The closed season of 2002/03 had the added spice of Formula One being faced with some economic realities. Whilst it is difficult for some to sympathise with people who have some of the most ostentatious lifestyles in the world of management, there was a real chance that the Grand Prix field would sink down to just eight teams. As world-class entertainment this would hardly be deemed acceptable by sponsors and spectators alike.

Whether the FIA's hastily imposed changes would fundamentally alter what many perceive to be the thudding dullness of the racing remained to be seen. In this regard the Australian GP was eagerly awaited, although few would have betted against another crushing Ferrari and Schumacher demonstration.

Friday's one-shot qualifying put Rubens Barrichello straight to the top of the time sheets, with both he and team-mate Michael Schumacher still using last year's F2002 cars. Saturday's qualifying, in reverse order of the Friday result, put the Ferraris so far ahead on the grid that there seemed little prospect of a genuine battle at the front.

The vagaries of the one lap qualifying system resulted in some unusual grid positions as people made slight errors. Ralf Schumacher was down in ninth, with Coulthard in 11th and Kimi Raikkonen even worse off down in 15th place. With uncertainty about everyone's fuel load (remember that ten kilos of fuel is about one third of a second) it would take a few laps of the race to sort out who was running light and heading for an early fuel stop.

On top of this then came the uncertainty of the weather and the tyre situation. It had rained heavily up until about one hour before the Sunday start and despite the rapidly drying track a number of teams inexplicably fitted wet or intermediate tyres. This included both Ferraris.

As the lights were going out Rubens' car nudged forward slightly early but Schuey went into the lead, closely followed by his team-mate. Their intermediate tyres worked well for the first laps and as they headed into the third lap they had a lead of over ten seconds from the rest of the field. Then it began to go wrong. Barrichello was called in for a drive-through penalty for a jump start but before he was able to pull into the pits he lost control on his overheating tyres and slammed into the wall. With Montoya rapidly catching him, Schuey pulled into the pits to change to dry tyres but a problem with a rear wheel resulted in a 14 second stop.

The race see-sawed through two Safety Car phases to retrieve damaged cars and this assisted the two McLarens to rise from their lowly grid positions and keep in touch with the leaders. There were a number of minor off-track incursions involving nearly all the front runners and the most notable one was that Montoya spun away his lead on lap 48, just ten from the finish. this handed the lead to Coulthard but behind there was a thrilling battle as Montoya, Raikkonen and Schuey ran nose to tail. The latter was clearly handicapped by the barge boards on both sides falling off and aerodynamically he was not in a position to mount a challenge.

DC therefore took his first win (and podium) since the Monaco GP last year. With Raikkonen in third the McLaren team have established a healthy lead in the Constructors' Championship.

As a race it was good and exciting to watch. Whether the newfangled rules imposed by the FIA had anything to do with this is far from certain. It looked like it was one of those races that was full of unpredictable excitement, incidents and uncertainty until the end. Let's hope we have a few more like it.

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Even in practice Schuey was hard on it trying to find the limit

Eerie sight of F1 cars sitting idle in parc ferme - not one of the FIA's best moves

In the first few laps the Ferraris just disappeared from the rest

A recalcitrant rear wheel cost Schuey valuable time

Raikkonen nudges MS over - a move no doubt remembered

Towards the end the no. 1 Ferrari began to shed important aero bits

Victory in sight, Pablo throws it all away

Coulthard came through to a really good win

No red suits on the podium this time

pics by Ferrari, Sutton, FIA & XPB