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It started nice. Really. Even though McLaren had terrible start.

I’m surprised that Renault was this good. I expected Williams to be better, but even though they have possibly the best engine, rest of the package is troublesome. It repeats the pattern of their partnership with BMW – very strong engines, but average in whole. Williams needs to change something in their development team/process.

McLaren continues where it left off. Crash and burn before the race and then let the WonderBoy do some magic. For once, I would like him to start from the front and finish that same race. And Toyota…man, that team must be cursed. I have no other explanation and if something miraculous doesn’t happen, they better close the shop.

Alonso drove superbly, as well as Schumacher. But if someone should be picked, it must be Nico Rosberg. He scored points on his debut race and set the fastest lap in the race. If it wasn’t for that stop at the start, he might have be on the podium. Really great, it’s very nice to see another young driver with lots of promise. Just imagine – Alonso, Raikkonen, Rosberg – they will drive at least 10 more years. We already have the rivalry between the first two – adding the 3^rd driver to the mix would be awesome.

Interesting season opener, will see how it all goes in Sepang where Michelin-based runners should again take victory.

I would be McLaren fan if they were having pink and flash green, but the fact that they use such awesome livery is a huge boost. :)

That red…getting ready for Vodafone one year earlier?

There was no respect in McLaren’s announcement. It was not pleasant at all. There should be more respect in Formula One. Ron Dennis has not won the world title for seven years so now he wants to manufacture good news.

So said Flavio Briatore. Then there is another, from the big mouth of Hans-Joachim Stuck, former F1 driver:

Ron Dennis would sell his grandmother if he could. He does not know the meaning of words such as honour, or conscience.

What a load of bull shit.

Every F1 team boss is constantly trying to lure great drivers into their teams. There are rumours going around that Ferrari is chasing Raikkonen for 2–3 years. Toyota tried the same. There were rumours that Ron Dennis repeatedly contacted M. Schumacher. It goes all the time, sometimes it works, sometimes not.

But what really pissed me off here is that I remember that back in the early 90′s there was a team boss just entering F1, who had great public image – agile, rock&roll, make-it-fun attitude. It was Eddie Jordan, last of the great run of private F1 owners. And at that time he had a contract with young promising driver called Michael Schumacher. The contract was solid, but not solid enough. Using certain legal loopholes, the team boss of then financially very strong Benetton team, managed to snatch M.S. from Eddie’s hands, at the start of the season.

That team boss was Flavio Briatore. The same dumb-ass that now shit-speaks to whoever wants to listen about Alonso-McLaren deal. But unlike the M.S. case back then, Alonso had no contract with Renault beyond 2006 and was free to do anything (read: be snatched by best deal-maker).

Sore looser.

The qualifying system for the races in 2006 is going to be very tough to understand

Maybe for you Mr. Mosley…maybe for you.

I stated several times in the past that Mosley and co. are trying hard to kill off F1 as I love it. And now he thinks that one of the most interesting ideas in years is going to be confusing. What the fuck is confusing here:

• All cars go out in the 1^st 15 mins
• Slowest five are eliminated
• The remaining cars go out again and run for another 15mins
• Slowest five are eliminated
• What’s left of the cars (10 or 12) fight for top positions in the remaining 20mins

Man – this is going to be more interesting than the race itself. Ever since they changed the old format where drivers were fighting until the last few seconds, the Saturday crowd numbers were declining – it was just not interesting with one or two runs. I mostly stopped watching the qualifications in the last two years.

I bet this will bring the people back. Mosley, please kindly keep your nose out of this.

Wow. I really did not expected this. McLaren announced that Fernando will be driving for them since 2007. Coupled with the earlier announcement that Vodafone has switched from Ferrari to McLaren, it is clear that Ron Dennis is sick of finishing below the 1^st place.

I believe that this was long time in preparation and I sense that this bit of development was known to Vodafone people when they decided to switch sides. Vodafone and Ferrari was a natural alliance, since both share strong red branding. That’s why I think that something extra was needed to convince them to move away from the prancing horse.

McLaren on the other hand, with almost a decade of black/gray/white branding, sits on the opposite end of Vodafone branding. I really like those colours and I’m half-fearful to see what will come out of this. Not that colours will have anything to do with my allegiance to the team, but if they change them it will be strange. They had different colours in the past, especially the red/white of Senna’s Marlboro McLaren. Somehow, the fact that McLaren was strong black and Ferrari the strong red was the trade mark of the battles they had.

On the driver side of things… McLaren always maintained the position that they don’t have the 1^st and 2^nd driver and actually proved that many times in the past, always opting for two strong drivers instead of star & backup line-up that Ferrari had. The fact that Kimi and Juan Pablo will be racing each other next season as much as other teams is…well, something to look forward to and something to fear a bit.

However, I’m inclined to think rumours of Ferrari strongly chasing Kimi Raikkonen will see the fruitition: I now fully expect that Kimi goes to Ferrari and Schumacher to retire after next season.

The dream of Kimi and Fernando in the same team is too much to hope for…although we did have Senna and Prost once…