In Malaysia the new F1 regulations began to make sense. The changes have introduced uncertainty and therefore variety, not only by upsetting the status quo, but also by imposing new demands on the teams and drivers.

Unfortunately for Ferrari fans this has come largely at the Scuderia’s expense, with their cars qualifying 12th and 13th. In the race, Rubens retired an otherwise healthy car because his softer tyres were totally shot and Schuey struggled to 7th place and suffered the indignities of being beaten and lapped by a Toyota and finishing behind the rejuvenated Coulthard in his Red Bull, who are now ahead of Ferrari in the Constructors' Championship!

Q1 made sense because everyone was running low fuel and we again had a measure of the absolute speed of the cars and drivers. I enjoy the one-at-a-time format, but a return to the old free-for-all would demand more skill and introduce more uncertainty but make it harder to follow on TV - which incidentally was much better than Oz. I still don’t like the aggregate system because the grid is determined largely by Q1, the teams would have to decide how much fuel they were going to start with anyway, so Q2 is largely redundant.

Renault was on top again in qualifying though this time it was Alonso’s turn. Trulli qualified his Toyota second. He does have a reputation as a single-lap specialist but his car did look good and sharp, in marked contrast to the Ferraris which looked lethargic, both drivers suffering from a lack of rear-end grip. The heat of Malaysia brought home Ferrari’s disadvantage in being the only decent team on Bridgestone tyres – how much worse would it have been if they’d acceded to the testing limitation?

Alonso won the race, leading throughout, but increasingly troubled by oversteer as his rear tyres wore out. This was revealed by the pit-to-car radio as they offered to take front wing off and reduce rear tyre pressure at the pit stop. The broadcasting of these snippets does add another element to the race, introducing such esoteric delights as “Turn 6 in 5th gear is better for crankcase pressure”, or something. They’ll have to produce a glossary.

Neither BAR lasted long enough for the drivers to be troubled by such concerns, with synchronized Honda blowing-up on lap 3. This was appallingly bad luck for Davidson as he had been given a race chance at last, substituting for Sato who was ill. The engine failures must be particularly galling for the team after the stick they took following their decision to retire otherwise healthy cars in Australia so they could start with fresh engines in Malaysia! An angry Button said afterwards that the team had taken a huge step backwards. One wonders whether the absence of Dave Richards’ leadership is a contributory factor, particularly as the Prodrive Aston Martin DBR9 took a class win in a dream debut at the Sebring 12 hours this same weekend.

What must have made it even worse for Honda was that Trulli confirmed the potential shown in qualifying by their arch-rival Toyota and raced to second in the race, the previously underachieving team’s first podium. Just to rub it in, Ralf finished in the points too.

The mention of Schuey Jnr. brings us to the second major breakthrough brought about by the new regulations - there was actually some racing! As the tyres wore the cars' balance changed, the grip went away and the drivers had to adapt to it, rather than diving into the pits for a fresh set of boots.

On lap 32 Ralf made a lunge up the inside of Webber, out braked himself and the two cars touched. In the confusion Heidfeld in the second Williams piled in, passing the Toyota and attacking his team leader. Webber defended, which allowed Ralf to re-pass his countryman, but Heidfeld kept his cool and got him back!

Ahead of this brawling bunch Fisichella was in third place, but was clearly struggling and once they’d sorted themselves out, they quickly reeled him in and Webber saw an opening at Turn 14 and dived opportunistically up the inside to snatch third place. Fisi defended and after much slithering and sliding on worn out tyres, the two cars tangled and both retired.

Then it came to me in a blinding flash - this generation of drivers just doesn’t know how to race ! It’s not a lack of talent; it’s just that they’ve never learned how because they’ve never had to! They have been driving sophisticated, sensitive cars for their whole careers, with data loggers recording every split-second and engineers analyzing the data, adjusting the cars and coaching them to produce perfect times. Add to this most of them came through control formulae, where the cars are fundamentally the same, with endless testing on new tyres and billiard-table smooth circuits. They qualify within 100ths of each other and then follow each other round at high speed. The final element in the equation is that the strength of the cars and the excellence of safety equipment means that they can pretty well crash into each other with impunity.

In the past, the cars and the circuits meant that this sort of behavior would have resulted in injury or death to both parties. I’m not suggesting that this was a good thing, far from it, but modern drivers have to re-learn the old adage, that “To finish first, first you must finish”; to race without crashing into each other and to adapt to and compensate for a car which changes throughout the race and becomes less than perfect.

It’s early days yet, but if the new regs have re-introduced racing then bravo for Max! I’m more excited about F1 than for a long time. Now we just him need to get rid of most of the manufacturers, get Cosworth V8s into most of the cars, get rid of more downforce and get them back on slicks...

The only downside is that Ferrari is suffering. We have the F2005 to look forward to and see if the current super-successful but mature regime can find the motivation to meet this new challenge after having things their own way for so long. I’m sure they will, but I’ll bet that there are a few older Ferrari fans who are quietly pleased. Pain and pleasure are all part of the traditional Ferrari masochism, so they tell me. The F1 team wins most of the time, the current generation of road cars start on demand, run on all cylinders, are quiet, comfortable, easy to drive, reliable and don’t go rusty – where’s the fun in that? Vittorio Meldrew will be digging out the SWB keys this week...

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