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Steve Slater

Blooming typical. I'd just written this column saying that I am looking forward to Formula One getting back to business as usual, with focus being on track action at the German Grand Prix this weekend.

Then on Wednesday afternoon Max Mosley did it again with another precipitous change in direction. With no warning and contradicting the FIA's own statements at the end of June, the eight current FOTA teams were told by FIA officials that they "are not currently entered into the 2010 world championship and have no voting rights in relation to the technical and sporting regulations thereof".

They had no choice but to walk out of a planned meeting with the FIA boss. In one way, this can be laid at the feet of the FOTA team-managers, they gloated too soon at their perceived victory when Mosley said that he would plan to step down in October. This move serves as a reminder that till then at least, Mad Max is still in charge. Like it or not.

Thankfully, it is business as usual as far as the German race fans are concerned. Even a week before the race, the camper vans containing vast quantities of pilsener beer and wurst sausages have been pouring into the campsites in the woods around the track. This is the start of the holiday season in Germany and it could be that the vacations may start on a high note with a German race winner.

Just as the (ultimately forlorn) hopes of victory for Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button packed the grandstands at Silverstone, the thought of a likely ‘home hero' race winner in Sebastian Vettel is likely to make the Nurburgring race a sell-out for the first time in recent years.

Amazingly though, although the Nurburgring hosted the European Grand Prix in recent years, this is the first year since 1976, a decade before Vettel was born, that the track will have hosted the German Grand Prix.

In those days the track was the notorious ‘Nordschleife', a perilous 22km lap through the Eiffel mountains known by some drivers as ‘the green hell'. F1 racing on the old track was abandoned after the 1976 race when a near-fatal accident to Ferrari driver Niki Lauda highlighted its many safety issues. Since then the cars have raced either at Hockenheim or on the shorter, but still technically demanding ‘new' Nurburgring.

Not since Michael Schumacher bowed out in 2006 with his fifth victory at the Nurburgring, has there been a home win in serious prospect. While there are four other German drivers on the grid, neither Timo Glock, Nico Rosberg nor Adrian Sutil have had the machinery or the good fortune to bid for victory.

Nick Heidfeld has come closest. He finished second at Nurburgring in 2005, after claiming pole position for the Williams team. This year he has so far been hobbled by his ill-handling BMW and paddock rumours have already hinted that he might be eying a switch from the team for 2010.

However just as Sebastien Vettel spoiled the hopes of the Jenson Button fans at Silverstone, I suspect that the Nurburgring's medium speed corners may better suit the Brawn chassis than Red Bull. Certainly the Brawn target will be a strong points-scoring performance to take Jenson closer to the title

However, we can certainly look forward to a great battle this weekend as Sebastien struts his stuff at the Nurburgring, while given the lack of results for McLaren this season, Mercedes-Benz wouldn't be too unhappy if their engine was seen to power the Brawn to victory this weekend.

Of the other German drivers, Toyota could yet spring a surprise with Timo Glock, watch Rosberg for the customary heroics in practice with the Williams and then there's Adrian Sutil ...

A week ago at a media event in Mumbai, I got into some hot water for suggesting that Sutil isn't aggressive enough in the Force India car. However I'll stick to my guns.

Adrian Sutil is in my opinion one of the good guys in the Formula One paddock. He's certainly one of the most talented. In addition to being a quick Formula One driver, he is an equally good concert pianist and will talk about arpeggios just as fluently as he does oversteer.

Both he and Giancarlo Fisichella are I think, virtuoso performers in their Formula One cars too. They are both a joy to watch on the track; fast, fluid, accurate. But are they race winners?

Perhaps Force India need their current skill-set more than a brutal, aggressive Kubica-type driver at the moment. However when that attacking style is needed it will be interesting to see which, or indeed whether either Force India driver will deliver.

As I know that Sebastian Vettel is fond of British comedy such as John Cleese's infamous ‘Don't Mention the War' sketch in Fawlty Towers, I make no apologies for the headline. Nor to point out that the plucky German chap trounced the best of British, in the form of Hamilton and Button, on their home track.

Carrying on the movie theme, June 21^st is also in the northern hemisphere, The Longest Day. It certainly seemed appropriate this weekend, as Formula One lurched towards Apocalypse Now.

The announcement on Thursday evening that the Formula One Teams Association members were indeed going to form a breakaway championship, rather than cave in to Max Mosley's ultimatums really did push the series to I fear, the edge of self destruction. If I may bring back the war-movie theme again, how about Catch-22?

History in various sporting codes shows that every time such a breakaway has happened, neither side truly benefits. The ultimate reaction usually comes from us, the fans. Past experience shows we will take just so much. Then we get fed up with the politics and walk away. Then the sport dies.

While some consider this weekend as an end-game, I suspect that there is still room for The Great Escape, allowing both parties to resume a working relationship. Next Wednesday, the FIA World Council meets in Paris and one of the items on the agenda is Max Mosley's proposed retirement.

Thereby sits the hidden agenda. Not one of the team bosses would admit it openly, but the clear hint is that the one thing that could stop this breakaway would be for FIA President Max Mosley to go. It is his dictatorial stance and intransigence that has brought this whole disaster to a head.

The rulemaking and direction of Formula One has increasingly become Mosley's personal fiefdom. The FIA World Council, which is supposed to reach a balanced consensus is regarded by many as impotent. The sport has for the past few years been ruled by Presidential edict.

A year ago Max said he would step down and retire in October. However some say that he believes that he doesn't want to leave the FIA in the midst of crisis and may reverse his original decision.

Although he doesn't seem to see it. Rightly or wrongly, Max IS a part of the crisis. If he elects to stay, I think the FOTA breakaway will accelerate with tracks and additional teams being announced in rapid succession. However if Max elects to retire and names a successor, I suspect and hope that we might see the FOTA teams reunite with Formula One.

Thankfully this weekend we also had a cracking motor race. Sebastian Vettel came, saw and conquered, with pole position, fastest lap and of course, an emphatic victory, ahead of team-mate Red Bull Racing team-mte Mark Webber.

Brawn honours were upheld by a beautifully controlled drive from Rubens Barrichello, to a well-deserved third place. Championship leader Button however had to be content with sixth place on a track where the Brawn, for the first time this season, was simply outclassed.

I sense a wind of change in the 2009 World Championship. No longer are Brawn running away from the field with the fastest car on the track. This is the point where Jenson Button needs to dig in and start defending his championship lead.

The Red Bull wasn't the only car to be superior to the Brawn. Despite a disappointing practice, the Ferrari of Felipe Massa came back on form for the race itself. Massa delivered a fine drive that took him from 11^th on the grid, past Button and into fourth place.

Meanwhile down in tenth place, due credit should be given for an unsung performance that for me, was one of the drives of the race.

Force India driver Giancarlo Fisichella had started a lowly 16^th, after his best lap in qualifying was disrupted by the yellow flags being waved after a monster accident to team-mate Adrian Sutil.

Fisichella took two places on the first lap and overtook two more cars in Stowe Corner on the second. He then lapped at the same pace as the front runners on his way to an eventual tenth place.

At the chequered flag, Fisichella was just two seconds behind Kimi Raikkonen's eighth place Ferrari. I have little doubt, that had Giancarlo started a little higher up the grid, he'd have scored the team's first points of the season.

Based on Jenson Button's domination of the first half of the Formula One World Championship season, one would have to be crazy to tip anyone other than the Briton, or his Brawn team for the 2009 Driver's and Constructor's titles.

Certainly a win this weekend would be much now than ten more championship points added to the tally. The 2009 British Grand Prix is set to be the last-ever held at Silverstone before the race moves (assuming the track is finished) to a new venue at Donington Park, for 2010 and beyond.

Not only is Silverstone a home track for the British driver, it is also for the team. Brawn GP are based at Brackley, just 10km from the circuit.

They say that a home race adds pressure. Jenson in fact has already coped with one 'home fixture' this season. He won convincingly in Monaco, where he lives. Jenson himself said that was the race that has meant most to him as a driver.

I believe that Button's wins in six of the first seven races allows him to approach the British Grand Prix in a relaxed frame of mind. He's been constantly reminded by helpful media like me, that a win would match fellow Briton Nigel Mansell's 1992 feat of winning five races in a row. That year Mansell went on to win both the British Grand Prix and the title.

Last year Lewis Hamilton dominated the rain-soaked event to claim his third win at that point in the season. He too went on to be champion. However I believe that win or lose at Silverstone, Jenson already has the satisfaction of knowing he is on his way to the title.

I wonder though, whether Button may be the last driver to be crowned FIA World Drivers Champion, a title which has been awarded continuously since Nino Farina was first awarded the crown in 1950?

The continuing feud between the teams organisation FOTA and the FIA could easily come to a head this weekend. The FIA are determined to force through cost-cutting regulations which the bigger teams say are unattainable in the short-term, while FIA boss Max Mosley is determined that either the teams submit to his wishes or they won't compete next year.

In the past Mosley has operated a policy of 'divide and conquer' among the teams. Most notably buying off Ferrari with a commercial agreement which remained secret til last month and more recently, it could be speculated that the penalties which emasculated McLaren have had more to do with power struggles than the punishment fitting the crime.

This time though, the teams with the exceptions of Williams and Force India, who have signed unconditionally for the 2010 series, have so far maintained a solidarity unthinkable a few years ago. Then, the different team bosses couldn't even agree on when to hold their next meeting. Now there is talk that the teams themselves may form a breakaway series.

Mosley has responded by offering places on the starting grid to a string of new teams. Perhaps not for the first time,he holds the whip hand in a bizarre game of musical chairs. This time when the music stops, I suspect that Ferrari, Toyota or Renault could be left standing - without a place on the starting grid.

The Silverstone paddock is going to be a very interesting place this weekend. I've already even heard wacky rumours of a possible strike by the eight FOTA teams, to remind us what a starting grid would look like with just Force India and Williams on it.

Personally I think that is rubbish - the teams as much as anyone know their future depends on being able to put on the best possible show. Alternatively, it could be Force India's best chance of a win all season!

My money will go on Button to continue on his winning ways. But watch Red Bull and maybe Ferrari chase him home!

I know, it is a shocking pun, but I fear it won't be the last time I use it.

Jenson Button's winning performance in the Turkish Grand Prix took him another step closer to a world championship title.

His victory took him into the realms of Formula One legends Michael Schumacher and Jim Clark, as one of only three drivers to win six of the first seven races of the season. Added to that, he has now scored 61 of the potential 65 World Championship points so far on offer.

It is a sobering thought that had Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley had their way in introducing their ‘winner takes all', gold-silver-bronze medal, championship formula, Button would potentially have zipped up (sorry!) the title at the next race.

As it is, Jenson hasn't got it quite stitched up (aaagh) yet. Even now, a couple of non-finishes would see the Briton still having to fight to the final rounds of the title race.

Mind you, based on Button and the Brawn GP team's performance in Turkey, they will fully deserve the title, if and when it comes to them. Although Sebastian Vettel snatched pole position for Red Bull on Saturday, the race remained a salutary reminder that the real winning is done on the Sunday.

Vettel looked good - for the first two laps - before a mistake dropped him briefly off the outside of Turn 10 - and put him behind the flying Brawn. However, even at that point the race could easily have gone either way.

Red Bull have clearly developed a car that is now a match for Brawn GP in performance on the track. Where they perhaps need to be a bit sharper is on the tactical front.

While Mark Webber drove a solid (for me the drive of the day) race to a well-deserved second place, the decision of the team to switch Vettel to a three-stop strategy was a gamble which lost him two championship points, despite the German's best efforts to catch his team-mate in the closing stages.

Meanwhile Rubens Barrichello's performance in the second Brawn, revealed a chink in their armour. Not for the first time, a mistake by Barrichello's engineers in programming the clutch release mechanism left him crawling off the startline.

The man in charge of Barrichello's car is big-name race engineer Jock Clear, who has previously taken drivers such as Jacques Villeneuve to the world championship title. Barrichello has though been on the receiving end of repeated mistakes and poor tactics this year. It cannot be helping the relationships in the team.

Certainly, the furious Barrichello's subsequent driving was more the mark of a hooligan than the sport's elder statesman. First he bounced off Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren, then wrecked his wing on Sutil's Force India before damage to Barrichello's gearbox from the botched the start forced his retirement.

While Rubens scored no points, he still lies second in the title chase, but the boys from Red Bull are closing in fast. Vettel is just six points behind and Webber a mere 1.5 points behind him. Meanwhile Ferrari and BMW continue their fight back to form, expect them to feature in later races too.

Even were Jenson to continue an unopposed winning streak, it would be the Hungarian Grand Prix at earliest before he could clinch the title. And he probably faces more pressure in the next race than in any other this season.

Remember the ‘Hamilton-mania' that took over the British Grand Prix last year? Well this year the British fans are switching their loyalties en-masse from the struggling World Champion, to their new hero, Button. There is ‘home team' pressure too. The Brawn BP team is based just ten kilometres from the track at Brackley. Engine builders Mercedes Benz have their factory at Brixworth just 25km away.

The weight of history also sits on Jenson's shoulders. If Button were to win in Silverstone he would match Nigel Mansell's 1992 feat of winning five races in a row. That year Mansell went on to win both the British Grand Prix and the title.

So saying if Jenson were to win at Silverstone, I suspect it would delight fans around the world. Not least because I promise I'll Button it. No more shocking puns.

It seems ever more ironic that one of the most interesting Formula One World Championship seasons on the race track, continues to be overshadowed by the politics off it.

In any other sport it would be called gross mismanagement. In some, the organising body might even have threatened the ringleaders with bringing the sport into disrepute. However as one of the prime people in the impasse is FIA boss Max Mosley, I can't see that happening here.

The fact is that despite Mr. Mosley's best efforts to ‘divide and conquer', the alliance created by the Formula One Teams Association is largely holding together. So far.

Led by Ferrari, nine FOTA teams beat the May 29 deadline to enter the 2010 championship by just hours, but their entries came with strings attached. They said that they were entering on the basis that the 2010 regulations will be the current 2009 regulations, amended in accordance with additional cost-saving proposals that FOTA has submitted to the FIA.

While the FIA has kept relatively silent on this move, it is suspected that Mosley could simply exclude the FOTA teams' conditional entries as invalid on June 12.

So who would be on the starting grid for the 2010 World Championship?

Well, there's Williams. The independent team so far are the only ones to have made an unconditional entry to the 2010 series. One could cynically say its their best chance of a world title in years!

To further pressurise the teams, Max has cleverly set up a situation where a host of newbies are likely to fill up the starting grid, if he excludes the ‘conditional' teams. Some, including Prodrive, Lola, Campos Meta 1 and Litespeed already have strong records in other formulae. Others including USF1, Team Superfund and the almost unpronounceable Epsilon-Euskadi team, bring in people with past Formula One expertise.

Mind you there are some dodgier names too. One entry has been received from the company which bought the assets of the old Super Aguri team last year. Another owns a long-established team name, but has never entered a race at all. A group of Italians have placed an entry in the name of a team which last ran some Alfa Romeo touring cars two years ago.

Could it be that the FIA is playing ‘musical chairs'? Will the FOTA team find all the chairs occupied when the music stops?

The outspoken website ‘Paddocktalk' sums up what many are thinking.

"This whole Formula One entry process by the FIA is done without any transparency and clearly is a perfect opportunity for shenanigans" they wrote. "Not only do we not know exactly who has filed entries, but no one knows who exactly is evaluating the teams and based on which principles. We have to trust an organisation that in our view is completely untrustworthy."

Says it all really.

More worryingly Max has been quoted by the Swiss magazine Motorsport Aktuel as not really caring. "If you want to make the rules, then go and organise your own championship," he was alleged to have said. "Formula One is ours, we make the rules. We started 60 years ago and we will continue like that."

Thankfully we look set to have an absolute cracker of a Grand Prix this weekend to take our minds off the politics. The Turkish Grand Prix is run on one of just three anti-clockwise tracks currently in the championship, the others being Interlagos in Brazil and the Singapore Marina Bay street circuit.

The track also features probably the most demanding corner in Formula One, the triple- apex left hander at Turn 8 has the drivers straining against a sustained left hand cornering load of over 4G and it will probably be taken flat-out.

Because Turn 8 is such a long, fast corner, if you don't get the line exactly right you get bounced off the circuit. The tyres, in particular the right front tyre, has to be hard enough to cope with that corner but still have to compromise for the generally low grip of the asphalt.

Therefore, I guess Brawn will still be the team to beat, but Ferrari could potentially be the team to beat them. The Ferrari F60 is easy on its tyres, which may mean they will have a tactical advantage in the race. My money goes on Massa's smooth driving style to give the Scuderia their first win of the season.

Jenson Button's victory came as the result of flawless driving, not just on raceday Sunday, but for the whole weekend of the Monaco Grand Prix.

We now tend to forget that on Thursday in the early pre-race practice sessions he was struggling. Languishing near the bottom of the timesheets he was outpaced by team-mate Barrichello, his car lacked grip and consistency.

Jenson nonetheless worked solidly with his engineers and by the end of the day had made significant improvements.

"It's the big difference between last year's car and this" said Button before the race. "This year, when we talk to the car, trying new settings, the car listens".

In qualifying Button delivered a ‘lap of the gods' that even baffled his own team with its blistering pace. I suspect even Jenson doesn't know where the performance came from.

His fastest lap was two tenths of a second faster than team mate Barrichello. More importantly he was 25 thousandths of a second faster than the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen. Those fractions are tiny, but vital. It was the difference between pole position and row two of the starting grid.

But come the race itself the margins opened up to whole seconds, then tens of seconds as Button simply drove away from the rest of the field. And that included his Brawn GP team-mate.

Barrichello made a superb start to spring ahead of Raikkonen into Saint Devote corner, but against the run of past form at Monaco, he was powerless to match Button's pace.

Jenson's secret I think was his ability to manage the performance of his tyres. This year, tyremaker Bridgestone have introduced a bigger difference in performance between the regular ‘prime' and the softer ‘option' tyre, the one with the green band on the sidewall.

It has been a masterstroke. Costing nothing extra, it has added a new dimension to every dry race we have seen this year.

In Monaco, the Prime tyre delivered its performance for a longer period with more stability. The Option tyre was initially faster, but then its performance began to deteriorate more quickly.

Button and his race engineers were able to manage the performance of both sets of tyres perfectly. The result was a seamless run to victory as rivals struggled.

If you want to look at how not to do it, look at Sebastian Vettel. The Red Bull was all over the track after overheating its tyres in the early part of the race and was losing nearly four seconds a lap as he trailed the top three.

Bottled behind him, a frustrated Felipe Massa could only fume, as any chance of a podium place evaporated when the leading threesome disappeared into the distance.

The second Ferrari even lost out briefly to the Williams of Nico Rosberg as a traffic jam formed behind the struggling Vettel. Eventually both Rosberg and Massa got by, just before Vettel planted the ill-handing Red Bull in the barriers, much I suspect to everyone else's relief!

Even Barrichello struggled to manage his tyres as consistently as Button. The Brazilian's Brawn looked a handful in the last ten laps before each of his pitstops. It could have even meant that he lost his second place to Raikkonen. A slow Ferrari pitstop however, meant that Barrichello was able to maintain his track position and cement a Brawn GP 1-2.

For Ferrari the day was, I suspect a mixture of frustration that niggling problems, such as Raikkonen's fumbled pitstop, robbed them of a better result, but relief that the car is once again a true contender.

