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The season opener in Melbourne last night is what they'd call a corker. We need converts. I wrote a little about it this morning and thought I'd share.
Nine crashes. Six mechanical failures. And one driver who forgot there was a traffic signal at the end of Pit lane. I hardly know what to say. The best I can come up with is, "Wahoo! We get to do it all again next week!"
It's difficult, at least for me, to say how much of last night's/today's/what-the-hell-day-is-it-in-Australia-anyway's mayhem stemmed from the new old-school rules regarding traction control and engine braking. I don't know if the new standardized ECU (electronics control unit) caused some teams a variety of integration difficulties leading to reliability issues. It's too early in the season and I'm not near savvy enough to comment. All I can say, is that it was business as usual for Formula 1, as far as I'm concerned: gorgeous, noisy, exciting, and full of political intrigue, with plenty of English to be picked from a variety of accents.
For sports enthusiasts, I can only say, give F1 a chance if you haven't. The field of players is small enough that, in no time, you'll be intimately acquainted with the personalities and relationships. Its history is full of guts and glory and feuds, really good feuds. The venues are exotic and a geography lesson, at the very least. And the intricacies of the cars can satisfy all, from the pure aesthete to the ultimate engineering geek.
Personally I fall somewhere in the middle. I have a reaction to the swoop and flash of the machines that's not particularly wholesome, but even more than that, I love the giddy little thrill in the feats of aerodynamics and technology achieved here. I don't understand many of them, but I swoon at the accomplishments of mankind - somewhere, someone understands it all.
People are so cool.
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