New season

The revised Formula 1 Grand Prix rule which bans re-fueling looks very much as if it will result in boring races. Certainly today's race in Bahrain, the first of the new season, was one big yawn. It was good to see Ferrari back on form, disappointing that Michael Schumacher didn't do better, and sad to see Sebastian Vettel's car become sick and drift backwards down the field and out of a podium position. It's way too early after one race to know how the new points system will affect things, and it's going to take a while to get sued to the idea of such a big points gap between first and second finishers. One thing's sure, though: today's boring procession was the worst possible advertisement for the sport. More of the same will be a disastrous.

For the first time, we watched the race on Carl's big screen, and wonderfully impressive it looked. I stuck to my grand plan and left as soon as the race ended, back home to do some work (not particularly productive, unfortunately).