The Ferrari clearly demonstrated that it is the most-improved car of the pack of big-budget early season underperformers. McLaren, BMW and Toyota all had weekends to forget, with miserable performances that made their mark on the crash barriers more than on the results sheets.

Meanwhile Jenson Button cruised serenely to victory. His only mistake of the weekend was when he parked his car in the wrong place after the chequered flag, driving back into the paddock rather than parking on the start line.

His jog along the track kept Prince Albert and the Royal Party waiting, but it was noteworthy that the forest of hands extended in congratulation from the pit wall included members of every team, including Ferrari.

All those hard-bitten professionals appreciated that Button was a worthy winner and were happy to show it. The term ‘a racer's racer' full applies to Jenson. I wonder whether it might even be time to call him champion-elect?

The Monaco Grand Prix, along with Singapore, is the jewel in the sport's crown. For many big companies, entertaining VIP clients in Monaco is the sole reason they invest money in Formula One.

So the current meltdown of Formula One, on the eve of one of its most important events, smacks (sorry Max) of spectacular mismanagement by both the teams and the sports governing body. Instead of headlines anticipating one of the most closely fought Monaco Grand Prix in its 80-plus year history, they are full of legal wrangles and the threatened boycott of the series by Ferrari in 2010. What an own goal!

I think that whatever the good or bad of Max Mosely's previous actions, he has with his recent attempts to rule by Presidential edict, done irreparable damage to the sport his is supposed to administer. His proposal that teams slash budgets by over 75% overnight, are simply unrealistic.

The FIA proposals for 2010 include a budget cap of 40million pounds, excluding the cost of engines, drivers' salaries, hospitality and marketing. Ferrari, Renault, Toyota and the Red Bull-backed teams, who have all threatened not to signup to the 2010 championship, spend at least twice, in some cases more than four times that amount.

They each employ as many as 700 people to design, develop, build and run their cars. It is excessive, true, but to expect them to sack over half of their highly skilled and successful staff in the space of the next few months, is just not on.

I mean, could you tell someone who has spent the last decades of his life dedicated to working in a race team that he no longer has a job? Simply because Max Mosley has issued a unilateral edict? Ferrari, for example, would face doing that to around 300 people.

The first big question is, would the sport survive without Ferrari? It is unique, a team which has been a part of the Grand Prix scene for six decades and is probably the most successful luxury brand name in the world. There are more Ferrari fans around the world than for most of the other teams put together.

I suspect Formula One would continue to limp on for a year or two without their presence, but it would be like a ship holed below the water line. Another storm would sink it.

Equally though, could Ferrari do without the sport which is at its heart? I suspect not either.

Ferrari has built its brand, its fan base and its customers, thanks to Formula One and its TV coverage. Certainly the Scuderia has raced and won in other categories, most notably sports car racing, but I cannot believe that winning even the most famous sportscar race of all, the Le Mans 24-Hours (which Ferrari last won in the 1970s) would raise much more than a brief blip in global awareness.

The Le Mans race attracts maybe 3 million TV viewers in its native France and I guess less than 20 million around the world. It is also just a single race on the calendar.

Compare that with F1. Seventeen events around the world. Each has a TV audience of well over 50 million people. The biggest F1 audience, last year's Singapore GP, attracted more than 100 million viewers. It is worth spending big money to get your brand in front of that many people. That's why all the teams are on the starting grid.

My suspicion is that the teams will force mad Max to tone down some of his crazier demands and then they will commit to 2010. In fact I would not be too surprised to hear that peace has been declared by this weekend's Monaco GP.

Which (at last) brings us to this weekend's race.

The tight confines of Monaco mean that the cars are less dependent on aerodynamic downforce and rely more on mechanical grip and traction out of slow speed corners. The third and final segment of the Barcelona track, therefore gives a good hint of what can be expected.

In which case watch out again for Brawn - and equally Red Bull. Both were strong in that third sector in Barcelona. Past form indicates that Barrichello could potentially beat team-mate Button, although the two best street fighters of all, I reckon are Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.

Of the four drivers my money goes on the Aussie. Remember this is a guy who got a Williams into second place on the grid in 2006 - a true hero.

Ferrari I suspect will improve, but may not necessarily have the pure pace or reliability to shoot for a win. Finally, don't rule out Lewis Hamilton.

The 2009 McLaren will be less hobbled in Monaco by its poor downforce and in Barcelona the MP4-24 was competitive in the traction-dependent sector 3. Add in the fact that Hamilton has won in Monaco in every car he's driven. You simply can't rule him out for a return to the podium!

Sadly, I think the Scuderia still has a long way to go before we can consider them likely winners, but Felipe Massa at least started the Spanish Grand Prix from fourth place and spent the majority of the race battling among the top three positions.

I really feel for Massa. The Brazilian drove his heart out in Barcelona. He used the power boost provided by his KERS energy recovery system to blast ahead of the two Red Bulls into the opening corner, then held them back for all but the last dozen laps of the race. Sixth place was a poor reward for his efforts.

The Brazilian's drive was ruined by a refuelling problem which prevented his car getting enough fuel on both his pit stops. My co-commentators Damien Smith and Alex Yoong, and I were all surprised when Massa made his second stop about six laps before we expected. Little did we know he would not get sufficient litres in his tank for a second time.

One can only imagine Felipe's thoughts when he was first forced to give up his pursuit of Sebastian Vettel, then he had to slow and let Fernando Alonso through to fifth. Still it gave the Spanish race fans something to celebrate.

The refuelling glitch is typical of the many 'quality control' issues that have bedevilled Ferrari this season. One simply cannot imagine them being tolerated in the era when Ross Brawn, Jean Todt and, dare I mention his name, Nigel Stepney, were ruling Maranello.

Brawn and Todt of course, elected to step down at the same time as Michael Schumacher retired. Nigel Stepney, chief mechanic, was of course implicated in the 'McLarengate' spying scandal. Whatever the reasons for their departure, their absence has clearly left a vacuum that has still not properly been filled.

One can sympathise more on the mechanical failings that have come with the team's rush to integrate the previously unproven KERS technology in the cars. In that respect Ferrari are no worse and, possibly responding slightly better, than rivals McLaren, Renault and BMW.

The KERS system may have given Massa the power boost which gave him an early third place in Barcelona, but the system is heavy and compromises the car's weight distribution, leading to poorer handling. The reliability of the system and its effects on the cars' gearbox and engine management were clearly demonstrated in Spain by Kimi Raikkonen's erratic and short-lived race.

I'm still cynical about the supposed tactical blunder which left Raikkonen languishing in the pits instead of progressing through qualifying.

I believe that despite what has been said, the team knew of the throttle control issues which eventually led first to the loss of Kimi's KERS system, then his retirement from the race.  The 'tactical error', I believe was a smokescreen, as they hoped that reducing the running on the car, then 'tweaking' the electronics on the starting grid, might have cured the problem.

That's a positive sign in a way. The team know they have a car that is getting better and don't want rivals to know exactly where they stand. The fact is that Ferrari is now close to having a car which can match the Brawn or Red Bull's pace.

Meanwhile if you are looking for a an old Ferrari-style, Schumacher-esque performance, look no further than the team headed by former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn. Jenson Button has now won four races out of five. Sounds a bit Schumacher-esque doesn't it?

It has been suggested that, given current form, Jenson could win his first title, possibly as early as the British or German GPs. This is almost a repeat of 2002, when Michael had the title sewn up with six races remaining.

Or even 2004, when Schumi won 12 of the first 13 races.

Aside from Red Bull, Ferrari could still be the only other team that could stop that happening. A Ferrari spoiling a Schumacher-esque performance?

Seems a little ironic really!

It is no exaggeration to say that Ferrari face a critical weekend as the Formula One circus sweeps into Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix.

The opening four rounds of the World Championship have seen the Scuderia make their worst start to the season in their sixty year history.

Now they hope, will come the turn-around. Barcelona is the track where Raikkonen scored a clean-sweep of pole position, fastest lap and victory in 2008. He left Spain last year as the Championship leader. How things have changed.

The Ferrari team is of course not alone in struggling to come to terms with the new raft of regulations for 2009. Their principal rivals for the past seasons, McLaren, BMW and Renault, have all been left looking similarly flat-footed as smaller faster-moving design teams at Brawn and Red Bull found novel new solutions.

Ferrari though has had particular problems. Not only have their cars suffered from a lack of aerodynamic downforce and hence, grip, but they have also been woefully unreliable.

Even when it has looked like a good finish was a possibility, strategic errors on fundamentals such as tyre choice again robbed the Prancing Horses of their competitive edge. Behind the scenes at Ferrari, you can only imagine the frantic efforts to reverse the trend.

The team's decision after the Malaysian GP, to keep former head of strategy Mario Almondo at the factory, wasn't a punishment. He, along with the car's designer Aldo Costa, are spearheading a task force to improve both the performance and the reliability of the Ferrari F60.

Meanwhile Australian Chris Dyer has taken over Almondo's place on the pit wall. Formerly the race engineer who took Kimi Raikkonen to his 2007 title, he now makes the strategic calls for both the team's cars, working closely with Felipe Massa's English race engineer, Rob Smedley.

Speaking of Felipe Massa, one can only imagine how he is feeling, having come so close to winning the world title last season, yet this year, he has still to score a single championship point.

The very closeness of the title race last year, which saw both McLaren and Ferrari continue to throw huge resources at their 2008 cars right until the last race of the season, has clearly been one of the reasons why they have struggled so far this year. In contrast, Brawn (as Honda), Toyota and Red Bull all focussed on developing their 2009 cars considerably earlier - and have reaped the rewards.

Ferrari too have had another unique hurdle to overcome in their preparations for the 2009 season. Back in the Schumacher ‘golden years' they invested heavily in a full-size wind-tunnel which allows a complete car to be run at speeds up to 350kph.

They also have two test tracks, one beside the Ferrari factory at Fiorano and another at Mugello. The usefulness of those investments was almost wiped out by the FIA's precipitous introduction of cost-reducing rule changes at the end of 2008.

They banned the use of full-size wind tunnels for F1 development and the ban on in-season testing of race cars means that the two test tracks are being used only for road car development.  Now as they play catch up, Ferrari lack two of the most important weapons in their armoury.

Having said that, Ferrari, along with Renault and BMW, will unveil new aerodynamic aids in Barcelona, to help them catch the ‘diffuser three' of Brawn, Williams and Toyota. Of the teams introducing the new parts, I suspect that Ferrari will benefit the most.

Many insiders believe that the controversial ‘double deck' diffuser - which will be fitted to the Ferrari in Spain - does not make such a massive difference to the speed as some think. What it does achieve, however, is that it allows the car to be more ‘user-friendly' for the driver, allowing a bigger ‘sweet spot' where the car keeps its balance on faster corners.

The highly-technical Barcelona track demands that of a car. I suspect that McLaren and BMW, whose cars show a fundamental aerodynamic imbalance, will continue to struggle in Spain.

Ferrari and Renault should improve, while Toyota, Brawn and Red Bull, each with very different approaches to aerodynamic efficiency, are still the cars to beat. It should make for an intriguing Spanish Grand Prix - and you can't rule out Ferrari just yet!

I think that my fellow ESPN STAR Sports pundit Alex Yoong summed up Sunday's race perfectly when he said: "Today Jenson Button, not the Brawn team won the Bahrain GP."

He was absolutely right. The Brawn-Mercedes wasn't the fastest car on the track. Both Vettel's second place Red Bull and - robbed by a staggering mid-race tyre choice blunder - and Jarno Trulli's Toyota, were demonstrably quicker cars.

However a combination of cool heads on the Brawn pit wall and Jenson Button's tigerish determination on the track, gave the British driver his third victory in four races.

Button, for so long overlooked as the ‘star in a unreasonably slow car', now leads the World Championship for Drivers with 39 points, 11 ahead of his nearest rival, team-mate Rubens Barrichello.

Button is 12 points ahead of Red Bull racer Sebastian Vettel, meanwhile the expected Championship front-runners; McLaren, Ferrari and Renault, remain in the doldrums. Even when they fight back, as expected with further aerodynamic refinements in Barcelona, Button is in the great situation of having a comfortable championship lead to defend, as all the others play catch-up.

At least until the FIA World Motorsports Council convenes next Wednesday to discuss his conduct in Australia, the defending champion Lewis Hamilton is the best of those once tipped for the 2009 title. He is however a distant seventh in the standings, with a mere 9 points.

Hamilton's drive to fourth place in Bahrain was gutsy stuff. It may not be fashionable in some quarters to praise Lewis, but I'm going to anyway.

Right from the race start, his KERS-charged lunge into Turn One was spectacular and effective. It put the McLaren briefly ahead of both Button and Vettel, and right on the tail of the two early race-leading Toyotas.

It couldn't last however and Hamilton was forced to give best to the eventual top three. His fourth place though, was in marked contrast to team-mate Kovalainen's twelfth. Heikki drove his heart out all afternoon, but frankly the finishing position of his car was where both McLarens really deserved to be.

Fernando Alonso is another driver who so often these days has to flatter a second-rate car - and he did so again this weekend on his way to the final championship point for eighth place. All credit too, to his Renault team-mate Nelson Piquet, who matched the pace of his illustrious team-mate for the entire race, eventually finishing 10th.

Alonso's drive was all the more heroic, because from the start of the race, the electric pump feeding drinking water to his helmet had failed. Racing for over 1½ hours in temperatures of over 50 degrees, Fernando was so dehydrated by the end of the race, he was on the point of collapse and had to be treated by medics after literally falling out of his car at the finish.

Ferrari's fortunes are starting to look just a little better. Kimi Raikkonen wryly commented after the race that "he'd been in Formula One long enough not to get too excited about sixth place", but at least the team had scored their first World Championship points of the season.

For Felipe Massa though, the race was another disaster. He was forced to pit on the second lap with handling problems, it turned out because he'd damaged his front wing on the tail of Raikkonen's car at the first corner. In addition the KERS system was operating only erratically and the car's telemetry link with the pitlane had also failed.

The result? Fourteenth place, a lap down. It must seem a long time for Felipe since he was fighting for the World Championship last year in Brazil, but, as my grandmother used to say, "there is always someone worse off than yourself".

In this case, it was BMW. The word shambolic doesn't even start to cover it.

They somehow managed to lack grip, downforce and straight-line speed all at the same time. The fact that the cars were reliable was probably rued by their drivers, as it meant they had to plough around Sakhir in these shockers all afternoon.

Clearly Kubica and Heidfeld tried hard to put themselves out of their misery, by contriving to drive into one another at Turn One. No luck though, the tough BMWs only needed new noses before they rejoined a lap down and even less competitive.

Jenson Button should look at them and remember though. Last year Robert Kubica was on pole position in Sakhir and after the race, we were tipping both him and Nick Heidfeld as potential Championship front runners. That's how fast fortunes can change in Formula One.

For the last two seasons the Bahrain Grand Prix has marked a turning point for Ferrari and most notably Felipe Massa's fortunes. Now, with Ferrari's form approaching an all-time low, one wonders whether history can repeat itself.

Back in 2007, Massa had started dead last in Australia and been humbled by the pace of teammate Kimi Raikkonen in Malaysia, but in Bahrain he fought back with the perfect race. Pole position, fastest lap and victory.

It was the same again last year. Massa arrived having failed to score a point and, after throwing away the benefit of pole position with a spin in Malaysia, questions were being asked about his future in Ferrari. He answered those critics with another win and went on to battle for the title.

There will be plenty of Ferrari fans who will hope that history will repeat itself a third time. Sadly, I think it will take some time longer before the Prancing Horse regains its stride.

Ferrari, along with McLaren, Renault and BMW, have so far been surprisingly stumped by the biggest raft of rule changes to be thrown at Formula One in a decade. As new wings, slick tyres and the KERS energy reclamation system were simultaneously introduced, teams which relied on evolutionary design and huge testing resources have shown a weakness.

They have been out-manoeuvred by Brawn, Red Bull and Williams, with smaller faster-moving design teams that have gambled on putting their ideas into action while others were still having meetings about them. I think that is brilliant for the sport.

Mind you, I think it is only a matter of time before ‘the diffuser three' of Brawn, Williams and Toyota, are caught by the rest, who are now fitting aerodynamic upgrades which also match the three teams' controversial interpretation of the FIA Technical Regulations.

McLaren and Renault fitted new ‘interim' aero packages that showed a marked improvement in Shanghai. BMW struggled in both wet and dry in China, but you can guarantee they will fight back, with new components for Bahrain, where Kubica last year scored the team's first pole position.

Ironically the one team which will take longest to fit any aerodynamic upgrades will be Shanghai winners Red Bull Racing. The innovative design of the RB05 uses an ultra-narrow central ‘keel' in the cars floor as a mounting point for slimline pull-rod suspension. It optimises underfloor airflow perfectly, but to fit the larger ‘double-deck' diffusers which are now the rage, will mean the complete rear chassis has to be redesigned.

Adrian Newey's absence from the China GP demonstrated that work was already underway while the cars were finishing 1-2 in Shanghai. The team aims to have the new components available for Round 5 in Barcelona, meanwhile I reckon the current spec will have Webber and Vettel again near the front in Bahrain.

Which brings us back to Ferrari. Sadly, the team need much more than a new diffuser to cure their lack of pace. The team has made some howling tactical errors, their KERS system has struggled to survive for more than 40 laps at a time and an electrical failure while following the safety car robbed Massa of a possible, inspired third place in Shanghai.

Much has been made of the fact that so far, this is Ferrari's worst start to the season since 1981. If the team fail to score points in Bahrain this coming weekend, it will be their worst season start ever.

Even in 1969, the least productive season in their history, New Zealander Chris Amon gained a podium place in round four, the Dutch GP. It was however their only podium of the season and Ferrari finished last in the Constructors Championships with just seven points.

There is some good news for Ferrari fans though. There has been a Ferrari starting from the front row of the grid for all the previous five races in Bahrain, with the Italian team qualifying first and second in 2004 and 2006, second to the Renault of Fernando Alonso in 2005, on pole with Massa in 2007 and Massa was second on the grid to Kubica in 2008.

Already there are signs that the major shake-up initiated after the Malaysian GP is starting to bear fruit. Most notably the promotion of Chris Dyer, formerly Kimi Raikkonen's race engineer, to become team tactician on the pit wall.

It was Dyer, who last weekend produced a strategy that in the rain-soaked Chinese Grand Prix allowed Massa to vault up the order from 13th to third before his car failed. Even when they are down, you can't count against Ferrari - and Massa, who celebrates his 28th birthday on Saturday, could desperately use a birthday present!

Button and Brawn may have been the stars of the first two races, but now there's a new kid on the block. As rivals slipped and slid on the rain-soaked Shanghai International Circuit, Sebastian Vettel dominated the China Grand Prix in what was quite simply, a perfect performance.

It was a masterful drive that has raised comments that Vettel might be a successor to Michael Schumacher as the next German world champion. I can think of no reason to doubt the logic.

As at Monza last season, Vettel showed a pace in the atrocious conditions which was simply spellbinding. He seemed to be able to stretch his advantage at will. Just before half distance, a slip-up dropped his team-mate Mark Webber to third behind Jenson Button.

Vettel immediately sensed that he could extend his advantage as Webber battled to re-pass the Brawn car. Sebastian immediately raised his pace to a full seven seconds a lap faster than any other car in the field. It ensured he had a 13 second cushion over his hard-charging team-mate the rest of the way to the chequered flag.

