It’s been a while, but there’s no better way to review a Formula 1 race than quarks.

Up

Early. But I’ve not watched an F1 race live for months, so no excuses. And it was broadly worthwhile, if only for Martin Brundle walking an unsurprisingly sparse grid, musing on the futility of asking Michael Schumacher for a word.

Down

Lewis Hamilton seems very down. He greeted pole position on Saturday with staggering disinterest. The only notable radio message played in during the race was Hamilton telling the team not to talk to him while he’s braking – which I’m sure is a fair point, but still.

He seemed a little perkier after impressively holding off Mark Webber to take second place in the race. But only slightly.

Charm

Michael Schumacher was unceremoniously punted out of the race by Vitaly Petrov. But both men were remarkably lovely about the incident. Schumacher told Lee McKenzie on the BBC:

“I have to say Petrov and I have had some great racing this year, so to have a few get-togethers, that’s racing.”

Petrov, meanwhile, accepted responsibility and apologised.

Bless them.

Strange

One good thing about F1 expanding into new territories is that it brings new and unfamiliar sponsors. And looking them up online is a good distraction in less interesting periods of the race.

So: SK ZIC is a Korean brand of engine lubricants; POSCO is the Pohang Iron and Steel Company.

Oh, and the massive shipyard structures in the background? Hyundai.

Top

It wasn’t a consistently fascinating race, but first laps that good are rare. Proper ding-dong stuff, nothing to do with DRS, just solidly aggressive overtaking moves.

There was some good stuff later on between Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton, too.

Bottom

That battle was slightly compromised by DRS though. With the activation zone just after turn one, it meant that a driver losing a place there would have DRS to fight back on the following straight. Not helpful.