Team-Mate Wars: Bahrain Tuesday 8th April 2008 Ferrari Raikkonen 2 Massa 1 Felipe Massa blew away the doubters with one of the qualifying performances of his career. Raikkonen has driven the Sakhir circuit enough and has also tested there in the winter, so you would expect him to be within a tenth or two of Massa. The fact that in some of the sessions Felipe could pull almost a second on his team-mate suggests that the new rules about traction control aren't always going to be weighted against him. It was a superb job from the Brazilian. BMW Heidfeld 1 Kubica 2 Kubica took pole with a reasonably good level of fuel, but he never looked like stamping his authority on the race. He did manage to stamp his authority on Nick Heidfeld though. In the long-run Heidfeld's dogged pursuit of places may come out ahead of Kubica's flamboyance on the race track - but you'd sooner spend time watching Robert. Renault Alonso 3 Piquet 0 Despite having tyre prints on his rear wing, and significant vibration as a result of his coming together, Fernando soldiered gamely on. Piquet wasn't so far away from the double World Champion in qualifying, but was clearly hampered by a gearbox issue, reporting he had trouble with second gear on the parade lap Williams Rosberg 2 Nakajima 1 Rosberg is getting embarrassingly better results than Nakajima. For the team it was a relief to shake off Sepang worries, but the difference between Nico and Kazuki is getting to be like the difference between Nico and Alex Wurx. And whereas Wurz could contribute useful set-up information, Kazuki just keeps the sponsors happy. But for how long...? Toyota Trulli 3 Glock 0 With the Toyota eventually finding form, Jarno Trulli is enjoying a resurgence. He looked sharp over an entire race distance. No longer the wailing wailer over the pit radio bellyaching about his lack of grip (as we had all through 2007), this is a Jarno who wants a new contract at the end of the year. Red Bull Webber 2 Coulthard 1 Webbo won out in the battle of the grumpy old gits. Coulthard's defence of 18th place from Jenson Button place was about as sensible as a child trying to stop the tide destroying its sand castle. Except one experiences joy while the other (that's DC) just gets grumpier. Honda Barrichello 1 Button 2 Jenson was up to P8 in Bahrain before he picked up a puncture and his afternoon slid rapidly downhill. He'd already done enough to show that Honda will not have a wasted season and that he has a clear edge on Rubens Barrichello. Toro Rosso Vettel 2 Bourdais 1 Sebsatian Vettel is going to have to learn to curb his enthusiasm at the start - exiting early in Australia and Bahrain is not good news. He was also outqualified by Bourdais. Force-India Sutil 0 Fisichella 3 Giancarlo Fisichella once again was on the verge of escaping Q3. It's a great achievement both for Tech director Mike Gascoyne and Giancarlo Fisichella, a driver we've not been kind about in the last couple of years. Sutil was a rated driver before he arrived, now it's Fisi who looks like the young turk trying to attract the attention of the big team bosses. SuperAguri Sato 1 Davidson 2 For a team short of spare parts, the last thing you need is a driver dropping the car on the exit of the final corner in qualifying and bending it. With no 107% rule, it's hard to know why Super Aguri would take any risks, in a demotion-free grid they are destined to be P21 and P22 for some time McLaren Hamilton 2 Kovalainen 1 Lewis may have outqualified Heikki, but Kovalainen didn't mess his start up. Lewis's second lap bump with Alonso is mightily mysterious. All the mood music (but no hard evidence as yet) suggests some kind of altercation. Ron Dennis is very wary of airing public spats and providing more ammunition for the media and everything about McLaren's post-race behaviour suggests a carefully managed response. We all know that F1 cars can¹t follow each other closely without a massive loss of downforce. This is the bane of our watching F1 in 2007 and 2008. Yet here we have two cars that suddenly seem magnetically attracted. ITV's pundits - Messrs Brundle and Blundell have both driven modern F1 cars and actually tried to simulate the turbulence experienced in slipstreaming positions at Silverstone last year. Pat Symmonds can scoff all he likes at "so-called experts" but for once, they both had recent direct experience of what they were talking about. Alonso has a history of brake-testing, we also know there's no love lost between the two of them, so there's enough circumstantial evidence to get conspiracy theorists theorising. Add to that little mix the mysterious explanation that 'Lewis's front wing suddenly broke and he had an unexpected surge of acceleration' - which is then called into doubt by photographic eveidence on the first lap and you can keep a PF1 forum fuelled for weeks. Good job, really as we've got three weeks to the Spanish GP. However Lewis's conclusion that he messed up is 100% accurate. Star of the Race Hamilton 1 Raikkonen 1 Massa 1 Overtaking Move of the Race Kovalainen 1 Raikkonen 1 Golden Arse Melbourne: Nakajima Bahrain: Mosley Max's achievement at winning a golden arse award (though in his case it would surely be a reddened sore arse with strap marks) is not thanks to continued coverage of the sex scandal in the NoW. Nor is it due to the fact that he continued to be the main topic of conversation because of his embarrassing failure to resign. No, it's thanks to his rant on the telephone to Bernie about being disowned by the Crown Prince of Bahrain, while Bernie was standing with the Crown Prince of Bahrain. Now where DID you put that pearl-handled revolver... Driver Most Likely To Be Replaced Before The End of the Season 1. Nakajima 2. Piquet 3. Sutil Andrew Davies
