Ten Things We Learned in This Weekend's Aussie GP

(Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

This weekend was one of the most highly anticipated opening races in F1 history. With so many rule changes and the old pecking order being ripped up, there were so many questions coming into this race.

So what have we learnt from the Round 1 of the F1 season?

Brawn GP’s Pace is Real

Throughout winter testing, many held the view that Brawn GP were running underweight, and refused to believe how quick the car was.

This weekend confirmed that this is a very quick car, and Brawn GP have to be considered serious contenders for the 2009 World Championship.

Their one lap pace was particularly impressive. Jenson Button’s pole position lap was 0.6 quicker than the first non-Brawn GP car, and Button was on a fairly heavy fuel load.

In the race, I don’t think Brawn GP showed their true pace. The safety car made the race closer, and gave the advantage to the cars that started on the unfavourable super soft tyre. Also a fumbled second pit stop lost Jenson at least four or five seconds.

Despite these difficult moments, Button was calm and had the race perfectly under control. He dealt with the last stint on the super soft tyres with superb ease. I think he could have gone quicker if he needed to.

Rubens Barrichello also did very well to fight back to 2nd after a very poor getaway.

This 1-2 result for Brawn GP is an absolute fairytale, and shows that anything is possible when you put your mind to it. 

It’s amazing that a team all but dead a few months ago, has come back to deliver this incredible result.

I think Brawn GP will be a long way ahead for the next few races.

McLaren’s Woes are Also Real

Mclaren’s poor pace over winter testing was another story, which fans were very sceptical about. Some suggested they were sandbagging and playing games. As a Mclaren fan, I was hoping the people who held these views would be proved right.

As it turned out in Australia, Mclaren has a lot of work to do if they want to be challenging for race victories later this season.

At the moment, the Mclaren is around 1.5 seconds off the pace of the Brawn GP cars. That is a huge chunk of time to make up, even for a team with the huge resources and brains of Mclaren.

Looking at the onboard shots of the Mclaren, it didn’t seem like too bad a car to drive. It seemed quite well balanced. The handling wasn’t as dreadful as a lot of other cars I have witnessed in F1. The drivers were able to hit the apexes on each corner.

The problem is that the car is lacking the downforce and speed. The car isn’t nailed to the track.

In a way, the fact that the car doesn’t handle too badly is a nightmare situation. If the car handles badly then it’s something the team can quickly rectify, and immediately gain a healthy chunk of time by doing so.

However, the handling isn’t the car’s biggest issue. The car is just slow and lacking downforce. It won’t be easy for Mclaren to find the time they need to gain on the frontrunners.

Some insiders at Mclaren say they have a huge upgrade planned for Spain (the 5th Round of the season), and that the car will fly there. I have my doubts whether that will happen. Let’s wait and see.

Hamilton Has Taken to the Challenge of Having a Slow Car Brilliantly

Everyone wondered how Lewis Hamilton would fare as soon as he was given a slow car. Throughout his racing career, even before Formula 1, he has been used to driving the best cars.

All great drivers in F1 history have pulled off great results in slow cars. We have all been eagerly waiting how Lewis would fare this weekend.

Overall he has been very positive weekend. He hasn’t walked around the paddock with his head down and looking miserable. He has done everything he can to encourage his team and kept their spirits up. He hasn’t constantly complained about his team as other drivers may have done. He has just jumped into the car and did the best he possibly could.

To finish third in the race coming from the back of the grid is an astonishing result. He pulled off a few great overtaking moves on cars faster than his (Piquet and Rosberg for example). He pushed hard every single lap and drove with great spirit.

Of course, the fact that Melbourne was a race of attrition did help him out, too. However, Lewis kept his head whilst others lost theirs. Most of the DNFs in the race were due to driver error rather than reliability.

Lewis maximised the situation in the race, and got the best result he could possibly have hoped for. Those six points will be very useful indeed. In my eyes, he drove like a champion in this race.

Ferrari Have Kept Their Weaknesses

This was a very bad weekend for Ferrari. Just like last season Ferrari scored nil points in Australia. Their biggest issue was in qualifying.

Despite the change in regulations, it seems that Ferrari still have trouble warming their tyres up for a single flying lap. In cooler conditions, as we had in Australia, this issue is even worse.

When you take fuel loads into account, Ferrari were more than 1.0 second off Brawn GP in qualifying.

In race trim their pace was better, but their ability to get tactical decisions wrong remained. Starting on the super-soft tyres turned out to be the wrong move, as was the decision to put Felipe Massa on a three stop strategy.

In the end, the safety car almost made that wrong tyre call the right one.

Kimi Raikkonen was suddenly on the right tyre when others had to use the super-soft. There was a chance that he could have charged to second, but he made a mistake and brushed the wall, ending his chances. Kimi Raikkonen’s attempt to impress backfired on him.

Massa was driving a very solid race, and he could have had a strong result in the end, but a reliabily issue ended his race.

In conclusion, Ferrari showed off all their biggest weaknesses from last season, all in the first race of the 2009 season.

I am sure they will bounce back in Sepang. The heat may well suit them much better. But it’s hard to see them repeating their dominance in last season’s race. They don’t have the quickest car by any stretch of the imagination at the moment.

There Seemed to be a Noticeable Improvement in the Amount of Overtaking

The racing was definitely much better in Melbourne than in recent seasons. There was far more wheel-to-wheel action and attempts at overtaking.

The two best moves of the race in my eyes were Nico Rosberg’s move on Kimi Raikkonen down into turn one. Turn one is a very difficult place to pass. Rosberg was extremely brave there.

Timo Glock’s daring move on Fernando Alonso around the outside of turn four was also excellent. To go around the outside of Fernando Alonso is an extremely brave thing to do.

These two examples are the kind of moves that we haven’t seen enough of in the past four or five years. Melbourne isn’t the best track for overtaking, which bodes well for Malaysia and Bahrain, which are two of the best overtaking tracks in F1.

The cars also seem to be able to follow each other closely and far more comfortably than before. Thanks to less turbulent air behind the cars there appeared to be less field spread, too. In the past, the field has spread extremely quickly. So this is an improvement, too.

However the Spanish and Hungarian GPs will be the biggest test in whether the new rules have worked or not.

I am sure that KERs, and the new tyre rules will also have had their part to play in more overtaking.

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