Hamilton hasn't got the racing brain to be a world champion again. It requires so much more than being able to drive fast these days and not just on the track skills too.

It may also be the case that Button sets his car up for Sunday whereas Hamilton sets his car up for Saturday.

One thing I will say is that Button clearly has more mental resilliance (probably helped from his lacklustre days at Honda) and Hamilton doesn't. A bit of bad luck and he thinks the world is against him.

 

just watching it back on the BBC, button's drive was very vettel-esque from last year.. always managed to keep a 4-5 second buffer to control the race and not having to "race" anybody wheel to wheel.. conserving tyres and fuel, even after the safety car he managed this... and then bang in a fastest lap right at the end to demonstrate how fast he could really go.

 

Terrific race, great to see McMerc on top but even better to see Mercedes GP being more competitive and what a performance by Maldonado! I think he was driver of the day without a doubt, fantastic drive by him and Perez.

I think this season is going to be amazing...although I woukdnt be surprised if Massa is given the boot before the end of the season.

 

it's a bit strange to see Ferrari being so poor, I thought they were one of the teams that were pushing for the off-throttle exhaust/diffuser to be banned.. they now seem to be further behind than last season.

Massa might be pushed, but I expect Alonso is reading through the fine print of his contract to see how he can jump ship sooner rather than later..

 

I miss Brudle commentating with David Coulthard; alas a moral stand will not allow me to add to the News Corp. coffers.

Ben Edwards is irritating and I feel I may have to watch forthcoming races with the audio off...

A great result for Jensen and a welcome return by Raikkonen.

 

jammy vettle git

slowest safety car evaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr

 

great race!
great work from Jensen (i admire him ever since Brawn days).
Lewis can be pissed only at himself.
too bad about Pastor and both Mercedes.
would be interesting to see what Grojan could do if he wouldn't be crashed.
Massa has remined retarted.

in Sepang with its long straits i think Mercedeses will be strong force.
with its heat we will see who is reliable and who's not....

 

OK, the most important competition of the weekend. F1 coverage by Sky or BBC. Back to back review of them today at the Aussie opener.

And our result is Sky kicked arse. The footage is the same between the two for the race (FIA feed so was always going to be).

Sky have Trundle which is a big win in their box. I'd have prefered to have Coulthard with him but Crofty is definately better than the overly excitable Ben "Oh my goodness! HE'S LITERALLY JUST HAD A HAM SANDWICH!" Edwards. Coulthard is a known quantity and still doing a decent job.

The level of coverage that Sky can give the whole build up and wind down the BBC just can't complete with. The Anthony Davidson in the studio bit with the touchscreen seems to work pretty decently. I prefer Jake Humphries to the Simon Lazenby but they've not concentrated on Lazenby much so he's not too much of a hinderance.

Finally the last nail in the coffin, Eddie Jordan. Why oh why do the BBC keep him around?!

 

That Ferrari looked such a handful. You'd expect Alonso to be able to wrestle a half decent performance out of a dog of a car better than Massa, but that's not really the issue. It's the car that's the issue.

Remember when Massa had his accident and Ferrari were so desperate they turned to the embarassment that was Luca Badoer for a few races. Fisichella was a bit hopeless too (though at least not two seconds of the pace). Easy to say Ferrari might drop Massa, but it's hard to see where a better replacement would come from, unless maybe Kubica (close friend of Alonso) appears back on the scene and with the time he's missed that'd be a big gamble.

 

Anybody would be a big gamble. Current testing rules are going to mean anyone coming into a team will always struggle.
I do believe they should change the testing rules for mid year to allow for someone coming into the team (I don't know how by the way)