Thanks to the wonders of the BBC contract I just watched the qualifying session for the Melbourne GP and it was fun!

The first race is always a bit interesting since we've had lots of rumours and speculation through testing, and even the practice sessions aren't exactly revealing, but qualifying is when they first compete and that starts to show how true everything preceding it has been. The conclusion is simple this year, F1 has gone haywire!

For all the talk in recent days about illegal diffusers it looks as if it may be less of a story than expected. All the talk of McLaren struggling didn't prepare us for such a bad showing. And the fact that nobody talked about Ferrari also made their qualifying actually more surprising. Where to start? Well today's story has to be Brawn GP, or indeed, Virgin Brawn GP as Branson announced this morning.

Where are Brawn? Well the fact that the first half of the grid is a mix of teams accused of using an illegal diffuser and those not I think basically it's nothing. Brawn are impressively far ahead, so much so that you can't doubt they'd be there regardless of their diffuser. Okay, they might have to work a little harder without it, but let's not pretend they'd be back with the McLarens or anything. Much as I love Ferrari it's great seeing other names up there, and with any luck this spread will result in lots of movement tomorrow as good drivers push their bad cars forward and good cars get pulled back by a talent shortage driving them. The thing is these crazy grids tend to only last until the teams return to Europe in a few races - I'm just hoping that things are so mixed up that we get a while longer as the big teams find their way. With everyone cutting spending this year (apparently) maybe they'll find it a little harder than expected to make up ground on the more innovative teams with a lower budget.