Racing at the Australian Formula One Grand Prix with a Challenging 2011 Formula

The battle between the Formula One matadors has begun in earnest at last. In practice on Friday, times were not surprising for the most part.

As Ferrari driver and two-time world driving champion Fernando Alonso said, “We have new cars, new regulations and new drivers, but I doubt there will be anything new at the front of the grid.”

As it happened, that became painfully true for Ferrari and McLaren, as reigning champion driver with his reigning champion team, Sebastien Vettel, stormed to the front of the field and onto the pole. The 23-year-old German lad also earned the pole at last year's Australian Grand Prix.

For a while it appeared that 34-year-old lone Aussie driver Mark Webber was going to line up behind beside his teammate in P2, but Lewis Hamilton managed to wedge his McLaren between them to earn the second spot on the front row beside Vettel. Hamilton's teammate Jenson Button, in the sister McLaren, nailed the fourth place alongside Webber in the second row.

This observer agrees with many in the paddock who believe that qualifying will be of lesser importance throughout the 2011 season because there is a plethora of variables, the effects of which are as yet unknown.

The movable rear wing, or “flap” as I like to call it, the Kinetic Energy Recovery System, the more quickly wearing Pirelli tires and the absence of double diffusers all are, to a degree, unknown quantities.

It is difficult for me, here in Canada, to be right on top of much of the latest happenings in Formula One when it's going on down under. We are almost a full day behind Melbourne, here on the east side of this country, so you can expect me to be more ahead of the game when races are not so extremely remote from us. In any case, as has been proven innumerable times in motor racing... “it ain't over 'til it's over.”