It was like old times again, with Alonso leading off from pole and beginning to establish a gap at the front, then Hamilton getting past Webber and closing on a lead which was to be his from the first stops onwards. With Raikkonen second, we might have been transported back a year or two with only Webber's Red Bull in third to remind us that there is a new order these days.
Hamilton and Whitmarsh on the podium
Does it mean an end to the happy times for Brawn and Red Bull? Probably not; they are going to have to fight much harder in the second half of the season, the big two having clearly made major advances, but the tire graining problems that beset the new heroes will not continue at other races, I think.
It is interesting that the one team that seemed previously to have no tire problems in the heat, Brawn GP, suffered most in Hungary and I suspect that some of the recent tweaks to the design have altered the car's treatment of its rubber. Piling on more downforce is all very well but it must inevitably have an effect on tire wear too.
Apart from the sudden competitiveness of McLaren and Ferrari, the race provided several other talking points, with the stewards becoming involved and making some questionable decisions in the process. The announced investigation into Kimi's Ferrari at the start was not about his swerve on the run to the first corner, as I thought, but concerned the contact with Vettel's Red Bull at the exit from the corner. That, indeed, was a racing incident as the stewards ruled, there being too many cars vying for too little road at the time; but I fail to see how Webber can be penalized in Germany for his near identical dive towards Barrichello while Raikkonen went unpunished.
If Webber's move was dangerous, so was Kimi's, and the penalty for both should have been the same. Instead, it seems the matter was not even looked at in Hungary and I am left fuming at the inconsistency of stewarding decisions - as usual.
Renault's exclusion from the next race also seems very harsh when it is remembered that the offense has never been penalized before. Recent events have made everyone much more aware of the dangers involved when bits fly off the cars but to come down so savagely on Renault for what was obviously a mistake made in the heat of the moment is far too strong a reaction. Penalties for such mistakes need to be applied, yes, but the teams need to be warned beforehand if such draconian measures are proposed.
I suspect that Renault's appeal will be partially successful anyway, the blow to Spanish attendance at Valencia being too great if their hero, Alonso, does not take part in the race. Most likely the penalty will be downgraded to a fine with a severe reprimand as a warning to other teams.
It also seems strange that, whilst prepared to be severe in the case of Renault's mistake, the potentially more dangerous pitlane release of Webber into the side of Rakkonen's car escaped with a telling off. The stewards appear not to be particularly concerned about such incidents, judging from their failure to do anything about Massa's release into Sutil last year, and it may be that an accident will ultimately be the cause of a concentration of minds in this area. Pitlane incidents occur at a slower speed but they have potential for injury to those working in the pits and the existing rule should be much more vigorously applied.
Massa's accident in qualifying is what has slewed the stewarding decisions, of course, especially since it happened within a week of the death of Henry Surtees in a very similar incident. It seems premature to me to start talking of cockpit canopies, however, particularly in view of the fact that Barrichello's spring bounced off the raised sides of Massa's cockpit, the sides introduced as a reaction to the Coulthard/Wurz collision at the Australian GP of 2007. Change one aspect of the cars because of a freak accident and it becomes an eternal round of chasing the game without any prospect of ever covering all eventualities.
The fact that two accidents concerning parts of a car bouncing around the track have happened within the space of a few days does not mean that this kind of accident will now happen regularly. Bits of the cars have always flown off from time to time and it is rare that they aim themselves so unerringly at the driver of another car. Motor racing is dangerous and this is the kind of thing that makes it so. If we react by putting canopies on all the cars, how long will it be before someone suffers severe injury or death through not being able to exit quickly enough from a crashed or burning car thanks to a jammed canopy?
It cannot be predicted and that is the nature of accidents - if they could be, we would forestall them. Fix one area of danger and you are likely to open another for potential disaster. And, while on that subject, I should mention that Webber claimed that he swerved as he did at the start of the German GP because he thought Barrichello was on the other side of him. Clearly, he could not see a car that was almost alongside his and that must bring into question the wisdom of raising the cockpit sides sufficiently to limit the driver's peripheral view.
And now I find that I have hardly mentioned the race itself, having become side-tracked by so many other issues. With a three-week break coming up, that may be just as well, since it gives me an excellent excuse to look at the real racing tomorrow instead! We'll make this Part One, shall we...?