piquet? As Martin Brundle observed on Sunday, his job isn’t to go quicker than Alonso, but it is to be there when Alonso’s not in a position to score, and he simply hasn’t been able to do that. If Jaime Alguesuari (close enough!) can get on terms with his team-mate in an unfamiliar car, Renault can surely chance it on two newbies and expect at least one to be better than Nelsinho. The only justification for keeping Piquet is probably to avoid a legal dispute with him and his dad.

As an aside, neither Piquet nor Bourdais have necessarily ended their F1 careers, even if neither turns a wheel again all season: there are three new teams due to enter F1 next year, who will need drivers. They might be willing to consider slow but experienced-ish guys like Bourdais and Piquet; even Jacques Villeneuve is apparently hopeful of landing a seat!

So if we look around for drivers who are less recently departed from F1, the obvious names are Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson. Sato was in the frame for the Toro Rosso drive this year, while Davidson must surely be in with a shout of returning to F1 if his traditional lack of effective management has been solved. If I was running Ferrari, I’d have Ant on my list for if Fernando turns out not to be available.

And what of the current drivers? The great problem at the moment is that it’s not clear who is likely to be quick next year: will McLaren and Ferrari re-emerge? Will Brawn and Red Bull be able to stay at the front? Will Renault get sold, and if so will they be any bloody good? What will happen with the two under-hitting manufacturers BMW and Toyota, who could seemingly line up at the back or front of the grid, or anywhere in between? Can Williams hold it together? With all these questions, it’s hard to know whether Robert Kubica or Nico Rosberg would be wise to seek pastures new or not (if Kubica even can, contractually); Heidfeld’s stock seems to have dropped a bit so it’s not clear he could get a good seat elsewhere; Kovaleinen would surely be looking to hang on at McLaren as his first choice; Vettel and Webber are both tied up for next year… All told, it’s a big driver market with not that many drivers rattling round in it.

So, Alonso to Ferrari, Piquet and Grosjean at Renault looks the most likely of a set of not-very-likely looking scenarios at the moment. But anything could happen. Coulthard in a Ferrari? Well, I’d like to see it.

Never mind the racing, what about the politics?

It has been the right-on thing to say, throughout the British Grand Prix weekend, that we’re here for the racing and that’s the important thing; the politics is an unhappy distraction. I could hardly disagree more: as ever, the dry-weather racing at Silverstone was processional and dull, while the politics has been captivating, and remains a key part of the appeal of the sport to long-term afficionados.

Now, I have no inside knowledge or deep insight, but I have been following websites and blogs by a few people who do, particularly James Allen and Joe Saward (see links right), who between them have put the BBC’s utterly inane F1 website to shame. Most of what follows is a summation of their analyses, though I claim credit for any inaccuracies, wild theories and off-beam interpretation.

This weekend seemed to yield little publicly in terms of developments, other than the teams’ declaration on Thursday night of their intention to form a new series, and the FIA’s response of legal action; neither was especially surprising by that point. Negotiations were clearly ongoing throughout the weekend, and probably will be for some time to come. This is at least promising – in recent weeks, the two sides seem to have been corresponding via published, or leaked, letters, with an apparent eye on leaving a paper trail for subsequent disputes rather than on sorting anything out. Now that a crisis has been well and truly precipitated, they can get on with attempting to find a solution.

So, while we have a bit of breathing space, let’s take a step back: why is this happening, and why now? The estimable Mr Saward’s clear view is that the teams’ ultimate goal is to get rid of Mosley, and that references to “governance” really mean “Max”. Why now? Well, perhaps the other teams are more rattled by the recent beatings dealt out to McLaren than they initially thought to be: after all, if one team can be singled out for unfair treatment, any other team can be (and I doubt anyone in the sport seriously believes that the grossly harsh punishment inflicted on McLaren in 2007 wasn’t at least in part down to Mosley’s deep personal distaste for Ron Dennis). Perhaps after last year’s sex scandal, Max could have been expected to be cowed; but his ambitious budget cap plans and other regulation changes might just have made some teams think he has got too big for his boots.

