Australia Recap: The Return of the Car to the Driver

Forget about Lewis Hamilton.

In a drive described by team principal Ron Dennis as "faultless," the 23-year old lead driver for McLaren was the season-opener pole-sitter and sped away with the lead for practically the entire race, blasting the competition with a 190 MPH slipstream and finishing 5.4 seconds ahead of Nick Heidfeld, who drove in a second place finish for BMW Sauber.

Finishing in third place was Nico Rosberg. Rosberg, a driver for Williams, and Renault rookie Nelson Piquet Jr. are a pair of sons spawned from F1 champion daddies Keke Rosberg and Nelson Piquet.

I have heard that the Jr. Piquet would prefer not to be labeled as such. His name is listed on the formulaone.com site as Nelsinho Piquet, but Speed TV commentators continue to refer to him with the Jr. bit as well as featuring it in the show graphics. Mystery.

It was fantastic to see Nico Rosberg on the podium for the first time in his F1 career. Watching Rosberg during the trophy-giving ceremony was a hoot. Not only did he leave his hat on during the national anthem portion of the ceremony, but he entertained us with a cascading monsoon of facial sweat during the post-race interview. We were wondering if he forgot to grab a towel, or if he was just too deep in endorphins to care.

The big news of this race was the performance of the cars and drivers with the mandated absence of automatic traction control. There was lots of sliding and drive-offs, and even an uncharacteristic spin from the Ferrari of Kimi Räikkönen.

The mechanics at Ferrari have some 'splaining to do regarding the performance of both Felipe Massa's and Kimi's car. Massa failed to finish the race but Kimi, after a start near the back of the grid, a drive-off and the spin, managed to secure one of the 44 points available to the top 8 placers. That's how good he is.

Almost as shocking as the Räikkönen spin was the disqualification of Rubens Barrichello. Once a Ferrari driver, Barichello was spanked for leaving the pit lane on a red light, his second pit stop error of the race. That's too many for a seasoned pro like Barichello. Perhaps the 100-degree heat was nagging at him. Had rules been followed Rubens certainly would have finished the race leaving Kimi to greet the season as a non-scorer.

Next up, we visit Malaysia and its track with those awesome straights in sectors one and three. Here in PST Land we can watch this race live on Speed TV at 11:00 pm on Saturday, March 22nd.