Chinese Grand Prix: a tyreing day in Shanghai

Pirelli tyres played a massive part once again, but excitement is what F1 is all about and Pirelli bring that. If the tyres were predictable, then the teams would all choose the same tyres, at the same time, and we would be left with a relative procession, complete with scheduled pit stops. Approaching the closing stages of the race it became apparent that Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button, each had to make one more stop, to use the soft tyre. Soon after that realisation it became apparent that on fresh tyres their pace would be greatly increased. What transpired was a a nail biting finish, in which Button passed Massa and then found that he had to defend against the Brazilian, whilst Vettel proceeded to hunt Lewis Hamilton down and unbelievably made up around thirteen seconds in two laps. He actually finished just two hundredths of a second behind the Brit, with Lewis only just holding on to the well deserved third podium place.

Sebastian managed to salvage fourth place from the difficult ninth that he qualified in. Webber was less fortunate in his attempt at salvaging something from his torrid qualifying result. As a consequence of running out of fuel in the qualies, Mark was forced to start from the pit lane. He began on the soft tyre, which gave him the opportunity to pit after the first lap and go on to the harder tyre for the remainder of the race. However, he ruined the race for himself when he took a wild dive up the inside of Vergne, where there was a limited passing opportunity, and damaged his front wing forcing him to pit again. His luck worsened fatally when, in his pit stop, his right rear tyre was not attached properly and the Aussie had to retire from the race.

It was a race packed with incident, with a number of drivers making contact with each other. Sutil had a bump with his team mate, Di Resta, on the first lap, which almost ended both their races. A few laps later Sutil then became involved in an incident that was completely out of his control, when Gutierrez came careening down to the final hairpin. Gutierrez took off his own front right wheel and, in the process, caused terminal damage to the rear wing and rear suspension of Sutil's car. Some have called it Karma, I think that's a little harsh.

The race win went to Alonso, who was clearly over the moon about the result. It's rare to see such a reaction from the Spaniard, but with Ferrari's preseason pace being below par, the whole team will be relieved to find that they are still one of the strong title contenders. Kimi Raikonnen had another solid performance in his competitive Lotus, finishing in second. Mercedes looked strong as well, despite Hamilton being unable to hold his lead against the Ferrari's, in the opening laps, and Rosberg having to retire mid race. Their pace looked good and it will be interesting to watch them peg back the front runners in future races. The big success story for me was Ricciardo, in the Toro Rosso, who carried his qualifying performance in to the race to achieve his best finish in Formula One, so far. He finished in a respectable seventh position after qualifying seventh. It seems that it might be shaping up to be the season of the underdog.

Malaysian GP Qualifying: Everybody loves the sunshine

The qualifying in Malaysia started in predictably sunny and dry conditions, allowing the teams to set up the cars in a more optimum way to what they had to for qualifying in Australia. However, it wouldn't prove to be that way throughout the session.

Q1 was dry and, despite this, still managed to throw up a couple of surprises. Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel both left it very late to secure their places in the second session of qualifying. They looked to be massively off the pace, whilst once again the Force India cars were looking extremely competitive, as were the Lotus cars. Sutil is really relishing the new found pace and performance in his Force India and is likely to be a cause for concern to the front runners again on Sunday. It'll only be a matter of time before Sutil is considered one of them, instead of just in amongst them...

The Red Bull drivers made it through to Q2, Sebastian Vettel by the skin of his teeth, and as Q2 got underway it became clear that something was worrying all of the teams. It was revealed that the reason all of the cars were out on track at the same time, and desperately trying to get a decent lap in, was that rain was on its way. It was inevitable that it would catch somebody out and that somebody was Paul Di Resta, who found himself pirouetting through the KLIA Curve. He didn't fair any better after that and ended up qualifying fifteenth. He and the team will have to work on an interesting strategy for the race.

Sebastian Vettel cut it close again, in Q2, and was lucky not to be a victim of the same fate as Di Resta. He was just outside the elimination zone and joined the other ten cars as they went out for the final session of qualifying, on intermediate tyres. As the cars completed lap after lap, the times got quicker and quicker on a drying track. Unbelievably, and probably to all of his rivals' dismay, Vettel managed to bag pole position. The two Ferrari's are hot on his heels again and it will just be a case of whether Seb can keep them behind him this time.

