The Spa-Francorchamps circuit, a magnificent venue for a GP in the mist-clad Ardennes forest region. Not only does the circuit have pages of history to its name (a crashed Jackie Stewart being attended to by nuns etc) (Michael Schumacher actually looking like he wanted a real mano a mano fight with DC – arf)(Eddie Jordan doing an embarrassing skip-of-joy, a-la-David Pleat, when he won his first race – must see that again)(Kimi Raikkonen disappearing into a smoke haze at 190mph) (Mika and Michael going both sides of Zonta), it has so much more.

The circuit rises and falls in altitude; it has the challenging Eau Rouge corner that virtually every driver can take flat now thanks to the tarmac run-off; it also has the equally tricky Pouhon and Blanchimont. It has an almighty straight for overtaking, and a big stop at La Source hairpin. All this without Hermann Tilke having lifted his pen. What’s more, it can be raining in one part of the circuit and dry in another. It rarely produces a dull race.

Mercedes have been in the news quite a bit over the four-week break, trying to reassure anyone who will listen that they are not having the bad season it looks like. Norbert Haug and Ross Brawn are both resolutely of the opinion that they are closing the time gap between themselves and Red Bull. However what the races look like is that Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren have pulled away and Mercedes are now slugging it out with Sauber, Renault and Force India to be best of the rest.

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Lewis Hamilton scored a fabulous victory for McLaren in a Chinese race of excellent drives, catching and passing Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel on the 52nd of the 56 laps as the reigning world champion’s gamble on a two-stop strategy – and a 25-lap run on Pirelli’s hard rubber – just failed to pay off.

Hamilton’s mechanics were frantically repairing a fuel leak on his car before the start of the race, but their hard work paid off as he finished ahead of Vettel to break the Red Bull’s stranglehold on race wins.

Vettel came home in P2, but arguably the star of the race was Mark Webber who started from P18 on the grid to make it to a podium place on the penultimate lap. It was an epic race with exactly the kind of overtaking Pirelli had been asked to deliver.

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Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton were both slapped with 20-second penalties following Sunday’s Malaysian GP.

The two antagonists were involved in a tense battle for third place at Sepang on Sunday with Hamilton leading Alonso as the Spaniard attempted to find a way past.

However, instead of passing Hamilton, he drove into the back of him, damaging the front wing of his Ferrari.

Alonso was forced to pit for a new nose and dropped down to sixth place while Hamilton, who had to come in for a late pit stop, finished the grand prix in seventh place.

The duo, though, were called into the stewards’ office in the aftermath of the grand prix where both were handed 20-second penalties. (more…)

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel made it look so easy as he scored his second victory of the season and extended his world championship points tally to 50 on Sunday afternoon in Malaysia.

 The German took the lead at the start, nursed his tyres through three pits stops, avoided using his problematic KERS from the 29th lap after instruction from his team, yet was still 6.1s ahead of a charging Jenson Button in the McLaren with a lap to go.

Button did the impossible by running 19 laps on a set of Pirelli’s prime tyres where previously nobody had managed more than 16, but the 3.2s gap at the chequered flag reflected the side-by-side weaving that Vettel did in triumph as he reached the finish line.

Lewis Hamilton in the other McLaren had been in the fight all afternoon, once he had overtaken super-fast starting Nick Heidfeld’s Renault in the first stops, but unlike his team mate the Briton lost pace on the primes, fell behind Button after the third stops, and needed a fourth to make it to the flag in seventh after running off the track.

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Mark Webber posted the fastest times in both free practise sessions on Friday in Malaysia and especially dominated the first session where he ended up with a time of 1.665s faster than McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton.

And although the Red Bull driver was again quickest in the afternoon, it was only by 0.005s and, this time, it was McLaren’s other driver who mounted the challenge.

Button clocked a 1:36.881 to take second place ahead of his team-mate Hamilton while Sebastian Vettel finished in fourth place.

Michael Schumacher was fifth for Mercedes GP, beating Felipe Massa and Nico Rosberg while Renault were quick to resolve their brake issues allowing Nick Heidfeld to take part in the session. He finished P8.

Friday’s second practice began on a hot track with the asphalt almost 50′C and one team short after Renault revealed they would not run until they know what caused their double brake failure in the morning’s session.

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The reigning Formula 1 World Champion, Sebastian Vettel,  could not have asked for a better start to the defence of his title with a pole position in qualifying on Saturday and then outclassing the rest of the pack on race day to comfortably win the Australian Grand Prix.

Vettel was 2.4s ahead at the end of the opening lap, and simply controlled the pace to win by 22.2s after a problem with the floor of Hamilton’s McLaren caused an off-course moment in Turn One on Lap 32 and cost him some downforce.

At times the Englishman was able to match Vettel’s pace and he did a better job controlling his tyres in the first part, as both ran two-stop strategies in a race in which all the gloomy predictions about Pirelli’s tyres proved completely unfounded.

Behind them, Red Bull’s Mark Webber originally ran third ahead of fast-starting Vitaly Petrov in the Renault, who benefited when McLaren’s Jenson Button kept Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso out wide going into Turn One at the start. As Webber faded after being the first to change tyres, Petrov moved into the third place he maintained throughout as he became the first Russian ever to stand on the podium after an excellent race.

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It has been no secret that McLaren has struggled with reliability issues and performance during pre-season and both their drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button have admitted that come the first race day in Melbourne they will be surprised if they could compete with the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull.

BBC trio Martin Brundle, David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan didn’t hold back in their criticism of the McLaren car during their season review for the public broadcaster.

“I watched the [McLaren] out on track a week ago and it’s a mess,” Brundle said.

“It didn’t slow down. It didn’t turn in. It couldn’t get the power down. Lewis [Hamilton] looked absolutely at sea in the thing. Clearly they have a fundamental issue.”

Coulthard added: “If your car doesn’t run quick straight out of the blocks then it is a problem. By the time you sort it out everyone will have brought their second and third upgrades along.”

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