So what went wrong with the script? Michael Schumacher planted his car on pole with a lap he pronounced to be simply perfect. And so it must have been because he was over half a second ahead of the popular Mark Webber, whose Jaguar really flew to split the two Ferraris.

Rubens, having announced to the world that he believed 2004 would be his best chance yet of winning the World Championship, was almost 0.7 secs down on Michael but said that he had spent more time in finding a correct race set-up rather than a flat-out qualifying performance.

The next spaces on the grid were filled by usual suspects, Montoya, Raikkonen and Button. Ralf was down in seventh and Coulthard again disappointed by being half a second slower than his team-mate in ninth.

As a spectacle, qualifying destroyed itself. The two-hour tedium of watching underfed cars droning around one by one must surely be adjudged a hanging offence for those who invented it.

The race was yet another peerless drive by MS. Like everyone else he was on a three-stopper and always maintained a comfortable cushion to the chasing Montoya. The latter looked decidedly glum after the race, having been unable to make any inroads into the Ferrari's lead and did himself no credit by trying to blame Rubens for deliberately holding him up and handing the win to Michael. Plainly nonsense but it again demonstrated a flaw in his character which needs patching if he is ever to fulfill his early promise of being a Schumacher-beater.

Rubens, holding second after the start, slipped up in the early damp running and let Montoya and Raikkonen through and never managed to get above fourth place again.

And as for Webber, he must have learned that there is more to being a successful F1 driver than a brilliant Q performance. Left behind at the start by what some commentators feel was a failure of launch control (thought it was banned?) he drove over-anxiously to make up for it, collided with Ralf, pitted with a puncture, got a drive-through penalty, and then spun off.

Button's BAR team took another step up the ladder, which must be a tribute to Dave Richards' management skills.Getting rid of Villeneuve's gloomy presence, not to mention the zillions of dollars freed up to go into the car, can't have hurt either. Speaking of money, whilst Button's efforts must be applauded, how can a driver who has just got his first podium after four years in F1 have already earned enough to have his own jet, own yacht and a "popstar" girlfriend?

The Renaults had a mixed weekend. From being on pole last year to starting at the back of the grid this year was a bit of a change for Alonso but he drove hard and impressively to get back up to seventh place. Team-mate Trulli underlined his journeyman characteristics with a steady drive into fifth. A good result, too, for Filipe Massa. He out-qualified the rated Fisichella for the second time and actually scored a point - maybe Ferrari were right about him. If Fisi does not soon get the upper hand it will put a fatal dent in his Ferrari ambitions.

One curious observation: there was much talk about extra cooling holes being put into the bodywork of the cars to combat the Sepang heat. Where does this put the ultra-critical millimeter-perfect aerodynamics that we are always told about? Shades of Moss at Monaco with the side panels of his Lotus removed.....

All in all, not an unenjoyable race and a huge improvement on Australia. The Ferraris' Bridgestone tyres clearly work under hot conditions as well and with various Michelin teams taking points from each other it is difficult to see, even at this early stage, what is going to prevent another Michael Schumacher romp to a championship.

It's off to Bahrain next on 4 April, a track which will be new to everyone other than Williams, who ran test driver Marc Gene for 25 laps during a local demonstration. On current performance that doesn't look like it is going to give them any kind of additional chance to beat the red ones.

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