...and the lights go out...

...no, not for Earth Hour.

The race is on!

What happened to Barrichello?

Button in front by miles...

Heidfeld with a puncture.

Barichello caused a little bit of fuss at the first corner - carbon fibre all over the place and poor old Mark Webber lost his front wing.

Kovalainen is out with a very broken looking car.

Button is already 4.4 secs ahead on Lap 3.

**time for me to have a look at the onboard camera screens on the BBC**

Onboard camera is sticking with Hamiltwunt at the moment so I'll pass on that.

Not as many retirements as I thought there'd be by this point! (Certainly not as many as last year!)

Rosberg just scampered past Kimi, then Barrichello tried it and clipped him.

Kimi in the pits - puncture?

Rosberg now menacing Kubica who is all over the back of Massa.

Pit stops have started - Ferrari and MacLaren have both now used their soft tires - hopefully this will give Ferrari an advantage at the end.

Rosberg had a pitstop problem that held the poor boy up. But it meant we got to watch a lovely pass on him by Kimi.

Button is miles in front!

Nakajima into the wall - safety car.... poor Button!

That whole thing with the safety car was a bit of a screw up, they let it go after Button so the whole field had to go past it! Now Button will be stuck behind it for ages... and the debris/car seems to have been shifted already!

The safety car has been out for ages with the track clear, very frustrating!

Massa keeps locking up. Brundle - "His tyres will look like a 50p piece soon"

Piquet takes the first corner sideways and slides right to the back of the very wide gravel trap!

Hamilton passes Glock very easily...again!

33 laps to go BTW.

Have got the perfect setup now - TV showing main feed, PC showing the onboard streams. Lovely jubbly.

20 laps to go, things have quietened down for the moment, but the last pit stops are all starting...

Hamilton comes out of the pits and decides to try and squeeze Massa off the track straight away. Kimi bumps into the wall...but keeps going.

Fisichella up to 8th!

Eeep!

Button had a pit stop problem, can't tell if he got enough fuel, but he got out in front of Vettel.

Drat it, Massa is out. His car was sounding very very ill.

Barrichello pits and comes out behind Rosberg, then a couple of laps later sticks in a fabulous pass.

Glock is trying to take people out as he tries to pass them - apart from Hamilton of course.

Hamilton is up to 7th. Anthony says - "It pains me to say it, but he's driven a good race."

Holy crap.

Kubica and Vettel duking it out.

Kubica takes Vettel out then hits the wall himself.

Poor Vettel.

Hurrah for Button! Hurrah for Barrichello! (unless anything breaks)

*********************

So just as last year, it's the British national anthem. But this time it's for a driver who has really earned it.

w00t!!!

No chance of going back to bed as I did last year, partly cos the race was later, partly cos I'm too fucking hyper!

*chequered flag*

Good morning...

...Australia.

Yup, I'm awake again. But this morning doesn't seem so bad since the clocks changed this morning. Instead of getting up at 5am, it was 6am!

I am going to blog this just like last year, well, not just like last year, I'm going to put the whole lot in one post and update as I go - that way nobody reads the last bit first!

Once again the clever buggers at the BBC are doing text updates, and the fact that Twitter has taken off this year means that I've also got Tweetag to keep an eye on (and find some new tweeps through).

It's now 40 minutes to race start...time to get everything organised - no ad breaks to get extra drinks in!

I got up at...

...4.45am this morning.

Ok, so the qualifying didn't actually start until 6am, but the first showing of the new titles was at 5am and I couldn't miss them.

I am very, very glad that ITV aren't doing the coverage this season.

Partly because this mornings results would have completely stumped James Allen.

Yes, there is a British driver on pole.














But it's not the Hamiltwunt...he's 15th on the grid after a terrible Q1 and then his gearbox giving out.













Thank you Jenson.

You've had so much crap over the last two years with people saying you were a has-been. Even real F1 fans were starting to worry.

Now just get rid of that manky beard!