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This weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix looks set to be the first ‘normal’ Grand Prix of the season; Australia finished under the safety car, China started under the safety car and Malaysia was a total wash-out.  The weather forecast for Bahrain though is hot and dry which should favour the Brawn GP cars.  As long as there are no sand storms…

Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber had the measure of Brawn in the wet last weekend but Button and Barrichello were faster in qualifying so they go to Bahrain as  favourites.

Ferrari tested in Bahrain over the winter so they will be hoping that experience will give them an advantage but if the Red Cars finish out of the points again it will make for Ferrari’s worst start to a Grand Prix season in history.

Force India are the only other team yet to score a point but they will be taking a new diffuser with them to Bahrain as well as some other aero updates.  Even so, team boss Vijay Mallya isn’t confident of scoring on Sunday:

As usual, we know points are going to be very difficult to achieve and we should not set this as a goal for Bahrain. Instead, we need to focus once more on reliability and consistency and look to be there if circumstances allow.

Will Brawn GP return to their winning ways or will Red Bull score their second win?  Will McLaren continue their improvement from China or will they suffer some crazy penalty from the race stewards?  Will Ferrari remember how to go fast or will Kimi Raikkonen not even bother to race and sit in the garage eating ice creams and looking bored?

To have your say in round 4 of the f1buzz prediction game, just leave a comment on this post with your driver predictions for the race in the following format:

Pole:
First:
Second:
Third:
Fastest lap:

The deadline is start of qualifying on Saturday.  Good luck!

Listening to the whinging of Renault’s Flavio Briatore you could be forgiven for thinking that the FIA had handed the Championship to Brawn GP by  ruling their double-decker diffuser legal but Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber proved that cars with ‘standard’ diffusers can still win races by taking a stunning one-two victory in China last weekend.

Even though the Brawn GP cars were carrying more fuel and were faster in qualifying, Vettel was flawless in the wet race conditions and Button could only manage third place with Barrichello behind him in fourth.

While no-one thought (correctly) the Red Cars would be a threat, Andrew was the only one to predict a podium for Vettel and so managed to narrow Sergio’s lead to three points.

Keep an eye out for the Round 4 post which will be going up soon!

Image: Getty

Once again the established order is upset and and an exciting qualifying session in Shanghai ended with Sebastian Vettel putting in a blinding lap to take pole position for Red Bull. Fernando Alonso also surprised by putting his Renault alongside him on the front row.

But were those times really indicative of race pace or were their cars fueled light?

Well, thanks to the FIA now publishing the weights of all cars after qualifying we can figure it out for ourselves.  Below is a graph showing the actual lap times of the cars compared to their fuel-adjusted lap times.  Only the top ten are shown because any car that doesn’t make it into the third qualifying session may refuel before the race.

We can see from the graph that the two Brawn GP cars are still fastest and Alonso and the two Red Bulls are fueled pretty light, although Vettel isn’t looking too bad.  Jarni Trulli could also be a threat if he gets a good start from the third row.

Sebastian Vettel showed you can still go fast in Formula One without a fancy double-decker diffuser. While car designer Adrian Newey is back at the factory figuring out how to bolt a new back end onto the car, Vettel drove the RB5 to Red Bull’s first pole position in qualifying for Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix.

Team mate Mark Webber also did well and almost looked like he was going to take pole but he will start third behind Fernando Alonso.  The Spaniard’s car was running with an interim diffuser although Renault decided not to use KERS.  In fact out of twenty cars, only three (Heidfeld’s BMW and the two McLarens) will be running a KERS device in the race.

For the first time this season there is no Brawn GP car on the front row with Barrichello starting from fourth and Jenson Button behind him in fifth.

Once Adrian Newey comes up with a new diffuser that fits the RB5 suspension, will Red Bull take over from Brawn GP as the team to beat?

2009 Chinese Grand Prix Qualifying Results

Update: Timo Glock drops five places after a gearbox change.

Image: Getty

From James Allen’s Twitter feed:

Bernie – “I’m not fighting anyone.”

Journo – “What about FOTA?”

Bernie – “Who?”

(Tip o hat to Andrew.)