While a wet race can sometimes disguise a second-rate car, the Red Bull team have created a car that was equally impressive on a dry track. Despite suffering drive shaft problems that restricted him to just ten laps in the whole of qualifying, Vettel still nailed pole position.

The pace of the Red Bull cars in Q2, the second leg of qualifying when all the cars carry a minimum fuel load, was even more impressive. Vettel and Webber were 1-2, ahead of the Brawn of Rubens Barrichello. He led a pursuing pack which was covered by just half a second. The Red Bulls were in a class of their own over a third of a second quicker.

Vettel also had lady luck riding with him. When the safety car intervened on lap 19 after Robert Kubica had hit the back of Jarno Trulli's Toyota, the field was running in convoy when Toro Rosso rookie Sebastien Buemi, drove into the back of Vettel's car.

For a moment, it was like a repeat of Japan 2007, Vettel's rookie year, when he clashed with Mark Webber behind the safety car, robbing them both of likely podium finishes. This time though, both the Red Bull and the Toro Rosso survived. It was the only serious threat to Vettel's success all weekend.

If Vettel was lucky, there were plenty who could count themselves unlucky too. Frankly, for anyone with a connection to Ferrari, Shanghai will be a weekend to forget.

Felipe Massa fought his way up the order after starting a lowly 13th, only for his engine to die while following the safety car. Kimi Raikkonen struggled home in 10th, with a misfiring engine and excessive tyre wear adding to his woes.

Behind the Red Bulls and Brawns, fifth and sixth places may mark the start of a renaissance for McLaren. Meanwhile Renault, Williams and Toyota sank without trace in the Shanghai puddles, Timo Glock was the only points scorer from the three teams, taking 7th after starting from the pitlane.

Adrian Sutil looked all set to score Force India's first world championship points, running in a strong sixth place with just a handful of laps to go. Instead there was anguish in the team garage when the car caught just one pool of water too many and aquaplaned into the tyre wall.

Sutil though, I don't think was the unluckiest driver on the track. While Mark Webber was clearly delighted to claim his career-best second place and to be part of Red Bull's 1-2 victory, look at another way.

Mark has been involved with the team since 2003, when the Milton Keynes-based outfit was known as Jaguar and has for the past half decade, been regarded as the most talented star waiting for a good car. Now that car has arrived, but so has the supremely talented Vettel as his team-mate. How unlucky is that!

In the week leading into a long-haul Grand Prix such as China, the flow of news stories normally goes quiet as the key F1 team members embark on the lengthy flights to Shanghai from Europe. Not so this week.

First we had a courtroom battle at the FIA in Paris, followed by an even bigger stir as McLaren boss Ron Dennis effectively offered himself up as 'fall guy' over his team's conduct at the post-Australian Grand Prix stewards' meeting.

I simply can't remember a start to the Formula One world championship quite like it. If it is high-pressure now, what is it going to be like as we get to the end of the season?

For Brawn GP, and for Williams and Toyota, there was vindication in Paris.

The three teams had started the season with a radically different interpretation of the regulations defining the diffuser, an aerodynamic aid that generates downforce and hence, grip at the rear of the car.

Their interpretation was protested by the Renault, Ferrari, BMW and Red Bull teams, who of course hadn't come up with an equally effective device. All of a sudden, diffusers, normally all but invisible pieces of carbon fibre, had become big news.

A month ago, even a number of drivers couldn't tell you exactly what a diffuser actually did, but now the world seemed full of aerodynamic experts.

Particularly in Paris, where hordes of lawyers and expert witnesses descended on the FIA International Court of Appeal to pick through the rule book with a fine-tooth comb.

Given that Formula One is looking to save money, one wonders just how much all these highly-paid counsels cost. With the exception of Toro Rosso and Force India, every team was represented. The debate ground on for a whole day and was apparently so mind-numbing, an FIA delegate reportedly fell asleep!

The 2009 rules demand a maximum diffuser height of 175mm above the reference plane, this is measured from below - using 'bodywork facing the ground' articles in the rules. However, the actual diffuser structure can be taller provided it maintains a continuous line where it meets the flat floor of the car at the axle line.

Brawn, Williams and Toyota it seems, simply raised the level of the floor to allow a double-deck structure to be created.

The most vocal howls of indignation came from Ferrari, whose legal counsel Nigel Tozzi QC, used to defend Ross Brawn in FIA hearings. Now he went for his former client's jugular, saying ""Only a person of supreme arrogance would think he is right, when so many of his esteemed colleagues would disagree."

Actually, it made Brawn seem even more clever, because the FIA found in his favour, not Ferrari's.

The Ferrari team are probably glad all this has been going on, as it has been a good smokescreen for their worst start to a season in two decades. In addition to a lack of pace, unreliable KERS electronics and some howling tactical errors have hobbled the Prancing Horse.

The team arrives in Shanghai after a major shake-up. Former race tactician Luca Baldiserri has been moved to a factory role, working with designer Aldo Costa to improve the cars' performance, while Chris Dyer, formerly Kimi Raikkonen's race engineer, moves into the hot seat on the pit wall.

Meanwhile, McLaren still reel from the lying scandal in Australia. Not was Lewis Hamilton disqualified from the opening race of the season, now seemingly in an effort to try and exonerate the team from any further repercussions, Ron Dennis has relinquished all F1 commitments to concentrate on leading the growth of McLaren's new sports car business.

Dennis has led the team since 1981, but his long-running feud with FIA President Max Mosley is believed by many to have contributed to the record US$100 million fine meted out to McLaren and disqualification from the constructors' world championship over the 'Ferrarigate' spying row back in 2007.

I wonder though will his sacrifice be enough? At the start of this season he had already handed over the role of team principal to Martin Whitmarsh, although Dennis was present in Australia in an advisory role. Big penalties, even disqualification could still be on the cards for the team.

The FIA World Motor Sports Council meets on April 29 to discuss the matter.

More lawyers and more off-track dramas are sure to come.

Another reason for Ron's departure might be to re-secure the relationship between World Champion Lewis Hamilton and the McLaren team. Hamilton's father and manager Anthony is said to be furious about his son's involvement in the lying scandal and was rumoured to have been looking at offering his son to other teams.

Meanwhile, on the race track in Shanghai this weekend, my tip has again to be Button, to make the best use of his Brawn machinery before his rivals catch up. Toyota too will be strong, maybe on target for their first GP win?

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton is fully fired up by all that has gone on in the past two weeks. Watch him, because whatever happens, it will be spectacular.

Meanwhile, for Ferrari and the rest? Back to the drawing board!

It may have been frustrating to have first, the monsoon, then bad light stopping play, robbing us of the full race distance in the Malaysian Grand Prix. The decision to stop the race at the end of the 32nd lap was absolutely justified. A Malaysian monsoon and F1 cars simply do not mix.

However, the action on the track really showed up some heroes and zeros this weekend. Among the drivers and even more so, among the teams.

The clear winners were, once again Brawn GP and Jenson Button, who as in Australia delivered a flawless performance. Actually, as far as the team were concerned, Brawn didn't have quite as good a race as in Melbourne.

If they had, it might have been another Brawn GP 1-2. Once the race was declared over Rubens Barrichello walked off up the track looking as if he was searching for a tin can to kick.

Barrichello had looked set to grab a podium place at least, but slow pitstops, four of them, dropped him down the order. Rubens was eventually a frustrated fifth.

"We lost a little too much time on my side of the garage with the pit stops" said Rubens. "We'll talk about that next week."

If any team could be said to have scored ten out of ten in Sepang, it is Toyota. Jarno Trulli was just a tenth of a second away from pole position, battled for the lead, and would for an over-conservative early choice of full wet weather tyres, have been on the podium.

As it was, Toyota team-mate Timo Glock took third place. Despite being dropped from 3rd on the grid, to eighth by the end of the opening lap, the German fought back and his gamble on the less heavily treaded intermediate tyres before the heavy rain started, allowed him to leap up the leaderboard and steal the podium place.

In fact when the red flags came out Glock was running second, but because the results were counted back to the end of the preceding lap, his German compatriot Nick Heidfeld was awarded the runners-up spot.

It would be easy to right off Heidfeld's run from 10th on the starting grid as a lucky fluke, but I think that the beauty of the rather ungainly looking Sauber BMW runs rather more than skin deep. Despite losing their sixth place car of Robert Kubica to an engine problem at the start of the race, the team kept their cool and Heidfeld calmly delivered then a well-deserved second place.

Off the podium, mention should also be made of initial race leader Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton. All delivered potential podium performances and but for the pitlane poker as the rains were predicted, came, went, then came again with a vengeance, all three could have been better rewarded.

I make no excuse for making particular mention of Lewis Hamilton. He and his team could not have a tougher lead up to the race and I think that quite rightly, Lewis is going to have to bear the stigma of his dishonest statements to the stewards for the rest of his career.

However once in the car he let his driving do the talking. Despite starting a lowly twelfth and carrying a heavy fuel load, he was in the points contention almost from the start. It may not be a popular thing to say it, but it was an excellent drive.

So if they were the achievers, who were the under-achievers? Among the drivers, for the second race in succession Hamilton's team-mate has to qualify as top loser.

As in Australia, Heikki Kovalainen didn't even get past lap one. This time he couldn't blame anyone else. He simply spun off the track. Come on Heikki, we know you are better than that!

But if you want top loser, sadly, look no further than Ferrari. The rot began in qualifying when the team, rather arrogantly, thought that Felipe Massa had gone fast enough in just four laps, to progress into the second stage. They thought wrong and Felipe Massa could barely contain his frustration when he found himself 16th on the grid.

Then come the race, what were they thinking of when the put Kimi Raikkonen onto the full wet tyres, at least fifteen minutes before it even started raining. At the time I argued that maybe it was a brainy gamble. In retrospect it was bonkers.

By the time the rain had started Kimi had worn his fully treaded tyres almost to slicks. It totally negated any advantage he had gained. For a top team in motor racing's top league, that sort of decision making simply isn't good enough.

Now a couple of weeks will allow the teams to regroup, continue their arguments over Brawn's aerodynamics and prepare for the Grand Prix of China. I simply can't wait for Shanghai. Based of what we've seen so far, anything could happen.

The opening round of the 2009 Formula One World Championship was a cracker. While for many, Brawn GP's success in Australia was a surprise, there is little doubt that the team's pace will make them clear favourites for a repeat victory in Sepang.

Meanwhile the season could not have had a worse start for reigning World Champion Hamilton.

Despite struggling for pace all weekend in Melbourne and starting at the back after a gearbox failure, Hamilton was awarded third spot after Jarno Trulli was adjudged to have passed the McLaren under Safety Car conditions. The Italian though was adamant he had done nothing wrong.

"New evidence" saw stewards re-open their investigation in Malaysia on Thursday, and following the revelation that Hamilton had provided "deliberately misleading" evidence to race stewards in the post-race inquiry; he was, quite rightly in my opinion, disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix.

So Brawn gained a jump on the opposition, but who is closest to them? Whatever the stewards deliberations, neither McLaren nor Ferrari ever looked strong contenders. Ferrari were forced to gamble on a radical and ultimately disastrous tyre strategy in order to get near to the front in Australia.

Renault fared little better, with Alonso struggling with a car not even good enough to make the top ten in qualifying, while Nelson Piquet was eliminated by a brake master cylinder failure that "sent the brakes haywire". Not exactly confidence inspiring at 300kph!

Williams and Toyota promised much in pre-race practice, but come the race; Williams in particular struggled with uneven handling and excessive tyre degradation. That was in the cooling temperatures of an autumnal Melbourne evening, one shudders to think what will happen to the tyres in the heat and humidity of Sepang.

While the dramas in the FIA Stewards room in Sepang have meant that Jarno Trulli regained the third place he gained on the track in Melbourne, Toyota were generally disappointed though that they weren't running closer to the front for the whole of the race. I wouldn't be surprised to see Trulli or Glock on the podium in Sepang too.

However, if you are looking for a challenger to Button and Barrichello in Sepang, I think you can choose between two teams, Red Bull Racing and BMW. The new Red Bull is a very clever piece of design, with a completely different front to the car's monocoque to its rivals, designed to boost airflow under the car and aid handling. It is also in my opinion the best looking car on the 2009 grid.

Mark Webber was unlucky to be caught up in the inevitable turn one melee, but crucially was still running at the chequered flag, demonstrating a level of reliability that previous Red Bulls have often lacked. Both cars would have finished had it not been for Sebastian Vettel's over-enthusiastic defence of second place, which put himself and Robert Kubica in the wall. Watch out for the two blue cars at the front again in Sepang.

While the Red Bull may be the best looking car on the grid, the BMW, with it's squared off nosewing and beer-crate rear airfoil is perhaps the ugliest. But beauty is more than skin deep and certainly the BMW Sauber team believe that Robert Kubica was on his way to a possible victory in Melbourne when he tangled with Vettel's Red Bull.

There is no doubt that Kubica was the fastest man on the track in the closing stages of the race and he was gaining on Button by two seconds a lap with four laps to go. My guess is he might have caught the Brawn car, but he'd have had a heck of a fight on his hands to get past Button. 

It would have been great to watch - and I have a feeling we might see a similar BMW - Brawn battle brewing this weekend!

Forget the financial recession. Forget the pre-season politics. Forget, for the moment at least, even the deliberations of the FIA Stewards, the claims, counter-claims and protests by some of the teams. Where it matters most, on the race track, the 2009 Australian Grand Prix delivered a stunner of a race.

In what has to be the feel-good story of the year so far, ‘the three Bs'; Brawn Button and Barrichello, delivered a dream result. The Brawn GP operation, which only announced a month ago that it would be able to contest the 2009 World Championship, frankly trounced their opposition in practice and qualifying, locked out the front row of the starting grid, then dominated the race to score a 1-2 on the team's debut.

Back in the early 1990s I met the veteran German racing driver, Karl Kling, when he was demonstrating a historic Mercedes Benz ‘Silver Arrow' Grand Prix car at the Nürburgring. The proudest moment of his life he confided, was with Mercedes, when he followed the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio home in the 1954 French Grand Prix, to score the first-ever 1-2 victory for a team making its Grand Prix world championship debut.

Fifty five years on, I never dreamt that I would see history being repeated. One can assume that Ross Brawn, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello feel a similar sense of pride and fulfilment.

It should be remembered of course, that the story behind this performance began long before Brawn GP was created. Over the past few years, immense resources were invested in the team by Honda. The team won its first Grand Prix in 2006, with Button in Hungary. Then it went on a slide, dogged by wind tunnel problems, ill-handling cars and management infighting.

Former Ferrari man Brawn became Team Principal in late 2007, too late to influence the design of their 2008 car, which proved an even more spectacular underachiever than its predecessors. Early in the 2008 season, Brawn took the decision to effectively abandon all further development on the Honda RA108. It left Button and Barrichello trailing at the back of the field, but crucially it meant that Honda, now Brawn GP would have nearly a six month head start over their rivals on developing a car for the new 2009 rules.

It is that car, ironically no longer bearing a Honda badge and now powered by a Mercedes Benz engine, that took the Brawn team to victory in Melbourne.

"The BGP 001 car is the result of 15 months of intensive development work and the team have been nothing less than fantastic in their commitment to producing two cars in time for the first race" said Brawn in the lead up to the event.

"The facilities we have here are among the best in the sport as a result of multi-million pound investments over the past 24 months. We have a fantastic workforce and a car that could be one of the best.  We've had all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle for some time, now may be the time they fall into place."

Boy oh boy was he right. One key area of course, which had Brawn's rivals howling with indignation was his team's interpretation of the rules regarding the shape and size of the underbody ‘diffuser' which generates downforce at the rear of the car.

I believe that the team has merely done what good teams have done for years. They have cleverly exploited a loophole in the new aerodynamic regulations in order to generate greater downforce and therefore grip.

The Brawn diffuser is a 'double decker' design. The 'U' -shaped centre section visible between the cars' rear wheels is simply the lower deck. An upper deck is formed by the car's chassis and is a few centimetres higher than the diffuser height limit of 175mm. This extra area is critical in gaining downforce, but in the letter of the rules is not officially part of the diffuser.

While this area will remain the focus of debate in future races and in an FIA Tribunal once the F1 circus gets back to Europe in early April, I thought Rubens Barrichello's comment in the post-race press conference was particularly noteworthy.

In contrast to Jenson Button's drive to victory on a relatively clear track at the head of the field, Barrichello's race to second place was done the hardest possible way.

First, he nearly stalled on the starting grid, then as he slipped down the order into the first corner, he was hit by Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren, pushing him in turn into the BMW of Nick Heidfeld. Barrichello's Brawn picked up more battle scars when he clashed with Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari, then narrowly avoided the melee which eliminated Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica, promoting him to his second place as the cars finished behind the safety car.

"I never thought I could finish on the podium after the start, I hit anti-stall and recovered quickly, then I was hit from behind by a McLaren and that put me sideways and I hit someone really hard" said Rubens. "If people think our car is only good because of the diffuser, that big hit broke the diffuser completely, so the car was strong without it."

Guess which team I'll be backing for another win in Sepang next week? You got it!

Changes in the rulebook, some surprising reversals of form and a likely battle between those who have and those who have not decided to use the sport's new secret weapon. Welcome to the start of the 2009 Formula One World Championship season.

Of course you might think that I am referring to the likely battle on the track in Melbourne. However it equally applies to the politics going on behind the scenes!

I predict that the power games between Max Mosley and the FIA, Bernie Ecclestone and Formula One Management, and the teams association FOTA, could have just as many twists and turns this season as the Albert Park track which hosts the maiden Grand Prix.

But enough of that for the moment, lets have a look at who might be the heroes and the zeros this year. The biggest shift in technical regulations in more than a decade means that the cars racing in the 2009 World Championship look radically different to their predecessors.

The new regulations are designed to improve the quality of racing and in particular, to increase the likelihood of overtaking, by placing increased emphasis on mechanical grip. The new rules will at the same time keep lap times in check by reducing the role of aerodynamics in aiding the cars' cornering performance.

As designers focussed their attention on aerodynamic aids in recent years, overtaking has become increasingly difficult. If a car was closely following another through a corner, the air turbulence from the car ahead would disrupt the airflow over the pursuing car's wings, forcing it to run wide. It made it very difficult to get close enough to challenge on the straights.
A series of sweeping changes to the rules covering the aerodynamic aids has therefore been initiated.

New Wings and Fewer 'Things'

The most obvious changes are to the front and rear wings. The front airfoil is now mounted lower and is 400mm wider than before, now the same width as the whole car. The front wings now also feature driver-adjustable flaps.

Drivers will be allowed to make two wing adjustments per lap, altering the wing angle over a six-degree range, it is anticipated that these may be used when following another car, to allow front wing grip to be maintained.

The rear wing is taller, level with the top of the engine cover, but has been reduced in width to reduce its efficiency. In addition the diffuser, which controls the airflow around the rear axle, has been moved rearwards and is mounted higher, reducing its ability to generate downforce.

Slick Tyres

For the first time since grooved dry weather tyres were introduced in 1999 to reduce cornering grip, the cars will race on full slick tyres, with a solid area of rubber forming the contact between the car and the asphalt.

Many people seem to think that these smooth tyres have no treads. Not so.

The tread is still there, but without any grooves or patterns cut in it. A full slick tyre has the maximum amount of rubber in contact with the road - and hence maximum mechanical grip.

For 2009 the slick tyres will increase mechanical grip by around 20 percent, with the gains in cornering speeds being offset by the reduced downforce levels of the revised aerodynamic package. The aim is to make the cars more responsive to driver input, more spectacular to watch.

