Round 9 has passed on by...

...and the battle up front in F1 is still hot and sweaty. It's been an interesting season so far, Lewis has come in and mixed it up very nicely. Kimi is starting to finally settle in, I think the Fin thought he was going to have it all his own way after his dominant win in Australia but a few slaps later and young Hamilton has a genuine chance at the title.

I hear that they removed his favorite pasta dish from the Ferrari motor home and instead had Finnish pickled herring on the menu, no wonder his performance has improved...

Disasters. Toyota and Red Bull have both had a real shocker of a year so far, points total between them? 15. Budget? $26million per race (and that's for Toyota alone!) Toyota has scored 9 of those points and each point has cost them 50 million dollars...That's of course if you take their annual budget and divide it by the amount of points scored in 2007 so far.

Red Bull would have faired better this year (so far) had they had better reliability. Adrian Newey's design's are not exactly renown for reliability and I suppose the results support that. There have been flashes of speed though and I still expect the team to get amongst the more regular points finishes before the end of the year. Both drivers are signed up for 2008 so there is stability and that is good for all in the team.

BMW. Great start but the last few races have been weighed down with too much pilsner and bratwurst with no more forward movement that the earlier season races promised.

Shining lights, future superstars? Rosberg. Awesome season so far. He missed the cut (lost out in Q1) last weekend in Britain but that wasn't his fault. Naturally I have to include Lewis, sure he is in one of the best cars and for a few races he was in the best car, still he has managed to nail 9 consecutive podiums, has been superbly consistent and used the machinery at his disposal to amazing effect. All this with the current double world champion as his team mate.

Kubica. He must have a head as hard as 'er one of our brethern to take such a knock and sprint home 4th in hi next GP. Top stuff. He's the man Hamilton reckon's will be up there battling alongside in the coming years. We've seen nothing as spectacular as his first few races from last year but the top four haven't really let anyone else play much have they?

Sutil in the dreadful Spyker has done well too but hard to gauge a performance from a television point of view considering how rubbish his car is.

As for 'Kova' the verdict is still out, there's been mistakes but he has a brilliant reputation and a much harder introduction than the other rookies.