Not even a degustation menu of Melbourne's wild and occasionally obnoxious weather threatened to wash away the atmosphere enveloping the start of another hard-to-forecast formula one season. The fastest car is not always the winner.
This year's Australian Grand Prix quickly blew apart any thoughts that the Red Bull cars, so dominant in qualifying, would romp away with the race. It's clear the Bulls have blinding pace over one or two laps, but then that superiority is quickly eroded by their apparent wilfulness with the Pirelli tyres. Pirelli told the world before the race that a two-stop strategy was a winning move. Maybe only Lotus was listening. More likely was that the Lotus race car and Kimi Raikkonen managed the rubber degradation better than anyone.
Sporting comebacks are rarely successful, but the 2007 world champion's second-phase formula one career, after a while rallying, has already netted two fine wins. The notoriously brief and blunt, anti-establishment Finn is the new cult hero of the 22-man grid. He emphasised his superiority by ramming in the race's fastest lap on lap 56 of 58.


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