There is a deeper struggle at work here, though. Formula 1 is not a poor sport: OK, times are tough in the short term, but by most people’s standards there is still plenty of money sloshing about, and there is clearly enough sponsorship for several new teams to have put together credible entry bids. With this in mind, a 40 million Euro (or whatever currency it was – I forget) budget cap seems very low, perhaps to the point of being tin-pot or Mickey Mouse – F1 types who glance across to football will see, after all, that it equates to about half a Cristiano Ronaldo. This might not be such a problem if the teams actually saw much of that money… but another way of looking at the need to reduce costs is that it shows how difficult it is to run an F1 team as a profitable business, and by extension, how little prize money they get.

Bernie’s deal to sell F1’s commercial rights in the early 2000s remains significant: CVC borrowed a lot of money to pay for the deal, and are taking a lot of money out of the sport to finance the loan. There was talk of a breakaway championship under the auspices of the Grand Prix Manufacturers Association in the years after this, which died a death when Berni splintered Ferrari off from the other group and got them to sign up to F1. By comparison, this present storm under FOTA has taken a lot less time to brew up – FOTA has existed for less than a year.

So it’s not totally clear what will satisfy FOTA: governance changes to remove an over-mighty Max; or a realignment of the commercial structure of F1. Or both. Or neither.

Given where we are, let’s look at some possible scenarios. One is that FOTA unity splinters: Mosley has talked up the differences of opinion in the FOTA camp, and the perspectives of Brawn and McLaren, who exist primarily or principally to race in F1, are different from those of global motor manufacturers like Toyota or Fiat (Ferrari). Until Thursday, it looked posisble that Brawn and McLaren could be enticed back into the F1 fold – but they have stuck very firmly indeed with FOTA.

So, let’s look at another scenario: FOTA unity remains, but Ferrari and the Red Bull teams lose the legal battle, and are obliged to race in F1 next year. That would probably be curtains for the breakaway series, which would not be so credible without Ferrari. And the reason Williams and Force India left FOTA is that they already had contracts in place to race in F1: Mosley claims Ferrari signed just such a contract when they split from the GPMA back in 2005 – if he is right, Ferrari will either be obliged to race in F1 or compensate the FIA for their absence.

In this scenario, Mosley had left enough spaces on the grid for Brawn, McLaren, the Red Bull teams and Ferrari; the three new teams announced last week, plus Williams and Force India, would have left insufficient spaces on the grid IF the FIA also granted entries to two or three credible bidders who had surprisingly failed to make the cut in the provisional entry list – particularly Lola and ProDrive. So, it seemed, the provisional entry list had been carefully balanced to squeeze out some of the existing manufacturers if they were too slow in coming to heel.

But this scenario now looks unlikely, as Prodrive and Lola, plus N Technology, seem to be sticking with the FOTA teams and their supposed new series – they will, after all, be very reliant on manufacturer support to get up and running. So that strategy by Mosley seems not to be a good prospect: without th FOTA teams, he will be unable to fill the F1 grid next year, still less fill it with credible teams. At the moment, he only has Williams, Force India and the three new entrants.

Nightmare scenario: F1 continues with the above teams plus some other small newcomers, as a pale parody of itself, while the new series presses ahead with the manufacturers, Prodrive et al, and picks up F1’s still-credible cast-off venues like Montreal, Silverstone, Adelaide, Buenos Aires and so on. If this happens, or looks likely to happen, either the split will be protracted or the FIA will co-opt the new series as the official Formula One. What would happen to the teams in the “old” F1 would be hard to say, as there would be two series’ worth of teams vying for space on one grid. But if this even begins to look likely, surely either the FIA will ditch Max or Max will give in.

The most likely scenario is that the budget cap plan is dropped in favour of some other “resource control” regime and F1 continues as normal, but with the three “unexpected” new teams instead of Lola and Prodrive, who will have been left out in the cold by the shenanigans. Trouble is, to achieve this, the teams will have to climb down. A long way. Will they be able to do it?

Perhaps ultimately the Boards of the major motor manufacturers will lose patience with their motorsport people and just tell them to get on with it, even if they have to make an embarrassing U-turn. But here’s something I don’t understand: reports a few weeks ago suggested Toyota might use this hoo-ha as an excus to pull out of F1, while it’s known that Renault have lost their title sponsor and speculated that they may just sell the team to Flav when that deal runs out. Yet Renault and Toyota appear to be the hard-liners within FOTA, and John Howett from Toyota stated today that Toyota is committed to F1 until 2012. How all these things square up I have no idea.

