Three new teams took to the grid today and only one of them managed to see the checkered flag. That team was Lotus who got fine drivers out of their drivers to make it round in touch conditions. Nobody expected much reliability from the new teams and when HRT and Virgin cars left the race early it came as no real shock but Lotus hung in there and made it to the finish and when their cars crossed the line the team celebrated like they had just won the race. Their go-ahead was only confirmed six months ago and so to get a car designed, built and to the finish of the first race in extremely difficult conditions in the desert marks one heck of an effort. Praise should go to their choice of driver line-up. Where the two other newcomers went for relatively inexperienced and completely inexperienced drivers, Lotus went with veterans Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli.

Another thing Lotus did which was brand new to F1 and something I’d love to see more of from the other teams, was live Twitter updates during the race. Team owner Tony Fernandes and technical director Mike Gascoyne were both Tweeting throughout the race with Gascoyne even going as far as to tell his followers that he was going to bring forward Trulli’s pit stop for soft tyres.

A breathe of fresh air to an otherwise uneventful afternoon.

Mike Gascoyne on Twitter: @MikeGascoyne
Tony Fernandes on Twitter: @tonyfernandes

Over on his blog, ex-ITV commentator James Allen is also talking about the dull race we got today in Bahrain, but he is talking about how the show could yet be improved before we all write off the season entirely.

My proposal would be more simple than that and would not require unanimous agreement. It is for Bridgestone to bring tyres which are closer together in performance, rather than two steps apart as at present. This was done last season and it improved things, but now they have gone back to bringing super soft and medium to the first race. Because the soft is so much faster, around 6/10ths and degrades more quickly, it will always be the qualifying tyre, which then leads to an early first pit stop for the medium, which is the better race tyre.

With tyres that are closer together, the performance difference is less and so are the wear rates and it is more attractive to try a different tactic. I’ve asked quite a few engineers tonight and they agree that it would be a step in the right direction without disadvantaging anyone.

“It would be bad if we don’t react, ” said Mercedes CEO Nick Fry. “We need to look at what we can do on the technical side and the sporting side. The most important people to consider are the fans and the customers who pay to come .”

— James Allen at jamesallenonf1.com, 14 March 2010

It seems an interesting idea though I suspect they might wait a few races to see how the cars and tires preform under different conditions though can they afford to just leave it as is and risk another race like today’s? Maybe we can just hope for wet races the rest of the way!

I didn’t get up at 7:45 a.m. Canada time for this one. I had gotten to bed pretty late and I have work on Monday morning so I craved the sleep in. I had set the PVR to record the race anyway and the minute I woke up I’d be in to watch it live. Well I eventually woke and I eventually made my way into the living room only to turn on the TV and realize it was set to the channel that would be covering the race and what did I see but Fernando Alonso’s big mellon walking down the pit-lane with a big smile and some kind of graphic at the bottom of the screen declaring him the race winner. Perfect.

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The race is only six or seven hours away but I thought I’d say something about qualifying before all attention turns to the main event and the first race of the new season. Qualifying was, well, interesting this morning, though it always is with the first serious running of the cars of the season. You never really know what to expect and the speculation of who is going to be quick and who is going to be awful is just that – speculation … well except for the speculated performances of HRT which were as expected, or maybe even worse.

I have always believed Sebastian Vettel could win a World Championship one day but the only thing holding me back from going all out in belief it could be this year for him was whether the Red Bull car could build on their sensational finish to last season. There’s often a perception in F1 that if you are fighting it out all season one year that you don’t put enough attention into the next year, but today we found out that Red Bull have worked on making this car quick and so far so dam good. Vettel was – other than Massa (more on him in a moment) – so much quicker than the rest and convincing me already that he can indeed win this title. A silly prediction before a race has even been run, but he is the real deal and his car is going to be quick.

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So we finally got a dry race and with the rain away again it was back to winning ways for Jenson Button who after a career with just one win and looking like just a few months ago that he wouldn’t even have a drive for the season has now won three of the first four races this season to take a real commanding position in the drivers championship. He finished ahead of the impressive Vettel who took second after his big win last week. Completing the podium was veteran Jarno Trulli who picked up some valuable points on my fantasy team. It was a lucky break for me . . . I had tried to drop Jarno from the team prior to the weekend only to find out I had missed the weekends deadline and had to keep him. My replacement for him Mark Webber finished outside the points.

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