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

Practice 2