Surprise in Oz!

The Australian Grand Prix didn't provide much excitement and didn't really get the blood flowing. There was literally no contact between any of the cars, and the only incident was Pastor Maldonado spinning off in to the gravel on the first corner. There were a few retirements, however they were all due to technical issues and created little to no drama. It wasn't a boring race though and certainly threw up a few surprises.

One thing that wasn't a surprise however, was Mark Webber's terrible start, just like many of the races in 2012. He will have to do a lot to convince us that he hasn't started this season the way he means to go on. Driving exactly the same car as Vettel, he struggled for pace and appeared to be unable to undo the damage he did by being so sluggish off the line. Vettel didn't fair too well either. Despite starting from pole position and keeping the lead through the first few laps, he was unable to replicate the dominance from the front that we have grown so accustomed to in Formula One.

The Pirelli tyres, which it had been said were more durable and less prone to 'falling off the cliff' as last year, appeared to be a lot worse. They were lasting five or six laps before drivers were falling victim to their rivals without being able to put up much of a fight at all. Hamilton made a great effort at resisting a pass from Alonso in one of these situations, locking up both of his front tyres and holding the position. Frustratingly, the defense was never going to stick because Alonso popped his Ferrari on to Lewis' inside for the next corner and shot past easily. As the race went on, it grew more frustrating and more disappointing.

The surprises came in the shape of the Lotus cars and the Force India cars, whose pace was beyond what any of us expected. Sutil had a very competitive race and was in the front running pack for most the race, something that the race officials often failed to realise as misplaced blue flags waved time and time again, when Sutil was racing a Lotus or a McLaren. Raikonnen ran a sublime race and was a very worthy winner. It's nice to see the outspoken but lovable finn back at the top and arguably where he belongs. It wasn't a predictable result but it was a predictable path that led to it, in respect of tyre degradation and other teams' consistent pace through the grand prix. It has to get more exciting in Malaysia!

Kimi has a #@!*ing good race!

Well, what a contrast to India. In fact, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix literally blew the Indian Grand Prix out of the desert. The race at the Yas Marina circuit was arguably the most exciting race of the season and so full of incident its difficult to know where to start. It's probably best to kick off with the fact that, in the week running up to the Grand Prix weekend itself, Yas Marina played host to the eighth F1 in Schools World Final, which saw 33 teams, from schools around the world competing for the increasingly sought after title of F1 in Schools World Champion. It was a fantastic support act for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and the race itself continued to deliver excitement.

Kimi Raikonnen profitted from Lewis Hamilton's poor luck, but it can't be denied that Kimi was utterly brilliant and showed us all why he is a former World Champion. He didn't falter, even as Alonso started to breathe down his neck, and went on to make it the first time Lotus have had a driver on the top step of the podium in over one hundred and eighty races. As a result of Raikonnen's win, he finds himself still in the hunt for, at least, second place in the Championship. During and after the race, in true Raikonnen style, he found a few choice words and phrases to emphasise his feelings. Over the team radio, Kimi's race engineer calmly informed Kimi that Alonso was "five seconds behind", adding "I will keep you updated on his distance and his pace", to which Kimi replied "Leave me alone. I know what I'm doing!"

Mark Webber had a torrid day, which all kicked off with yet another poor start. All of Red Bull Racing's hopes were sensibly pinned on Webber, as the beginning of the race approached, and it was clear that Mark was the only Red Bull driver who could plausibly achieve a decent result in Abu Dhabi. The poor start saw Webber tumbling down the order and provided an indication of things to come. As the race progressed Mark's attitude became uncharacteristically wild. He first attempted an overtake around the outside of Pastor Maldonado, unfairly slamming the door on the Venezuelan and leaving Maldonado with nowhere to go but into the side of the Red Bull. Miraculously, both cars were completely unharmed and, after Webber had righted himself, they continued the race.

Only a few laps later, after it had been declared that, unbelievably, Webber would incur no penalty for the move on Maldonado, he had another coming together, this time with Massa. The contact between the two of them in the first part of the chicane was quite inocuous, but after crossing the corner Mark Webber rashly threw his car back on to the circuit, directly in to the path of Filipe, causing him to spin in an effort to avoid contact. Even more unbelievably, Mark got away with this incident as well.

