Somehow the Australian Grand Prix feels like the natural and correct 2010 season opener. Looking back at the snorefest that was the Bahrain Grand Prix maybe we should just put it behind us and forget it ever happened!!! So with that in mind welcome to the new season proper!!!
The Albert Park track never fails to deliver exciting races and we think this weekends Grand Prix will be no exception – driver error will probably feature highly in the race and we think the orderly fashion into the first corner (which we saw in Bahrain) won’t be the case in Australia – expect to see some very short races for a good number of drivers – and of course we’ll have the normal “drivers getting too adventurous into turns 1,2 and 3 thing” and planting it into the barriers. It’s a good bet we’ll have numerous safety car periods – let’s hope for nothing serious though.
So who’s going to win? It’s still hard to tell who truly has the most competitive package and, like last year, it may be a case of different teams having the fastest car due to each circuits specific factors like tyre wear, car downforce characteristics and fuel efficiency. Remember last year when the Force India cars blew the competition out if the water at Spa but were back markers in the British Grand Prix? The team on the pace constantly changed throughout the season last year and it may be very similar this year.
We tend to find that whichever team has a fast car out of the box at the first race tends to dominate the first four fly away races (until everyone can get their development and upgrade packages on their cars once the series returns to Europe). With this in mind you’d have to say Red Bull will be the team to beat this weekend unless weather conditions throw a spanner in the works during Saturdays qualifying. McLaren appear to have a faster car (going by Free Practise times) but is this simply low fuel headline grabbing runs or true pace? Ferrari on the surface appear to be off the pace but Mr Alonso is far from concerned which would make you think that the Italian team are more than happy with their single lap pace and are concentrating on the handling of the car when heavy with fuel – time will tell…..
Further down the pecking order it remains to be seen if Mercedes GP are simply struggling to unleash the true potential of their car, due to not finding the optimum set up, or whether it’s back to the drawing board to design some new bits to find the grip and downforce they’re lacking. BMW Sauber have suprised a few people with the speed in which they’ve copied McLarens F Duct but whether it’s effective and gives them an advantage – or indeed if it’s even used on race day remains to be seen. Force India are quietly confident they’ve designed a good car this year and with a Mercedes engine in the back anythings possible – watch this space.
We think it’ll be a struggle for the new teams again this weekend and a finish on race day has to be the target for Hispania, Virgin Racing and Lotus – we wish the guys well during this really difficult time getting their teams established.
So who’s going to win this weekend?
Who knows but we’ll be watching with interest to see if the no refuelling rules really have completely ruined the 2010 season or whether Bahrain was just a case of another boring Tilke circuit where overtaking is about as possible as an MP telling the truth.
Enjoy – and we’d really love to hear your views on the race.