Vrooom... Formula1 2008 underway...

A wonderful racing weekend in Albert Park, Australia. Didn't miss a split second of it. Out of 22 cars only 6 managed to finish. Cars flying, tumbling, crashing into each other… Wow nothing can get better for a season starter.

Reliability again hit Ferrari. Unfortunate incident saw curtains down on Massa’s chances, rash & irresponsible driving by Kimi. Ferrari's performance w/o Todd & Schumi will be scrutinized. Probably we could see some in clashing develop in the team. got to wait & watch.

A bad day for most teams, guess this will be the pattern in which the season will progress.

Nico Rosberg was fantastic. Now not many will call him son of great Keke Rosberg but Williams Team Leader Nico Rosberg. Excellent driving, wonderful pressure handling. Nick Heidfeld also drove a wonderful race. Robert Kubica drove beautifully soaking all the pressure from Hekki, until a freak incident ended his race. These guys are the ones who have grownup without driver aids like traction control & all they will be the flavor of the F1 2008.

Super smooth driving by Lewis... he is going to be more than a handful for Ferrari & all the other teams this season. Lewis has a super smooth driving style developed as a result of GP2 series where there is no traction control but both Ferrari drivers have grown on traction control & driver aids so it is going to take some mistakes by Lewis & lot of luck for Ferrari to come out winning...

Kimi did all the good work on soft compound tyres to get up to P3 & then he undid himself by trying a Maverick on Hekki result P9 at end of race had he waited just another lap he could have reached podium. Alonso did well, kept his cool unlike Kimi & came out flying experience telling him to do so. Renault has had reality check last year & seems to have made some progress or is it just the brilliance of Alonso will be answered in few months time.

Force India hope to revive but can't see them going anywhere now... all the investments made by Mallya till date have been great runaway success so got to wait & see where he will take the team... they have a good experienced driver in Fisichella. Their main aim this season would probably be to complete as many races as possible... Fisi came up with some superb performances last year in Renault... hope to see the same with Force India. If they manage to score a couple of points then it will be great...Fisi is one of the right choices Mallya has done…. I would think he could get just not couple of points but he can pose a lot of questions to the other teams to put thinking cap on the other teams permitted the Force India team delivers him a quite a descent car. A lot is said in Indian media about this team. Got to wait & watch... lets see what they come up with...

With the number of cars crashing out & the new rules & regulations guess the teams will not be able to bear the financial burden if Australian GP was an indicator of anything in store for the year ahead. We could see the return of driver aids. Ferrari will be a team that will welcome this change with open arms.

I would rate Nico’s effort as No.1, Kubica No.2, Alonso No.3. & finally Kimi No.4. (till the time he got a rush of blood & did the Maverick maneuver to loose out his position). Alonso tiff with Hekki was the highlight for me, the entire maneuvering was excellent and that few secs when he moved from 4-5-4 were superb… Handling pressure has to be learnt from him. If the reaction from the pit wall of McLaren was an indicator of anything that had happened last year during these few seconds then it would be an understatement. The moment Hekki overtook Alonso, Ron Dennis jumped with the joy of a school kid being handed a handful of Ice-cream.

An overall wonderful weekend at Albert Park, Australia, Lets wait & watch what is in store for us in less than 5 days time at the Sepang circuit, Malaysia.

Till then Drive safely.