Brawny & The Killer B's

I have a feeling this season is going to be even better than last season. I'd like to say that this upcoming race is going to be better than last seasons, but I doubt that in the sense of all the failure and unpredictability of the previous season opener. I'm still wowed by the massive amount of failure and epic destructiveness of that race. It would be quite pleasant if this race was as exciting but for different reasons.

It was VERY nice to see the two Brawn GP cars qualify 1 & 2 today. I was hoping old Barrichello would win pole, but maybe there's a tiny chance he can win the race. I'd like to see that old dog win 1 more race before he retires.

Either way, I hope the Brawns score a 1-2 tomorrow as on Monday I decided just for the hell of it to set my Fantasy F1 choices as the two Brawn cars (and Nick Heidfeld for further giggles) and Brawn as the constructor for winners.

As always the first GP of the year is always a doozy but this year it might not be just because people are driving wild.

I wonder how the guys in the board room at Honda feel about this, as they paid for this car but no longer have the branding.

For some reason I almost felt bad for Ferrari and McLaren. I don't know why, but I did. I'm glad they are lagging behind, but still, I sort of feel for them though they will bounce back soon enough to their "rightful" places I assume.

Not that these thoughts to follow are of much news or surprise to any F1 fan but I was amazed at the lack of performance from McLaren & Ferrari. I had a feeling they weren't going to be on the first two rows, but I did not foresee the Ferrari's in P7 & P9 and was really flabbergasted to see the McLaren's in P14 & P15.

While it was said Hamilton's car suffered a problem, the way the SpeedTV team announced it was that "He lost all drive" as the reason he didn't even go out in Q2. While I knew they didn't mean in the metaphorical sense, it still made me laugh, thinking if he had "lost all drive" and decided the weekend was a throw away.

I'm not happy about the race starting so late for a few reasons: A) Even as a TV spectator all the shadows suck. I can only imagine how lame it must be for the drivers. B) They moved the race to a later time to help the European TV viewers out yet now for me to be able to watch it live, the damn race won't even start till 2am. This isn't really a problem for me as it is 553am as I write this and I've yet to go to sleep, but the principal of it all irks me. I liked it better when it started at 11pm or midnight or whenever it did last year.

Some other things that caught me by surprise were the semi-lack of performance from Williams and Toyota (the other "rogue diffuser" teams). After all the hubub I figured at least one driver from each team would be in P3 & P4. However we have a Red Bull & a BMW. Interestingly none of the guys in P1 thru P4 are running KERS on their car which I also found curious.

Anyhow, as with last year's Melbourne grid, this year's grid is fantastic and even better than the 2008 grid!!! I do look forward to the madness that will ensue!