While Sebastian Vettel took the lead from lewis Hamilton thanks to pit strategy, there was no doubt that the Italian car had the race pace for a deserved win. This is a good sign for the 2017 F1 season

Formula 1 is back. The intervening five months without the premier motorsports division have been quite boring for all F1 fans. But ever since pre-season testing began at the Circuit de Catalunya in February, a couple of things became apparent. First, the FIA’s promise that the cars would be faster was definitely true. The cars were indeed faster, ran lower to the ground and were wider — a fact made doubly apparent with the wider tyres. The second thing that was apparentIJ Well, that was Scuderia Ferrari was back. After being relegated to third place last year behind Mercedes-AMG and Red Bull Racing, the team from Maranello in Italy worked hard all winter and that work paid off during the Barcelona tests. But how would it work at Albert Park, MelbourneIJ

Well, we all know what happened. Sebastian Vettel had a rather comfortable drive to victory once he gained the lead after the first and only pitstop. Hamilton had been held up by Max Verstappen after he had pitted his Mercedes earlier than the Ferrari. But the Ferrari proved that it had the legs to win. But there was one crucial question that was not answered. Could Vettel have managed to overtake Hamilton for the winIJ This is an important issue since overtaking moves during the first F1 race of 2017 were few and far between for positions.

It appears that the newer and faster cars with more aerodynamic grip are also more susceptible to the dirty air from the cars ahead of them, which means that they rarely get a chance to follow a car within the Drag Reduction System (DRS) range of one second. Of course, this is just the first race of the season and there is a long season of constant aerodynamic tweaks and rule changes ahead. It was also clear that Mercedes remains the leader of the pack when it comes to the “one and done” format of Saturday qualifying but Ferrari was not as far behind as some thought. Testing showed that the Ferrari takes some time to get up to speed.

The other major change were the tyres. The new Pirelli Ultrasoft and Supersoft tyres are a lot more durable, so following the sprint from the start-line, the tyres do not begin to fade away in less than ten laps but last a lot longer. The Ultrasofts that most of the grid started from lasted almost 20 laps and remained in the peak operating condition for a lot longer. Of course, that depended between various chassis manufacturers, Ferrari clearly handling the tyres better over a longer distance than the Mercedes.

But is seems clear that short of a dramatic thunderstorm over the race, most races will see a single tyre change. By taking pit-stop poker out of the equation, the rule-makers may have wanted to encourage racing but the machinations by the team managers and engineers are as integral a part of the racing experience as is overtaking. As one of the commentators on the Star Sports feed said, maybe it is time for a tyre competition as well. There is already a challenge between chassis and engine manufacturers. The top three manufacturers all have different combinations. Maybe it is time for a competition between tyre manufacturers, which has not been seen since the competition between Michelin and Bridgestone a decade ago, which led to the hugely embarrassing US Grand Prix of 2005 where the Michelin drivers withdrew and the race only had six starters.

But that is a thing of the past. The fact is that while it was great to see Formula 1 back on television (only if you have high-definition though) the race itself was a bit boring, the lack of overtaking and overall incident other than a first lap collision, which is par for the course, made it slightly tedious watching. Of course, this is just the first race but some action would be nice. And it also would be nice if Mclaren-Honda made a competitive car. Of course, at least one thing is certain for 2017, it will not be a season-long Mercedes-AMG victory lap.

let us see how much changes by the time the cars return to the track in a week’s time in Shanghai.