Australian Grand Prix

The first race of the season and wow, what a race.  At the end of it all, 8 cars finish.  That's it.  Everyone in the points.  

The newcomers didn't fare so well in their first race out.  Timo Glock went flying through the air after going wide in a turn.  He sat in the car for a few minutes I think trying to figure out what happened.

Sebastian Bourdais did really really well and although his car gave out on him he did get some points.  Piquet Jr was just too nervous I think.  He has some big shoes to fill.  

Mind you, so does Nico Rosberg and there he was on the podium all smiles.  A well deserved 3rd place for Nico and the Williams Team.

Here's Nico doing his father (F1 legend Keke) proud on his way to his first podium.

BMW are going to be a force to be recond with this year and I'm going to g out on a limb right now and say, I see them taking the constructors championship this year.  Write that down.  Nick Heidfeld finished 2nd and as always, put in an almost perfect, error free drive.

Here's Nick in the "horned" BMW.

The win of course went to Lewis Hamilton who just reminded everyone that he is a champ and if it wasn't in '07, it will be soon.  He is so at ease in the cockpit of his McLaren, he made it look so easy.

For Ferrari it was a mess.  For the first time in 11 years, both cars fail to finish.  For the first time in 14 years, both cars have engine failure.  Actually, every car running a Scuderia (Ferrari lingo) engine failed to finish the race.  Not good.

I was kind of hoping for a fight at the end of the race.  When Massa passed Coulthard and took him out (bad), the Scot was pissed.  In his pit interview he said if Massa didn't appologize he would kick the S*$T out of him.  David does need some anger management classes.  If you watch F1 on a regular basis you'll be nodding your head right now.

It was a great race despite the lack of cars at the end.  Here is the final tally.  See you in Se pang.

1	22	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	58	1:34:50.616	1	10
2	3	Nick Heidfeld	BMW	58	+5.4 secs	5	8
3	7	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	58	+8.1 secs	7	6
4	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	58	+17.1 secs	11	5
5	23	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	58	+18.0 secs	3	4
6	8	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	57	+1 Lap	13	3
7	14	Sebastien Bourdais	STR-Ferrari	55	Engine	17	2
8	1	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	53	Engine	15	1
Ret	4	Robert Kubica	BMW	47	Accident	2
Ret	12	Timo Glock	Toyota	43	Accident	18
Ret	18	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	32	Transmission	19
Ret	6	Nelsinho Piquet	Renault	30	Accident damage	20
Ret	2	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	29	Engine	4
Ret	9	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	25	Accident	8
Ret	11	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	19	Electrical	6
Ret	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	8	Hydraulics	22
Ret	10	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	0	Accident	14
Ret	16	Jenson Button	Honda	0	Accident	12
Ret	19	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	0	Accident	21
Ret	15	Sebastian Vettel	STR-Ferrari	0	Accident	9
Ret	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	0	Accident	16
DSQ	17	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	58	+52.4 secs	10