Webber eventually came to grief when he joined the scuffle between Paul Di Resta, Sergio Perez and (surprise, surprise) Romane Grosjean. The shuffling of positions was complicated but it ended in Grosjean sat in a broken Lotus, Webber rolling off the circuit in a three-wheeled Red Bull and Perez facing a stop-and-go penalty for causing the incident. The race officials must have drawn straws to decide who had to pick the bones out of that mess and attribute blame.

There was a big heart-in-the-mouth moment, when Narain Karthikeyan had an engine failure, causing him to experience a sudden loss of power, which drammatically resulted in Rosberg launching his Mercedes over the top of the HRT and in to a distant barrier. Both drivers were out of their cars quickly and Nico seemed to fully understand that there was nothing Karthikeyan could have done about the incident.

The real story of the race was Sebastien Vettel's phenomenal recovery, not only from having to start in the pitlane, but having to pitstop under a safety car to replace his front wing, which put him plumb last again, 14 laps in to the race. It was from there, and even with a second pitstop, that Vettel managed to climb all the way up, past his teammate and in to fourth place, just before the second safety car. The icing on the cake came when he made a fabulous passing move on Jenson Button, to steal the third and final podium place. I firmly believe that this race could well go down in history as Sebastien Vettel's greatest ever.

Let's all take a breather and prepare ourselves for Austin, Texas, in two weeks time.

4 races, 4 winners...

It's about time the reigning World Champions actually entered the title fight this season and Sebastien Vettel made the controversial Bahrain Grand Prix the race to do it in. Not only that but, unbelievably, it launched him in to the top spot in the Driver's Championship. Despite Red Bull's apparent lack of performance this season (so far), they really slipped under the radar in terms of the title fight. The one great result in Bahrain, has catapulted them to the top and, if anyone was unaware of the drama we have seen so far, they may have been forgiven for thinking that Red Bull had taken up where they left off last season.

The big question on everybody's lips was 'should the Bahrain Grand Prix have actually taken place?' and, to be honest, I don't think it should. I love to watch the racing, but sometimes life and safety has to take precedence. However, the race went ahead and it was another massive spectacle. So far, the driver's who have taken the lead at the beginning of the race have tended to dominate until the chequered flag, however Vettel didn't find it so easy. There was an edge-of-the-seat moment when Kimi Raikonnen came within a hair's breadth of taking the lead. It turned out to be his only chance, but it's fair to say that Vettel had to deal with people breathing down his neck for the whole race.

The pit lane appeared to be the action hot spot in Bahrain. There were unsafe releases and faulty equipment aplenty. Lewis Hamilton's race was all but ruined when his pit crew had a problem changing his left rear wheel. Ferrari had further problems, showing that Alonso's win was a quite unusual and slightly fluky occurrence. We now know that there have been some quite major improvements for Ferrari and it will exciting to see what those do for them next weekend.

Only four races gone and four different winners and, even more amazing, from four different teams. It's almost impossible to judge which teams and drivers will break away in the fight for the Championship. Maybe we'll see a different driver winning next weekend, perhaps from another different team!

McLaren start as they mean to go on...

McLaren have emphasised the fact that their win in Australia was a sign of things to come, after filling out the front row of the grid again this weekend. Hamilton repeated his performance of Melbourne qualifying with a blistering lap early in the final session of qualifying, whilst Button was hot on his heels to secure second.

It's great to see Schumacher back up at the front and hopefully this weekend he can make it stick and mix it with the two Brits when the lights go out. Red Bull Racing have found themselves down the order again with Webber fourth and Vettel sixth, split only by the Lotus of Kimi Raikonnen. Red Bull will be striving to show that, (like in Australia) despite the car not having the pace in qualifying, it has considerably more pace in the race. Only time will tell.

It's interesting to note that the qualifying lap times were extremely close with less than half a second separating the top eight drivers. Alonso was almost a second off the eighth place Mercedes of Rosberg, showing the a worrying gulf between the top four teams and the rest of the field. However, four teams closely matched at the front sounds good to me, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow's race delivering on expectations.