The shape of things to come?

Vettel dominated the first day at Jerez by a whooping 1.3s over the 2nd fastest Felipe. I wonder if Adrian Newey finally struck gold again after many "almost-there" cars?

On a separate note, pequeño Nelshiño propped up the timesheets yet again, further supporting the feeling that the aesthetically-challenged Renault is a dog. A good day for Fisi, though, who placed the new Force India ahead of McMerc, which bodes well for the likable Bollywood team.

• 1 S. Vettel - 01:19.055
• 2 F. Massa - 01:20.330
• 3 K. Kobayashi - 01:20.699
• 4 N. Rosberg - 01:21.171
• 5 R. Kubica - 01:21.292
• 6 G. Fisichella - 01:21.584
• 7 P. de la Rosa - 01:21.831
• 8 N. Piquet jr. - 01:22.011
  

Renault promote French youth

...by handing a box of crayons to kids from the French kindergarten and letting them design the livery for their newest challenger! (with a little help from those delusional "green" chaps at Bridgestone)

Vijay Mallya's Indian Rockers are back!

And the car they brought along for the ride is not too bad looking, both performance-wise and aesthetically. Or is it just that compared to the Renault every car looks like a Miura?

And I thought the FIA were serious...

...when they said they'd remove all aerodynamic appendages from the cars. And here we get Williams with not the already de rigueur turning vanes ahead of sidepods, but also with a twist on McMerc's viking horns. Seriously FIA - can't you just add this to the rulebook: "no shit sticking out of the car that's not suspension or the front/rear wing"?

Honda's back! (but I remain to be convinced it's trully saved)

At first glance this seems like amazing news - the Team Formerly Known as Honda is back from the dead. But look deeper and cracks begin to appear. The outfit will be "funded by a combination of sponsors and F1 commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone", which means one thing: no big manufacturer/millionaire is backing the team. Now, unless Grandpa Bernie wants to revisit his glory days as Brabham team owner, this just screams "shoestring budget" to me. And, in a delightful sense of ironic symmetry, this is exactly what Honda's B-team Super Aguri was at the beginning of only the last season. And we all know how far they got...


Still, on the bright side, the grid will be bigger (for now, at least), young Bruno Senna will probably get a shot at F1 and Force India will no longer qualify last in every event.

Blog coming back for 2009

We're not dead, just hibernating :) Coming back soon!