With the F1 season having started this month,  an F1 post was not going to be long awaited, on my blog, so here it is.
This year brings lots of significant changes, both in terms of rules as well as in the contenders.
This year does away with mid-race refueling, so that means there are no longer nail-biting fueling strategies as every driver carries enough fuel to complete the whole race (or they have to hope they do!).  The points system also has undergone a major overhaul considering that there are more teams, and hence more cars on the grid.  For a long time, it was expected that there would be 26 cars from 13 teams on the grid, but the last minute pull-out from US F1 team mean that there would only be 24 cars on the grid, this year and they all vie for the first ten point-earning positions, at the end of each race.  Unlike the format, which till last year rewarded only the first 8 finishers in the 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 manner, this year’s rules award points to the first ten positions as 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 meaning that the advantage of winning a race is that much more apparent.  While last year’s second position finisher would have just 2 points lesser that the winner, the difference is now 7 points. To put that in a more clear perspective, here’s a scenario:
If driver A finished 1st in five races with driver B in 2nd position in all five races, their points would be 50 and 40 respectively.  Technically, it would require driver B just one 1st position finish with a 0 point finish for A for the two to be equal on points.  This year, the same scenario would leave driver A on 125 points and B on 90 points after five races and even a 1st place 25 point finish for B with a 0 point finish for A would still leave A in the lead, with 10 points, making the message very clear: If you want to win the championship, you have to win more races. It might be recalled that in the 2008 season,  Massa lost the championship to Hamilton, despite having won more races.  That would be impossible under the current rules.

Michael's comeback:-

It's been two races now,  the opening Bahrain GP and the Australian GP and how has Michael fared so far, in his comeback after nearly three years outside F1?
Michael was slower than his teammate Nico Rosberg in all sessions of testing at Bahrain, was slower in qualifying and finished one position lesser, four seconds behind his teammate.   At Melbourne,  he was faster than his teammate in all practice sessions and qualified just behind his teammate, albeit under difficult traffic conditions.  In the race, he was unfortunate to get hit by the spinning car of Fernando Alonso which left his car with a broken nose cone, right on lap one.  Despite the additional pit stop and a rather slow scheduled pit stop,  Michael managed to grab one point by finishing 10th, five places behind Nico who had a largely uneventful race.  Does it mean that Nico is fast? Yes.  Does it mean that Michael is no longer fast enough? No!
The fact that a driver as hard working as Michael Schumacher was working with a team with as much funds as Ferrari meant that he could be that much more competitive.  With Ferrari owning their own racetrack and having ample funds at their disposal,  Michael had the luxury of almost limitless testing, something that he used to hone his skills and develop the car to perfection, on his way to collecting five of his seven titles, with Ferrari.  He now has a much tougher task, given that testing opportunities are extremely limited (under the new rules) and that his car is brand new,  not to mention that he is coming back after a 'retirement' which lasted all of three years.  Under the circumstances,  I'd say Michael has done incredibly well.  Knowing how hard Michael pushes himself,  young Nico Rosberg better be ready for a whole new level of competition starting right within his own team!

Who's looking good:-

Sebastian Vettel is the hottest driver around, it appears, this season.   After having led the race for more than three quarters of the race distance in the first race in which he was forced to settle for fourth place after his car developed mechanical problems (a busted spark plug!), he was the race leader for more than half the race distance at Melbourne too, before his race was cut short by a braking related failure.  Though he only has 12 points in comparison with Fernando Alonso's 37 and Massa's 33,  this is the driver I tip to take over the championship this year,  though Jenson Button will be much fired up, especially after collecting the win at Melbourne.

Felipe Massa seems to have left last year's horrific accident that saw him miss the whole second half of the season well behind him, and seems to be more hungry than ever.  With two time world champion Alonso as his teammate, he really has to up his ante to be able to nurture hopes of a title, and this he seems to be doing in a way only he can.

Fernando Alonso, the ever cool Spaniard, the master of tyre management and car development seems to be in pristine touch, but will have to fight hard to keep himself ahead of his own teammate while the rest, barring Vettel and Schumacher are not even in his league.

Michael Schumacher, the real genius that he is, is back and he is beginning to look good, but would take a long time to get the development of the car to start going the way he wants it to.   He ought to be competitive within the next couple of races, but how competitive he can be and whether he can fight for this year's title is something which is too early to call, at this point.

Kamui Kobayashi, the youngster who made the most of the two appearances that he got due to Toyota's Timo Glock being injured last year, is back with BMW Sauber.  I don't think this guy is a flash in the pan like other racers from Japan like Takuma Sato and Kazuki Nakajima.  He seems to mean business and it will be interesting to watch him grow.

Other drivers whom I'm keen on watching:  Bruno Senna, Sebastien Buemi and Karun Chandhok.  They are not here by chance.  Let's see if they can make it work.

Incidentally, it's the second time in Formula 1 that an Indian is present on the grid, in the driver's seat.  After Narain Karthikeyan's foray with Jordan, it's now Karun Chandhok in Team Hispania Racing, so "Go Karun Go!!!"