1st Grand Prix

[rodders47]

well it has been run and won and no surprise to me Ferrari have scooped the pool.. ummm watching paint dry is exciting to F1 now days

So F1 is in the mode of cost cutting ? Like what teams are affected? surely Jordan/Minardi/Sauber maybe/McLaren maybe/. As for Ferrari it does not seem to be a problem with Money. I am not trying to take away from them the fact that they are so superior, just stating the fact that they did umpteen Km's of testing over winter, backed by a very financial company, which is strange as I recall Fiat has been in a somewhat bit of financial difficulties last year, but as usual Ferrari are on top by a HUGE margin as compared to the rest of the also rans.

Hey Bernie, this is not good for your TV sales rating mate, I for one lost interest after 1/3rd of the race and went about doing other things, so I missed all the sponsors adds. IF I was a sponsor for the TV rights I would sure look at this fact and weigh up if I would continue sponsorship of a FARCE.......to me the only interesting part of today on OZ TV was the V8 supercars and the Porche Carrera cup races, even the Celebrity race in BMW's was more exciting !!!

God I do hope this is not indicative of this years F1 races !!!!!

[Kempi]

Williams (and especially Mclaren) tested a lot more than Ferrari this winter. Also, Ferraris F1 programme is pretty much selfsufficient, the Gestione Sportiva is basically outsourced and backed by their car sales, FIAT plays only a minor role in the financial plan for the F1 team.

[akbar21881]

Ah well..one race gone.I enjoyed watching the start and some overtaking. Apart from that it's just all about watching Ferrari trading fastest laps.

Can;t wait to see race in Malaysia and Bahrain.Those two hot races should give us a brief idea about competitiveness( or lack of it) of some cars. If Ferrari and Bridgestone still walk away in Sepang and Bahrain,that means Michelin and Mclaren/Williams didn't do their homework over the winter.

[Guest]

Lots of other sites also have people whining about the first race of the season,personally i thought it was excellent and am happy to see history in the making.Ferrari aren't gonna be on top for ever.

[mvf4sp]

To me it was a good race that became a nightmare for some drivers. I saw a dominating Ferrari (yeahh!!!!) but i would love to see williams on the first places to see what it really is. Since Montoya blew it up in the first corner, it was impossible to see what Williams is capable to do, so we have to wait to Malaysia in a couple of weeks and see what happend. Is Williams capable to beat Ferrari? or is it going to be a battle with Renault for the second place, lets see. It's going to be a great season

[West]

Thoughts:

Ferrari was two to four seconds faster than every other car in the race... and they broke last year's fastest lap by three seconds

McLaren's new car didn't do anything impressive at all this weekend. Massa gave Raikkonen a run for the money though, that was really good. Or was it that the McLaren engine was already having problems?

Williams didn't do much better than McLaren either... it looks like Renault have closed the gap to the top three. Even though both Williams scored in the points it didn't seem to be quite the revolutionary car everybody was talking about.

BAR's car is really impressive... personally... giving JPM a tough time.

I thought the R5 was pretty good too until Mark retired

It was funny to see Heidfeld put a fight up w/ Fisichella... it looks to me that either Fisichella isn't that great a driver, or the Jordan has greatly improved over last year's car (of course they have the latest Cosworth engine which should really help)

Overall, it looks like only Ferrari, BAR, Renault, and even Jordan have made the most significant strides over last year. The only interesting parts of the race were Massa vs. Raikkonen, Button vs. JPM, and Heidfeld vs. Fisichella. It was kinda boring to see Ferrari owning everybody like nothing.

If the rest of the season looks like the season of red again... I might just rather read about the results on F1 live than watch TV

[Steven]

for Raikkonen who was passed by Massa, I am quite sure he was already hindered by his engine, since he has to let Coulthard go, which isn't quite normal since he drove 8 laps just behind the Scot

[Becker4]

i was bummed to see ferrari do so well, but this is racing, and hopefully they won't be as dominant in track better suited to michelins, and i was bummed at mclaren/mercedes, they didn't take care of buisness over winter. but i was thrilled at renault, especially alonso, and hopefully they do even better once the improvements to there engine come about over the next few races.

[F1JagFan]

Watching paint dry just about sums it up. Maybe we should paint the red cars blue and white, or black and silver, or blue and yellow or... Then again, why not have 20 Ferrari's - that would be interesting. I was actually at the track Saturday and with Montoya taking the the honours in Qual 1, I thought we were in for an interesting race. Then Qual 2 and back to the red parade.

Altho its early days..

Ferrari - got to hand it to them, they keep raising the bar
Williams - they need two new, consistant drivers
Renault - Maybe our only chance of keeping the year interesting
McLaren - ???
BAR - Go Jenson
Jaguar - if it wasn't for Mark?
Saubar - imitation is the greatest form of flattery

..forget the rest.

This was the first Aust GP Bernie has attended for several years, and I've read in the Aust press that he left after the first 1/2 hr.

Maybe (hopefully) I'm wrong, and it will actually be an interesting year, and not another white (or should that be red) wash.

If there was a yawning emoticon available, there would be several right here.....

[Becker4]

i read a report having some quote from benie where he is saying how upset he is that ferrari did so well in qualifying, and they are not suppose to be this good . . . from the article, he sounded very upset, so hopefully he will do something about it.

[Becker4]

here i found the article http://www.f1racing.net/en/news.php?newsID=44383

[West]

Is ecclestone's wife like 1 million years younger than him

[Scuderia_Russ]

Ha ha,yeh...he met her when she was a grid girl and she didn't speak a word of English.Then he pulled her and gave her English lessons.Chicks are hasle at the best of times let alone taking one home and teaching it a new language!!

[rumpelstulskin]

i like ecclestone's straightforward hard talk though...
but i would not bet any money on ferrari dominance.. a cursory look at track temperatures in teh race will tell you that michelin should have good times ahead

[rodders]

all very interesting reading guys BUT it still gets down to the fact that Ferrari BROKE the lap record in the very early part of the RACE by 3 seconds !!!!!!!!

I'm not taking it away from the Red cars , believe me , but I feel that a rookie driver, driving one of those cars could win, that's how superior I think they are, and Hell it must have been boring for M.S & R.B as both like to race hard not just blow away the field..

Nice gesture of M.S. not to LAP the williams !!!!