What a difference a year makes! All the rule changes over the winter really shook things up for this first race. It's tough to imagine that after watching Honda pull out of the series, the team they sold off qualified on the front row and scored a 1, 2 win in their maiden race... unreal. Neither Ferarri finished the race - and they weren't doing that great before they retired. Lots of work to be done for both Ferarri and McLaren. Hamilton qualified 15th but started 18th due to having to put in a new gearbox after it went out in qualifying.

Kubica and Vettel take each other out 2 laps before the end of the race and allowed Barrichello to move up to 2nd place and Hamilton to move up to 4th. Then Trulli was penalized for passing under yellow, which moved Hamilton up to 3rd place - after starting 18th!

So many story lines. I'm really wondering how they're going to rule on the rear diffuser issue next month. Those cars have an obvious advantage. Either everyone will be using them come Bahrain, or nobody will. I can't wait to see how that changes the order and the pace of the cars. Red Bull looks like they will be strong this year. And Buemi looked really good in his first rookie start for Toro Rosso.

Congrats to Brawn GP! Nice to see an underdog make a huge splash like that. This season should turn out to be pretty interesting.

They will let them use the rear diffuser. Makes the pace faster in my opinion...

Mitsu RacerX said:

They will let them use the rear diffuser. Makes the pace faster in my opinion...

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I'm thinking so too.

It was amazing to see Hamilton start from so far back and finish 3rd. He has skill, he did something similar at Monza last year in the rain.
I was happy for Brawn Mercedes, but they better enjoy it while it lasts. McLaren and Ferrari employ more people and have more money. They will easily outspend the smaller teams like Brawn so they can get back to form.

And a big thank-you to Sir Richard Branson for his support. In the pre-race, he said he'd been asked by about a hundred teams before, but chose Brawn because they were an underdog.

Congratulations to Jensen Button for being where he should have been many, many times before.

I'd not heard about Hamilton getting bumped to the podium.

Jensen Button was flying...


Hamilton got lucky, thanks to a few wrecks, he gained positions.


Congrats to Brawn and Virgin!

It's nice to see the F1 world shaken up a bit. I was really happy for Jensen, having watched him struggle with Honda.

Indeed. Can't wait for next round!

BTW, i'm a Massa fan, i hope he does as well as he did last year.

I'm still extremely bitter about Kubica. You should have seen me screaming at the TV when he took out Vettel. That guy is over opinionated and over-hyped.

Thaw was a great race indeed, it is about time Button gets some wins. He has been a great consistent driver in a shitty car for a while.

Flash, I don't know why you are mad at Kubica, the FIA penalized Vettel for the crash, and you can hear Vettel apologizing to his team for the crash over the radio. They were both aggressive in the corner but seeing that Vettel's tires were gone and he was lapping 5 seconds off the pace he should have let Kubica by. Either way they are bot amazing drivers and they both lost good points.

My buddy was telling me to calm down it was neither of their fault. It was a racing incident. I think Kubica picked a bad place to pass. Just because your 5 seconds faster doesnt mean that you have the right of way. We saw that last year at Singapore GP, Massa got stuck behind a bunch of slower cars, but he kept his cool. He shouldn't be driving like he owns the track... ummm wonder where I heard those words before- Kubica!

"He (Vettel) was on the inside - he couldn't make his car dissolve into thin air," Ferrari advisor and seven time world champion Schumacher said at Albert Park, according to Germany's Bild newspaper.

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F1 : Schumacher questions Vettel penalty - SCHUMACHER - F1-Live.com

Has the deal between Virgin and Brawn been finalized?

Yes, Charles Bronson (Virgin Owner) was on the track before the race and did an interview with speed as stated above by Defiant...

Flash you are the only person who seems to have the same opinion as me. Kubica for some reason thinks he better than Vettel. Vettel should have moved over at some point because he would have been passed. But Kubica should not have tried to pass there. And Vettel took the blame because hes a bigger man IMO.