Drivers will still have the choice of two dry tyre compounds and will still have to use both compounds during a race. Wet weather tyres will of course be used when required too. It should add up to closer, even more exciting racing.

KERS

The biggest technical change for the 2009 season is that teams have the option of employing a Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) to boost their car's performance. KERS recovers energy generated from the rear wheels by the car's braking process.

Previously this energy was simply lost has heat from the red-hot brake discs, now the energy can be stored using either a mechanical flywheel or an electrical battery and then made available to the driver, in set amounts per lap, via a 'boost button' on the steering wheel.

Under the current regulations the power gain equates to around 80 horsepower, available for just under seven seconds per lap. It could give a driver a vital boost, for example to aid overtaking, but the extra weight of the system and its impact on the car's weight distribution, also have to be taken into account.

So far McLaren, Ferrari and Renault have confirmed that they will use the KERS system in Australia. Red Bull and BMW are also expected to likely follow suit. Toro Rosso won't for the first two races at least, while Toyota, Williams, Brawn and Force India won't use the new technology at all, preferring to optimise their cars to take advantage of their lighter weight.

In the final pre-season testing, three of the teams that eschewed the new KERS technology have so far set the fastest lap times in testing. Toyota, Williams and Brawn GP (the team formerly known as Honda) have stolen the advantage from their rivals by cleverly finding a loophole in the rules surrounding the underbody diffuser, which creates additional downforce at the rear of the car.

The FIA regulations were hazy, so the three teams shaped the rear of their car's chassis to aid the diffuser's effectiveness. Already some rivals are calling foul.

"We are convinced certain interpretations that have been applied do not correspond to the nature of the rules," said Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali and Red Bull Racing has already threatened to protest the legality of these teams diffuser designs during the season opening Australian GP this weekend.

Meanwhile McLaren have simply struggled to match the pace of any of their rivals so far. It could be that defending champion Lewis Hamilton, may for the first time in his career be forced to start the season with an inferior car to his rivals. It could be a true test of his mettle.

So who will be on top in Melbourne? My money goes on Ferrari, with maybe Kimi Raikkonen finding the new car more suited to his style than last year, although Massa too cannot be discounted.

For a surprise winner, look to the Brawn GP duo of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, but whether any win would be allowed to stand, might depend on the deliberations of the FIA Stewards - and we know how predictable that may
be!

Tune in on Sunday, to find out whether I've got it right - or just as likely to see where I've got it wrong!!

While the form book is probably stacked in Hamilton's favour, don't rule out Felipe Massa just yet. He has the ability and the resilience to keep a cool head in what will be a frantic few days of intense pressure. He has grown up hugely this season and his performance in the last few races has shown he is a very much different, tougher and better, driver than even at the start of the season.

The mistakes and disasters in the Ferrari camp this year have generally come from within the team. Bungled pit stops and blown engines robbed the team of vital points in Australia, Hungary and Singapore but more worrying has been their inability to get the most from their tyres in changing track conditions.

We tend to forget that in the vacuum following the departure of Michael Schumacher, the driver gap was filled quite painlessly. The gap on the pitwall vacated at the same time by Jean Todt and Ross Brawn has proved harder to fill.

In contrast McLaren has had stability within their team and reliable cars. Its points losses fall more at the feet of their drivers. Hamilton has allowed himself to get suckered into situations in France, Belgium and Japan, which all gained him penalties from the FIA Stewards. And as for tailgating Raikkonen in the pit lane in Canada.....well!

Whatever happens this weekend, it has been a great championship and, whoever takes the title - they will have thoroughly deserved it. It may surprise some, but of the two drivers, I'd personally prefer to see Massa take the crown.

Of the two, he's probably the greater purist's driver. He drives with his heart and he's breathtaking to watch in his best moments such as his pole position lap in Singapore. I also think that this year is his best - possibly only - real chance of taking the title.

Next year, if the expected KERS, kinetic energy recovery systems deliver their promised power benefits, I think Ferrari will be at a disadvantage. The team certainly hasn't invested the resources of McLaren, BMW, Toyota or Honda in the technology. Also I expect that after a fallow year in 2008, Kimi Raikkonen will have woken up. If he doesn't, I would not be surprised to see a deal struck to have Fernando Alonso as a team-mate for Massa - and you know what that would mean!

No disrespect to Hamilton mind you. He is a complete package, awesomely fast, delights his team with his feedback and he is a consummate PR professional. If he claims the title in Sao Paolo he will at the age of 23, take over from Alonso the mantle of being the youngest World Champion ever. All he needs to do this weekend is finish fifth or better.

Obviously I am British and would be delighted to see a fellow Briton win the sports' premier title. But Hamilton is a great ambassador for the sport regardless of nationality or race.

When he first entered Formula One at the start of 2007, much was made of the fact that he was the first black driver in Grand Prix racing history. Today, potentially on the eve of his becoming World Champion, hardly anything is mentioned about it - and that is a very good thing. Hamilton has proved that Formula One is above issues like race - it is racing that counts.

For that alone, whether Lewis becomes champion or not on Sunday - I think we should all be celebrating.

Meanwhile in Sao Paolo we'll say adios to Red Bull racer and ‘top bloke' David Coulthard who will hang up his crash helmet after his 246th Grand Prix start. He of course won the 2001 Brazilian Grand Prix, in perhaps his most competitive season ever when he finished second to Michael Schumacher in the World Championship.

It seems amazing to realise that it was almost 20 years ago while I was reporting on the junior formulae that I first got to know the fresh-faced young Scot who was graduating from karting to Formula Ford, the GM Euroseries and Formula Three.

His class of 1989-91 was quite an amazing one. In addition to Coulthard, there was his team-mate, Indy 500 winner Gil de Ferran. Among his rivals were Rubens Barrichello, Mika Hakkinen, Juan Pablo Montoya and fellow Scots Dario Franchitti and Allan McNish. Even those who didn't make it to F1 became Indycar and Le Man champions!

‘DC' at the time looked surprisingly like the cartoon character Bart Simpson and I remember he was less than amused to find a ‘Bart' sticker on his Formula 3 car. What would his mechanics have thought, had they known he'd one day make F1 history by wearing a Superman cape on a GP podium.

Typically DC did, after finishing 3rd in Monaco in 2006. Now there's a fact to throw into a Formula One quiz!!

As a result Hamilton takes a seven point lead to the final race of the World Championship in Sao Paolo, Brazil. There, in two weeks time, he needs to perform as flawlessly once again.

Felipe Massa now has it all to do, in his home race in perhaps the most passion-filled, dramatic Formula One locations on the calendar. Sao Paolo is always a race that piles the mental pressure on the drivers. One can only imagine how it might affect home-town hero Massa.

Even a year ago, I would have said that Massa would crumple under the pressure. Now I don't think so. Under the influence of his family, his wife Rafaela, not to mention the tutelage of Michael Schumacher, Felipe is a much more resilient character this season.

Massa bounced back from spinning out of the two disastrous opening races of the season, with a convincing victory in round 3, Bahrain. Likewise after another ‘spinfest' with an undrivable car set-up at Silverstone, Massa fought back again with a tremendous performance in Hungary, only to be thwarted by a blown engine. Then he dominated the European Grand Prix in Valencia.

Now Massa heads to his home track with a still strong chance of claiming the title if for any reason Hamilton were to stumble in the final race of the season. If that were to happen, the Brazilian would be a worthy World Champion.

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton will not need reminding that last year he arrived in Sao Paolo with a seven point championship lead - and came away empty handed.

Gearbox glitches for Hamilton, combined with an early race tangle with then ‘team-mate' Fernando Alonso, effectively allowed McLaren to drop the ball and gave Kimi Raikkonen a shot at an open goal in Sao Paolo last year. Of course the Finn took full advantage

This year, Hamilton has still shown the inevitable signs of inexperience. After all, he is still just 23 years old and in just his second season of Formula One.

There was his pitlane debacle in Canada. Then there were the two situations in which he short-cut chicanes, in France and Belgium, incurring penalties from the FIA Stewards.

Then of course, there was Japan, where he was lambasted by his fellow drivers for his over-aggressive driving. His overshoot at the first corner after muffing his start, then a spin when attacked by Massa, plus a Steward's penalty meant he failed to score a point.

Frankly, Hamilton has never come so close to losing the championship as that weekend. As it was, Massa was penalised too and couldn't take full advantage. He only pulled two points back on Hamilton's advantage.

This weekend in China, Hamilton demonstrated he can show humility and learn from his mistakes. This weekend he made not one. Now he has to repeat that feat, just one more time this season.

Meanwhile Felipe Massa can thank Kimi Raikkonen, rightly for promoting him from third place and six points, to second place and a score of eight. Of course it raised the spectre of ‘team orders' which are expressly forbidden in F1, but there is nothing in the rules that prevents drivers using their own initiative.

In fact there was no difference in the Ferrari drivers' actions in Shanghai, to Heikki Kovalainen allowing Hamilton to pass on his way to victory in Germany or Robert Kubica passing Nick Heidfeld to win in Canada. Or for that matter, Massa allowing Raikkonen through in Brazil last year to claim the 2007 title.

It was amusing though, to see how the two Ferrari drivers tried to cover themselves in the post-race press conference. They stumbled and shuffled their feet like two naughty schoolkids as they tried to justify the swap.

Felipe ‘yes but, no but' Massa, looked guilty, as he told the massed media "That was my best stint of the race and I was able to catch him." Meanwhile Kimi ‘am I bothered' Raikkonen sat alongside sporting a huge grin, before telling the press: "It made no difference to me. It didn't affect my championship situation and I know what the team expects of me."

Meanwhile, sporting the biggest smile of all, Lewis Hamilton could barely conceal his mirth as he sat between them. But the big question is which of the drivers will be smiling the most in two weeks time.

Shanghai has, since it opened in 2004 been a track that suits the Ferrari chassis. It demands a combination of straight-line aerodynamic efficiency on its 1km-long main straight, along with high levels of downforce on the fast sweeping section between turns 6 and 9 in the first half of the lap. McLaren have caught up in some respects, but the formbook shows the Ferraris to be the cars to beat.

In 2004, a Ferrari won the inaugural Grand Prix of China with Rubens Barrichello at the wheel. (His now team-mate Jenson Button claimed second, how long ago that must seem for the two Honda drivers today!). In 2006, Ferrari won again giving Michael Schumacher his final victory and last year Kimi Raikkonen scored Ferrari's 200th Grand Prix win.

Last year's race will of course also be remembered as the one in which Lewis Hamilton slid into the gravel trap at the pit lane entrance on the 31st lap. It really wasn't his fault.

In a race of rapidly changing track conditions, the McLaren team miscalculated when to bring him in for new tyres and the rear treads had worn right though. Areas of the tyre carcass were flailing as he approached the tight bend in the pit lane before losing control and beaching the McLaren.

To retire from likely victory in any race is heartbreaking, but to lose a race and as it transpired the world title, by slithering off the road into the pits is cruel beyond words.

Yet Hamilton's conduct in defeat was exemplary. He returned to the pits to shake hands and commiserate with every one of his pits crew. He refused to blame his team, despite continually being asked who was responsible for the mistake.

One wonders whether Lewis would respond in the same way today. The pressures of this year's world championship battle do seem to be getting to him. His driving in Japan showed signs of a more ragged, over-aggressive, even arrogant Hamilton, which were not exhibited a year ago.

Lewis would I am sure, never admit to have been the paragon of perfection that some people try to build around him. ‘Saint Lewis' he is not.

No Grand Prix driver has ever got even as far as sitting in an F1 car merely by being nice. You need a killer, winner-takes-all, instinct to be successful in the face of such competition. Previously Lewis has maintained a balance between that and his amiable public persona. Currently he is showing a little more of the hard edge.

Perhaps it's not too surprising. He is a 23 year-old guy. A winner, and one of the great talents. However I suspect that the almost unanimous criticism of his driving in Japan will come as a well needed reality check. I hope so.

Equally, Felipe Massa has taken a new harder edge - and it suits him. His much publicised contact with Hamilton in Japan and subsequent drive-through penalty were one sign. His unrelenting and aggressive fightback to claim championship points was, well, Hamilton-esque. More of that please Felipe!

The biggest enigma in the past few races has been Fernando Alonso. Victory in Singapore was a surprise, but his performance in Japan proved it was not a fluke. Renault engineering boss Bob Bell insists that there is no great secret, putting it down simply to the team's better understanding of the cars chassis - and a lot of hard work by the boys back home at Enstone in England.

The double world-champion's driving credentials speak for themselves. His experience and intuition at the first corner in Japan, when he slipped through into the lead, was a masterstroke. But there is much more to Alonso than that. The Spaniard is a driver who provokes wildly differing views on his personality. To some he is arrogant and aloof, over-keen to criticise when things aren't going his way.

To others, Alonso is a very straight guy, with a great sense of humour and a strong sense of loyalty. My co-commentator Alex Yoong who was his team-mate when they both started out at Minardi, rates him as one of the best.

Fernando stays close to those he knows and trusts. Many people don't realise that Alonso spends a lot of time at the Force India motor home. Nothing to do with racing, he's playing poker with his best buddy Giancarlo Fisichella!

Alonso is also the only non-Ferrari driver to win the Grand Prix of China. He dominated the 2005 race to crown his championship-winning season with pole position and victory. In 2006, he claimed pole position and second place for Renault and last year, second again for McLaren.

This year as Hamilton and Massa will undoubtedly slug it out in Shanghai with the title at stake, I won't rule out Alonso for another trip to the podium!

His seven-point deficit to Lewis Hamilton means that effectively the Ferrari driver needs to win all three races. Even if he does, if Hamilton were to finish second each time, the McLaren driver would be crowned champion.

Massa is at the wheel of the fastest car in the championship and he is at the top of his game. His drives in Monaco, Hungary, Valencia and his pole-position lap at Singapore were all spell-binding. He'd be a worthy champion....but......

Even after the debacle over the fuelling rig ‘traffic lights' in Singapore. It is to Massa's eternal credit that he hasn't criticised any member of the Ferrari team. Yet so often this year it has been the lack of discipline and strategy on the pit wall that has blunted both Massa and Raikkonen's performance.

Ferrari would of course have probably finished 1-2 in Singapore on sheer pace, but it was their strategy that let them down. Even before the pit lane blunder in Singapore, I was surprised that Ferrari hadn't planned a strategy for one of their cars to be more lightly fuelled in case a safety car was deployed early in the race.

Renault with Alonso, Williams with Rosberg and McLaren with Hamilton, clearly had thought of that scenario and it paid off. The gulf left by the departure of Ross Brawn and Jean Todt from the pitwall has I think been more keenly felt than the absence of Michael Schumacher from the Ferrari drivers seat.

McLaren haven't been perfect either, though the more glaring mistakes have come from their drivers. Lewis Hamilton is not perfect. His mistake in Canada, when he tailgated Raikkonen was one shocker that merely serves to remind us that he is only in his second season of racing at the sports top level.

McLaren too, won't need reminding that just as last year, they enter the final three races of the championship with a lead in the title race. And last year Ferrari snatched it from their grasp.

However the one thing that perhaps may give Hamilton his winning edge is his almost ferocious competitiveness and determination. If Massa gets dropped to the tail of the field you'll see him seemingly make a decision whether its worth it, then he'll start to cruise. If Hamilton drops to the back, we've seen him fight like a tiger to pass rivals for 13th or 14th place.

In fact that aggressive edge in Hamilton's driving is the one thing that McLaren perhaps need to kerb. It would not be untypical of Hamilton, who only needs to finish second three times, to risk his title bid by trying to battle for the lead.

In short, there is nothing between Hamilton and Massa going into the last lap of the world championship. May the best man win!

Before I go. Three short comments on the (forgive the pun) brilliant, Singapore Grand Prix. First, Fernando Alonso. He drove stupendously all weekend and a clever strategy from the Renault team gave him a worthy victory.

Second. In my inbox last week there appeared a conspiracy theory suggesting that Nelson Piquet had deliberately crashed his Renault, to give Alonso a tactical advantage.

What rot! Nobody in their right minds would want to deliberately crash a racing car at close to 200 km/h - and certainly not in a place where it went like a pinball between concrete walls!

For Renault, Piquet's shunt was a blow. They're seeking constructors' championship points for fourth in the championship, worth a few million dollars to the team. The last thing they wanted was for Piquet to wreck when he could have scored points. I suspect that shunt might just have ended any chance of the Brazilian racing at Renault in 2009.

That theory is nearly as daft as the alleged reason for Mark Webber's gearbox failure, when the Red Bull team suggested that static electricity from a passing MRT train in a tunnel beneath the track might have affected the car's electronics.

Having travelled on Singapore's MRT many times, I've never seen a passenger getting off the train with their hair standing on end, or sparks coming from their finger-tips - the signs of static electricity build-up.

If static electricity was to blame, maybe Red Bull should consider the effect of their ultra-low ride height, which had their cars striking sparks as the underbelly scraped along the track - that would generate static electricity quite nicely!

The cynic in me though detects the hand of Red Bull press director, Eric Silberman, one of the cleverest PR men in the paddock. He's kept his team in the headlines for an entire two weeks while all the other press officers have been on holiday. Nice one Eric!

After a fuel pump failure in practice forced him to start from fifteenth on the grid, Alonso's storming drive through the field really was the stuff of dreams. Even though other front runners suffered crashes and penalties, Fernando won the race on merit. The Spaniard's pace and commitment, as well as the Renault team's strategy gave them a well-deserved victory.

As much as Alonso's prowess behind the wheel, Renault technical boss Pat Symonds should also claim some of the credit. It was he, who with Alonso, gambled on the likelihood of an accident triggering a safety car period early in the race.

The normal strategy with a car starting near the back of the grid, is to load the car with fuel and run as long as possible, hoping to make up ground during the pit stops. Renault in fact took the opposite strategy, a huge gamble. It paid off.

The team gave Alonso a light fuel load and the ultra-soft ‘option' tyres for the opening stages of the race, allowing him to make up four of five places before he pitted early, on lap 12.

The stop dropped him to last place, but when his team-mate Nelson Piquet junior hit the wall and brought out the safety car on lap 15, the cars ahead of him were all now low on fuel. As they dived into the pits, Alonso steadily rose to the head of the queue behind the safety car.

Ultimately the only cars in front of Alonso were those carrying loads of fuel on a one-stop strategy and Kubica and Rosberg, who had run low on fuel, made pit stops when the pit lane was closed, and were due to make a drive-through penalty.

Once those cars had cleared out of his way, the Spaniard was uncatchable.

If this was a fortuitous race for Renault, the opposite was clearly true for Ferrari. They had the fastest cars on the track and should have trounced Lewis Hamilton and McLaren. They blew it.

It is the first time the team has failed to score any points since in a race since Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa both crashed out of Australian Grand Prix in 2006. What a time to get a no score.

Kimi Raikkonen's demise was at least a normal racing accident. The Finn had an odd race, with a slow start, then suddenly a series of fastest laps. It seems that it could have been due to his tyre pressures being slightly wrong at the start. When the tyres warmed up and the pressures increased, the car was flying.

Then, with just four laps remaining, Kimi simply overstepped the limits at the Turn 10 chicane in his pursuit of Timo Glock's Toyota. Into the wall, out of the race, sadly not for the first time this season.

Also not for the first time, Ferrari's pitstop discipline deserted them with catrastrophic results for Felipe Massa. Having led from pole position, the Brazilian led the field into the pitlane during the safety car period - and the pressure of the situation seemed to get the better of a member of the crew.

