Formula 1 Austrailian Grand Prix - 13th to 15th March 2015

So, the Formula 1 season finally got underway. After practice it looked promising. The Mercedes were obviously going to walk it but it looked like it was going to get interesting behind.

I always book the first race of the season off work, it's also my birthday around the same time so I take a couple of weeks off. And since the first full season I watched of F1 was 2012, the past 3 Austrailian Grand Prix were rather good.

I've been looking forward to this season for some time. Hamilton vs Rosberg again, obviously. But can Williams win again? Can Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel bounce back from an awful 2014? How will McLaren Honda fare? I was so excited. And I have never been more disappointed.

I wanted to make these far longer and more in-depth. However if we have races like we had here then I'm going to struggle. What an unbelievably lacklustre race. If that's what you can call it. More like a track day if I'm honest. Mercedes out front, no surprise to anybody but Rosberg never really got close enough to Hamilton for it to get interesting, once Vettel dispatched Massa that was game over, then it just left the recovering Raikkonen to- oh never-mind he retired. If I'm honest, the only real entertainment was Jenson's attitude. Poor Sergio Perez, he hasn't done anything to upset or annoy Jenson Button and McLaren, but because of their woeful situation he wasn't stuck behind the usually calm, fair, predictable Button. He was stuck behind one who was going to defend like his life depended upon. Button's attitude was clear, "I am not coming last" and that's what it was. A battle to not be last. Ultimately he did, but that little battle was the only real entertainment.

Surprise of the day? Sauber. Felipe Nasr specifically. Obviously helped by so many retirements/lack of full grid. But a 5th place debut in a team who didn't score a single point last year isn't bad at all.

What's worse is that I slated Nasr and Sauber. I tore them to pieces when their 2015 challenger was revealed. The livery is not a livery. It is a statement and that is: "Paid for by Felipe Nasr." The colour scheme is not something Sauber would ever opt for without Nasr's presence. A team heading into the Formula 1 World Championship with last years runner up to the runner up in GP2 and a guy who came 6th in his final GP2 year and was heavily out-performed by team-mate Kobayashi in his first year of F1. There are better drivers out there. No question.

I'm not going to take back my words, because ultimately it's only the first race and how he copes under real pressure remains to be seen. His only real competition today was a down on power Ricciardo. It's also hard to measure the man against his team-mate. The ever unimpressive Marcus Ericsson.

There's little else to say. 11 car's finished. Very little action. Very little entertainment.

Malaysia is two weeks away, should be enough time to forget about this race.

Cheerio,

Stevie.