BMW look strong in testing and the comfortable silence from that corner of the paddock speaks volumes I believe. Further, and this is really pushing my neck out, given Kubica’s raw pace around Melbourne last year, prior to his rather uncomfortable belly flop, I suspect the Pole to erm, well take pole – sorry.

Ferrari have shown some good consistant pace, but not exactly stood head and shoulders above the rest, but rumours abound of a re-focused Raikonnen. Fingers crossed on that one. Massa is a nice guy, but tales of his chief race engineer having to explain to the driver that he can go faster in certain corners does not instill confidence that he is the ‘complete package’. Expecting/Hoping Kimi to regain his rightful place as top dog there then.

The Fernando question then. Is he worth an extra six tenths in dev pace? Maybe. Will the car then suit someone with a different driving style? Probably not. So the Renault fell through the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. Doesn’t seems to have slowed it down though. More of the same from last season I suspect in terms of drivers, but with the Renault a clear third placed team, but closely chasing the red and blue scrap ahead.

McLaren have a dud on their hands I suspect. Ron Dennis, not a sleepless Martin Whitmarsh you’ll note, put in a bullish performance for the press today. He cited ‘delays’ and muttered about being in the ‘fight for the championship’. Sounds like they ain’t got a working car right now then. Lot’s of folks around the boards seem to be looking forwards to Lewis having a tough year and ‘proving’ himself. Personally think he already answered all the doubters in 2007 and 2008. Guess vilifying achievers isn’t an exclusively British trait after all.

Brawn GP appear to be entering the F1 arena in better shape than most fledgling indy teams we have seen previously. Yes, they may have been Honda lat year, but look how bad they were. No, suspect their talismanic new owner, Ross Brawn, has more than a little to do with what appears to be a phoenix like resurgence for the Brackley bunch. There may well be an element of inverted sandbagging going on, to attract backers keen to paste their logo on the shiny white fast machine, but word on at least one of the websites indicated that Massa thought today, that even on quali fuel, he couldn’t have caught Rubens.

Strange days indeed then.

How close? Not very – suspect bigger gaps between front and back than last year, but, not (I hope) Simtek to Williams style 5 second gaps per lap.

A deciding factor will quite probably prove to be the dreaded KERS this year. Suspect by the end of the season it will be a boon, if an unreliable one. But if I was a gambling man, I’d go with Ross and forget it for now.

Salty.

Ron might be just lending a hand to take the pressure off him slightly, the last thing anybody in Martin’s situation needs is the press breathing down his neck. I’m not a Mac fan by a long shot, and I hate Ron Dennis, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Martin Whitmarsh, he’s always made very reasonable comments.

I really hope Mac has a **** car for the start of the season. I really want Hamilton to show that he can wrestle a truck round a circuit and make the car go better over the course of the season and win races. This would quash any doubters and prove that he is of the class of Senna, Schumacher and Alonso. I am not a Hamilton fan mind you.

But at this stage, whether McLaren sink or swim at Melbourne it’s going to be a story.

But possibly at mid year we will see renault and mclaren getting closer to the top as they have experience in developing properly and toyota and brawn slipping down.

It does look very close in testing, as I mentioned weeks ago after the first Bahrain test.
Let’s hope no team is hidding their real pace (except for Mclaren’s bad pace) and we won’t see a dominant force!