We understand that the light signals which tell the driver when to leave the pits were under manual control, so it was simply human error that switched the lights to green. Massa did as he was told and left the pits with the fuel hose still attached.

Members of the pit crew were bowled in all directions, then Massa had to wait at the end of the pitlane to have the hose removed. In addition, he had dived out into the pit road right into the path of Adrian Sutil's Force India car and therefore had to serve a drive-through penalty, dropping him to last. Massa eventually finished a lowly 13th.

It was a great escape for Lewis Hamilton, whose McLaren never matched the pace of the Ferraris. His third place behind Alonso and the Williams of Nico Rosberg means that he scored six Championship points, while Massa scored none.

Hamilton's seven point lead means he can now finish second to Massa in the remaining three races and still win the title. That puts yet more pressure on Ferrari and the Singapore race could have settled the fate of the 2008 title.

Surprisingly, we've got all this way without talking about the race itself. It was simply phenomenal.

The Marina Bay street circuit and of course, its unique night-time illumination were amazing. The spectacle of the cars running under the perfect lighting, with the spectacular backdrop of the city was a three night-long TV commercial for Singapore, delivering an unprecedented level of global TV coverage.

It was everything that the Grand Prix organisers promised and then some. For Singapore, Formula One and for Fernando Alonso....It worked like a dream.

OK. Be honest. Until this weekend, how many of you really knew anything about Sebastian Vettel? As takes over the mantle from Fernando Alonso as the youngest-ever driver to win a Formula One Grand Prix, life for the 21 year-old German driver is never going to be the same again.

Vettel's victory came after a drive where he simply did not make a mistake in the treacherous conditions. It may have been a lucky fluke of the weather on Saturday that put the Toro Rosso onto pole position, but Sebastian won the Italian Grand Prix on merit.

Whether in the heaviest of the rain just after the race start, or nursing his wet weather tyres on a drying track, or persuading his intermediate tyres to give their grip through the remaining wet patches late in the race, Sebstian Vettel delivered. With aplomb.

His rivals meanwhile struggled. The Ferrari's now infamous inability to generate sufficient heat in their tyres meant that their best result was for Felipe Massa, who started and finished, 6th. Raikkonen, all at sea, struggled home 9th.

Lewis Hamilton drove with massive aggression, I believe too much, to charge from 15th on the grid to 7th, right behind Massa. There is justifiable criticism I think, for the way that Lewis carved up rivals including Alonso and Mark Webber. It was unnecessary, maybe a sign of the pressure that Hamilton is feeling.

The good news for Lewis is that he still leads the championship, by a single point from Massa. But this will go down as a race which McLaren should have won and didn't. The second place for Kovalainen, is hardly compensation.

Interestingly this year marks the 20th anniversary of the first Italian Grand Prix I attended. It too had a surprise winner. That year, McLaren arrived at the track as the clear favourites and left empty handed too.

Their drivers Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna had won every race of the season and promptly stitched up the front row of the starting grid. The nearest Ferrari was a distant third. Come the race though and everything changed.

The Honda engine in the back of Prost's McLaren blew up, their only failure in 12 races. That left team mate Senna in the lead till, unbelievably, the Brazilian collided with a backmarker at the Rettifilo chicane and spun into retirement. To the vocal delight of the ‘tifosi', the Ferraris finished 1-2 - and the winning driver was Gerhard Berger.

This weekend, Berger was back on the podium, this time receiving the constructors trophy as the team owner. Back in 2005 Berger put together a deal with Red Bull entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz to buy the struggling Minardi team.

The success story this weekend might make cheering reading for Force India boss Vijay Mallya. It demonstrates just how well shrewd investment can turn a team around.

Toro Rosso was created to provide a proving ground for young drivers from the Red Bull ‘stable', honing their skills before feeding them into the senior team. As such it follows on the from the precedents set by Minardi, who gave ‘the big break' to drivers including  Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli, Mark Webber and of course, twice World Champion Fernando Alonso.

Toro Rosso uses a lot of Red Bull technology, the latest car, the STR3 is closely related to the Red Bull RB4, both were designed by Adrian Newey. However the Faenza-based team also took over the contract to run customer Ferrari V8 in 2007 when Red Bull switched to Renault power. In hindsight Torro Rosso seem to have got the best deal!

Another big boost for Toro Rosso was in hiring Franz Tost, formerly of BMW's motor sport division, as their team principal. It was he who spotted the talent of Vettel, then BMW's third driver, and negotiated his release from his testing contract to become a race driver for Toro Rosso. The rest as they say, is history.

As the latest chapter in that history was written at Monza this weekend, Berger was justifiably a very proud man.

 "It's an unbelievable feeling, different to winning as a driver" said the Austrian who scored ten Grand Prix victories in his career. "Sebastian proved today he can win races, but one day he is going to win world championships. He is that good."

Coming up this weekend, is probably my favourite Grand Prix of the season. The Italian Grand Prix at Monza always offers drama and speed in full measure.

With an average lap speed of close to 250km/h, Monza's credentials as the fastest track in Formula One are without doubt. The track is also steeped in history.

Walk out from the back of the pitlane and first you pass under the remains of the awesome banked ‘Monzanapolis' track built in the 1950s. Beyond that you come to a narrow road built of brick cobbles. It is the original track, first used for an Italian Grand Prix back in 1922. You can sense the atmosphere in every grain of dust.

Back to 2008 though and as last year, with Ferrari and McLaren locked in battle both on the track and in the FIA courtrooms, the Italian ‘tifosi' fans will be at fever pitch. The going's on at the end of last weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, which saw Lewis Hamilton demoted from victory to third and Felipe Massa awarded the victory, have polarised both the world of Formula One and fans alike.

I've never had a mailbox so full of comments from fans. A lot are clearly ardent ‘tifosi' who feel I was unduly praising Hamilton. The other half though are clearly McLaren fans incensed at Lewis's penalty. Sometimes you just can't win!

I have no intention of making any further comment on the rights and wrongs of the penalty. One thing I will say is that I totally disbelieve any conspiracy theory that the FIA are somehow in league with Ferrari. What rot.

I've met many of the FIA Stewards over the years and the one thing I am sure of is that they are impartial. The three stewards in Spa, as always, were specifically chosen from countries without a vested interest.

In this case Nicholas Deschaux, Yves Bacquelaine and Surinder Thatthi are respectively from France, from Belgium and from Kenya. All are experienced officials who made the decision on Hamilton for the best of reasons and they'll now have to answer for that at a full tribunal of the FIA.

Likewise, Ferrari has made a big effort to keep clear of the controversy. While previous team managers have been aloof, current team boss Stefano Domenicali is one of the straightest guys in the pit lane. Ask him a straight question, you get a straight answer. Asked whether Ferrari had initiated a protest against Hamilton's driving, he gave a clear and explicit "No".

Not that it will calm the atmosphere in Monza's already stormy paddock. I actually feel that more pressure is on Ferrari at the moment, particularly as the track conditions look likely to favour McLaren.

It may be Ferrari's home track, but as Alonso and Hamilton demonstrated with a McLaren 1-2 last year, the silver cars work particularly well in ultra-low downforce trim, with the wings set almost horizontally to minimise drag down the long straights.

Crucially too, with likely rain showers at Monza this weekend, the McLarens demonstrated at Spa, their ability to outpace the Ferraris if they're caught on a wet track with dry weather tyres.

Believe me, I'd love to see Raikkonen or Massa on the top step of the podium this weekend, but technically I can't see how it will happen. In fact, unless Ferrari have found a boost in performance since testing at the track three weeks ago, they could be beaten into third place.

The fastest driver of all during the tests was BMW driver Nick Heidfeld, once again demonstrating that in terms of straight line speed the BMW is as good as its rivals. The BMW also might be favoured by Monza's three chicanes, Rettifilo, Roggia and Ascari, each of which sees the cars decelerate from over 330 to around 100km/h

The headline for this was really going to be "Lewis Rains on Kimi's Parade", reflecting how with two laps to go, after a thrilling pursuit over the final leg of the Belgian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton hunted down race leader Kimi Raikkonen.

I should now be talking about then how fate intervened and in treacherous conditions, Hamilton's luck held and he scored a landmark victory. Poor Kimi meanwhile had to walk home after hitting the barriers.

The trouble is, I'm not. Nearly three hours after the chequered flag, I and several hundred journalists were still waiting on the decision of three FIA Stewards, who as Lewis was spraying the champagne, issued a statement that they were "investigating an incident involving car number 1 and car number 22." 

That is of course FIA-speak for Raikkonen and Hamilton, and it eventually turned out that as expected, they were talking about their clash at the final chicane three laps from the finish. That's when Lewis caught Kimi under braking for the final chicane.

A 'firm defence' from Kimi sent Hamilton straight across the run off and ahead of Raikkonen. But then Hamilton lifted off to let the Finn back through, before retaking the lead with a move down the inside at the La Source hairpin.

I don't necessarily believe that the stewards understood the fury that they would cause in the press room. Journalists, particularly Belgian ones, are particularly averse to being delayed from their late evening rendezvous with the staples of Ardennes diet; steak, frites and bierre brune. As a cold damp dusk settled over Spa, one sensed a hint of revolution in the air!

Then came the bombshell. The stewards announced that they were handing a "retrospective drive-through penalty" to Hamilton after the race had ended.

That would mean 25 seconds added to his finishing time.

The win therefore goes to Felipe Massa, second in the race. The penalty dropped Hamilton to third place behind Nick Heidfeld. For local and international media alike the frites went on hold.

I'm sure that the stewards saw something we did not. I'm equally sure they were driven by the best of motives, but equally I believe that, not for the first time in Formula One history, a group of faceless officials have robbed the spectators of an honourable and deserved victory. That's bad news for F1.

For a moment, forget Bernie Ecclestone, forget Max Moseley. The best motor racing promoter in the world was an American called Bill France.

He took NASCAR racing from being the domain of 'Good Ole Boys' in the southern states of the USA into being the richest and most successful motor racing series in the world. The sort of place Jacques Villeneuve and Juan Pablo Montoya look to as their retirement fund.

Bill France, no matter how outrageous the bending of rules, or driving tactics, had one simple premise. "The guy who passes the chequered flag is the winner". He felt he owed that to the fans.

A misdemeanour would later be punished by a hefty fine or even exclusion from starting the next race. However, and I repeat it deliberately: "The guy who passes the chequered flag is the winner". That respect for the fans is vitally important in my opinion.

I bet that I'm not the only person tonight who feels robbed. Bernie Ecclestone should take note of that. The simple fact that millions of fans like you and I feel robbed of a justified winner after one of the best races of the season is VERY bad news for F1.

I'm not saying this because I'm a Lewis Hamilton fan. I'm mightily impressed by his skills and personality, but clearly if there was a moral victor in the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix it wasn't Hamilton, it wasn't Felipe Massa, it was Kimi Raikkonen.

Kimi at least threw the race away for the right reasons. For the uncompromising Finn, second wasn't good enough.

"I was prepared to win or lose, but unfortunately I went off," said Raikkonen to reporters. "I only wanted to win. I slid wide on the fast left hander, and tried to come back on the circuit but I went off. I didn't want to finish behind we would have lost points. We see what we can do."

Compare that with Massa's comments: "I was slower than I wanted to be because I saw many people going off, especially Kimi, and Lewis was a little bit in front and I thought I don't want to risk eight points because eight points is eight points."  Does that sound like the moral victor?

Ron Dennis and McLaren have announced that they will appeal against the FIA Stewards decision. McLaren won't need reminding that the last time they relied on a decision from an FIA tribunal, it cost them $100 million.

Sadly I'm reminded of another old Ron Dennis quote from a few years ago.

"Sometimes our cars just aren't red enough."

Looking positively at this, we still have a fantastic world championship battle ahead of us. Next weekend Hamilton heads into the next race at Monza with a slender two point championship lead over Massa and the McLarens are expected to have the edge over Ferrari at the super-fast Italian track.

But I feel disappointed. Not for Hamilton, not for McLaren, but for Formula One.

This weekend and next might well be the last chance to enjoy some old favourites if the Formula One rumour mill is true. The Belgian Grand Prix at Spa is held on one of the oldest tracks, but there could be big changes in store.

A week later the similarly historic track at Monza hosts the always emotive Italian Grand Prix. And again, if rumours are true, a well known favourite might be saying farewell.

But first, the Belgian Grand Prix. With a lap distance of over 7km, Spa Francorchamps is a throwback to an earlier, more heroic, but definitely more dangerous era of motor racing. It is the last Grand Prix circuit in the world where cars race on closed country roads.

For much of the year, the section between Stavelot corner and La Source Hairpin is the actual public highway between the villages of Stavelot and Francorchamps, while the section including the spectacular Eau Rouge corner is the highway to the town of Malmédy. And the "Bus Stop" chicane?  Well it used to be used as the school bus stop!!

While Spa-Francorchamps is the longest circuit on the F1 calendar, it is today less than half the length of the original public road course, which offered the drivers a truly daunting challenge due to the sheer speed of the corners. Despite having only one a couple of true straights, the average lap speed was nudging 250kph by the late 1960s!

Those awesome speeds, coupled with the changeable Ardennes weather - which frequently saw cloudbursts on one side of the circuit while the other side stays dry - led to serious safety concerns.  After a series of fatal accidents, Spa was replaced by the safer but bland, Zolder track in the Flemish-speaking part of the country.

The race returned to its traditional home in 1983 and, to the delight of purists, the new, shorter Spa track incorporated some of the most exciting parts of the original, including the famous La Source hairpin, Eau Rouge and the final blast through the woods at Blanchimont. The new section, linking Les Combes and Stavelot, winds down the valley in a flowing series of curves.

While everybody rightly raves about the spectacular swoop up Eau Rouge, the amount of grip generated by the current breed of F1 cars means that it is no longer the knife edge of heroism that it once was. Spa though offers another truly challenging corner.

As you head down the valley from Malmédy, you hit the Pouhon left-hander at well over 250km/h and its long radius makes it the toughest part of the circuit. It really is a corner that separates the heros and the zeros.

The tragedy is, that the organisers of the Belgian Grand Prix have indicated that they want to cut out the majority of that corner in the future, cutting through in a straight line back to the pits. I hope plenty of others as well as I, will remind them that if they do, it will tear the soul out of Spa.

By cutting out two kilometres of track, the shorter lap would mean that the corporate guests in the hospitality suites would watch the cars pass them about 60 times instead of the current 44. But the shorter track would turn Pouhon into a little kink, then bypass the left and right flicks of the Pif-Paf, miss out the flat out blast through Stavelot and make the current 300km/h left hander at Blanchimont, well.....ordinary.

The word ‘emasculated' might well be applied to the proposed track. Hopefully our Belgian friends will think twice before committing such heresy.

According to this week's rumour mill, another ancient icon of motor racing may well shortly disappear too. The word is out that David Coulthard may well make the Italian Grand Prix his last, allowing the talented Sebastian Vettel to make an earlier move across to the Red Bull ‘A' team alongside Mark Webber.

It has to be said this is speculation rather than hard fact at the moment, but it would make sense. It opens up a strong possibility that the ever popular Takuma Sato could be employed by Toro Rosso for the Far Eastern races and maybe Red Bull protégé Bruno Senna could make his Formula One debut in his home Brazilian Grand Prix?

Meanwhile back to Spa. In 2004 and 2005 the race was dominated by McLaren. In 2006, there was no race, but last year's race was dominated by Ferrari. All three races had one thing in common - they were won by Kimi Raikkonen.

I think that the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix might well be the acid test for Kimi. If he wins his fourth successive race at Spa his season might get back on track. But if he gets blown away by either Lewis Hamilton or Felipe Massa, we might we see another icon taking an early walk. Mind you in neither the case of Raikkonen or Coulthard, I don't think we'll ever use the word emasculated!

It was about this time last year that Ferrari were forced to make a tough decision.

Despite scoring three victories, a suspension failure in the 2007 Italian Grand Prix removed the last chance of Felipe Massa being able to bid for the World Championship title. Immediately Massa took on a supporting role to team-mate Raikkonen, who snatched the title from the duelling McLaren drivers in the final round of the series.

This year it seems Ferrari are going to have to make a similar decision. Only this time it is Massa who looks like the title contender and one suspects that Raikkonen might be less willing to play the supporting role.

Three weeks after being cruelly robbed of victory by a blown engine in Hungary, Felipe Massa received his due reward after dominating the European Grand Prix in similar style. The Brazilian drove a flawless race to take a comfortable victory and to move ahead of his team-mate in the points standings.

Behind Massa on the track, by 5.6 seconds to be precise, Lewis Hamilton's second place in the Valencia race was a damage limitation exercise. The McLaren driver admitted to being simply ‘blown away' by Massa and the Ferrari's pace. Hamilton still leads the championship though, with 70 points to the Brazilian's 64, with Raikkonen third on 57.

From the very start of qualifying, it was clear that Massa was going to be the driver to beat. His self-belief and commitment was breathtaking, particularly at in the opening series of esses, where he ran the car right up to the concrete walls.

It was the same story for every one of the 57 laps of the race. At the entrance to the Astilleras Bridge, no other driver got as close to the parapet as Massa. Yet he flawlessly skimmed the wall with millimetre precision every lap.

Massa it seems has an on / off switch. He is either hero or zero. Sunday was definitely a hero day.

Massa's performance may have been flawless, but worryingly, his team was far from trouble free. A few hours after the chequered flag, the result of the race still hung in the hands of the FIA Stewards, who had the power to penalise Massa after the team released his car into the path of Adrian Sutil's Force India car after his second pit stop.

The stewards deemed it an unsafe move by the team and could have invoked a ten-second penalty. It would have handed the win to Lewis Hamilton, which would have been a travesty. Fortunately good sense prevailed and the incident resulted in a reprimand and a hefty 10,000 Euro fine.

It wasn't the only pitlane debacle for Ferrari either. Kimi Raikkonen made an almost unbelievable error of judgement, when he began to pull out of the pits before his refuelling was completed. His ‘hose man' Pietro Timpini went along for the ride before being run over by the Ferrari and sustaining a broken foot.

Frankly Ferrari are no longer the rock solid, reliable organisation we used to see during the Todt/Brawn/Schumacher era.

That was further demonstrated a few laps after Raikkonen's pit stop when his Ferrari engine expired in a similar manner to Massa's had in the previous race. The Finn was in a lacklustre sixth when the engine blew, which must put yet more pressure on the team to give Massa his chance at the title.

In third place, Robert Kubica once again demonstrated his rock-solid racecraft in a BMW car outclassed by McLaren and Ferrari. A sign of the Polish driver's talent is given by Nick Heidfeld's performance in the similar car. He finished a lowly ninth. Fourth in the title standings, Kubica is now just two points behind Raikkonen.

Sadly for his adoring Spanish fans, who had thronged the Valencia track, Fernando Alonso didn't even complete a single lap of racing. He became the victim of a typical mid-field melee when his car was hit by Kazuki Nakajima's Williams.

Alonso was philosophical, blaming the accident on his poor qualifying placing him in the middle of the pack. It has to be said though that his underpowered Renault, never looked a likely contender. Again look at his team-mate's performance. Piquet finished a lowly 11th.

The new Valencia track delivered plenty of dramas, but little overtaking. Part of the reason is that the design of the track has curving approaches to many of the slow corners which preclude side-by-side running.