The only thing I’d be seriously worried about if there is a new series is the danger of Sky getting the broadcast rights, which means I’d be unable to watch it. Which begs the biggest question of all: in such a scenario, will Martin Brundle stick with F1 or defect to the new series? Now that really does get me worried.

Thoughts for the losers

Reflections on the F1 diffuser appeal. Firstly: phew! Not just for avoiding a debacle for F1 generally, but for finally confirming that Jenson Button has a long-deserved proper tilt at the world title on his hands. Much as I admire 6Music’s Jon Richardson, he recently made a snide remark about F1 “showing itself up” because “bad drivers are suddenly good drivers now they’ve got a good car”; look in the dictionary for “doesn’t understand F1 properly” and you’ll find “someone who suggests Jenson Button isn’t any good.” First race in a car capable of winning on merit, and he wins on merit – what more can you ask?

But I’m more interested in the losers of the diffuser appeal. It’s especially unfortunate for Red Bull, who seem to have produced the fastest chassis not to use a “trick diffuser” – but also the one that has the concept furthest removed from that diffuser style, and which will seemingly require the most modification. Red Bull were touted as a team that could make a big leap forward thanks to Adrian Newey’s knack at interpreting new regulations: make a leap they have, but Newey now claims he ran a doubel-deck diffuser concept past Charlie Whiting and had it rejected on grounds of illegality. One must now presume the design was out by a matter of small details; Newey seems to have taken it to mean that in fact the whole concept was out. Unlucky. Then again, in a pre-season Q&A, I think it was Newey who, when asked about whether the new Red Bull adhered to the spirit of the regulations, replied, “happily, there’s no such thing.”

Over at BMW, Mario Theissen seems to be particularly sour about the situation. There may be an internal-facing reason for his comments: last year, he deliberately held back the development of the 2008 BMW, which was unexpectedly in with a chance of letting Kubica take the title. The gamble was that by focusing early on 2009, BMW would be best-placed to mount a title challenge: with such a big change of regulations it was a massive gamble, and it has failed. Kubica’s grousing about not being allowed to make a title run when he had the chance now, albeit with hindsight, looks fully justified: it was a bird in the hand, after all. Theissen may well have some explaining to do to his bosses, and be seeking to pin the blame on an unfair decision on diffusers rather than his own conservatism. Then again, that conservatism has led to a lot of progress and success for the team – Theissen should not be taking too much flak for getting one very difficult call wrong.

Finally, I was amused by the crassness of Ferrari’s lawyer, with his personal insults towards Ross Brawn and Charlie Whiting. It seemed positively Berlusconi-esque; but I wonder if there is a greater acceptance in Italy for embellishing an argument with gross personal insult than is the case in most countries. Tozzi by name, Tozzer by nature?

Limited appeal

Tomorrow comes the appeal over the diffusers. If it is upheld, it scarcely bears thinking about. Would the cars with “trick diffusers” be excluded from the results of the first two race? Would points be re-allocated? Can they do that?

Never mind for a moment how ridiculous this would make Formula 1 would look, and how damaging this would be at a time when it needs to shore up its remaining sponsors and attract new teams. What would the revised standings actually look like, without the Brawns, Toyotas and Williamses? Here’s what.

Australia

1. Alonso
2. Buemi
3. Bourdais
4. Sutil
5. Heidfeld
6. Fisichella
7. Webber
8. Vettel

Malaysia

1. Heidfeld
2. Webber
3. Hamilton
4. Massa
5. Bourdais
6. Alonso
7. Piquet
8. Raikkonen

Championship standings would be (bearing in mind the half-points awarded in Malaysia):

1. Alonso (11.5 points)
2. Heidfeld (9)
3. Bourdais = Buemi (8)
4. Webber (6)
5. Sutil (5)
6. Fisichella = Hamilton (3)
7. Massa (2.5)
8. Vettel = Piquet (1)
9. Raikkonen (0.5)

What a bloody mess that would be.

