Well, no-one would have expected the 2009 F1 season to start the way it has. Only a month and a half ago you would have been labelled a lunatic if you predicted that the main championship contender will be Brawn GP, a team that was saved at the last minute. What’s even more incredible is that it seems that their main competitor are the Red Bulls, constructed by Adrian Newey. They scored their first win (and 1-2 finish) in spectacular fashion in China.

What’s great about this situation is that one team is not running away with the championship, which keeps things interesting. Also, the teams with the big budgets will be aggressively developing their cars, meaning that they will also eventually compete at the sharp end of the grid.

One would think that after the diffuser controversy the units fitted to the Brawn, Toyota and Williams is what’s causing these teams to be the front runners. However, Red Bull has a normal single decker diffuser, and Brawn did not have an answer to these cars in China. Thus the Red Bulls are inherently quick, and the team is working at break-neck speed to develop their own version of the diffuser. Whether they are able to develop a diffuser as efficient as the Brawn remains to be seen, as the very unique rear suspension layout of the Red Bull means there’s very little space to fit the device.

Then there’s the debate about KERS. In China, only three cars on the grid was running it – the two McLarens and Heidfeld in his BMW. Ferrari has had too many reliability issues with their units, and Renault’s KERS doesn’t have the desired performance yet. It will be interesting to see whether KERS dies a silent death as the season progresses, or whether the teams get it sorted out and it starts making a noticeble difference. Interestingly the main concern with KERS is that it negatively affects the weight distribution of the car, which worsens tire wear. This is amplified with Bridgestone usually bringing a very soft compound tire to each race, meaning that these tires are only good for a couple of laps with KERS installed.

The main title contenders of 2008 seems to be absolutely nowhere after the first three races of the season. Ferrari has not scored a single point yet, their worst start to a season since 1981. This is due to their car being inherently slow, as they struggle to compete with the front-runners in the downforce department. Combine this with the unreliability of the Schuderia’s F60 car and one can easily see why they’re struggling. The only glimmer of hope is that Massa seemed to be doing respectable lap-times in the rain in China, and was making good progress up to third position before his car stopped on the track due to an electrical glitch.

Ferrari has also decided to shake-up their management structure, after the disastrous tactical error the team made with Kimi’s car in Malaysia. For some bizarre reason they chose to fit full wet tires to his car with barely any moisture on the track. He shredded the tires within a lap, and that destroyed his race strategy.

McLaren is showing some promise, however their efforts may be nullified if the FIA chooses to punish the team harshly due to the whole Hamilton lie-saga. The team scored a respectable fifth and sixth position in China (granted, they had a preliminary double-decker diffuser fitted to the car), with Kovaleinen in front of Hamilton. Lewis admitted that he made too many mistakes in the race, and he spun off in the closing laps letting his team mate through. For Heikki it was a nice change to actually finish a race, after failing to complete a single lap in both the Australian and Malaysian rounds of the championship due to first-corner incidents.

As for Renault, they have also fitted an interim double-decker diffuser in China and showed some good pace. Alonso was able to qualify on the front of the grid with low fuel, planning to quickly run away at the start of the race. However, this strategy was destroyed when the race started behind the safety car and he had to pit behind the safety car to keep from running out of fuel. As for his teammate Nelson Piquet, he was once again nowhere to be seen and should be fired.

The rest of the field performed okay, with nothing spectacular coming from any them. At least they performed better than Ferrari.