Melbourne Magic

Qualification is one thing - racing quite another. What a great start to the new F1 season. Plenty of action, surprising performance and even proper racing!

Maclaren have come out fighting and the rest must be wondering how to stop them before they cruise to an unassailable lead in the early fly-away races. An immaculate drive from Jenson Button. And hat's off to Kimi Raikkonen, after his very suspect qualidfication performance he demonstrated he can still race at the top. The Lotus looks a great package.

Unluckiest drive of the day must go to Pastor Maldonado who richly deserved to record early points for a rejuvenated Williams team. Perez in the Sauber was another star.

Ferrari had a so-so race and need to find some quick improvements or they may even find themselves outside the top 4 teams.

Bring on Malaysia next week. Can't wait.

Alonso Grits His Teeth

Well, here we are at last - another F1 season gets underway and the toys are already being thrown out of the pram! Alonso makes a mistake in qualification, slides backwards into the gravel and then takes it out on a marshall. It looks like it could be a frustrating start to the season for Ferrari fans as Massa was hardly shining this morning either.

Kimi also looks like he's finding out the hard way that F1 is no respecter of talent. You really can't step back into an F1 car after a few years away and expect to hit the front. Perhaps that will help temper people's views on Schumacher's return! But Michael's looking very much at home in the Mercedes this year. Could be an interesting season.

Elsewhere, I was highly impressed by new kid Jean-Eric Vergne driving for Torro Rosso - and where did Roman Grosjean's 3rd quali place come from? Roll on tomorrow morning. Best remember to set the alarm clock. Forgot this morning but woke at 5:45 anyway.