What a shower

Let’s pick the bones out of the Malaysian grand prix. The first talking point has to be the circumstances in which the race was red-flagged: this outcome was down entirely to the time at which the race was started. Not only did such a late start mean that there would be insufficient light if the race went on much beyond 90 minutes, but the climate around the circuit is such that early evening is, as I understand it, a time of day at which rain is particularly likely. For the sake of a slightly earlier start – even an hour would be sufficient to address these problems – it is surely worth jeopardising viewing figures in Europe slightly. The alternative is what we had today: the viewers don’t get a full race. All told, the extended period of drivers and teams fannying around on the pitlane, with nobody having any idea what was going on, made F1 look like a total shambles. Fascinating though it was for the dedicated viewer – and watching a global conversation via Twitter as it all unfolded on TV certainly added an interesting new dimension to F1 – to the casual viewer it must have seemed inexplicable and stupid. It should not be allowed to happen again.

The other conclusions we can draw from the race seem to be much more positive. There certainly seems to be more overtaking this year: whether this is because of the new aero regs making it easier, or because the cars are so close together anyway, is hard to tell. The former must be playing a part, as is the variety of KERS and non-KERS cars through the field.

KERS itself seems to be a decidedly mixed blessing: while Ferrari claim it gives a two-tenths advantage over a single lap, it seems not to be benefiting them in qualifying: presumably it must be very precisely used to get this time boost. It also seems that KERS cars’ extra weight makes them awkward when braking: Ted Kravitz identified this in relation to Alonso, who several times lost places because he got his braking wrong, but it also seemed to apply to Nick Heidfeld in the BMW and to Raikkonen in the Ferrari. That said, it does seem to allow drivers to defend against, or power past, non-KERS cars very effectively: I believe Brawn are the only team with no plans to run KERS at all this year, so could this leave them with a problem by the end of the season, assuming other teams catch up to their pace more generally in that time?

Alonso seems to be slipping into a Trulli or Webber role this year: he’s quick enough to muscle the car further up the grid than it should be, but in the races he ends up having a train behind him. Meanwhile his team-mate Piquet is undoubtedly being made to look even worse by having such a strong team-mate, but even so I wasn’t surprised to hear Eddie Jordan repeating my speculation that he might be replaced mid-season (hi Eddie!).

Jenson’s race was once again highly accomplished: he has the fastest car, but he is able to pump in fast laps when necessary, can take places to make up for an iffy start, and retains his composure in the most difficult of circumstances. The received wisdom from many pundits that he’s “not quite in the top class” of F1 drivers is, in my view, extremely harsh: the attributes above can equally be applied to Michael Schumacher.

The Brawn car, however, does seem to have some niggly problems, most notably the gearbox: Barrichello has needed a replacement, and Button had an iffy start this weekend and a dodgy pitstop last weekend, apparently for the same reason. And the reliability fears expressed ahead of this weekend didn’t emerge, but only because  we didn’t get a full race distance. Still, Ross Brawn will no doubt ensure the team is well across these minor concerns.

Meanwhile, Heikki Kovaleinen needs to start having a good season: two first-lap exits is not good, particularly when the second was wholly self-inflicted. Nick Heidfeld’s lucky podium also belies what may be the start of a difficult season for him, as his qualifying wobble from the middle of last year seemed to reappear. Both drivers may need to make shoring up their positions within their respective teams their main priorities this season; the fact that neither team seems to be mounting the championship challenge they had anticipated may just take the pressure off slightly.

Two races in, we now have a slightly better view of the relative paces of the teams. Toyota, Red Bull and perhaps BMW will be disappointed if they don’t take race wins this year; Ferrari may also be able to do it, although they seem to be making some wayward calls just now. I was also intrigued to notice that their “traffic light” system for pit stops has been reinstated, which I actually think makes sense; mistakes can happen with lollipops as well as with automated systems, so it never struck me as right to blame that system alone for Ferrari’s late-summer difficulties last year.

It has been a breathless start to the season, with F1 alternately providing high class drama and low-rent farce. Let’s hope the diffuser row does not provide more of the latter by banning the “trick diffuser” solution, and that we will have chance to get our breath back befoe China in two weeks’ time.

Party like it’s 1998

Right: I promise not to use the word “fairytale” while reviewing the season’s opening grand prix. Button drove brilliantly, very pleased for the team, all of that, yes yes yes.

I will, however, make the comparison to a previous occasion when a team turned up with a totally dominant car at the start of the season: not 2004, as James Allen has been going on about (not without good reason, mind), but 1998. Then as now the rule changes led to a team that had not been a title contender getting a jump on the field: it was a team that had recently brought in one of the paddock’s top technical minds, and had been known to be making changes and improvements over the course of the previous season. In 1998 it was Adrian Newey at McLaren; this year it’s Ross Brawn at, er, Brawn.

