The first thing I want to say is that I wish Stan had started this thread.

Back to the track and Red Bull are looking predictably dominant. With so little development room left in this year's regulations, the RB9 looks as far ahead of its evolutionary rivals as ever.

Mercedes and Lotus are up there, as pre-season testing suggested, though I doubt Mercedes are too chuffed to have both their cars sidelined in the final minutes.

Ferrari is hard to call, with a slightly mystifying lack of pace on display so far.

And McLaren? I really hope their brave words about the development potential of this car are not a smokescreen to hide a 2012-Ferrari-style disaster, because I don't think either Button or Perez (for different reasons) will be able to "do an Alonso" and be competitive in a shed.

Still, no points for Friday or Saturday, so let's see what happens. I still think Webber has to be a decent outside(ish) bet - the Red Bull looks so good and Vettel could get caught out by a back-marker or something.

I just hope that someone stops it becoming a 4xFinger-wagging year.

I concur.

I hope McLaren can get their act together, Perez is in my FF1 team!

I think you'd be a brave person to bet against Vettel though.

It's always the same with Ferrari: the first 4-5 races have always been a disaster.

As for the Red Bulls... well we had Bas Leynders on the Belgian radio saying that Red Bull wouldn't be as dominant the first few races but would catch up soon enough. I'd say he's wildly guessing just like everyone else. We'll see what Sunday brings. Hopefully, as I'm definitely NOT going to watch the Belgian TV (commentators without any knowledge + ads every 5 minutes) but hope to watch French HD with BBC 5 Live comments on the radio.

Unless someone can forward their Sky signal to me. BBC isn't going to broadcast the race until monday evening as far as I can tell. By then I'll have heard the results 10 times.

Hasn't French coverage moved to Canal+?

well fccuk fccuk fccuk. I thought the Beeb were going to show at least the first and last race live along with a couple of others, Monaco & The British GP. I've just checked and they are only showing highlights of Quali and not showing the race live either. I am really Royally pissed off with them!

It goes against the grain but I might even call Virgin tomorrow and subscribe to as little as I need to to get live coverage!


Worth it though to see Lewis get his first win of the season

You can view it live on naughty sites.

Not only are they only showing the highlights, they're showing them while I'm flying back from Brazil and they don't seem to be repeating them either...

Don't complain.

Anybody, like me, stupidly got up early (I was awake) to watch the F1 quali only to be presented with a "technical fault" screen?!!

Apparently a power cut in Oz

Frustrated? You bet!

And now a start delay due to rain. Wish I'd stayed in bed....

A few thrills and spills though. A right old lottery. Should be dry for the race tomorrow. I'm tucked up in bed with a nice cup of coffee listening to 5Live Sports Extra

Nightmare. Q2and Q3 delayed until tomorrow!!!!

Qualifying now put off until tomorrow morning...

Aaarrgghhh bloody sky, bloody BBC stupid rain. Etc.. Loved watching the little bit I saw, dancing in the rain. Alonso will be on fire, vet's will be chilled as ever and I can see Lewis loosing his rag, by mid season he'll be ANGRY. Frustrated and fighting with Massa again. Can't wait!!!

Normally I'm really excited about a new season and would be up to watch both the qualifying and the race. But I'm so knackered at the moment that I decided to sack quali and have a lie-in. Unlike poor MrsC, who headed off downstairs this morning at stupid o'clock. She was understandably nonplussed when I joined her at 7.30 with nothing but rain to report!
Can't believe I regard 7.30 as a decent lie-in either.

I'm ok, littlest is up at 530 every day so not much that I miss early on, although quail at 11.45 is looking like hard work!!

Straight after Match of the Day....

There's a 7:30...in the MORNING??

Need an alarm?

I'm this far committed that I'll probably just stay up now.

Oh, Vettel on pole. That's refreshing.

SPOILER ALERT!! Just got in from a party. Have the qualifying recorded. As the wife is asleep. Thought I would watch it with the sub titles. I guess who ever is typing them is Not an F1 fan. At the end of quaily they put up. Vettel and 'whether' on the front row ??? Don't you just love em

Ps. It made me giggle to see that alonso totally ignored massa at the weigh... Don't know why

Well that was a good start to the season.

