We're in Sepang, Malaysia this weekend for the second grand prix of 2011. We're also in stasis. For this race and the ensuing back-to-back GP in Shanghai there will be little opportunity to change the cars over much, so any in-built advantage or disadvantage the cars have, will be glued in till we get to Turkey.
This isn't such a bad thing because so far we've yet to see them perform in conditions that are representative of the rest of the year. With an ambient temperature in Melbourne that sometimes dipped as low as 17C, the Pirelli tyres were running in much cooler conditions than they expected in Australia. Through the rest of the year we are hardly likely to get much colder than that.
By a cruel twist of fate - but more to do with geography - the next race up is going to be one of the hottest of the year with track temperatures potentially up around 45C to 50C, intense humidity and also the chance of Bernie's much-loved rain with the race starting at 4pm in the afternoon.
Red Bull arrive in the position of firm favourites for a 1-2. The circuit may not suit the car's aero package on the long Sepang straights, but they demonstrated a clear advantage in Melbourne (or at least Sebastian Vettel did) without having the chore of fitting KERS to the car.
Team boss Christian Horner is well aware that he cannot get away with leaving it off the car for a second race running. Neither can he play the card of not telling anyone that they'd left it off the car. So Red Bull are going to have their KERS reliability thoroughly tested out, in some of the most extreme conditions they're likely to encounter all year. Vettel should be pressed a lot harder by Mark Webber, too.
Horner says there were set-up issues in Melbourne: "We found a few things on Mark's car that certainly wouldn't have helped him, and all those elements have been changed for Malaysia, where we'd expect the two of them to be much closer together."
So if they're not, the gossiping will start.
McLaren were the clear No.2 team in Australia and had Jenson Button got past Felipe Massa, or been a bit more patient, then they would have had two cars on the podium. Lewis Hamilton drove a very strong race last time out despite trailing around for the latter part of the race with a broken floor. The size of the gap between Vettel and Hamilton on single lap pace in Melbourne looked pretty sizeable, we should be able to work out exactly how big it can be in Sepang when Red Bull bolt on KERS.
One of the talking points of the last race was the Massa versus Button duel early on. What irked Jenson was the fact that Felipe would sooner have risked a crash than let him make the pass. In many overtaking moves, drivers have to rely on the fact that the person they're trying to pass would sooner be overtaken than watch their car being sidewalled. In Australia Button got the impression that Massa wasn't racing for the points, even in the opening round of the championship. If applied throughout the rest of the races on the calendar it will be interesting to see - especially if the car tying to come past is similarly red.
The other frustration for Button was the fact that the Drag Reduction System (DRS) didn't make a big enough difference for his McLaren down the main straight to get him past Massa. There shouldn't be such a problem in Sepang. At the time of writing it still hasn't been decided whether there will be two zones - on the main straight as planned, and on the equally long back straight. Felipe Massa has voiced concerns that this will make overtaking too easy, but easy or not easy it will be interesting to see how it impacts on the flow of a race.
Pirelli have already predicted that unlike Melbourne, tyre degradation will be high and that this could be a four-stop race. Mix in a bit of rain and we could see five or six. This too will have an effect on the flow of the race like no other we have seen before.
Renault got the result of the weekend by getting their mercurial Russian talent onto the podium for the first time in his career. It's unlikely to be his last. Significant to note that the team think it is the absence of Robert Kubica that is allowing him to flourish.
After his third place Vitaly Petrov had to put up with a lot of comments on the lines of: "Ah, but what could they have done if Robert had still been in the other car..." which is vaguely insulting when you've just driven the race of your life. More consistent finishes in the points in the opening race and hopefully these will dwindle. Team-mate Nick Heidfeld will have to get a shift on, though.
Fernando Alonso came home fourth in Australia with his usual mix of pace and pragmatism. There was no ringing of hands after the race about his awful start, he just got on with it. The team are in a bit of a gloomy place right now having shone so brightly in winter testing but finding that in Australia that didn't translateinto qualifying pace and hardly got better in the race. They have a few minor updates for Malaysia but it's more a case of getting the car they have to work.
Further back Mercedes are in even more of a flap after only getting one of their cars into Q3 and not lasting till half distance. Their bruising encounters with Alguersuari and Barrichello were not of their making, but the idea is to qualify away from these inexperienced young pups still learning the ropes (and braking points).
Sauber and Toro Rosso had pretty good opening races till the scrutineers ruined the former team's day and excised Perez from the record books as yet another F1 debutant to pick up points. The Perez versus Kobayashi battle could become a key one. Williams had a nightmare start and both Lotus and Virgin were slower than they expected to be. HRT didn't really have a start at all and it's going to demand a pretty big largesse from the other teams to let them go racing - it would be quite a turn-up if they got within 107% of P1 time in Saturday's Q1.
Sepang will show us just how much speed Red Bull have in their locker. Damon Hill has confidently predicted that Vettel won't run away with this year's championship. I wish I shared his confidence.
Andrew Davies
