The 2013 Formula One Season Begins!

As I stare out my office window and watch yet another 8 inches of snow fall in what has been a miserable winter here in the Northeast of the United States I guess it does seem appropriate that the Iceman shocked the world and stormed to victory in the opening race of the 2013 Season in Melbourne.  Love him or hate him, Kimi Raikkonen certainly does have a style all his own on and off the track.

It was certainly an interesting start to the season all around with a significant change for the US being a new broadcasting company (NBC Sports Network) who did a terrific job.  I was a little worried that the demise of SPEED TV would be the demise of Formula One coverage here in the States but NBC put a fresh new spin on it and I am hopeful they will be able to grow the popularity of the series here in the US.

I also can’t remember a qualifying session quite like the one we witnessed this weekend either.  That first session looked more like a race then a qualifying session with drivers blocking and weaving to try and maintain track position in truly awful conditions.  In the end a 12 hour delay really did nothing to stop the dominance of the Red Bull machines of Vettel and Webber, at least in qualifying.

Pirelli proved once again that they are going to make tire strategy a central focus of all of these races by bring an incredibly short lived super soft compound to Melbourne.  This obviously caught out most of the teams with Kimi being the only driver able to make a two stop strategy work resulting in his dramatic race win.

It will be fun to see how the teams really do stack up in race two in Malaysia this weekend and I suspect that the Red Bull team will be back in front again if they can get off the starting line (cough, cough Webber) and make those Pirellis last.  McLaren certainly seems like they need to up their game if they want everyone to forget about losing out on the Lewis Hamilton sweepstakes this off season.