The good news is that the Singapore track while similar in width, layout and speed, has many of its slow corners at the end of long straights. I've got high hopes that the Marina Bay track will deliver just as much drama, plus overtaking too!

Of course all eyes will be on the continuing battle between McLaren and Ferrari as the championship shoot-out resumes in Valencia this weekend. But maybe, just maybe, we'll see a surprise winner from another team, as the vagaries of an all-new track might just lead to someone springing a surprise.

The street circuit which hosts the European Grand Prix sweeps around the King Juan Carlos I yacht marina that last year hosted the Americas Cup, yet the track is more likely to have similarities with Singapore's floodlit venue than with Monaco. 

It is wide, fast and flowing, but doesn't have sufficiently long straights to allow a horsepower advantage to show. That could be music to Fernando Alonso's ears. The Renault engine has a clear horsepower deficit to its rivals and this track almost seems ready-made to allow Alonso to show off his car control and racecraft to his adoring home fans.

Fernando has already joked about ‘getting up early' to beat his rivals, but he has a serious point. "We must do our best to find our reference points quicker than the others in order to spring a surprise" said he. In other words the faster you can learn the track, the more likely you are to qualify well and, if you do that, the odds will favour a good result.  

Which is where McLaren come in. Although none of the Formula One teams have been allowed to run any significant on-track testing during the three week-long ‘summer break', there hasn't been much evidence of anyone taking a holiday. Every team has been working flat-out behind the scenes to boost their performance.

Back at McLaren's technical centre at Woking in England, is a little spoken-of device called "the simulator". Its detail workings remain a closely-guarded secret, but in simple terms it can best be described as a complete, current F1 car, combined with a full-motion simulator similar to those used for training aircrews.  

It sounds like a multi-million dollar version of a computer game, but the hours spent in the simulator are deadly serious. Not only do the drivers fine-tune their knowledge of every single track on the calendar, but complex computer softwear attached to the machine allows the engineers to compare every aspect of its performance and adapt either the car or the driver's style to gain the ultimate efficiency.

Of course, almost every other team on the grid has a simulator of some form, but it is thought that none match the McLaren's sophistication - and success. Many in the paddock believe it is the simulator programme that has allowed the team to overhaul Ferrari in the last few races. 

Rumour has it that using the simulator allowed the engineers to propose a change in Hamilton's driving style before the British Grand Prix. Less aggressive use of the steering early in the corner allowed smaller front wings to be used, which in turn led to lower sidepods, which allowed a higher top speed. The results were most clearly seen in Germany, when the McLaren simply waltzed away from the opposition.

This weekend it will be interesting to see whether Ferrari have found an answer to McLaren's performance boost. Certainly there will have been no lack of effort at Maranello, but it seems that there is a clear difference in approach between their two drivers.  

Ferrari has been using a simulator at the nearby FIAT research centre and has been reported to have commissioned a ‘next generation' unit from American specialist MOOG. Felipe Massa is on record as a big believer in the technology. It seems however that Kimi Raikkonen is less of a fan and that, combined with a relatively lacklustre performance in recent races is placing increasing pressure on the reigning champion.

I personally think that Kimi will fight back. And it sets up a great prospect for Valencia.  

Will it be the scientific approach of Hamilton, Kovalainen or Massa that wins? Or raw talent from Raikkonen or Alonso?  Or even a real outsider like Red Bull's Mark Webber who always thrives on new tracks?  Only one way to find out, join us in Race Central this weekend!

Driver to watch:  Lewis Hamilton.

Yes I know it's a predictable choice, but Hamilton has a real opportunity to take control of the World Championship with a victory in Valencia. The McLaren arguably remains the superior car to the Ferrari and as Lewis proved by winning in Monaco, he can match aggression with precision. He is perfectly supported by team-mate Kovalainen too. The big question is will Ferrari have found something extra fight back with?

Budapest, perhaps the most beautiful city in Europe. ‘The Queen of the Danube' is full of ornate marble palaces, mostly built towards the end of the 19th century, when the city was one of the richest in the world.

If history isn't your bag, Budapest still delivers. Four bridges link the towns of Buda and Pest on each side of the river Danube. If Buda is known for the history and palaces, Pest is the party side of the river, famed for its bars and nightclubs!

About 20 kilometres north of the city, you'll find the Hungaroring. It isn't quite so pretty, but it is a track with a character all of its own. Built in the early 1980s when Hungary was still behind ‘the Iron Curtain' it is a concrete-lined bowl with the tight-twisting track squeezed into a narrow valley between surrounding hills.

With an average lap speed of under 200km/h it is the second slowest track after Monaco. And here, even more than Monaco, aerodynamic downforce matters more than anything else. So we get the season's ugliest Formula One cars.

For this race more than any other, a clean profile and straight-line speed don't matter. And the boffins in the wind tunnels get to play with all their inventions.

At the recent test sessions at Jerez in Spain, which has a similar layout, the cars looked awful.  Starting at the front, cars were sprouting more nose wings than Manfred von Richthofen had on his Fokker Triplane and as if they didn't look daft enough, stuck in the middle of the nose of some of the leading cars were what McLaren called ‘antlers.'

The rest of us call them ‘Dumbo Ears'. They're not new, Honda have been running them for most of this season, (a sure sign of their desperation!), but for this race, don't be too surprised if everybody tries them!

Even Ferrari, who at least seem to disguise their aerodynamic appendages with stylish Italian swirls and flourishes, fielded a car with the now ubiquitous ‘anvil' or ‘shark-fin' on the engine cover. The need to cool the very hot-running Ferrari engine at Hungaroring also means that the cars are likely to sport massive ‘chimneys' on the side pods. Functional I know, but hardly a thing of beauty.

The good news is that while the cars may look like something the cat dragged in, the racing at Hungaroring is usually excellent. The track is tight and twisty with 15 corners, most of which are taken in second or third gear, so overtaking is at a premium, yet the track has witnessed some great dramas.

Remember the 2006 race. That was the one which began with Felipe Massa spinning off the wet track on his way from the pits to the starting grid, then Pedro de la Rosa spun his McLaren on the warm-up lap.

2005 winner Kimi Raikkonen (then still with McLaren) took an early lead, until lap 26 when he hit Vitantonio Liuzzi while lapping the Toro Rosso. Fernando Alonso took the lead, only to suffer a loose wheel nut, handing the lead to Jenson Button and Honda. He'd started from 14th on the grid!

Last year of course, the race was dominated by the feud between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton which almost brought the McLaren team to its knees.

Alonso claimed pole position, but deliberately baulked Hamilton in the pit lane to prevent his team-mate making a final qualifying run.  The FIA stewards penalised Alonso for impeding Hamilton, and while Hamilton went on to win the race just 0.7s ahead of the fast closing Ferrari of Raikkonen, the McLaren team scored no constructors' points as an additional penalty for the Alonso/Hamilton qualifying debacle.

It was also the race in which Felipe Massa's world championship bid effectively ended in qualifying. Why? Because someone in the Ferrari camp forgot to refuel his car - and starting from a lowly 14^th place, the Brazilian was unable to find his way through the traffic.

One of the constants in those drama-packed races has been the pace of Kimi Raikkonen and following his debut at the track in 2007, Lewis Hamilton. In sheer speed and aggression, no-one comes near them.

It will be just as close this year. Ferrari have expended a great deal of effort in the past two weeks in an attempt to catch back up with the leap in performance that took Hamilton and McLaren to victory at Silverstone and Hockenheim.

So saying, my money this weekend still be on Hamilton to score a third successive victory, but I think Ferrari have worked out their tyre management issues and will run them a lot closer.

Another constant in the past two years has been the third man on the podium.  BMW's Nick Heidfeld is good with tyres. (No, it isn't some Mosley style peccadillo!).

Heidfeld's smooth driving style pays off particularly well in comparison with team-mate Kubica, who admits he dislikes this track. Two other drivers are also going to be well worth watching on these slow corners.

Both Felipe Massa and Nico Rosberg seem to alternate between stunning pace and disaster on this sort of track. I guess on Sunday evening it'll be interesting to see which is hero or zero at the chequered flag!

I wonder. Just wonder, whether the last two successive victories for Lewis Hamilton really have set him up for this year's Formula One World Championship title?

Based on Hamilton's domination of both the British and German Grand Prix races, it would on the face of it, look good for the British driver.

At Silverstone, Hamilton simply found a level of pace that mystified his rivals. It was one of those rare occasions where the driver simply transcended the machinery.

At Hockenheim, it was a different story. On this occasion, it was a case of the McLaren finding a ‘sweet spot' with the track that simply eluded the Ferrari and BMW teams.

The fact also remains that Lewis had to dig deep into all his reserves of talent to retrieve the chances of victory after a huge McLaren tactical blunder regarding his second pit stop.

The deployment of the safety car was inevitable after Timo Glock's accident on the 34th lap of the race. The Toyota driver's rear suspension failure on the fast Sudkurve and pitched him backwards across the track into the pit wall, was a massive impact which left debris all the way down the start straight.

When the signal was given for the pit lane to open, someone on the McLaren pit wall committed an absolute howler. Whether through poor communication, indecision or simply a wrong call, they left Hamilton out on track, when he should have led the pack down the pit lane.

In addition to Formula One, I've spent a large part of the last ten years reporting on American motor sports on their oval tracks, where they have countless "full course yellows" behind the safety car. Whether it's the big V8 NASCAR stock cars or their Indycar single-seaters, they have a simple maxim.

If you're leading the race, you lead into pitlane and pretty well whatever happens, you're still likely to come out in the first half dozen. They have a word for the place behind the safety car when you stay out behind it. They call it the "sucker hole". If you're in it, you're likely to wind up at the back of the pack.

When the race restarted, only Hamilton, Nelson Piquet junior (more of him shortly) and Nick Heidfeld had stayed on track. Already Hamilton's hard-earned sixteen second advantage had been negated by the safety car. Now, with the rest of his rivals refuelled, he knew had to build a 23 second lead just to stay ahead when he pitted.

Hamilton set off like a rocket and drove a dozen successive laps at qualifying speed. He though, had only been able to claw back 15.7 seconds when he dived into the pitlane.

He rejoined in 5th place and was promoted by Heidfeld making his stop too and team-mate Kovalainen letting him by. Then he pulled off two of the best overtaking moves of the season, to pass Massa and Nelsinho Piquet who was leading a Grand Prix for the first time.

For Massa, it was must have been a particular blow. His pace consistently shaded team-mate Raikkonen all weekend in a Ferrari which was visibly much more difficult to drive than the McLaren. As at Silverstone, the Ferrari showed it is much more susceptible to gusting winds and a bumpy track. At Hockenheim, as at Silverstone the conditions threw up both.

However it was the manner in which Hamilton outraced Massa, which will haunt the Brazilian. You have to give Felipe 100 percent for his fightback, which got the two cars wheel to wheel for a second time.

However the way Hamilton simply forced Massa into a no win situation was masterful. It was noticeable that a deflated Massa had no mind for fighting with compatriot Piquet for his second place.

That for me is the essence of Hamilton's possible success in the World Championship. After he'd been blown away, Massa stopped fighting. Raikkonen knew he had a car that wouldn't win, so he didn't try. His mind was simply on getting a few more points.

But Hamilton simply never gave up. It would have been easy for him to finish third and make muted comments about McLaren's poor tactics, but he didn't. You have to admire not just his victory, but his racing spirit.

Talking of racing spirit, a few thoughts on Nelsinho Piquet. He started the race from 17th on the grid, but the Renault team took a gamble on a one-stop strategy - and it paid off.

Piquet, a driver whose form had led to some disquiet about his future, then drove an impeccable race, battling calmly and intelligently with Hamilton for the lead and pacing himself perfectly to deny Massa his second place.

Think back to Monaco, when running in fourth place boosted the confidence of Force India driver Adrian Sutil. He has outpaced team-mate Fisichella ever since. One wonders what finishing second will do for Piquet - and what those two stunning wins will do for Hamilton's self-confidence!

A surprise present often seems more enjoyable than something you expect to receive. Just ask Rubens Barrichello. His third place in the unfancied Honda at Silverstone was perhaps the biggest surprise yet this season, but a combination of Rubens' driving finesse in the rain and a gamble on fitting the most heavily treaded wet-weather tyres at just the right moment, paid off handsomely.

"It was fantastic to wake up on the Monday morning after Silverstone and see the trophy!" said Rubens early this week. "To step onto the podium again was an unexpected but deserved outcome. I was so pleased to have achieved the result for the team."

Back in 2000, Rubens stepped onto the top step of an F1 podium for the first time at Hockenheim, when he scored his first win for the Ferrari team. If you remember, he sobbed tears of joy as he heard the Brazilian national anthem played. This weekend, unless Ferrari can recover from their dip in form at Silverstone, they'll be sobbing again.

With a three-way dead heat at the top of the championship table, Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen desperately need to score championship points to stay in the title chase. Both failed to score any at Silverstone, for different reasons.

Kimi Raikkonen remains remarkable relaxed about the whole deal. After the formal pre-race interviews on Thursday, he sat down on the edge of the stage and candidly chatted with a pack of journalists about the last race - and this one.

"Unfortunately a mistake with the tyre choice cost us badly, which was a shame as we had very good speed before that happened" he explained. "Of course, the next day, it was easy to think we should have done things differently, but in the end we picked up some useful points and the result was not a disaster."

And for Hockenheim and the remainder of the 2008 season? A typically laid-back Kimi response. "I'm pretty relaxed about it. I will do my best and hopefully that will be enough. If it's not, then I can deal with that too, because there are more important things in life."

Massa too made a particular effort to talk to the press, although you could sense more tension. I suspect that if there are more important things in life for Felipe, he hasn't thought about them!

"When you see there are four guys all within two points at the top of the table it is such a small difference" said Massa. "Each one of us is in the same boat and many things can happen from one race to the next.

"Consistency will be the most important factor between now and the end of the season. My strengths are that I have a great car and I am working with a great team and I plan to make the most of those assets to get stronger all the time and fight for a good amount of points at every race."

Massa wouldn't be drawn on his lacklustre performance at Silverstone, when he spun five (or was it six, I lost count) times and finished thirteenth and last, two laps behind the race winner.

At the time, I put it down to the fact that Felipe was perhaps previously more reliant than other drivers on the now absent electronic traction control than other drivers. It made him more aggressive on the power and brakes, which cost him dear at Silverstone.

However I also think that he may have been more affected than even he admitted by a massive accident in practice on the Friday. Travelling at maximum speed, 300 km/h, he hit oil which had just been dropped as Fernando Alonso's Renault engine blew up.

The Ferrari went instantly out of control and hit the barriers at unabated speed. Perhaps it was unsurprising that Massa was never the same all weekend!

If Silverstone brought bad surprises for the Ferrari drivers, it brought a particularly sweet one for Lewis Hamilton. I've been accused of bias in praising him up, but there is no other way to describe his performance on the rain-soaked track as other than sensational.  Heck, he lapped every other driver on the Formula One grid, except his fellow podium finishers!

Being more objective, I doubt that he's going to achieve that again, possibly ever in his career, but in pre-race testing at Hockenheim he was consistently the fastest driver over runs of up to 30 laps, indicating that perhaps McLaren have found a slight performance advantage over Ferrari and BMW.

I would not be surprised to see Hamilton win again this weekend, but for Lewis and the McLaren team consistency over the next nine races will be the key to at the title.

If you want a further surprise this weekend, look to Toyota. The wet conditions, plus a scary rear wing failure in practice for Jarno Trulli, blunted their attack in Britain.

They've been quick in testing though and Hockenheim is the Cologne-based team's home track. I suspect that if there's any race where Trulli or Timo Glock may grab a surprise pole position or even a podium, this is it.

With both the Wimbledon tennis finals and the British Grand Prix on the same British summer’s day, you could probably have placed a safe bet on the storm clouds gathering. When they duly delivered their watery contents they allowed Lewis Hamilton to weave a bit of magic around the Silverstone circuit.

Given the circumstances of the likely future of the British Grand Prix, it is tempting to look back to the last time a Formula One race was held at the Donington Park racing circuit, which will host the GP once again from 2010. Back in 1993, the European Grand started in similar sodden conditions. It went on to see one of Formula One’s greatest drives.

In that race, Ayrton Senna started from fourth place on the grid in his McLaren. He then pulled off a stupendous move in the opening series of corners to vault into the race lead – and stormed away from his rivals. At the chequered flag, the Brazilian was over a minute ahead of his nearest rival. Damon Hill, in second place, was the only driver not to be lapped. Alain Prost finished third, a full lap behind.

Back to Silverstone. Lewis Hamilton started from fourth place on the grid in his McLaren. He then pulled off a stupendous move in the opening series of corners to vault into the race lead and then stormed away from his rivals. At the chequered flag, the Briton was over a minute ahead of his nearest rival ... I’m sure you get my point.

The interesting thing is that Hamilton’s victory came against a background of continually changing track conditions. The track started wet then, over the first third of the race, began to dry. Then another rain shower hit and the track became wetter than ever. One perfect description for the resulting conditions is “tyre poker”.

In the event, Hamilton played a straight hand impeccably. He started the race on less heavily treaded intermediate tyres. As the conditions deteriorated, he trusted to the McLaren’s compliant handling and ‘tip-toed’ his way around the deep water.

When track conditions improved he drove through the edges of the standing water to keep his tyres cool and minimise wear. It was a race that demonstrated that Hamilton has a perfect feel for his car and a light touch at the helm when required.

The same could be said for Nick Heidfeld, who finished in a well-deserved second place. In recent races, the German driver has been overshadowed by his BMW team-mate Robert Kubica, whose more aggressive driving style has worked better on dry tracks. In the Silverstone spray, Heidfeld’s silky smooth style paid dividends.

There were those who gambled in the tyre poker and won. Rubens Barrichello matched his wet weather expertise with a cleverly timed decision to switch to the heavily treaded, “extreme wet” tyres – and promptly shot up the leaderboard to score a surprise third place, the last driver on the same lap as the winner. We all know the result was a lucky fluke for Honda, but there was unanimous delight in seeing ‘Rubinho’ back on the podium.

Ferrari too played tyre poker – and lost. Their decision to leave Kimi Raikkonen on his worn-out tyres at the first pit stop could have been an inspired one, if only it had stopped raining.

In that scenario the worn out treads would have placed more rubber on the road and they’d have acted like slicks. If the track had dried they might have beaten Hamilton. But it didn’t and Kimi Raikkonen, like Fernando Alonso who’d taken a similar gamble, slithered back into the midfield.

More worrying was Felipe Massa’s performance. The Ferrari, more stiffly sprung to aid its dry-weather aerodynamic efficiency, was clearly the most knife-edge, twitchy car in the conditions, but the Brazilian once again proved that he was more reliant on the now-absent electronic traction control than other drivers. My washing machine doesn’t offer as many options for spinning as Massa demonstrated!

Finally, a piece of driving that perhaps even shaded Lewis Hamilton’s Silverstone performance. Mark Webber pulled off an awesome lap in qualifying to put the Red Bull second on the starting grid. But that was nothing in comparison with the opening lap of the race.

Imagine the scenario. Wet track, Hamilton and Kovalainen are fighting for the lead ahead. Webber is wheel-to-wheel with Raikkonen’s Ferrari in the Becketts Corner complex when the car spins. Suddenly Webber is facing backwards, with sixteen other cars heading right at him.

It should have been the recipe for carnage, but thanks to Webber’s cool head it wasn’t. Still travelling at over 200km/h, Webber calmly reversed the car off the racing line and out of trouble. He rejoined and eventually finished in tenth place, but that piece of reverse driving was maybe the neatest trick of the whole weekend!

