The 2010 Formula 1 is the most anticipated season with all the riffraff of headlines that dominated during the pre-season. With the most exciting driver pairings, the comeback of the greatest driver ever (well statistically speaking) and a whole raft of rule changes, the season promised a lot of wheel-to-wheel racing, which has been sorely lacking for some time now and controversial intra-team battles.

So with the four equally controversial fly-away races gone by, what have learned so far?

TEAM-MATE WARS WILL GO ON UNTIL SEASON’S END

Hamilton-Button, Alonso-Massa, Vettel-Webber, these were the most exciting and volatile driver pairings in a few season’s time according to experts and it didn’t fail to deliver with amazing duels between them in equal measure.

Button has won two races thus far thru wise and inspired tyre choices while Hamilton lets his racing heart on his sleeve by providing most of the overtaking in the four races we’ve had.

Fernando lets Massa know who’s top dog in Ferrari from the off with the most ostentatious overtakes a driver can do to his teammate. The team tries hard to deny rift between its drivers and further bolstered by media statements from both drivers. But how long can they hide it? The cracks in the Ferrari garage will show. For sure.

Mark Webber must be left wondering what more can he do to beat his teammate ‘coz whatever he does Vettel can do better. The RB6 makes Vettel the best qualifier so far with three poles in four races. It should’ve been a walkover but has only netted a solitary victory. Many factors have played into this: the weather, the RB6’s unreliability, and in my opinion, the team’s inexperience competing at the sharp end of the grid.

SCUMACHER HAS LOST HIS MOJO

What was not expected was the underperformance Michael Schumacher. Not only was he out-classed by his much younger teammate, he was out-foxed and out-raced by other F1 newbies as well. This was not expected of the seven-time world champion. There was a time when the mere mention of the name Schumacher strikes fear at the heart of the competition, but not anymore. He has now been reduced to being a has-been. It would be interesting how he will get through with this through.

A new longer wheelbase chassis is being built specifically for his driving requirements. This is being rushed for the Spanish GP. So extensive are the changes to the car that it can already be considered a B-spec. If with this new B-scpec chassis he fails to deliver still expect Nick Heidfeld to come slamming through the door.

DODGY WEATHER BRINGS GREAT RACING

The season kicked-off not with great racing, but with controversy. Bore-gate was the talk of the F1 community after the Bahrain GP. Everybody criticized the new rules and how much a failure it was. Some lobbied for mandatory 2-stops and some wanted refueling back, but thankfully the three races that followed were corkers so surely that was a big relief for Bernie Ecclestone.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that everything is all fine and dandy in the world of Formula 1 for it was the weather’s intervention and some top runners out of position due to poor qualifying that was the racing. Another weekend of sunshine surely out comes the knives again.

P1 SLOT IS CURSED

What’s been unique so far is the driver who grabs pole on Saturday doesn’t romp off into victory on Sunday afternoon. That’s thanks in part to Red Bull’s unreliability and Mother Nature for turning McLaren and Ferrari’s weather computers into mashed jelly. Clearly this will not be Massa’s season if this trend continues throughout the year.

MCLAREN’S F-DUCT AND RED BULL’S RIDE HEIGHT ARE THE NEW DOUBLE DIFFUSERS

It holds true that Formula 1 fosters the best engineering minds and solution. Last year’s controversially brilliant double-decker diffuser pushed the limits of the regulations. This year what we have, although less controversial, but similarly brilliant is McLaren’s F-Duct and Red Bull’s secret ride height control.

What McLaren’s F-duct does is stall the rear wing which in effect reduces drag. Incoming air passes through a duct mounted just aft of the driver cockpit. With the help of black magic the air snakes though the car’s body and is vented out onto the rear wing effectively stalling it. Brilliant! This is how Hamilton and Button achieves their higher straight line speeds and pass other cars easily. Sauber currently is the only team to have used a similar system but to a lesser result. Other teams are said to be in a hurry to implement similar systems in their cars in time for the Spanish GP.

Red Bull’s ride height controller is the biggest mystery in Formula 1 at the moment. Engineers are left scratching their heads on how Red Bull can run so low on qualifying and still maintain its ride height even when heavily laden with fuel. Some have speculated on hydraulics and some speculated on trick dampers.

McLaren tried to have their own system but was warned by the FIA that active ride height is illegal. So how does Red Bull do it without breaching the rules? Surely the FIA have scrutinized the RB6 before the start of the season and after each race. One thing that’s sure is the mystery will give up the ghost in a few races time. It always does in Formula 1.

IT’S NOT EASY BEING THE NEW GUYS

As AC/DC sang: “it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock n’ roll”. This never is truer for the new teams. Consistently being 4-5 seconds really goes to show that competing in the pinnacle of motorsport is not an easy task.

Of the three new teams Lotus has widely been regarded as the best of them having at least a car in the four races so far.

Virgin has the better pace relative to its competition (which is the other new teams) but only once did they finish a race. This is due to their troublesome hydraulics system and their miscalculated miniscule fuel tank size.

The third team, HRT, is a bit of a conundrum. Their chassis was built by Dallara who declared that before the start of the season that their package was theoretically 1 second faster than the two new team’s car. After the qualifying in Bahrain I was left wondering where that 1 second went. I think the combination of zero-winter testing plus two green drivers have masked the real potential of the package.

I too think it’s gonna be long way to the top for these guys.

PAUL ABADILLA