Even though the cricket world-cup has been hogging the televisions and conversations of most of the country,  for me,  the real sporting action was going to kick off yesterday, when the Formula1 season of 2011 got underway.
As with practically every new season,  this one heralded quite a few changes in the rules section.
The 107% rule has been reintroduced.  For those of you who don’t know what it means, it means that once the top qualifying time has been set,  all remaining drivers would have to be within a 107% of that time.  This is a rule that ensures that you don’t have cars on the grid which are very hugely different in their capabilities.   This was no doubt prompted by innumerable instances the previous season which had cars which were running more than 4-5 seconds off the pace of the leaders which meant that the slower cars kept getting in the way of the faster ones,  over and over again, sometimes with disastrous consequences as you can see in the video below.  Mark Webber,  getting a bit impatient in overtaking a back-marker goes flying (not exactly what is meant by ‘Red Bull gives you wings!).



The other significant changes this season are the reintroduction of Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) which was last seen in 2009.  This allows a part of the energy dissipated during braking an F1 car to be converted to electrical energy which is stored in batteries and can be used by drivers to get an additional boost of speed, when required.  There seems to be a system in which drivers can now adjust the angle of their rear wings too,  when driving,  as if they didn’t have enough buttons to press while driving their a**es off.


So, how did the first qualifying session go?  Not without too many surprises as Sebastian Vettel got the better of everybody else,  but I must say that I was disappointed to see Michael Schumacher not making it to round two of qualifying, which meant that he would start the race from 11th position.  

The race itself started rather soberly,  considering that the Australian GP is one of the races where the rush to make it to the first corner on the opening lap itself sees many drivers getting shunted out.   Though there were not half a dozen cars making a hasty exit,  one of the backmarkers did crash into Michael Schumacher thereby all but ruining his race.  This is the danger of being in the midfield instead of being ahead of everybody.  Vettel had no such trouble as he started off from pole position and seemed to be in a race of his own,  with only himself.   Michael’s teammate Nico Rosberg was taken out by Rubens Barrichello who had an extremely forgettable day,  littered with mistakes and which finally ended in a retirement.   On the positives,  Sauber rookie Sergio Peres seemed to make no mistakes at all and drove an astonishing race in which he made only one pitstop in a race in which every other driver who finished completed two or more stops, and managed to finish in seventh position,  earning himself six points.   In fact,  such was his control that at one point,  it looked possible that he might  actually get past the McLaren of Jenson Button!  While it’s too early to say whether he is championship material or not,  he certainly seems to have the right stuff and I look forward to watching more of his racing this season.   Also, full points to Vitaly Petrov who rose to the occasion in the absence of Robert Kubica, and finished with a very strong third place on the podium,  ahead of a charging Fernando Alonso who had to settle for fourth place.

Here are the full results, courtesy www.formula1.com

<h2>2011 FORMULA 1 QANTAS AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX</h2> Provisional Results <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="raceResults" summary=""><tbody><tr> <th>Pos</th> <th>No</th> <th>Driver</th> <th>Team</th> <th>Laps</th> <th>Time/Retired</th> <th>Grid</th> <th title="Points">Pts</th> </tr> <tr> <td>1</td> <td>1</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Sebastian Vettel</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">RBR-Renault</td> <td>58</td> <td>1:29:30.259</td> <td>1</td> <td>25</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2</td> <td>3</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Lewis Hamilton</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">McLaren-Mercedes</td> <td>58</td> <td>+22.2 secs</td> <td>2</td> <td>18</td> </tr> <tr> <td>3</td> <td>10</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Vitaly Petrov</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Renault</td> <td>58</td> <td>+30.5 secs</td> <td>6</td> <td>15</td> </tr> <tr> <td>4</td> <td>5</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Fernando Alonso</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Ferrari</td> <td>58</td> <td>+31.7 secs</td> <td>5</td> <td>12</td> </tr> <tr> <td>5</td> <td>2</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Mark Webber</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">RBR-Renault</td> <td>58</td> <td>+38.1 secs</td> <td>3</td> <td>10</td> </tr> <tr> <td>6</td> <td>4</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Jenson Button</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">McLaren-Mercedes</td> <td>58</td> <td>+54.3 secs</td> <td>4</td> <td>8</td> </tr> <tr> <td>7</td> <td>17</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Sergio Perez</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Sauber-Ferrari</td> <td>58</td> <td>+65.8 secs</td> <td>13</td> <td>6</td> </tr> <tr> <td>8</td> <td>16</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Kamui Kobayashi</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Sauber-Ferrari</td> <td>58</td> <td>+76.8 secs</td> <td>9</td> <td>4</td> </tr> <tr> <td>9</td> <td>6</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Felipe Massa</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Ferrari</td> <td>58</td> <td>+85.1 secs</td> <td>8</td> <td>2</td> </tr> <tr> <td>10</td> <td>18</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Sebastien Buemi</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">STR-Ferrari</td> <td>57</td> <td>+1 Lap</td> <td>10</td> <td>1</td> </tr> <tr> <td>11</td> <td>14</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Adrian Sutil</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Force India-Mercedes</td> <td>57</td> <td>+1 Lap</td> <td>16</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>12</td> <td>15</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Paul di Resta</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Force India-Mercedes</td> <td>57</td> <td>+1 Lap</td> <td>14</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>13</td> <td>19</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Jaime Alguersuari</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">STR-Ferrari</td> <td>57</td> <td>+1 Lap</td> <td>12</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>14</td> <td>9</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Nick Heidfeld</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Renault</td> <td>57</td> <td>+1 Lap</td> <td>18</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>15</td> <td>21</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Jarno Trulli</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Lotus-Renault</td> <td>56</td> <td>+2 Laps</td> <td>20</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>16</td> <td>25</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Jerome d’Ambrosio</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Virgin-Cosworth</td> <td>54</td> <td>+4 Laps</td> <td>22</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ret</td> <td>24</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Timo Glock</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Virgin-Cosworth</td> <td>49</td> <td>+9 Laps</td> <td>21</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ret</td> <td>11</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Rubens Barrichello</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Williams-Cosworth</td> <td>48</td> <td>+10 Lap</td> <td>17</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ret</td> <td>8</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Nico Rosberg</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Mercedes GP</td> <td>22</td> <td>+36 Laps</td> <td>7</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ret</td> <td>20</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Heikki Kovalainen</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Lotus-Renault</td> <td>19</td> <td>Water leak</td> <td>19</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ret</td> <td>7</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Michael Schumacher</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Mercedes GP</td> <td>19</td> <td>Puncture damage</td> <td>11</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ret</td> <td>12</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Pastor Maldonado</td> <td nowrap="nowrap">Williams-Cosworth</td> <td>9</td> <td>+49 Laps</td> <td>15</td></tr></tbody></table>