Kubica:"Sebastian went wide in corner one and then he braked early. I was already in front, but he didn't want to let me by. Then he had a lot of understeer and touched me. My front wing was under the car, therefore I crashed in corner five. I think Sebastian was a bit too optimistic. Had this been the last corner okay, but there were still three laps to go and he really had no realistic chance to defend his position because I was so much quicker. We both had a great weekend up to this point and we leave Melbourne with nothing. That's a real shame!"

If you saw his rear end breaking loose when coming out of a corner why would you try to pass him in one of the slowest corners of the track?

olmytsi said:

Yes, Charles Bronson (Virgin Owner) was on the track before the race and did an interview with speed as stated above by Defiant...

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Just found these

F1 : Current Brawn-Virgin deal ends after Malaysia - BRAWNGP - F1-Live.com

RealBrawnGP.com - What's the deal with Brawn and Virgin?

So it has not been fully decided as of yet. I hope it does though.

Lewis Hamilton was disqualified from the Australian GP. What a load of BS.

Source: The Official Formula 1 Website

Brawn and Virgin only have the deal for 2 races...250K per race. Although they're trying to hash something out for the rest of the season.

I wouldn't really call Brawn GP underdogs. After all, they scraped any new development on the 2008 car after the second race and started concentrating on the 2009 with Honda support the whole way. Basically a 9-10 month advantage to other teams in my book.

bvass said:

Thaw was a great race indeed, it is about time Button gets some wins. He has been a great consistent driver in a shitty car for a while.

Flash, I don't know why you are mad at Kubica, the FIA penalized Vettel for the crash, and you can hear Vettel apologizing to his team for the crash over the radio. They were both aggressive in the corner but seeing that Vettel's tires were gone and he was lapping 5 seconds off the pace he should have let Kubica by. Either way they are bot amazing drivers and they both lost good points.

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I don't think Kubica gave Vettel much room. He squeezed him pretty good. Vettel was just taking the high road and accepting responsibility. I don't think either one should have been penalized. Kubica took a big risk passing on the outside of a tight corner. Vettel didn't give up the position. That's a racing incident. If anything, I think Kubica is more at fault than Vettel by looking at the replays.

Flash said:

Lewis Hamilton was disqualified from the Australian GP. What a load of BS.

Source: The Official Formula 1 Website

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Why disqualify him completely? Why not just change the finishing order? Yet another crazy headline in F1.

FORMONTOYA said:

Brawn and Virgin only have the deal for 2 races...250K per race. Although they're trying to hash something out for the rest of the season.

I wouldn't really call Brawn GP underdogs. After all, they scraped any new development on the 2008 car after the second race and started concentrating on the 2009 with Honda support the whole way. Basically a 9-10 month advantage to other teams in my book.

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True, but as far off the pace as Honda was, an extra 8 months of development time has catapulted them up from the bottom. I've seen other teams give up on development half way through the season to focus on the new car before and not make anywhere near this much of a jump. This is nothing less than an amazing result.

Ludachris said:

True, but as far off the pace as Honda was, an extra 8 months of development time has catapulted them up from the bottom. I've seen other teams give up on development half way through the season to focus on the new car before and not make anywhere near this much of a jump. This is nothing less than an amazing result.

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I will definitely agree with you there.

We have to remember who's at the helm...Ross Brawn, the man who orchestrated numerous wins and championships for Benetton and Ferrari in F1 plus a couple of other racing series as well. Now it looks like he's working to do it again.

Ross Brawn is pure genius when it comes to racing. That's who turned "Honda" around.

I cant wait for this weekend. Should be another good showing.

Ditto. Watching practice was nice last night at like 2/3am....hahah I was up anyway after coming home from the TFTF4 premier.

Anyhoo im looking forward to watching qualifying because whos to say every team teams was giving it 100% until then i.e. BMW's remark about McLarens pace I think it was? Nice to see Kaz Nakajima up on #1 for at least a little while when he's not breaking stuff.

only cool part was the dude still riding around on 3 wheels.

otherwise it was still boring as hell. They need to take some notes from Nascar on how to make boring ass racing seem exciting, cause their coverage of the race makes what could be an exciting race seem boring as hell.

F1 should never take notes from nascar. EVER.