Fascinating grid - I look forward to the "extended highlights"

I hope it's not gonna be a another pole position race win. I much prefer when a driver comes from midfield and goes on to win a race. I also hope that Mercedes have a better season. I've always been a fan of Michael S ever since he joined F1. I still think he has the talent to be a winner if given a decent car to drive. Lets hope it rains 2morro as it makes for a far better race. That's when we see who's talented and who isn't.

I sat and watched the drama about "senna" and he was an exceptional driver. I remember watching the battles between him and Prost all those years ago. 2 of the best drivers in F1 imo.

If LH gets off the line ahead of the field I think he'll disappear into the distance as JB never starts that quickly. Even if JB gets ahead into the first corner which is easily possible as he's a great starter as soon as the DRS comes on LH will be past I think but by then JB will hopefully have found his rhythm and will keep up with LH. I can see it being a ding-dong battle for 3rd though. I'd go for MS but it could be anyone from the top 10.

I don't rate LH at all. Imo he's not cut out to be a multiple champion. He makes too many silly mistakes and tends to get frustrated too easily. Last season was nothing short of a disaster for him. I can see Redbull getting better and better again this season and running away with it. A shaky start to their season but the main race is where it counts. As for Ferrari, it can only get better. Alonso has the talent but not the car in which to show it.

Really enjoyed that qualifying session, 1st and 2nd, excellent!

Really enjoying Sky's coverage so far.

Can't stand the Ben Edwards guy.. he talks too much, too fast and an octave too high. Horrible!

What has happened to Red Bull?
This is the problem with F1, they're always changing the rules every year and messing around with the cars. How about a bit of consistency and putting the skill of the drivers as the key factor.

Agreed, I'm no Vettel fan but that amazing curve grande move on Alonso at Monza last year showed Vettel can overtake with some style.

So glad its not going to be a Red Bull runaway this year.

Now lets actually see what Vettels made out of now he has to start on 2nd and 3rd rows......

Hamilton along with Alonso are the best 2 drivers by a distance in this sport and with Hamilton looking as though he has the best car he will run away with the title if the car is reliable.

Nice to see Mercedes looking good aswell.

Having now heard Alonso basically say maybe top 10 without his slide and that it seems he feels they've gone in wrong direction and need a redesign, confirms massive changes will inevitability follow on return to Europe, maybe even sooner.

The engineers built the car to their ideas and seemingly without consideration of how to actually drive it. We're aware of the excessive advice Massa needs from Smedley on almost how to drive at all! He isn't a knowledgeable driver who can describe issues in a way that the worst issues can be improved to allow some chance of a decent result.

Alonso has just put up with inferior cars, particularly when he returned to Renault, whilst waiting for Ferrari. He again seems incapable of assisting greatly in moving the car on, but will drive in a manner to extract the most he dares .

Di Montezemelo will not hesitate to cull the chaff and am sure was not expecting such a poor demonstration of a total decline to obscurity and Domenicali and Fry no longer have the opportunity to say we don't know.

If they complete the race in around 10th at best, it's curtains and it will be good listening to hear the sarcasm from Alonso during the latter stages, if he doesn't bin it or simply give up, as 2 hours will be a killer, no matter how fit they are.

It'll certainly be interesting to see what the Red Bulls can do from there. Start will be interesting. Nice to see Grosjean getting right up there, though. That was a nice surprise.

Schumacher will want to try and nick a win soon as there is a strong likelihood of a protest being successful if the driver does do something, however small to change the aerodynamics. If they are considered to be at least breaching the rules in spirit rather than absolute, then he may be able to keep any win, but the change to the exhaust and diffuser was to prevent cheats and simplify things. Clearly Brawn loves stretching the rules and will argue that interpretation is not necessarily a rule break.

You've just contradicted yourself there, is JB a good starter or not?... Lol.

Personally I think the McLarens will win easy tomorrow as they have the best pace, but the McLarens might not win because I'm not sure they have the fastest cars... (see what I did there)

To me it is perfectly acceptable. They queried it with the FIA and they approved it.

The other guys got jealous and cried about it when they'd be better served to copy it.

It is all about spotting gaps in the regulations and finding unique ways to improve your car, else they may as well all be driving around in the same car based on a super-tight template the FIA provides that allows for zero leeway.

You were channeling the spirit of Eddie Jordan?

It all seemed pretty close in quali' but the fact is that the McLaren is half a second faster than the RBRs at the moment and that's quite a margin for a driver to make up, especially when they will have to abuse their tyres to overtake other cars in the process.

I reckon part of the reason Vettel seemed so serene last year was that once he was in the lead he never had to abuse his tyres whereas following cars were forced to burn theirs up fighting for position and thus lacked the pace to catch the leaders.

Must say, I wouldn't write the RBRs off yet.
Melbourne, Sepang and Shanghai are speed circuits but I can see the RBRs beating the Merc's at races such as Spain, Monaco etc.

Incidentally, they say Webber's KERS wasn't working during quali' yesterday either.
Nice to see that he still managed to beat Vettel.

Thank you.

Loving DC btw, glad he didnt jump ship to sky.

One overtake in a vastly superior car doesn't prove a driver is a real fighter.

It'll be interesting to see whether or not, for example, the RBRs can still maintain pace while they're also forced to continually fight for every place.

Not sure if this has been asked already but any idea why recording sky f1 hd takes up so much hard drive space?? The 2 hours of qualifying was a whopping 8%!

Loving the sky coverage though but missing the beeb a bit too.

Go ask in the BROADCASTING FORUM..

TBH, I could do without hearing about Sky TV in this thread as well.
No offence intended toward you though. I'm just sick of hearing about Sky.

ooops, sorry - I though I had posted in the F1 coverage thread but just realised it's just the F1 thread....apologies.

By the way Si_Crewe, my name is actually Simon and I live in Crewe!

Exactly.....

Drivers like Hamilton and Alonso do great overtakes nearly every race, Vettel does one a season .

Now that may be because over the last 2 years the red bull has been vastly superior and there was really nobody to overtake, but we shall see this year if the red bull continues to underperform.

Damn highlights start at 2pm, chances of not seeing some sort of spoiler in 6 hours are pretty slim for me.

TV OFF, Radio OFF, Computer OFF, Mobile OFF: Listen to music, do the housework / gardening / go for a run ... Seems pretty easy to me.