Well that was good, wasn’t it?
The FIA gave the rules a good old shake and turned the grid upside down in the process. From that point of view it looks as if they got something right although if Brawn GP continue at their current rate they could become the Ferrari of the late noughties.
The only downside of what was a very positive first race weekend of the year was the absurd penalty meted out to Sebastian Vettel for his part in the clash with Robert Kubica.
To dock him ten places on the grid for Malaysia is as unfair as any penalty handed out by the stewards in recent memory and that includes all the Hamilton shenanigans in Spa last year.
Vettel was racing for second place within a few laps of the finish with a team that has never won a Grand Prix. Okay, his super soft tyres were not working and some might argue that he should have taken a pragmatic view and decided not to duke it out with a car that was clearly quicker.
But that doesn’t change the fact that he was perfectly entitled to race for position and surely that’s what we want to see more of, isn’t it? He did his best to get his car stopped in time and, if anything, Kubica squeezed him a little and should have run a little wider in the corner to make sure of avoiding contact.
Vettel didn’t weave around or punt anyone deliberately and now he has been penalized for some honest racing which is the point of the whole exercise, or am I missing something?
The FIA have drastically altered the appearance of the cars with the intention of promoting overtaking but now, with this decision, they will create further caution and doubt among the drivers.