The Bahrain GP had a few revelations so it made for an interesting race from the technical side as well as a decent race from a racing point of view.

Let’s get onto the disappointing day for McLaren. Not only was their car completely off the pace all weekend but their star driver made a complete hash of it and the team had to rely on the new boy to score points.

Lewis Hamilton had a terrible day. From the start he bogged down his McLaren, forcing Heikki to take a detour around him. This put him tenth, behind Fernando Alonso in his Renault. Then, to add insult to the injury, he ran into the back of the Renault, destroying both his and Fernando’s race. Hamilton destroyed the nose and took a huge chip out of Fernando’s rear wing (see pic left).

To be fair to Fernando he raced on and did a decent job considering the damage to the car. It may only look like a small piece missing but he will have had a huge loss of rear downforce as well as vibrations. The nagging thought that the whole assembly could collapse at any moment, this race showed the Spaniard’s fighting spirit and title holding worth.

Up front the Ferrari’s were showing there raw pace, Massa was pulling away, and Kimi had put a move on the Pole sitter Robert Kubica to claim the second spot from the BMW Sauber.

The BMW sat with the Ferrari for a time, showing that the pace in Qualifying was not a one off and to the team’s credit they did not even pit that early coming in on lap 17 - only four laps before his team mate. This showed that the team is certainly heading in the right direction and I am sure if they can keep it up over the European season they will be able to take their maiden race win this year. With the team claiming 11 points for third and fourth spots in the race they go into the European races on the top of the constructors table.

Toyota also deserve mention, or more specifically Jarno Trulli. It seems that without the disruptive Ralf with the team, Jarno has stepped up to the team leader job well. He has constantly out paced his younger team mate, and scored points regularly - usually as the ‘best of the rest’ driver behind the McLaren/Ferrari/BMW’s. In fact, Toyota for the last couple of races has been on the same pace as the McLaren cars showing they too have moved along a good way, and if development stays apace could also be challenging for regular podium slots this year. Timo Glock drove a trouble free race for the most part and managed a ninth spot finish.

I must mention Heikki, who took the fifth spot with a great trouble free race. Considering the performance advantage that both the BMW and Ferrari teams had over McLaren, he did well. He drove his own race and stayed out of trouble and because of that took home some much needed points for the team. Lewis eventually finished in thirteenth spot but if you watch the on board footage you will see why he made little progress after his bump with the Renault. The car looked a complete handful with the back end not doing what it should in almost every corner. The damage to the nose was obviously not the only damage the car had taken, it was probably down to damaged barge boards on the side of the car and more than likely damage on the tray underneath the McLaren.

Mark Webber again brought the Red Bull home in the points, taking the seventh spot, with an off the pace Nico Rosberg taking the final point paying position for Williams.

It’s strange that the Williams seem to be suffering the same performance losses as the McLaren car. Perhaps there is something similar in the design philosophy that the two teams have not yet quite right. Both cars went well at Australia and both teams have been struggling since, strange.

I would put money on both coming back though when we hit Spain in three weeks time.

I must mention Giancarlo Fisichella as well in the Force India. He has certainly brought something back to the old Jordan team. The car and team seem a lot more settled since his return and he performed well in both the race and qualifying. It would be nice to see the team start to make their way up the grid.

Rubens drove well in the Honda, hounding Fernando Alonso for most of the race, showing that the team is certainly starting to get a handle on their performance troubles of last year.

The European season starts next and with all the teams testing and developing new aero upgrades it should be interesting. Talk of a very strange Ferrari nose has been making it’s way, as well as some odd things seen on the Toyota and McLaren cars. So let’s hope the 3 weeks are used well by the teams and they all come out racing in Europe.

This could turn out to be one of the closest and most interesting seasons so far, at the moment it’s Ferrari, BMW, McLaren and a little further back Toyota but don’t expect it to stay that way all year. We are on for a cracker!

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