Well... first race of the new season tomorrow. Anyone else see the new qualifying today? New rules (possibly for this race only?) those who aren't aware:



To say it was a farce today would be an understatement. Something that Bernie came up with to make the end of qualifying more exciting, and instead what we had was for the last three and a half minutes nobody out on the track and a view of the drivers getting out of their cars and getting weighed. Earlier on, we had drivers going out as they just didn't have enough time to try and improve their time before being knocked out - and this was something that would be even worse on tracks like Spa where you'd be talkng about drivers having to come out 4 minutes before their knockout time when they only have 90 seconds to save themselves. Was it worth trying something different? Possibly. But it already seems as though it could be quietly dropped before the next race.

Aas it is, Hamilton starts 1st, Rosberg 2nd, and Vettel 3rd. Lets hope the race itself is much more interesting.

Button was 5 seconds a lap faster this year in quali...
Hamilton was 2.5 seconds a lap faster

a bit was poor

Decent first race, Aloso's crash OMFG he was so lucky!!

Rosberg never troubled throughout the race really, although getting the tyres wrong on Vettel's car probably cost him the win.

Amazing debut from the Haas team, 6th is incredible

I was shocked how he just walked it off lol ,so lucky

Amazing to see how Alonso just walked away given the state of his car! Begs the question though as to how easy it would have been to get out with the halo thing for next year though.

Apparently they were almost ready to retire Rosberg for braking issue

If Hamilton didn't have that awful start he could have won it, but much closer from the ferraris

More news on the qualifying farce. At a meeting today the teams were given two options, neither of which is to revert to the old rules:

a) Stick to the rules used in Australia.

or b) Stick to the new elimination rules in Q1 & Q2 but then go back to the old rules in Q3.

It seems like this was a bolt out of the blue for the teams and thus nothing was agreed on. Apparently there could be more talks next week.

In other news, once Channel 4's deal for F1 - which was essentially taking over the remainder of the BBCs contract for partial live coverage - ends at the end of 2018, Sky have announced that they've agreed an exclusive deal to be the solve broadcaster of F1 coverage, ending terrestrial coverage.

bad news that about sky

Although I enjoy Sky's coverage of F1, I agree it is a shame Steve that those without Sky aren't going to see any live coverage any more. I think it's only been a matter of time though since they got involved in the sport that sooner or later they'd want to maximise their value by having the sole rights, and Bernie's now been persusaded that the increased fees outweighs the loss of fans through it not been shown regularly on free-to-air TV.

It was always going to go that way. The BBC had to make cost cuts so sacrificed 100% rights allowing Sky to start coverage. The BBC then had to make further cost cuts to sacrificed all F1 coverage on BBC TV - Channel 4 picked this up at what I assume to be a discounted rate for the remainder of the deal (I guess because ITV weren't interested) and not renegotiating a deal to go on further than 2018 shows Channel 4's attitude towards it in the long run.

Sky's coverage of F1 is fantastic. It's also not just a part of the regular Sky Sports pack - it's also part of the standard Sky subscription - so you can watch with a basic Sky subscription, and for £10 a month for HD, you get Sky Sports F1 HD.

The terrestrial broadcasters have always had time restraints amongst other things so when Sky came along, dedicated a complete channel to F1 and have live broadcasts from the start to well after the teams start to pack up is very good indeed.

Sky have said that they will create a FTA F1 channel showing highlights after the races, and broadcast the complete British grand prix weekend. Sure, no more terrestrial coverage, but quite a good alternative.

It's been formally confirmed now that they will be sticking to the new qualifying format in this weekends race in Bahrain. Apparently Jean Todt, the president of the FIA, had refused to have the option of the old qualifying format presented to the teams at the meeting last week as he decided he wasn't going to be dictated to by the teams. Vettel summed up the situation icely:

"Put it this way: You sell ice cream, and it's vanilla and everybody that comes to your shop is asking for chocolate ice cream. And the next day everyone comes expecting you to sell chocolate ice cream but you sell vanilla again. You do what your clients would like you to do. You are not really doing your job by doing the exact opposite."

Slightly more exciting this evening in Q3, but even less exciting in Q1 & Q2 than in Australia. Upshot is Hamilton starts 1st, Rosberg 2nd and Vettel 3rd again. Hamilton needs to start better than he has recently if he's to compete.

wish i was watching it but gotta work today so i didnt bother buying tickets

Bits of action here and there, but otherwise a fairly dull race - shame Vettel packed in on the warm up lap, as it might have spiced things up a bit. Hamilton simply has to try and pull away better, it cost him again and if he doesn't improve on this soon Rosberg is just going to sail into the distance in the championship.