Nice to see the Red Bulls are beatable and that Kimi seems to have some very good genuine pace.

Pretty impressed with the Force Indias today too.

Great start to the season.

Well done Kimi!! A very well run race by Lotus. What happened to Webber at the start? I imagine that Lewis will be quite pleased with his race.

The McLarens???

Bear in mind that Sky F1 through Virgin is not in HD, if that bothers you...

Great race and a cool victory for Kimi. I was fearing Red Bull domination but thankfully they had issues of their own.

McLaren will be blowing the dust off and rolling out their 2012 car in China then?

Quite annoyed by the result, as I'd put a tenner each way on Grosjean and it's Kimi in the other Lotus who does the business.

The tyre degradation of the Lotus was generally acknowledged to be the best of all of the cars in pre-season testing. Grosjean did a race simulation at Barcelona, where the Lotus' tyre drop off was being measured in hundreths per lap, where others were losing tenths. The drop off of the Mclaren was around 0.25s per lap in comparison!

Looking at the Lotus, it seems to be very compliant and ride very soft and it's aero characteristics seem very benign to the soft set-up, while still producing high downforce without the normal pitch sensitivity which a soft set-up is prone to induce.

One thing I picked up on (and Ben Edwards also mentioned in passing), is that the floors of both Lotus' were still striking the ground at the end of the race, where fuel loads would have been at their lowest. It could just have been normal, with the cars being set to run on the bump stops in this way. But, it's worth noting that the Enstone factory has a history of inventing innovative suspension systems (mass dampers, brake-linked front ride height control), so it's not beyond the realms of possibilty that they're running some kind of legal passive ride height control system. The high speed Sepang circuit next week usually demands a stiffer set-up, so it will be interesting to see how Lotus go there.

The race pace of Mclaren in pre-season was thought to be weak and this was born out today. They have balance issues and too much tyre deg. Since 2010, the Mclarens have had to run very stiff in order for their aero to work, but I think their change to a front pullrod suspension system has exacerbated this characteristic, leading to the ride issues they're having. The pullrod system has CoG and aero advantages, but it limits the geometry available. Mclarens problems won't be an easy fix, so I wouldn't even be surprised if the team take an updated version of last years MP4-27 to the rest of the early flyaway races, while they work on solving the issues of the MP4-28 back at base in readiness for the start of the euro season. Some of the issues Mclaren are experiencing are similer to last years front suspension pullrod Ferrari. Although I think their issues were mainly rear aero related.

The Mclaren had showed real flashes of pace in pre-season, but it's pace over a stint is poor. This shows that it's performance is very peaky with a very narrow optimum operating window.

The Red Bulls look to still have the most overall downforce of anything else out there, but the fragility of the tyres doesn't allow them to use it in a race situation. At the start, Vettel went off like a bat out of hell like he usually does from pole, which would normally allow him to break out of DRS range and control the race from there. But, the new spec of Pirelli tyres hate being hammered early in a stint and make you pay for it later on, which is why the Ferraris were able to reel him back in. The newly restricted use of DRS in qualifying is also hurting Red Bull, as their double DRS gave them a big advantage and allowed them to run more rear wing.

Yes - I noticed the Lotus was striking quite a bit.

I was surprised to see Mercedes propping up the bottom of the the speed trap numbers. Poor engine or high downforce?

Must have been running a barn door of a rear wing. The Mercedes is regarded as having the best top end of all the engines.

Barn door spoiler may also explain poor tyre life for the Merc, saying that Hammy loves to slide and that doesn't live in modern F1.
Nice to see well have a 4 way battle for title with 2 Ferraris a lotus and a redbull. Sorry Webber fans but I just don't think he has that last 0.5% to pull off a driver's championship win.

Interesting race, but very little to learn about absolute pace as it was so far out of the performance window expected for Melbourne. Still, the performance of the teams relative to one another won't be too different I suppose. I'd be surprised if Red Bull don't do better in Malaysia.