The Captain’s F1 Blog: The 2010 Gulf Air Grand Prix of Bahrain

Finally! It has been too long, and the Formula one comes back for a brand new season of wheel to wheel racing. Well part of that sentence is true, it’s back but there was any wheel to wheel racing.

This weekend has been an anti-climax. I couldn’t follow qualifying as my live timing from F1.com would not load, and the graphics on screen couldn’t keep me informed of who was where. I had no idea who was in the knockout zone for Q1 and Q2, which kind of ruins the spectacle doesn’t it? Why have a knockout style qualifying session, then not inform people of who is about to be knocked out? It means there is no tension, just more of an “Oh Kobayashi is out…” when you see him exiting his car and heading to the FIA garage.

Then, during the race, the graphics were once again inconsistent. During the pit stops some people had timers, others didn’t. Some people had the full time in the pit lane shown, and then the time stationary shown, some just had total time, others didn’t have anything. It is Very frustrating, to say the least.

In short, last year’s graphics were near enough perfect. We had times for nearly all pits, and we had a live graphic on the side of the screen to see drivers moving up or down. If they felt to change the style, fair enough, but go back to the information they actually provided last year.

So qualifying was let down, but I did think the grid would provide for an interesting race; Vettel in pole with Massa and Alonso bringing up the rear. Schumacher returns one place behind his younger and highly rated team mate. I was quite excited.

Sadly, the race was a letdown too. For starters my mum has bought a new cable package which means I watch the race in Thai, which also means I know more about F1 than the commentator and he spends most the race promoting Red Bull – For those who don’t know Red Bull is a Thai drink, so us Thais have felt the need to claim it as our own racing team. Fair enough, I don’t mind hearing the Thai national Anthem after the race! – Secondly, it seemed the fuel really has stopped people attacking and has made the racing tediously dull.

I admit, I did call for the ban of refuelling. I thought it was make the drivers go at it as they couldn’t rely on pit stops to leap the driver in front, I though the variety of different tyre strategies would increase overtaking attempts. I was wrong, very wrong. The drivers hauled their tanks around for the first 15 laps; then they all stopped within 4 laps of each other, put on the other compound of tyre that they are required to put on, then went out and trundled to the finish. The only reason there was some overtaking is because Kubica was spun by Sutil and because Vettel’s exhaust decided to go AWOL.

As for the new teams, HRT did well to even start, Virgin are around the same speed as Lotus but very unreliable. The Lotus duo finished 3 laps down, but to finish with a car built in 4 months is a great achievement. So well done to them.

So it was a very dull race, but there are a few surprised. Mclaren, and their funky rear wing staller, are not as fast as we though. Mercedes isn’t fast too, and Rosberg is out pacing Schumacher. Sauber are actually very slow, and Force India actually quite fast.

Then there are the things that didn’t surprise us: Alonso is fast, Hamilton is beating Button, and Vettel is beating Webber.

Even though Schumacher was beaten by Rosberg, I think Rosberg still has a few things to worry about. A man that has been away from F1 for 3 years comes back and finishes 4 seconds and a single place behind you. Obviously he will take a few races to get into the groove, but does Rosberg have anything left in reserve?

Red Bull seems to have gone back to fast car, but faster to break down. This looks like a repeat of 2005 to be, with Alonso picking up points whilst Vettel succumbs to sick cars. Of course, we haven’t seen the full potential of the Mclaren, Hamilton finished 3^rd. I think Hamilton could be the 2010 equivilent of the 2008 Kubica. Picks up points, and maybe a win, and he will keep him in contention until the end. However, Mclaren has an amazing development pace too, so we shouldn’t rule him out.

What else is there to add? Nothing really, except let’s hope Malaysia is better. We haven’t got a clear indication of where the teams are yet, but we should have by the end of the 28^th. I could go off one a big rant about how refuelling is a big mistake, but we have to wait until Malaysia and Australia to make a real conclusion. Bring on Malaysia!