Well, well, well, it seems that Adrian Newey designs a good car for the wet. The Toro Rosso was the car to have when it rained last year and this time it's the Red Bull, as demonstrated by both Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber in the soggy Chinese GP. Not that I wish to detract at all from young Vettel's excellent performance, but I think he'll find it much harder to win a race in the dry.
Sebastian Vettel on his way to Red Bull's first victory
The superiority of the RB5 was apparent from the moment they emerged from the first pit stops. Theoretically, the Brawns should have been faster now that they had the lighter fuel load but no, the reverse was true. The car advantage of the Red Bull in the wet looked to be about the same as that enjoyed by the BGP 001 on a dry track. This is good news for the season, that it should be these two teams so evenly matched, since all hysteria over the supposed superiority of the double diffuser looks wildly exaggerated now. Some designers do not need a trick diffuser to build a quick car it seems. Flavio, take note.
Vettel did a good job with no mistakes, admittedly made a little easier by being the only driver with a clear view of where he was going. That is what impressed me about der Seb at Monza last year and again in Shanghai on Sunday - he was both fast and consistent, without the occasional off track excursions suffered by almost everyone else. It may be that the lad is as good as they say he is.
Mark Webber has not thrown in the towel just yet, however, and I expect we will see fortunes equally divided between the Red Bull drivers this year. Webber's performance may not have been quite as flawless as Vettel's in this wet race but he was as quick - and, if he can get ahead of the young German, good luck to the lad in trying to get past again.
The Brawns proved slightly disappointing in comparison with the Red Bulls but were still better than the rest. Jenson Button was obviously happy enough with third place, knowing that there are usually more dry races than wet in any given season. He had rather more luck in the timing of pit stops than did Rubens Barrichello but deserved his better placing through getting ahead of his team mate in the first stint. Generally quicker throughout the race, in spite of Rubens' capture of fastest lap, Jenson showed himself just as much of a wet weather driver as the Brazilian.
With Kovalainen in fifth and Hamilton taking sixth, McLaren showed that they are still a force to be reckoned with - no thoughts of giving up on this season and preparing for 2010 in their camp! Hamilton was brilliant in the first half of the race, clearly staking his claim to be rainmeister, but then overcooked it a couple of times towards the end, letting Heikki through in the process. That Kovalainen was there at all must have been a huge relief to him but he did well in this race, driving consistently, quickly and rather more aggressively than we have seen before.
Toyota were undone by the rain, of that I have no doubt. Trulli was a good outside bet for the win had it been dry but he looked unsure on so wet a track. For a while he seemed to be jostled by everyone and it was a relief when Kubica did the job properly and put him out of the race. Timo Glock fared better, albeit with a bump or two of his own and he earned his seventh spot.
Which leads me on to the Toro Rossos, the other Adrian Newey design. Like the RB5, the STR4 was good in the wet and Buemi continued his surprising climb in our estimation. The rookie fought well throughout the race and was well worth the final point. Bourdais, too, was quick but threw it away with too many explorations of the run-off areas.
Perhaps it would be kindest to say little of the Renaults and Ferraris, although Massa was putting in a great performance until his engine died. Raikkonen never looked happy in a very heavily fuelled car and disappeared from contention with his single pit stop. What a contrast with the fiery display from Alonso, who drove his Renault well beyond its capacity, at times looking magnificent, at others overdoing things and departing the track. If nothing else, he was good value for money.
BMW had a miserable race, the car looking quite a handful on the streaming track, and both Heidfeld and Kubica had enough incidents to last them a season. They lasted to the end, somewhat amazingly in view of Robert's spectacular collision with Trulli, and so preserved Nick's growing record of the most GPs without a retirement. As Kubica grumpily pointed out before the race, the team needs a double diffuser as soon as possible.
And so to Force India and the fated Adrian Sutil. I will give him his due - put a bit of water on the track and he comes good. To have been within four laps of giving the team their first points must have been as heart-rending as his departure from the race in Monaco last year. This time he needed no Kimi to drive into him, however, the car snapping away from him almost as though something had broken. We all felt for him, I'm sure.
Williams put together a very poor race, Nico Rosberg trying desperate tire strategies in his attempts to gain places and Nakajima retiring ignominiously. Like Ferrari, this is a team that needs to stop dreaming of better days and concentrating instead on finishing rather than fighting above their weight. The car is good but not as great as Rosberg's ambition.
Overall, it was an entertaining race with plenty of interest and incident. The rain made all the difference, destroying carefully thought-out strategies and mixing up the order once again. Things will be different in Bahrain (it can't rain there, surely?) but it looks as though we have our two main protagonists for the championship already - Brawn GP versus Red Bull. And I, for one, am happy to see the red/silver domination broken at last.