For the record, as most of you will know, Pastor Maldonado won the Spanish Grand Prix for Williams Grand Prix Engineering, heading home King Fernando’s Ferrari and Raikkonen in the Lotus. Some will know that this was the first win for Williams since Juan Pablo Montoya won the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix. Some, possibly fewer, will know that the last time five different drivers from five different teams won the first five races of a season was some twenty nine years ago in 1983. Coincidentally enough, the fifth winner that year was also sitting in a Williams as Keke Rosberg won at Monaco.

Maldonado was Williams first winner in almost eight years

  Four races, four different winning drivers and cars, four different championship leaders, four different drivers and cars finishing second, four fourths in a row for Mark Webber and about four gazillion races since two Lotus’s finished on the podium in a Grand Prix. It may not seem like it just yet but are the stars aligning behind the Hoon in car 4? For the record, Sebastian Vettel left Bahrain as the fourth different winner and championship leader although he damned near didn’t. Kimi Raikkonen came within inches of pinching that victory in his John Playe…..errr….sorry, Lotus.

Vettel is this years fourth winner from four races.

  Good-bye Silver Slings, the Arrows are back. After 111 Grand Prix starts Nico Rosberg has given a works Mercedes team their first victory since the great Juan Manuel Fangio won at Monza in 1955. After two tough years since their return some were doubting that this latest iteration of the Silver Arrows would ever match their illustrious predecessors with victory at the sports highest level. While they still have some work to do before they can be considered true championship contenders, it’s good for both the team, and Nico, and the sport for that matter, that they now have that monkey of their first win, well and truly off their backs. Even better that this win was no fluke or fortune of circumstance, as was King Fernando’s superb win in Malaysia, as Nico dominated the whole weekend and justly deserved this fine win.

Nico Rosberg celebrates his first win, and Mercedes first since 1955

  King Fernando’s description “the most beautiful” applied only to his miraculous win in the Malaysian Grand Prix, certainly not to his Ferrari or its handling. Regarding the latter he would have been justified in quoting Keke Rosberg after his 1984 Dallas GP win in the evil Williams FW09 Honda. As the track fell apart and great drivers in good cars came unstuck due to the abnormally bad grip conditions Keke sailed through to an unlikely victory and said that the crumbling track “made no difference to me, my car always handles like shit.” Then again, he is driving for Ferrari and the last bloke to get away with lambasting a prancing horse was the sublime Gilles Villeneuve who described the 1981 126CK as being like “a big red Cadillac.” When Alain Prost tried to suggest something similar a decade later, he was summarily sacked. “Merde”

King Fernando - F1's wet weather wizard

  Or Daniel mauls the Lion again. Continuing his super form from 2011 Jenson Button again outraced Lewis (The Hoon) Hamilton to take victory in the Australian Grand Prix. Last year Jenson became the first driver in the same team to outscore Lewis over a championship and at Albert Park yesterday he continued that supremacy in convincing fashion. Since winning the championship with Brawn in 2009 and then “entering the Lion’s den” by joining the Hamilton dominated McLaren squad Button has proved just what an outstanding Grand Prix driver he really is. The Hoon still has the advantage over a single lap and displayed that on Saturday when he was the only driver in the 1m 24’s and beating Jenson to pole, but come race day over the last year Button has had the upper hand. The comparisons with Alain Prost do not end with his super smooth style. Neither may have dominated qualifying when up against a super fast team-mate, but both are bloody hard to beat come Sunday afternoon.

Button maintained his place of eminance in the Lion's den

  When the F1 rule makers wrote the new regulations regarding the height of the nose of a Formula 1 car for 2012, I’m sure that their main concern was the safety aspect, but I reckon that they also had in mind that the lower nose would make the cars more pleasant to the eye. Something along the lines of the McLaren MP4/27 whose nose slopes gently and gracefully and yet stays within the new parameters. Unfortunately the three other new cars that have been launched so far look as if they have been built using Lego blocks and have all the aesthetic appeal of a dog turd in a swimming pool. A couple of years back folk were dismayed by the appearance of the cars with the very wide front and the narrow rear wings. Sure, they were ugly but you sort of got used to them, they were just different from what we had previously been used to and so after a while you just stopped noticing them. They were just wings after all. But the cars launched by Ferrari, Force India and Caterham? Yee Gods, I have seen more attractive Soviet era apartment blocks.  Genital warts have more appeal.

Probably close to what the rule makers were hoping for - the McLaren MP4/27

  In a result reminiscent of the period John Smith won the Tasman Revival feature race driving the very same Lotus 49 that Graham Hill campaigned here in the 1969 Tasman Series. He led home Rob Hall in the ex-Chris Amon Ferrari 246T by just over one and a half seconds with the Brabham BT30 of Chris Farrell in third place. Unfortunately for the organisers and an enthusiastic crowd the rain then arrived spoiling the races for the Sports cars and the thundering Formula 5000s.

The rain came tumbling down to spoil the last few races

  Eastern Creek on the last weekend in November was the setting for the second Tasman Revival meeting, a splendid memory trip laid on by the HSRCA. With a staggering 474 historic race cars from all corners of the earth in action it was an impressive effort by the organizers. The sight and sound of these, some of which have not been seen in this country for almost 40 years, and the quality of the racing made this one of the most enjoyable meetings I have attended here.   

Ferrari 246T

  After a wet and dismal summer the Sun Gods once again smiled on Lord March and for three glorious days in mid September bathed the Goodwood circuit under warm clear blue skies. The spectacular weather was then equaled by the sensational racing, and when combined with some stunning machinery, some of the greatest names in the sports history and the usual jaw-dropping air display, the world’s premier fancy dress race meeting was, as always, a resounding success. Three days of pure, unadulterated, absolute pleasure. And so thought the over 120,000 fans who attended. I guess there was probably someone who was disappointed (there is always one miserable git) but if there was, no-one noticed. Big Brother is ignoring you………

Stirling Moss in action at the Revival