Here we were, the long winter almost over, Caterham F1 was dead, Marussia, now Manor Marussia, was undead. Honda was back, recreating the legendary McLaren Honda partnership, the most dominate force of the late 80’s and early 90’s. And to top it all off, Sebastian Vettel had left Red Bull Racing, and followed in the footsteps of his mentor and friend, Michael Schumacher and joined the Scuderia Ferrari. All of this, plus the promise of the continued dual between the two Mercedes drivers, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, means this race should have been an explosive start to the season.
But that isn’t what happened. Let’s take a look at this upside down Grand Prix.

It was time to turn off Jacque Villeneuve’s album, (It’s real, look it up) get your F1 gear on, pound some coffee or a Red Bull, and tune into the race! Now, it was looking like a good start! We were going to have twenty cars take the start. Wait, what’s that? The Manor team is having software issues? Oh well, we still have eighteen cars! Oh what’s that? Bottas hurt the soft tissue in his back and failed the FIA tests of removing one’s self from the car. Well, that still leaves us with seventeen cars right? Oh, the McLaren Honda of Kevin Magnussen blew up on the way to the grid? And Daniel Kyvatt’s Red Bull gearbox broke? This is when I realized that this was going to be an odd race.
So, it seems like this year’s race was what we all expected last year’s to be, more of a hunger games style survival game than an actual race. Renault’s power unit seemed to take a bigger step backwards than anyone could have guessed. Mercedes’ gap was untouchable, and Rosberg still couldn’t beat Hamilton in what looked like a straight fight. Reliability was the key of this race, with only eleven cars finishing. McLaren Honda’s pre season woes continued as Button was last out even with the high causality rate. The one major shocker of the race was Williams getting blitzkrieged by the Ferrari of Seabastian Vettel, who scored a podium on his debut for Ferrari.


After such a weird Grand Prix, fans have to wonder, will this be indicative of the rest of the season? Will we have a clean sweep by the Mercedes team? Will Red Bull actually quit Formula 1? What the hell is going on with Honda? And will Manor Marussia actually get out and race? Is Ferrari really coming back on the back of another very successful German? We will find out in two weeks at the Malaysian Grand Prix. This will shake out the field more, and find the rule of the road even more.