Interestingly, when Schumacher took one of his dominant titles and ITV’s reporter grabbed a comment from Brawn in the pitlane, he went out of his way to mention 1998: having turned up expecting to be competitive, Ferrari were stung to be thrashed by McLaren; the experience drove Brawn and the team to pursue the levels of excellence that led to their domination in the early 2000s. Perhaps that spectre also drove him in preparing the Honda team over 2008 for this year.

Honda, incidentally, have been left looking like chumps: they have had to spend almost as much to get rid of the team as they would have done to keep it running, and it has achieved success without their name on the car. They must have anticipated that other manufacturers would also withdraw; given the publicity they should now be getting, it has turned out to be a very expensive error – worst of all, one that Richard “Smugface” Branson has capitalised on. Actually, I don’t mind Branson: he perhaps paints a picture of free-spirited wheeler-dealing that isn’t very representative of the reality of entrepreneurialism, but it’s preferable to the equally imaginary sour-faced bitchiness portrayed by Alan Sugar. But Aye dye cress…

Before returning to the racing, let’s have a look at the TV coverage. The reversion to The Chain as the theme was probably justified: ITV always struggled to find appropriate music in my view. The CGI intro sequence is passable, but no better or worse than ITV’s numerous efforts. Jake Whatsisname was sound, I thought – occasionally prone to terminological errors such as “parade lap” for out lap, but let’s be generous for now and put it down to nerves on live TV.

Coulthard and Jordan were a big step up from Marc Blundell, and I expect DC to come into his own when there is controversial on-track action to assess. Brundle was excellent as ever, although Jonathan Legard – who I thought should have been brought in when Murray Walker retired – disappointed slightly. He was instantly authoritative and listenable, but he messed up the climax of quali very badly: he kept going on about Button while significant changes for third place and below were going on – Brundle evidently felt he had to shout over him just to comment on those; and he didn’t keep track of who was on a hot lap, and Brundle had to tell him it was all over! He would have got away with it on radio, but on TV we could all see his error. I’m sure he and Brundle will gel better over the course of the season.

Ther were some odd things in the build-up, too. The presenting crew were never properly introduced: this might not matter too much for Ted Kravitz, with whom even semi-regular viewers will be familiar, but Lee McKenzie was, I believe, not seen on-screen until her post-race interview with Lewis Hamilton. The build-up material was passable, but the Brundle-voiced technical pieces weren’t properly introduced, and offered the kind of thin explanation that one associates with BBC news.

Spare a thought for TV exile James Allen, who offered a Twitter commentary from Melbourne. Alas I didn’t partake, but that wasn’t because I forgot to put my alarm clock forward and got up too late to watch the race live. Definitely not.

As for the racing: much as the opening round should be the first chance to see who’s quick and who’s not, usually it poses more questions than it answer. This year was no different: the Brawn has an advantage over the rest of the field, but how much? Kubica was, after all, closing Button down towards the end: was that an indication strong BMW race pace, or just down to the peculiar circumstances of the race? Can the other teams develop their way into contention? Can Brawn develop their way into maintaining their advantage? If we look at 1998, McLaren only dominated for one further race: by round 3 in Argentina, Schumacher was able to split the McLarens in qualifying and beat them in the race. Will this happen this year, or will it be more like 2004 when Ferrari won consistently?

Given how tight the field is – unlike 1998, when the teams spread out and outfits like Prost and Stewart that had been coming good in 1997 fell back again – I would expect some of the teams to catch Brawn before we get back to Europe, but not necessarily overtake them. Adrian Newey and Red Bull must feel in with a shout, although their development programme went badly wrong last year. Ferrari seemed well down here, but their race pace should have been OK for some points – but will reliability catch them out this year like it did in 2008? What about Renault? The signs from testing were very mixed, but the more negative ones seem, so far, to have been proved right.

And as for McLaren: Brundle and Coulthard observed consistently that car looked balanced, and just all-round slow: this suggests there is not a huge amount of pace in it, waiting to be unlocked, and a significant overhaul will be needed if it is to become competitive. Handily, most of the teams are looking at significant work anyway in order to incorporate Brawn-style diffusers. But it looks like 2004 all over again for the Woking crew.