The second day of the test provided a rare opportunity for my wife to visit the track with me. Such is the pace of a race weekend its never normally possible, nor practical, but last week I was given a completely different view of success or failure in Formula One, from a sartorial perspective.

First, the Renault team uniforms came under scrutiny. "Well you certainly won't miss them in a crowd" was the comment on the bright yellow, white and blue with prominent ING logos. Williams' dark blue almost put them on pole position, except for "too many logos", Red Bull scored well too, with smarter uniforms better than siblings Toro Rosso and a clearer livery for their car.

McLaren's clean-cut corporate silver and red was also approved of, although the choice of shiny materials was "trying a bit too hard". Toyota's look was thought "a bit ordinary, no imagination" and surprisingly, Ferrari's Italian style failed to shine through.

"The car's a disappointment. Looks great on TV, but it's the wrong shade of red when you see it for real". And as for the Ferrari team uniforms? "They look just like the attendants at our local gas station."

At the tail of the grid though, it was clear-cut. Honda's "Earth Dream" concept is a worthy one, but the way it is presented? Oh dear.

"No wonder the team is demotivated, being forced to wear trousers that colour. That shade of green is shocking. It's not natural, organic or anything like. Honda certainly won't win anything this season. Bernie won't let them onto the podium wearing trousers that colour!"
That left two teams jostling for the lead. Force India came close with their white, gold and black, very smart. It was BMW in top spot though. Their dark blue and white, "clean, simple and effective, just like their cars."

Out on the track the BMWs continue to look strong too and given Kubica's current form, I'll tip him for another podium place, but I suspect that at Silverstone will once again play to the strengths of the Ferrari cars. Their ability to combine aerodynamic downforce with high straightline speed is the key.

Despite gusting winds, both Massa and Raikkonen effortlessly strung together a series of laps which were faster than last year's race record, which was itself set by Raikkonen on his way to victory. My money though goes, not on the reigning champion, but on his team-mate Felipe Massa.

Massa's drive last year was one of the unsung highlights of the Brazilian's season. His race started in disaster when the Ferrari stalled on the grid, forcing him to rejoin 22nd and last. Massa's drive through the field to an eventual fifth was a true mark of his resilience and pace.

Of course, home hopes will hinge on Lewis Hamilton, who has ensured that Silverstone is a sell-out this weekend, not a single ticket remains. That heaps a lot of pressure on the 23 year-old and is if that pressure were not enough, this is probably the pivotal race of the 2008 season for the Briton.

After failing to score points in either Montreal or Magny Cours, Hamilton needs a safe, steady, drama-free, top three run at Silverstone to keep his championship hopes alive. Of course the Silverstone crowd will be roaring him on to victory. I actually hope that he doesn't win. He simply doesn't need to take the risk.

There are of course two other drivers providing home interest. I suspect that David Coulthard, twice winner at Silverstone and coming close to his 250th GP, may choose this weekend as an appropriate time to announce his retirement as a driver. Meanwhile one has to feel sorry for Jenson Button. A couple of years ago everyone was betting on him for a home win. Now such is the Honda's lack of pace that he wryly admitted last week that he'll "leave it to Lewis to do the winning this weekend". And he has to wear those green trousers!

Finally, an ‘outsider' might just surprise the front-runners this weekend. During testing Toyota consistently matched McLaren and Ferrari for pace and were ahead of BMW. Jarno Trulli's third place in the French Grand Prix might not have been a fluke. Watch out him again this weekend and in the second half of the season.

The FIA Stewards must be thanking heaven for the dramas involving Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, and the spirited battle for third place between Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen that brought the French Grand Prix to life.

Without them, all the attention would have gone on what I think was one of the poorest penalty decisions in F1 history.

In terms of the letter of the law, there might have been a case for the drive-through penalty that ruined any chance of Lewis Hamilton making his expected progress through the field. Except that looking again at the video footage, Hamilton had already overtaken Sebastien Vettel's Toro Rosso before he arrived at the chicane, where he then slid off the track.

The penalty should only be invoked if a driver gains advantage by going off the track while overtaking. Well if Hamilton was already ahead, why was he penalised?

It was also suggested that maybe Hamilton might not have been penalised if he'd backed off to let Vettel back past him. That might work when the field's a bit more spread out, but on the opening lap - don't be so daft!

Hamilton, already dropped back to 13th on the grid after his misdemeanour in Canada, was up to tenth place mid way through the opening lap, slap-bang in the middle of the closely massed pack of cars, on a short 250 metre run to a hairpin bend. Can you imagine what would have happened if he'd backed off or braked suddenly? It would certainly have been a spectacular pile-up.

Sadly, not for the first time, the FIA Stewards have ruined a driver's race based on at best, a dubious decision. I actually don't blame them, they're simply not racers.

Amazingly, none of the three volunteer stewards who are delegated to oversee each Grand Prix, have to my knowledge ever driven a Grand Prix car or anything remotely like it. In fact I'm pretty sure that none of them have even driven in a motor race, certainly not in the last decade or two.

Until the end of last year, the FIA seemed to recognise that the volunteers which include lawyers, former government administrators and a cinema owner, needed at least one permanent official among them. Until his retirement, permanent race steward Tony-Scott Andrews operated alongside two designated race stewards - one international and one from the national sporting authority hosting the Grand Prix.

This year the FIA decided to use three nominated stewards at each event, chosen from nationalities that are totally neutral - so they are not the same as any of F1's competitors. This seems laudable enough, ensuring impartiality of decisions on national grounds, but at a stroke it means that British, French, Italian and German stewards, the ones who arguably know the most about the sport, can't be used.

The FIA also appointed a fourth, non-voting ‘official representative' of FIA president Max Mosley to assist in the stewards' decision-making. The problem is again, that Alan Donnelly, while an experienced sports administrator, knows little about motor racing. His previous job was with the International Olympic Committee!

There are some retired Formula One drivers, including World Champions who would be perfect recruits from the Stewards room. How about Niki Lauda, or Alain Prost? Both I'm sure could be trusted to be impartial and would certainly have the drivers respect. I also believe that no real racer would have sanctioned Hamilton's penalty.

Meanwhile, all credit to Ferrari. They had the best car for the job in Magny Cours and even when Kimi Raikkonen's broken exhaust meant he had to give up the lead, he had sufficient in hand to limp home in second place.

But the drive of the day has to go to Jarno Trulli in the Toyota. We'd all assumed he'd run light on fuel to qualify fourth and he'd stop early. Well that was the case, but having swiftly forged his way past Fernando Alonso into third, he grittily held onto the place through both of his pit stops until challenged by Kovalainen in the closing stages.

The McLaren driver had started tenth (after also being penalised!) and probably passed more cars than any other driver as he worked his way through the field. It was the classic case of the unstoppable meeting the immovable.

This time the immovable, Trulli, came out ahead after a brilliant twelve laps of wheel-to-wheel action. One bonus for Trulli was it happened at Magny Cours. A wine connoisseur and vineyard owner when not racing, he wouldn't have far to go to find a quality vin rouge to celebrate with from the burgundy vineyards close to the track!

With five victories at Magny Cours from the last seven races, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out that this is a track that suits the Ferraris perfectly.

Both the French and British Grand Prix play to the strong points of the scarlet cars with fast sweeping corners placing an emphasis on aerodynamics, while the Ferrari suspension compliance allows them to ride the kerbs with impunity at the slower chicanes.

McLaren of course run Ferrari close, but their strength continues to be on tracks where long straights place the emphasis on low downforce. A win in Canada should have been a walk in the park for Hamilton, which made his mistake in the pitlane potentially so damaging to his championship hopes. He'll now have a long wait till Monza in September, before he‘s likely to have such a car advantage again.

Adding to the pressure on Hamilton this weekend is the fact that he has a ten-place grid penalty. Check the results in last years race and you'll see that Fernando Alonso, in a McLaren, started from 10th on the grid. It took a gritty drive and an astute pit strategy for the double World Champion to finish seventh and salvage two championship points. I can't see Lewis doing much better this weekend.

I'm not expecting to see BMW Sauber trouncing the Ferraris either. While the Swiss-German team have improved fast and Robert Kubica thoroughly deserved his maiden win in Canada, I suspect that the highly technical Magny Cours track will expose the fact that the BMW F1.08 chassis is good, but not quite as good as the silver and scarlet front-runners.

So my money's on Ferrari. But which one?

It's still too close to call in the championship with just seven points covering the top four. I suspect that Kubica's points lead will disappear this weekend, and both Ferrari drivers may well move back ahead of Hamilton who shares second with Massa. But Kimi Raikkonen needs a win desperately

The points lost by his mistake crashing out in Monaco and Lewis' mistake, crashing into him in Montreal have dropped him to fourth in the title standings. Equally important, despite a relatively lacklustre race in to fifth place in Canada, team-mate Felipe Massa is ahead of him in the points and the French Grand Prix is the halfway point of the season.

That's when, officially or unofficially, teams will decide who to put their prime effort behind one or other driver in the title chase. I sense that Massa senses the opportunity. If he wins in France and Raikkonen doesn't - he'll become ‘Numero Uno' in Ferrari's thinking.

We're already seeing similar steps in the other teams. Heikki Kovalainen is clearly now playing a supporting role to Hamilton's challenge for McLaren. And did you see the almost petulant display of post-race disappointment from Nick Heidfeld when he was forced to settle for second place behind Kubica in Canada? There's no doubt where the BMW team's prime loyalty now lies!

Interestingly one team where it is still wide-open between two team-mates is Force India. A few races ago I admit, I'd consigned Adrian Sutil to the ‘why bother' pile after he'd been comprehensively outpaced by the experienced Giancarlo Fisichella.

Then came Monaco. That run to fourth place, till he was punted off the track by Raikkonen, boosted Sutil's self confidence to new levels. He outqualified Giancarlo again in Canada and now he's coming to a track that he loves, and Fisichella hates.

Giancarlo had the biggest accident of his career at Magny Cours in practice in 2002 and he admits it still haunts him. He also dislikes the slow chicanes and high kerbs. Sutil though reckoned this was his favourite track when he raced here in the GP2 series.

This is the race to watch the team-mates battle, all the way down the field!

If you ever want to be a petty official with a mammoth sense of power, try and get the job of switching on and off the traffic lights at the end of the Montreal pit lane. Other than actually driving a Formula One car, there's no better opportunity to change the course of races.

In 2005, the red lights went on as race leader Juan Pablo Montoya was exiting the pit lane. He ignored them and was promptly disqualified. Last year, the same fate befell Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella. And this year of course.......man that guy with the button has some power!

Ironically Lewis Hamilton had been joking with reporters before the race about his father crashing a Porsche supercar in a city street just a few days before the race.

"I said Dad, how do you wreck a car at just 50 km/h?" joked Lewis. Well now he knows!

Lewis looked to have the race in the bag as he comfortably led from pole position, but it all began to unravel on the 18th lap. Adrian Sutil's Force India car caused the safety car to be deployed when it ground to a halt on the track with gearbox problems, then the seven leading cars came into the pits.

While Hamilton led into the pitlane, a tardy stop meant that he was in third place once he got moving again. Ahead of him, Kimi Raikkonen and Robert Kubica were jostling shoulder to shoulder at the 80km/h pitlane speed limit, when suddenly they stopped at the red light.

Distracted, Hamilton thumped into the back of Raikkonen's Ferrari, putting them both out of the race, while Nico Rosberg's Williams then shunted the back of the McLaren, putting him beyond future contention too. All because of that red traffic light.

It was a narrow escape too for Kubica. It was a 50:50 chance which car Lewis would hit. History though will record that Lewis tweaked his wheel to the left and hit the Ferrari, while the Kubica went on to a brilliantly driven maiden victory. A stunning mid-race drive allowed the Pole to leap ahead of his BMW team-mate Nick Heidfeld as the two scored BMW's first race win with an emphatic 1-2 ahead of the hardy perennial David Coulthard in the Red Bull.

The win also puts Kubica at the top of the World Championship for Drivers, while adding insult to injury, both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were penalised for their accidents. Both will lose ten places on the starting grid for the next race, the French Grand Prix on 22nd June.

But I still can't understand why that red traffic light is there at all. The official rules state that the light is on to allow the convoy behind the safety car to pass unimpeded. Well frankly, if the best drivers in the world, in radio contact with their pits, can't be persuaded to keep to one side of the track and then slot in at the end of the line, Formula One isn't doing its job properly.

A couple of hours after the race I settled down in front of a TV to watch the NASCAR Sprint Cup event from Pocono, Pennsylvania. During the course of the 500 mile race there were eight pace car periods during which time up to 40 cars at a time headed into and out of pit lane.

OK, a few drivers traded paint, a few got penalised for speeding and one did nearly leave the pits with a mechanic as a hood ornament, but there wasn't a single silly shunt at a traffic light.

The FIA and the Formula One teams have been talking about getting rid of these daft pit lane rules for some time, but haven't got around to it. I suspect now that Ferrari and McLaren have a vested interest in getting something done, we might see some progress.

In contrast this week, there is an inevitability about the prime topic of conversation in the Montreal paddock. The fallout from the ‘vote of confidence' in FIA President Max Mosley may even threaten the future running of the Canadian race.

One of the most immediate fall-outs from the decision by the representatives on Wednesday is that some national motoring bodies in Germany, the USA, Canada and other countries have openly discussed pulling out of the FIA. If they do there will be no official international sanctioning powers for races in their respective countries.

This would mean that races including the German and Canadian Grand Prix may be placed in jeopardy. The strongly worded comments from the American Automobile Association may also end hopes of the United States Grand Prix being reinstated on the calendar in the near future.

In the country which hosts the opening Grand Prix of the season, 'The Australian' newspaper described Mosley as a ‘pariah' saying: "In this image-conscious sport, whose revenues depend on its reputation for sophistication and prestige, a man revealed to have a penchant for sado-masochistic bondage sessions with prostitutes is an unwelcome guest."

It was a sentiment supported by Bernie Ecclestone who went on record as saying: "There were many people who didn't want to speak to him before. I can't think they will want to speak to him now as a result of what has happened. Nothing has changed in that respect. Just because he gets a few clubs from Africa voting for him will not make the King of Spain want to shake his hand".

Whatever one's personal feelings on ‘Mosleygate', it seems that rather than giving closure to the issue, Wednesday's FIA vote is stirring up an even bigger storm.

Whatever happens behind the scenes, I believe we'll have another cracking Canadian Grand Prix to savour. Lewis Hamilton returns to Montreal with the best possible chance of adding a second Canadian victory to his maiden Formula One victory in 2007.

The reason for McLaren fans to feel confident stems from their car's traditional ability to make the most of mechanical grip and traction, in comparison to aerodynamic downforce. It is the same attribute that gave Lewis his winning edge in Monaco too.

At first there may seem to be little in common between the tight confines of Monaco, and the long straights of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. In Monaco the cars simply never go fast enough for the wings to give a major effect. In Montreal the fastest chassis set-up is to ‘trim' the wings for the minimum drag and a maximum speed of down the long back straight, accepting the compromise of slower cornering speeds on other parts of the track.

McLaren have proved masters of this in past years. In addition to Hamilton's victory in 2007, the team won with Kimi Raikkonen in 2006 and the Finn would have won in 2005 too, but for a fumbled pit stop. The last time a Ferrari has won at the track was with Michael Schumacher in 2004.

In fact, if the form book is repeated, the Ferrari drivers might even struggle to make the podium on Sunday afternoon. The unique nature of the Montreal track traditionally seems to work well for the BMW and Williams teams too.

Last year of course, the headlines were dominated by Robert Kubica's BMW. It speared off the track after clipping the rear of Jarno Trulli's Toyota, hitting the barriers almost head-on at 280 km/h, before barrel-rolling to a halt on the outside of the track.

Thankfully the Pole escaped injury, which allowed BMW to celebrate a fine second place for Nick Heidfeld. The car will once again be one of the fastest at about 320 km/h on the straight and I would not be too surprised to see both BMW drivers on the podium this year.

Another driver not to be discounted is Heikki Kovalainen. Last year at Renault, Montreal marked the start of the turn-around in the Finn's season, with a brilliantly-judged drive from 22nd and last place, to finish fourth. This year he has a McLaren under him - need I say more?

Likewise Williams could spring a surprise in Montreal. Last year Alex Wurz was one of the stars of the race as he carved through the field on a one pit stop strategy to claim third place after starting 20th on the grid. His Williams team-mate Nico Rosberg might also have featured last year, but along with Fernando Alonso, was given a ten-second "stop-go" penalty for entering the pits at the start of a safety car period.

They at least fared better than Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella. They were both disqualified for jumping red "traffic lights" at the other end of the pitlane.

It seems that anything can happen in Montreal. The tight first corner has triggered at least two multi-car pileups in recent years and more than one world champion has ended his race sliding along the infamous "Champions Wall" at the chicane in front of the pits.

Last year also saw the unfancied Super Aguri of Takuma Sato blast past Alonso's McLaren on the straight to claim fifth place, while Anthony Davidson was robbed of a points-scoring finish after running over a squirrel!

However perhaps the ultimate late race drama came in 1991. The British driver Nigel Mansell had such a big lead he began waving to the crowd on the final lap, but let the engine revs drop too low at the final hairpin.

The car stalled and rolled to a halt, allowing Nelson Piquet senior (Nelsinho's dad!) to claim his third victory at the track. I told you this was a wacky race!

With more changes of fortune than the roulette wheel in the Grand Casino, the stories of two drivers, more than any other demonstrate the vagaries of the 66th running of the Monaco Grand Prix.

There was precious little difference in the pace or commitment of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Force India's Adrian Sutil. However one rode his luck to victory, as the other was forced to wonder ‘what might have been'.

Lewis Hamilton's race should by rights have been over on the sixth lap. Lewis had made a brilliant start to dive down the inside of Kimi Raikkonen and tuck into second place behind the leading Ferrari of Felipe Massa. Then the treacherous conditions got the better of the McLaren driver and he kissed the barrier at Tabac corner, bursting his rear tyre. But if ever an accident can be said to be a lucky one, this was it.

Firstly, the accident happened just three corners from the end of the pitlane, so Lewis lost the minimum of time getting back to the pits. Then, just as he made his pit stop, an accident brought out yellow flags, slowing the field, but Lewis left the pits just before the safety car was scrambled, otherwise he'd have been held in the pitlane. Such was the lucky break in his timing, he merely dropped to fourth place.

The accident that precipitated it (to forgive the pun) was classic Monaco. David Coulthard's Red Bull, which had proved skittish in the dry, was almost uncontrollable in the wet.

On the run up the hill to Casino Square it simply got more and more sideways, until DC ran out of ideas, opposite lock - and road. He hit the barriers and ground to a halt in what is usually the cab rank outside the Casino.

Behind him, Sebastian Vettel in the Toro Rosso lifted off the gas and instantly also lost control. He too cannoned into the barriers and into the back of the Red Bull. Typical isn't it? You can wait all day at a cab rank, then you get two at once!

When racing resumed on lap 11, Hamilton's fourth place became third when the stewards imposed a drive-through penalty on Kimi Raikkonen. Apparently the Ferrari mechanics had hit trouble fitting one of the Finn's wheels on the grid and had only completed the job within three minutes of the start.

Things got worse for Ferrari when Massa slid up the escape road at Ste Devote on the 16th lap. He slithered back onto the track in second place as BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica snatched the lead. From a 1-2 at the start, Ferrari were now second and fourth.

