Mika's comment at the arrival to Australia: "There is always a special feeling about the first race of a new season. We have been doing a lot of testing for the past couple of months but it's only now we get a chance to see where we are compared to everybody else. The Australian Grand Prix is a good start to the season and always produces a fantastic atmosphere".

This year's first qualifying session was a dream to all Häkkinen and McLaren fans. Häkkinen seemed self confident and for a good reason: He raced, he won. That simple. Coulthard took surprisingly the second place from Schumacher and the McLaren-Mercedes Team seemed better than ever.  But we'd soon learn something else...

Mika's comment after the qualifying session: "I'm very happy to start the season with a pole position, which is my third consecutive Australian Grand Prix pole. We had to change the engine this morning, so we only had a small amount of time to find an optimum qualifying set-up. However we managed to find a set-up which suited the conditions, went out at the right time and got the best out of the tyres. All in all a very good job by everybody".

The race: My comments on this season's first GP will be short. Not only because Häkkinen's car broke down in the very beginning of the race, but also because I overslept and missed the whole darn thing. When I woke up and ran like hell to the living room [cursing all the way, naturally] and turned on the tv, several things happened to me at the same time: I noticed the word "WINNER" in the bottom of the screen, and saw the flash of a red car, followed by Schumacher's name written next to "WINNER" and then the terrifying moment when the question popped up in my head: Was Häkkinen hurt badly? The possibility of Schumi actually beating Häkkinen only by driving did not even occur to me. Schumi had won, Häkkinen had had to drop out, perhaps even hurt. Luckily it was not the case. But it explained everything. Both McLaren cars dropped out after just 14 laps (I think), joined by Frentzen, Irvine and many other drivers. Australia is famous for being the GP where more than half of the drivers drop out, most likely because it's the first GP and the Teams still have a lot to learn, including McLaren, unfortunately excluding Ferrari, those bastards... This year only 9 drivers out of 22 made it to the finishing line. Despite the fact that I felt like spitting on Schumi's self-satisfied smiling face  when he declared the Australia GP's victory for his own hard work (ridiculous! How can you NOT win when driving a perfectly good Ferrari competing against... Well, who was left really?), I try not to think too much of this disaster otherwise. Not worth it. McLaren failed, as they did last year too. Perhaps they're better prepared for Brazil's Grand Prix in two weeks... Until then... Hold on, Häkkinen!

Mika's comment after the race: "Obviously I'm disappointed to leave Australia and the first race of the season without any points, particularly since I didn't score any points here last year either. I was very happy with the car until I was forced to retire with a technical failure. We will identify exactly what caused the problem and work hard to solve it before the next race".

Last year Mika also took the pole position, and he also retired, in lap 23 because of engine problems. He had a MAJOR lead until the safty car came on the track because of an accident involving Jacques Villenueve. Only eight out of 22 cars made it to the finishing line.