In that context, Hamilton’s race was impressive: with low expectations, he was able to pick his way through the race and extract probably as much pace as the car has to offer. It’s perhaps as well for Kovaleinen that he got knocked out on the first lap: if he had failed to capitalise in the same way as Hamilton did, it would have made for an even worse start to the season than a retirement!

On that front, a few drivers already look likely to be under pressure for their seats by mid-season unless they can improve. Renault were probably right to give Piquet a  second season: Nico Rosberg has shown that an apparently wayward debut year can be a great learning experience for much better things, and that ditching F1 drivers after one season can be counter-productive. But getting knocked out in Q1 does not repay the team’s faith. Nakajima also needs to be doing better with a good car than making Q2 and crashing in the race. Seasoned racers Anthony Davidson, Takuma Sato and Tonio Liuzzi are all twiddling their thumbs, should a vacancy arise…

Overall, today’s race offers little further clue as to who will emerge to challenge Brawn: Ferrari, Toyota, Williams, Red Bull and Renault are all more or less credible possibilities. McLaren are a big unknown, while Toro Rosso may well come on strong in the second half of the season like they did last year – considering he is a rookie and the team have had very little time with the new car, Buemi’s drive, which you’d call solid in most circumstances, was really very good. Force India need to keep up with the development, but if they do they seem likely to be mixing it in mid-field at least some of the time – which begs the question of who, exactly, will be at the back of the field…

Thank goodness the next race weekend is only five days away!

A final thought: I do not like the new rule of the tyre compounds being two “steps”  apart. It is artificial enough to say that drivers must use both types of compound in the race, but if the two are very different, effectively you are compelling the drivers to compete with unsuitable equipment, which doesn’t seem very F1. The new aerodynamics and KERS seem to be adding sufficient variables and overtaking spectacle: this arbitrary rule seems both unnecessary and potentially unsafe, plus it threatened to be decisive to the outcome of the race, even though a Kubica victory over Button would not have been a fair reflection of their relative strength over the weekend. Let’s hope that rule gets amended back to last year’s iteration, or preferably scrapped, before long.

The loser standing small

I was surprised to find myself feeling disappointed that the scheme to decide the F1 drivers’ title by race wins alone has apparently been deferred until 2010 following today’s statement by FOTA. Perhaps it had sub-consciously dawned on me that, while the rule is unlikely to create many do-or-die lunges in the last laps of a grand prix, it would perhaps affect the way teams approach races overall.

At the moment, a team looking uncompetitive might settle for points or a podium; under the new rule, they might go to greater pains to use innovative strategies or take risks to get the win. It could change teams’ decision-making processes from qualifying onwards for the rest of the weekend: strategies like Schumacher’s 3-stop Hungaroring victory in 1998, or 4-stop Magny Cours win in 2004 might be chanced somewhat more often. Of course, the ban on refuelling from 2010 will remove a variable from pit stops, but even so they will remain important. All told, the “winner takes it all” system could have some positive implications.

Brains and Brawn

After a spectacularly exciting season of Formula One, we have had a spectacularly exciting off-season; having endured many a year of processional racing in the early 2000s, I can’t help but feel it’s all going to come to an underwhelming end very soon.

But rationally you’d have to say that looks unlikely. Two big stories emerged from the Barcelona test: McLaren are astonishingly slow; and Brawn GP are astonishingly quick. Or are they?

Well, McLaren are slow: they’ve admitted it. They claim they have a fix on the way, and that’s not implausible: both BMW and, if you recall, Honda, found some significant pace with very late pre-season aero revisions last year. I feel sure I read a column by James Allen late last year in which he extolled McLaren’s engineering prowess and predicted Lewis Hamilton would be well-placed to defend his title. I can’t find it on his blog, however – perhaps he has sensibly removed it. Perhaps my searching skills are inadequate. Or perhaps I’m misremembering – if so, apologies to him.

James has undeniably, however, made an extremely bold prediction for Melbourne: the race victory, he suggests, will be between the two Brawn drivers, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. And he gives a credible analysis of the test data to argue that the Brawn car is indeed faster over a race distance than the Ferrari – something that Felipe Massa seems also to have said, in an interesting bit of expectations-management.