Hamilton's enforced pit strategy now worked even more in his favour. That, and some stunningly fast laps on the now drying track saw him in the perfect position to take the advantage of the improving conditions. He did not have to refuel until the 54th lap and as his rivals stopped, the McLaren driver moved back into a 37.6 second that allowed him to make his second stop, refuel, switch to Bridgestone's soft grooved tyres, and still keep the lead.

The race wasn't over yet. Nico Rosberg, who had since Thursday practice been easily the most spectacular driver on the track, rode his luck a step too far. On the 61st lap, the Williams driver who had already stopped for two new nosecones after hitting all and sundry, finally wiped his car into oblivion on the barriers at the Swimming Pool complex. It was, as my co-commentator, Tyrrell and Lotus F1 racer Julian Bailey described it, "a proper accident".

It sadly too, marked the end of the ‘drive of the race' for a driver of whom I've been critical in the past, but I'll freely admit to eating my words based on his Monaco performance. I don't know what Force India put into Adrian Sutil's water, but I think we'd all like some, based on his performance this weekend!

From 18th on the starting grid, Adrian overtook no less than seven cars in the opening laps (this is Monaco remember!) then in the changing track conditions steadily made his way up the order to an eventual fourth place. It was quite simply a brilliant drive.

The Force India car even lapped Heikki Kovalainen in his McLaren and looked good to hold the fourth place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari. Then on the restart after the Rosberg safety car period, it was the reigning World Champion who lost control, hitting the back of Sutil's car and forcing the young German driver into retirement with just five laps remaining.

The result sheets will show Hamilton the hero, Sutil with zero. But that is not even half the story of the 2008 Monaco Grand Prix. I doubt that for a disconsolate Adrian Sutil it will be of much interest, but his not Hamilton's, was my drive of the day.

There are three things to watch out for in Monaco this weekend. The weather, barrier bashing and, perhaps, a surprise winner!

The tight, twisting Monaco Grand Prix circuit may be the slowest track on the Formula One calendar, but it is one of the toughest. The track demands a completely different approach to almost every other track, as the slow speeds mean that the car's aerodynamics are less effective, with ‘mechanical grip' (good old-fashioned suspension design) coming to the fore.

The close proximity of the barriers to the track really puts the emphasis on the drivers being able to drive to the limit, but not past it. Of course this year, the drivers don't have electronic traction control or braking assist to help their cars' stability. That might be a real key to the weekend's race if the weather forecaster's prediction of rain is proved correct.

Already, the initial practice sessions have seen veterans and rookies alike hitting the barriers, fortunately without serious damage. It was perhaps to be expected that rookies like Adrian Sutil and Nelson Piquet were paying for their mistakes, but former winners Jarno Trulli (twice) and Fernando Alonso, also became casualties of the opening day's action.

Despite his misfortunes, I still think that Fernando Alonso could be in a position to gain a podium place, if not a third successive victory at the track. It is quite simply Renault's best chance of the season to score a win.

One of the big problems for the Renault team over the past two years is that its 2.4-litre engine seems to produce less power than its McLaren, Ferrari and BMW rivals. The problem is, that under the FIA rules, the specification is frozen till 2010 and the team are not allowed to make any fundamental changes to the engine itself.

All Renault can do is work on things like the exhausts and inlet systems and hope for success on tracks where horsepower isn't such an issue. Monaco is just such a track and its demands for precision perfectly suit Alonso's sharp, aggressive driving style. He won here Renault in 2006, for McLaren last year and he still has high hopes of a hat-trick. Except...

Lewis Hamilton is on absolutely brilliant form and simply bursting with confidence, which shows in his driving. Not only were his Thursday practice laps fast, they were spectacular too, taking advantage of the absence of traction control to deliberately slide the car right up to the barriers and use the outer kerbs of the slower corners to gain extra time.

It was marvellous to watch and he was millemetre perfect every time. When a driver is on that form, he has to be favourite for a win,

The McLaren chassis proved last year to have a clear advantage over Ferrari when mechanical grip rather than aerodynamic downforce dominates. Ferrari boss Stefano Domenciali admits as much, but says that in the year since their trouncing in the 2007 race they have made big steps forward. It is going to be a close-fought battle.

Of the two Ferrari drivers, Felipe Massa is the better to watch around Monaco. Kimi Raikkonen is a former winner in 2005, so is no slouch, but the track seems to better suit Massa's style. He is nearly as spectacular, and as quick, as Hamilton.

We can expect some teams to struggle, others to surprise at Monaco. Neither Nick Heidfeld nor Robert Kubica looked comfortable with their hard-sprung, twitchy BMWs over Monaco's bumps. Jarno Trulli's two accidents (so far) tell their own story on the Toyota's drivability and the new Toro Rosso car, which makes its debut this weekend, can hardly be expected to be instantly competitive.

Two drivers to watch though will be Giancarlo Fisichella, who aims to celebrate his 200th race start by scoring a top ten finish for the Force India team and Nico Rosberg. The Williams driver is my personal Monaco hero so far, the only driver to match Hamilton for speed and spectacle.

Watch out for Rosberg chasing Hamilton home for a podium place!

A word of advice if you are a card player.

Never try to play poker against Lewis Hamilton and the McLaren team.

Their performance in the Turkish Grand Prix, when Hamilton finished second to Felipe Massa, came in a race where they knew they had been trumped by Ferrari even before they lined up on the grid. Felipe Massa literally held all the aces, but no-one in McLaren gave a hint of the gamble they were about to take.

The Istanbul Otodrom is fast, surprisingly bumpy and demands continuous monitoring of the state of each cars tyres. It is one of the few tracks were tyre strategy rather that the risk of running out of gas, governs the timing of the pit stop.

In particular, the infamous turn 8, the long left-hand bend taken at close to 300 km/h is torture on the tyres. In addition to subjecting the drivers to side-loads of over 4.5g, the same forces place huge loads in particular on the right-front tyre. They almost threaten to tear the tread off the sidewall.

If you remember that is precisely what happened to Hamilton in the 2007 race. On lap 43, some 25 laps after his first pit stop, the tread tore from the tyre.

Fortunately he was able to maintain control and limp into the pits. Dropping from third to fifth place was a disappointment, but in reality it was a great escape. By rights he should have had as big an accident as Kovalainen in Spain.

This weekend, tyre makers Bridgestone told Hamilton’s engineers that they again could not guarantee his tyres for more than 20 laps. The problem it appears, is specific to Hamilton’s driving style, which aggressively ‘points’ the front of the car into the corner, demanding a high camber setting on the suspension, angling the top of the wheel inwards to give more ‘bite’ to the steering.

Hamilton’s approach clearly works in terms of speed, but it comes at the cost of added load on the tyres. Interestingly, Kovalainen has a different driving style and doesn’t suffer the same tyre problems even though he’s driving the same car.

Whatever, with Bridgestone’s engineers unable to guarantee a longer tyre life, Hamilton was forced to gamble on running with three pit stops, sixteen laps apart while everyone else including the Ferraris of Massa and Raikkonen planned to stop just twice.

In order to make up the time for that extra stop, Hamilton had to effectively drive 58 low-fuel qualifying laps during the course of the race. Not only did he do that, he pulled off a brilliant move to pass Massa for the lead, then having made his extra stop, in the closing stages of the race he held off an equally determined Kimi Raikkonen to claim second place.

While he ultimately missed out on victory, Hamilton was justifiably proud of a drive which I rate as the best of his career.

“It’s not about winning, it’s about feeling that you extract 100% from yourself and the car and I did that today” said Hamilton. “Before the race our prediction was that all being well I would finish fifth, so second is such a bonus”.

Meanwhile Felipe Massa put his championship challenge back on track with a beautifully measured drive to his third successive victory at the Turkish GP. He and Hamilton are now equal second on 28 points, seven behind the title leader.

On the fast and flowing Istanbul track the Ferrari car was clearly the class of the field. Now we look ahead to the Monaco Grand Prix where on past form, McLaren will have the advantage over Ferrari.

Last year Fernando Alonso headed a McLaren 1-2, chased home by Hamilton, who was convinced he could have won. This year, I am expecting that Hamilton will. And if he does, the championship battle will be wide open once again.

Just ten teams will line up for the start of this weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix, following the withdrawal of the Super Aguri F1 team this week. In my opinion it is a sad loss to Formula One.

While Super Aguri may not have featured in the World Championship standings in their brief two years of existence, ‘the little team that tried’ quite often gave us some great sporting moments at the tail of the field, not least when Takuma Sato was in his regular fighting form.

Remember last year’s Canadian Grand Prix. That was the race when Sato overtook Fernando Alonso to claim sixth place. Not only that, the Super Aguri blasted past the Championship-leading McLaren on the straight. On the track, that was the team’s finest hour.

Ironically it was also about that time when the team’s problems began, when the cheque from their main sponsor, SS United Oil & Gas Company, failed to materialise. It was only thanks to the assistance of Honda that they made it to the end of the 2007 season. They've been on borrowed time ever since.

The team’s demise of course means that both Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson are robbed of their places on the starting grid. I suspect that Sato might leave F1 altogether and head to the USA to race, with Honda support, either in Indycars or in the ALMS sports car series.

For Davidson, the future is less clear. He is thought to have turned down a job as test driver for BMW in order to race for Super Aguri this season. Unless another team makes him similar offers soon, he too may be a loss to F1.

More serious for F1, is another background reason which has led to the team’s demise. Since late last season, there has been an increasing amount of lobbying from independent teams to outlaw the use of ‘customer cars’ handed down from one team to another at the end of the season.

Although, on paper, the Super Aguri and Toro Rosso cars are produced by their respective teams, it is generally recognised in the sport that the former is last year’s Honda and the latter is a reincarnation of a Red Bull, albeit with a Ferrari engine. Teams such as Force India, who design and build their own cars from the ground up have always said that the use of customer cars is unfair, as is undermines their significant investment.

Right or wrong, the result of that lobbying is less cars on the starting grid. This season, there could have been twelve teams and 24 cars on the grid. Now we have just 10 teams and 20 cars. Even before the season started, the Prodrive team, which would have run second-hand McLarens, pulled out. Their boss, the ever-astute David Richards figured that this would happen and decided not to waste millions of dollars. Now Super Aguri has proved him right.

Perhaps the one redeeming feature of this, is that McLaren will have a little more space at the bottom of the Istanbul paddock. And speaking of this weekend’s Grand Prix, I believe that McLaren will have to fight hard to match the pace of the Ferraris once again.

The Istanbul track requires a little less downforce than Bahrain or Barcelona, so straight line efficiency – always a Ferrari strongpoint – is the key to victory. So is tyre wear. Last year if you remember, Hamilton punished his right front tyre so hard on the long, high-G, turn nine, that a blowout cost him the Championship lead, while Felipe Massa scored victory for the second year in succession.

This year too, my money is on Massa to make it three in a row and get himself back in the title race. The Brazilian will have a new engine in the back of his Ferrari, while Raikkonen is on the second race with the engine that gave him victory in Spain. Watch out for Robert Kubica too. He is a star in a car with low downforce and could give both the Ferraris and the McLarens a big surprise!

Ferrari delivered its rivals a double whammy in Barcelona, with the team's second successive one-two victory.

More than that, Raikkonen admitted after the race that he was cruising, with pace in hand.

Kimi's comment, that "If we had wanted we could have gone a bit faster but there is no point to push it when you don't need to" is probably the last thing that his rivals want to hear. They are already on the limit to match the Ferraris' current pace!

Equally interesting though, is the fact that it is no longer a two-horse battle at the top. There are now maybe as many as four teams that might just challenge Ferrari in the next few races.

McLaren made a good comeback after their lacklustre performance in Bahrain. Lewis Hamilton's aggressive start paid off, moving him from the third row of the starting grid, ahead of Kubica and into fourth place. When Alonso made his expected early pitstop on lap 17, Hamilton took over the third place and closed in on Massa's Ferrari on the the run to the chequered flag.

Heikki Kovalainen too, demonstrated that his McLaren too had front-running pace. But for his horrific accident, he would surely have been battling with Robert Kubica's BMW for fourth place. Thankfully the Finn has sustained no serious injuries from his head-on 250kph collision with the tyre barrier. It appears a damaged wheel rim was the initial cause, leading to the tyre blowing out, a very similar shunt to Hamilton's last year at the Nurburgring.

Ironically, if it hadn't been for Kovalainen's accident, Nick Heidfeld would have been battling for fifth, further demonstrating BMW's pace. The German was unlucky to be caught on his way to the pits just as the safety car was scrambled and, under a rule initiated this year, you are not allowed to stop while the pace car is on track until the officials declare the pitlane open.

Nick had two choices, run out of fuel and stop on the track, or come into the pits anyway and take a penalty. Unsurprisingly he did the latter and the penalty dropped him to 13th and last place. A pretty daft rule don't you think?

Two teams which have improved dramatically in comparison with the start of the season were Honda and Toyota.

Jenson Button's sixth place was a welcome sign that the Honda's aerodynamic package is at last working and although the Briton complained that the suspension wasn't riding Barcelona's many bumps as well as the opposition, he has high hopes for the smoother Turkish track in two weeks time.

Jarno Trulli's eighth place for Toyota could so easily have been better. The Italian was in fact heading for sixth place behind the Red Bull of Mark Webber when a mix-up led to his team calling him into the pits for an unnecessary extra stop. I'll bet that Jarno wasn't best pleased!

Of course the hero of the hour in Spain had to be Fernando Alonso. His qualifying laps, which came oh-so-close to pole position were heroic, but his race performance until the Renault engine wilted under the pressure was just as impressive. The Renault team say that it's a clear sign that the car is hugely improved. I hope they're right because it means we'll have battle royal for the rest of the season.

Yes, I think Ferrari are clear title favourites at the moment. But it's no long just a Ferrari-McLaren battle.

It's a Ferrari-McLaren-BMW-Renault-Red Bull-Toyota-Honda battle. Any of them could still challenge at the front - and I think that's just perfect!

...Could mainly be falling on the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend, if the gloomy predictions of the weather forecasters are anything to go by.

But for me, that could be one of the best things to happen at this weekend's race, as it would really add to the spectacle and could certainly spring some surprises.

Remember the wet races we had last year? The dramas at Nurburgring, in China and in Japan? Well Spain could provide the same again this weekend!

Actually, it has to be admitted that the Circuit de Catalunya needs the prospect of some rain to brighten up the racing. Technically it is a superb track and very demanding on both cars and drivers. The trouble is, it's not a good overtaking track. Despite attempts to upgrade it, unless a driver is VERY determined, passing moves are at a premium.

The good news is that there is no shortage of determination in the 2008 Formula One World Championship. In the Ferrari camp, the rivalry is immense, but so far under control. Felipe Massa silenced his critics in Bahrain, with a perfect drive to victory, but Kimi Raikkonen has the title race under control so far, cruising home in second place to his team mate and oozing cool self-confidence.

Meanwhile their main rivals have had, literally, a bumpy ride. Lewis Hamilton made more novice mistakes in the 20th Grand Prix of his career, than he committed all last season. Another race like that and the questions will start asking: 'has he blown it'?

Meanwhile his team-mate Heikki Kovalainen continued to impress with a solid fifth place in a McLaren, which somehow lost the competitive edge in Bahrain.

Ironically the driver Hamilton chose to hit at the start of the Bahrain Grand Prix, was none other than his former team-mate turned nemesis, Fernando Alonso.

So far his move back to Renault has only served to demonstrate the inadequacies of the 2008 car and ‘Fun Filled Fernando'(not) is already grumbling publicly. On the eve of his home race, Alonso is already hinting he'd leave the Renault team at the end of the year if the car doesn't get better, a step which hasn't exactly endeared him to some members of the team which took him to two world titles.

And at Fernando's favoured berth of Ferrari, senior executives moved very quickly to hint that ‘thankyou, but we're very happy with the drivers we've got'.

Meanwhile, as all that has been developing, two drivers have got on with delivering an exemplary performance and vindicating all the hard work by their team. That first-ever ‘Pole on pole' by Robert Kubica didn't happen by accident in Bahrain. It was the result of a tremendous effort that has transformed the BMW from being an oversensitive and ‘twitchy' car at the start of the season, into a fearsome competitor.

And to further demonstrate the step forward by BMW this season, look at the World Championship points to see who is second to Raikkonen by just three points. It is BMW driver Nick Heidfeld, who in contrast to Kubica, is rarely spectacular or stealing the limelight in races, but has ‘sneaked' up the Championship order.

I think that Ferrari will have the fastest car on the track in Barcelona this weekend, but remember last year when Raikkonen was forced to retire with an obscure technical gremlin?

If it happens again or we get a surprise turn-over if it rains, BMW could be due their first race win. And Nick Heidfeld could be the first man to become a world championship leader by stealth!

If you are a McLaren fan, whether a Lewis Hamilton or Heikki Kovalainen supporter, sorry! The Bahrain Grand Prix won't have made comfortable viewing.

Don't worry too much, remember that there is always someone worse off than yourself. Someone will have had to sit next to disgruntled team boss Ron Dennis on the flight home!

I bet he was not good company. I can't remember any recent race when the McLaren team so consistently under performed.

If Ron wasn't entirely a happy man on Friday, after Hamilton wrecked his car in an uncharacteristic practice accident, you can imagine his thoughts when Hamilton fluffed his race start. Then he almost banged his head on the pit counter in frustration as Lewis bounced off the back of Fernando Alonso in an early race error that effectively ended Hamilton's competitive weekend.

Meanwhile team-mate Heikki Kovalainen didn't exactly star either. His car struggled with understeer, which prevented it turning cleanly into the slow corners. That was compounded when Heikki locked a front wheel while battling for third place with Kimi Raikkonen. The resulting flat spot on his tyre meant that he struggled with severe vibrations too on his way to a lonely 5th place.

The big blow to McLaren though, was Hamilton's collision with former ‘team-mate' Fernando Alonso. Given the fact that they were hardly best buddies at the end of last year, at first I wondered whether Fernando had ‘brake tested' the McLaren driver on the straight. Now having looked at the footage again, I don't think so.

For a start, why would the double world champion risk damage to his car on the opening lap of the race? A cut tyre or more serious damage to the rear wing would have made his car undrivable.

Alonso was simply defending his tenth place against the hard-charging Hamilton, who had been able to carry a lot more speed through the previous corner. Alonso moved right to block, Hamilton moved right to attack and the two collided. A simple racing accident.

After stopping to replace the nose of his McLaren, Hamilton was not only almost a lap down, but his McLaren never seemed to have a strong race pace again. Even accounting for the fact that he was carrying a full fuel load for a one-stop strategy, he was humbled by the race winning Ferraris. Both Massa and Raikkonen lapped the McLaren on their way to the chequered flag.

Meanwhile, as last season, Felipe Massa proved the ‘comeback king'. After failing to score in the first two rounds, he bounced back to dominate the Bahrain Grand Prix from start to finish. Kimi Raikkonen, on his second race with his Malaysian GP-winning engine, clearly settled for second place to ensure reliability while the BMW team, having claimed their first pole position with Robert Kubica, proved that they are once again a strong contender, with their reliability moving them ahead of both Ferrari and McLaren in the Constructors Championship.

So what now for Hamilton, who has dropped from first to third in the driver's championship? Well, it is still early in the season, with 15 races still to go. And if Massa could bounce back in Bahrain, there is no reason that we won't see Hamilton back on top by Barcelona!