This Time Last Year...

This is just a short post comparing the change in fortune for each of the teams and drivers over the first 4 grand prix. At the 2008 Australian GP, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton dominated by getting pole position and going on to easily win the race, with his team mate Heikki Kovalainen obtaining fastest lap, Ferrari only managed an 8th place with Kimi Raikkonen as Felippe Massa retired.

For the next 3 races, Ferrari got max points with a 1-2 in each race except for Malaysia where Massa retired. Hamilton picked up some points with 5th and 3rd places in the Malaysian and Spanish GPs respectively, although only managed to finish in 13th at the Bahrain GP. This is a big contrast to the Honda team (now Brawn GP) that only had 3 points in total after the first 4 races last year, and now have a commanding lead in the championship.

The following is a table showing the difference in the top teams of both years:

Drivers

2008 Points (4 races)

1. Raikkonen - 29 Points
2. Hamilton - 20 Points
3. Massa - 18 Points
4. Button - 3 Points
5. Barrichello - 0 Points
6. Vettel - 0 Points

2009 Points (4 races)

1. Button - 31 Points
2. Barrichello - 19 Points
3. Vettel - 18 Points
4. Hamilton - 9 Points
5. Raikkonen - 3 Points
6. Massa - 0 Points

Constructors

2008 Points (4 races)

1. Ferrari - 47 Points
2. Bmw - 35 Points
3. McLaren - 34 Points
4. Toyota - 9 Points
5. Red Bull - 8 Points
6. Honda (Brawn GP) - 3 Points

2009 Points (4 races)

1. Brawn GP - 50 Points
2. Red Bull - 27.5 Points
3. Toyota - 26.5 Points
4. McLaren - 13 Points
5. BMW - 4 Points
6. Ferrari - 3 Points

Chinese GP Review

The Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai proved to everyone that it was certainly not going to be a one horse race for the championship, as Brawn's initial domination atfter the first two races came to an end.

Having looked strong all weekend, the Red Bull team put their drivers in 1st and 3rd, with Vettel being the lead driver, the pair being split by a light-fuelled Fernando Alonso in his Renault. Meanwhile the Brawns only achieved 4th and 5th with Barrichello out-qualifying his teammate for the first time this season. They were closely followed by the Toyota of Jarno Trulli.

Due to heavy rain, the race began behind the safety car. The race finally began proper after eight laps and it was only a couple of laps later when Webber and Vettel pitted for their first stops of the race. This allowed Button to lead after passing his teammate on lap 11, and the early stopping Alonso. Button proved to be the only driver to really challenge the Red Bull of Mark Webber, Vettel on the otherhand drove a perfect race in the wet and looked untouchable in a race reminiscent of Micheal Schumacher. The McLarens also performed well, Hamilton having fought his way up to 5th but dropped back down the field following a spin. This was another race that Ferrari would rather forget after 2008 runner-up Felippe Massa retired with an electronic problem and 2007 Champion Kimi Raikkonen failed to break into a points scoring position finishing tenth.

The final points finishers were as follows:

1. Sebastian Vettel
2. Mark Webber
3. Jenson Button
4. Rubens Barrichello
5. Heikki Kovalainen
6. Lewis Hamilton
7. Time Glock
8. Sebastien Buemi
   

A New Order To Things?

Given the huge amount of regulation changes that have been put in place for the 2009 season, there has certainly been a re-shuffle to the pecking order on the F1 Grid.

The new regulations have given all of the teams a chance to put there creativity to the test and find innovative ways to interpret these regulations. The most notable of these creative developments so far has been the "Double" diffuser that was employed by Brawn-GP, Toyota and Williams.
This seems to have been a huge advantage as the only team that were able to keep up with them was the Newey-Designed car of Red Bull Racing. All of the other teams apart from McLaren and Force India objected to this interpretation of the regulations and promptly filed for an appeal, even though the design had already been approved by the race stewards. The appeal was refused and this led to most of the teams to beginning to invest in designing a double difuser of their own.