F1: 2010 starts in style

The Bahrain track is significantly longer than in previous years with a new, twiddly, section that causes some confusion as to the ideal set up. It upsets the cars, especially in the early laps when they are heavy, as Karun Chandhok found out: his first lap was two seconds faster than he did in qualifying or this morning's warm up, seven corners later, he hit the now notorious turn 6 bump and flew off the track, landing hard enough to break the front suspension. His team-mate Bruno Senna lasted longer - he retired after 17 laps.

The extended track increased lap times - and reduced the number of laps in the race. With only 49 laps, three quarters of which are straights or open corners, it was the twiddly bit that provided the exciting driving.

Alonso, a driver who has metronome-like performance and whose driving style is to be inch-perfect, hitting the same point on the track lap after lap, was frequently caught out by the bumps in the twiddly bit. On several laps he was tossed off-line, having to save the car as it slipped, all four wheels sliding, on the sand off-line.

Vettel, who is not so precise, fared better - he had more grip in the corners and sprinted off into the distance from his pole position start. Like all the front runners, he chose a one-stop strategy. But shortly after his new tyres were fitted, he suffered a loss of power. His pit told him there was nothing they could do, that the problem was mechanical, probably an exhaust problem. Alonso pounced, followed by Massa.

Hamilton, too, suffered from the dust off-line and also appeared to suffer more than most from turbulence when following another car: he was fast until he closed up behind another car and then struggled for front-end grip which meant he could not close early enough to make a pass on the straights - and being off-line in the corners means driving on tiny marbles.

The top eight finishers were exactly as expected - although the order was, perhaps, a little shaken up: Alonso, Massa, Hamilton, Vettel, Rosberg, Schumacher, Button and Webber - the four tipped makes of Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull being the only cars represented.

This year there are points down to tenth: Liuzzi and Barrichello picked up the last two for Force India and Williams respectively.

Sutil and Kubica did a sterling job to finish 12 and 11th respectively: they had bumped, spun and slipped almost to the back of the field in the second corner: but the cause of the crash was nothing to do with them: a huge smoke ball blew out of Webber's car, Kubica, suddenly blinded, took evasive action in case Webber's car stopped abruptly and ran into Kubica.

Out of the 24 starters, 17 were classified: both HRT cars started from the pit lane : Senna put in some decent laps and got involved in a couple of scraps - even making his first F1 pit stop before retiring. Both Virgin cars retired: di Grassi after two laps and Glock after 16 - but not before he had had some tussles with the Lotus cars.

Trulli was classified last - three laps down. He would have been two laps down if he had not waited for Alonso to come by right before the line, saving himself another lap. But had he gone round again, he would have made up another place.

Vettel parked the car, right after the line, raising a question as to whether he was too low on fuel to make it round a slowing down lap: Buemi had parked, with no signs of drama on lap 46.

The only team of the three new teams to finish was Lotus. While they were off the pace for the leaders, it was heartening to see that it took half race distance for the leaders to catch and lap them. Kovalainen, letting the leaders through, mistakenly let Hulkenberg past for position. Hulkenberg, in his first F1 race, was the only first-timer to finish but he was clearly struggling. Again, raising questions as to whether such a hot race is ideal for the first race of the season, although (except for the twiddly bit) the Bahrain track is not especially arduous.

Petrov, another first timer, was retired by Renault at his tyre stop: he had been going very well but the team noticed that the front right suspension was moving in an unnatural fashion. Surprisingly, the damage looked similar to that suffered by Chandhok.

The overtaking problems were demonstrated, also, by Button: bottled up behind Michael Schumacher who had no answer to his team-mate Rosberg's pace, Button could get close but not put his car in a position to pass without undue risk; Webber sitting behind Button was in exactly the same position. As the race edged towards the end concerns over both fuel and tyre wear led to both Button and Webber dropping out of the slipstream of the car in front and, although close enough to capitalise on any error, effectively accepted their fate in 7 and 8 respectively.

Sakhir is a difficult track for two reasons: there are very few landmarks but the track is very undulating: it's extremely difficult to see the corners - and exactly where the sand starts; also there is very little camber - so there is nothing to provide any momentary respite from a slide. Surprisingly, almost no one went off, even a little bit.

So, was it an exciting race? In parts, yes, it was all that this season promises. But it also raises some serious concerns as to whether there will be any overtaking. Almost all overtaking was due to a problem. There was very little out-and-out racing for position. There were some moments but they were rare.

As the cars head for Melbourne, and the bumpy street circuit, teams will be thankful that it's not a low downforce track: that will help them run closer to the car in front. And as a point-and-squirt track, Melbourne has multiple overtaking opportunities in braking zones.

But it will have hazards of a different kind: the new teams are almost certain to have problems with the handling on a street circuit and any fragility in the cars will be shown up: that will be a particular concern for Virgin which have a problem with the hydraulics and bumps are not what they need. Because the new teams will be significantly slower, in a tighter and shorter track, it will not take half the race for the front runners to come up behind them. It's likely that all six will still be running when the leaders first come across them. They will be having their own battle and will, even if they try not to, hold up the leaders causing a series of bottlenecks.

That didn't happen in Bahrain and the cars were spread out 0 more than a minute covered the first ten cars - but only 2.2 second covered 6 to 8 - roughly the distance they held for most of the last ten laps and demonstrating the overtaking problem.