Fernando flies higher!

Fiery Fernando zoomed past the chequered flag just as the car radio crackled to life with the voice of a jubliant Briatore, one who was overjoyed that his young pilot had breached the unblemished chequered flag yet again. For Fernando, it was a perfect race from start to finish. The cool Spaniard set the brand new track at Sakhir International Circuit ablaze with a performance that stunned everybody but him and his team. For the Renault's know that they are the team to beat in 2005. And the confidence of the team reflected in the performance of the driver. In my view, i would compare this one performance of his to one of the numerous wins of Michael Schumacher in 2002 and 2004. One where he knew not where the rest of the pack were, except for the backmarkers, bettering his own performance with every succesive lap. Such was the performance of the Spaniard and such a victory infuses even more confidence into a team that has roared to victory in three consecutive races.

A brilliant show from the Toyota's, their drivers Trulli and Ralf coming in second and fourth respectively. The Toyota's, i have heard, have a habit of spending their way to the podium of any motorsport, and that seems to hold true for Formula One as well. It indeed is refreshing to see an Eastern team challenging the likes of Ferrari and BMW in a sport that still is essentially a European one.

A good race for Kimi, a racer whose chances are usually riddled with bullets called luck. Kimi in my opinion is a bright prospect to fill into the big boots of 'Macher the immaculate. If Kimi's race was good, then his fellow driver De La Rosa's drive was better. De La Rosa sure must have made the brows of a couple of team bosses rise. Taking out Button, Barichello and eventually Webber was a treat to watch. And the battle between Webber and Rosa was indeed an epic one. And Webber gave Rosa a tough run, putting his BMW just where the Spaniard so badly wanted to be before finally relenting on lap 55.

Barichello, a driver who had very limited knowledge about the mechanical beast he was controlling, showed that he was indeed a great driver by nursing the F2005, a car that was running on bald wheels to the finish. As for Schumacher, starting the race on the front grid must have been a good feeling, with the F2005 under him, a brand new machine, one touted by Todt as a race beater, one that would break the break-away success of the Renault's. But alas, lap 11 turn 10 must have given Jean Todt a mild heart ache, for it saw Schumacher plunge down the turn, instead of taking it smooth and on the left. A minute later, the seven time champion retired the race for good with a hydraulic problem, one that did not allow him to shift gears smoothly. Incidentally it was the first time in a staggering fifty-eight races that Michael Schumacher has retired with a mechanical failure. Kudos to the Ferrari's for having shown such discipline for such a long time.

Speaking of failures, mechanical mayhem ruled the tracks at Bahrain with as many as seven drivers failing to complete the race owing to such problems. THe bright Indian driver, Narain Karthikeyan, who showed much promise initially, taking out his team mate, a Minardi driver and the once great David Coulthard, all in one and a half laps stalled at the beggining of lap 2. The Red Bull also seems to have hit a temporary road block with one driver failing to start off the grid and the other having a paltry race.

All said and done, we have come to the end of what i would call the pheripheral races or races that were brought in as part of the globalization "drive", a move to convert the masses of Asia to the religion of Formula One. The formula one juggernaut now rolls into the the more familiar tracks of Europe. And Europe is home to some tracks which most drivers on the grid know like the back of their palms. And at Imola, the very heart of the holy land, one should not write off Todt, Schumacher and the rest of the Ferrari juggernaut. For this is the very place that the Ferrari's are most likely to come back and stage an assault on their competitors, even as Fernando Alonso and Renault would be looking to continue their domination and Toyota and McLaren would be planning to gate-crash their party!

Waiting for Imola, commemorating the 11th anniversary of the most loved driver in Formula One history, Ayrton Senna da Silva.