Allen deserves credit for sticking his neck out so firmly: we will know in a few weeks whether this is a canny prediction by an authoritative watcher of the sport, or the kind of hyperbole that occasionally grated when he was a commentator. Either way, I maintain that his presence in the F1 blogosphere is an extremely welcome development. (And as an aside: Ross Brawn’s name will be indelibly etched into F1’s Hall of Fame if he turns up and blitzes the field with a team that was nowhere in the previous season – it would be an astounding astonishment, and justify Honda’s decision to hire him every bit as it would make their decision to give the team away for nothing deeply foolish.)

But let’s not get carried away (is it my imagination, or do I use that phrase on blog posts rather a lot?). We can attach several significant caveats to this apparent picture of Brawn dominance. The first one is that the field has nine other teams, and it looks tight. Ferrari, BMW and Toyota all evidently fancy a shot at race wins; Renault’s form remains enigmatic, but some commentators are tipping them to be close to the pace; and the two Red Bull teams have been quick too. It’s only Force India and McLaren that look like they should be ruled out of contention totally for Melbourne, and the former seem to be having a decent shot at sticking with the mid-field, which will itself be a fair achievement.

And, as Joe Saward has put it, “remember the Prost!” The former World Champion’s team showboated shamelessly prior to what turned out to be its last season in 2001: they had a tidy car that was much better than the previous year’s utter disaster, but underweight running in testing gave a false impression of its potential. But would a team helmed by Ross Brawn waste their time with that kind of antics, even if they do need to attract sponsors? Can any amount of underweight showboating account for the utter consistency of the car’s speed? Perhaps not.

And finally, as James Allen has also pointed out, most teams will have an update ready for Melbourne; Brawn’s package is already finalised. So if there is indeed a gap between Brawn and the rest of the field, one can expect it to shrink and perhaps close. But even with all of these caveats, it would be deeply surprising if Brawn do not at least take points away from Melbourne. And it would, after all, stand to reason, that the team that started working in earnest on its 2009 machinery at the earliest point last year would find the best solutions.

And before I go, a quick word on the BBC’s F1 website: rubbish.

Back on The Chain gang

If you’re a careful watcher of the links side bar on the right-hand side of this blog (and I don’t know why you should be), you’ll see I’ve added a link to the BBC’s new F1 website. It will have to go some to beat ITV’s effort, which has long been good and has certainly kept up its standards over the close season, with regular updates and some very well-considered analysis. The BBC’s isn’t that good yet, but presumably it will really ramp up when the season starts.

That’s only a few weeks away now, and it’s very exciting. I’ve been following the winter dramas on the ITV site, plus the slightly more cutting-edge Autosport F1 reporting, the more editorially-styled blog by James Allen and GrandPrix.com, which combines many of the strengths of the two. [Edited to add: I shouldn't have forgotten to put Joe Saward's blog in that list, where he offers the views he perhaps can't put on GrandPrix.com]

The business with Honda, Brawn GP and the cost-cutting drive has been remarkable enough, but the amazing thing is how close the field is looking. In past posts I have confidently predicted that it would spread out due to the regulation changes; this could still happen, but there is no sign of it yet. Perhaps Renault, Williams, Toyota and Red Bull have made some progress; perhaps McLaren are a little behind where they would like to be; and perhaps BMW have been sandbagging shamelessly and have stolen a march on the whole field. But even though making predictions at this stage of the pre-season is a mug’s game (but still fun), it’s usually at least possible. From testing so far I’m not sure any conclusions can be drawn at all.

On the TV coverage front, the pre-race / pre-qualifying programme segments look like they’re going to offer much the same as ITV’s did, with Brundle grid-walks as before, but Coulthard and Eddie Jordan likely providing some rather more articulate punditry than the unintentionally hilarious Marc Blundell. The fact is that ITV were doing a good job, and in this department there is little the BBC look like being able to add. Their more extensive range of platforms will allow for all sessions to be broadcast, with 5Live commentators providing interactive commentaries (ie you can send emails and texts) on the practice sessions; that, and the availability of a full on-board camera shot via the red button at some races, seem to be the extent of the innovations. But it still looks like being an excellent package – I only hope the website can live up to ITV’s standards.

I will, however, mourn the loss of the ad breaks in some ways. I always rather liked the shock and excitement of coming back to the action to be presented with a replay of some key development, which required you to play catch-up and work out the consequences for yourself. It added an element of suspense.

I’m very much looking forward to it all starting in three weeks’ time.