Well the season has officially started… At 10am Australian time, the first of three practice sessions began.

What was interesting was just how competitive the Force India cars were – Fisichella finished the first practice in 12th and the second in 9th, which is certainly an improvement on last year. Whether he was on a particularly light fuel load and whether the times will remain as low throughout the weekend remains to be seen.

Having topped the first practice, Räikkönen could do no better than 6th in the second. Afterwards he was far from amused at how well the car was going which does seem a little strange after praising the speed of the 2008 Ferrari after every pre-season test. He did explain that they struggled with the set-up in the afternoon session – I expect that, being Ferrari, they will have no such problems come tomorrow.

The Super Aguris were understandably well off the pace, it is no surprise that after a winter of not knowing whether they were actually going to grace the track or not, they have missed out on valuable development time. While finishing second to last and last, over 4 seconds off the pace, Sato was keen to point out that he’s happy to just be racing. What more could he say?

What was disappointing was not to see the true pace of the Williams cars; Rosberg spent much of the first session stuck in the garage with gearbox problems. The second session was slightly more productive and the German finished it in 8th, while his team-mate Nakajima could only manage a 1:29.077 leaving him in 16th.

The Red Bulls were surprisingly quick. I had a suspicion that they would be fast but Webber’s 2nd place finish in the second practice was, although 0.9 seconds off Hamilton, certainly a good time. Lets hope that the cars stay in one piece for long enough to get a result – last year Webber and Coulthard failed to finish 14 races between them.

It’s difficult to draw any firm conclusions from the opening two tests but it is clear that the McLarens and Ferraris are a cut above the rest. The most interesting battle over the weekend? Well… Räikkönen/Hamilton will certainly be worth watching closely but watch out for the Renaults, Red Bulls, BMW Saubers and Williams’ as there is little more than a second separating them all.

Practice 1

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:26.461		25
2.	Hamilton	McLaren	1:26.948	+0.487	21
3.	Massa	Ferrari	1:26.958	+0.497	25
4.	Kovalainen	McLaren	1:27.114	+0.653	19
5.	Webber	Red Bull	1:28.263	+1.802	18
6.	Alonso	Renault	1:28.360	+1.899	22
7.	Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:28.579	+2.118	12
8.	Glock	Toyota	1:28.913	+2.452	16
9.	Vettel	Toro Rosso	1:28.957	+2.496	22
10.	Trulli	Toyota	1:29.014	+2.553	23
11.	Button	Honda	1:29.124	+2.663	25
12.	Fisichella	Force India	1:29.230	+2.769	24
13.	Coulthard	Red Bull	1:29.301	+2.840	5
14.	Bourdais	Toro Rosso	1:29.363	+2.902	32
15.	Barrichello	Honda	1:29.533	+3.072	17
16.	Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:29.561	+3.100	7
17.	Sutil	Force India	1:30.155	+3.694	13
18.	Piquet	Renault	1:30.357	+3.896	21
19.	Sato	Super Aguri	1:31.048	+4.587	7
20.	Davidson	Super Aguri	1:31.771	+5.310	7
21.	Nakajima	Williams	1:35.053	+8.592	3
22.	Rosberg	Williams	No time		3

Practice 2

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Hamilton	McLaren	1:26.559		33
2.	Webber	Red Bull	1:27.473	+0.914	27
3.	Massa	Ferrari	1:27.640	+1.081	29
4.	Kovalainen	McLaren	1:27.683	+1.124	29
5.	Coulthard	Red Bull	1:28.037	+1.478	26
6.	Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:28.208	+1.649	28
7.	Trulli	Toyota	1:28.292	+1.733	22
8.	Rosberg	Williams	1:28.352	+1.793	31
9.	Fisichella	Force India	1:28.469	+1.910	32
10.	Glock	Toyota	1:28.582	+2.023	28
11.	Button	Honda	1:28.632	+2.073	30
12.	Heidfeld	BMW	1:28.731	+2.172	33
13.	Alonso	Renault	1:28.779	+2.220	37
14.	Barrichello	Honda	1:28.849	+2.290	28
15.	Kubica	BMW	1:28.860	+2.301	35
16.	Nakajima	Williams	1:29.077	+2.518	33
17.	Sutil	Force India	1:29.161	+2.602	32
18.	Vettel	Toro Rosso	1:29.193	+2.634	40
19.	Piquet	Renault	1:29.518	+2.959	14
20.	Bourdais	Toro Rosso	1:29.605	+3.046	11
21.	Sato	Super Aguri	1:30.663	+4.104	16
22.	Davidson	Super Aguri	1:31.527	+4.968	8