Finally the off-season is over!

Finally finally finally the off-season is over and the start of the season 2012 approaches slowly but certainly! There´s no more certain sign of the spring than getting the Formula 1 season underway...! The teams have completed the very first testing session at Jerez last week and almost every team has launched their new challenger for the upcoming season.

What caught my eye (and I guess everybody else´s eye as well...) were the looks of the new cars. Ferrari was among the first teams to unveil their brand new F2012. To be honest I have to say it looks pretty ugly. At first sight the nose of the car looked absolutely hidious! But then the other cars were unveiled, too and all of them have same kind of a stepped nose except the McLaren...I guess we all get used to those noses which seem so odd-looking at first sight. The stepped nose is there due to the new safety regulations but teams have used different designs for the nose. The nose of the new Ferrari looks to me as it "has been made out of Lego blocks" so it may take a while before my eyes adapt to it ;) In my opinion Lotus has the best looking nose design as it looks more elegant than the others. It may well be that at the end of the season it will be the McLaren which looks odd because it doesn´t have the stepped nose! Will they still remain their position among the top teams, we´ll see about that later...

As a passionate Vettel fan I have to admit that the brand new RB8 isn´t too beautiful either. The RB8 has a weird hole on the nose where the step is... There has already been a lot of speculation about the meaning of the hole. I saw a hilarious caricature on Facebook: a picture of the new RB8 with the hole on the nose and a mailman delivering a letter with a message saying that "letterboxes aren´t allowed to race"! But I guess we´ll find out about the meaning of the mysterious hole when the season goes further... Or not. But it definitely has to have a deeper meaning than cooling of the driver! But at this point I always try to remind myself of the fact that Formula 1 racing isn´t about the looks but the SPEED!! It doesn´t matter how ugly the car looks if it is extremely fast and competitive!

The first test days at Jerez were absolutely thrilling. So exciting to see the new cars on the track for the very first time! And it was Kimi Räikkönen back in action! I had high hopes for Kimi and the new E20 but I have to say that Kimi impressed me totally with his performance! The E20 looks very strong after the first tests as it was Kimi who topped the times right away on Monday and his team-mate Grosjean doing the same on Thursday. Of course it´s still a long way to Melbourne but the first impression is promising indeed. It looks as if Kimi hasn´t been away from F1 at all... The speed is definitely there!

Of course it´s early days to say anything certain about the performance of the cars. There are two more testing sessions to be run before the season-opener. But many experts say that it´s Lotus and Red Bull which look most convincing after the first session. Though Red Bull faced some reliability issues and for sure they didn´t show their full potential yet. However, I predict that the season 2012 will be much tighter than the previous one... It´ll be extremely hard for Vettel to make it a hat-trick but I´m sure we´re going to see outstanding performance and driving from this guy again! Ferrari seems to be in trouble but there´s still time to make things right... And we still haven´t seen the new car from Mercedes GP because they drove the first tests with the last year´s car.

The new Formula 1 season is approaching and I can feel it at our kindergarten, too. Children have been playing a Formula 1 game and the first question always is that who gets the blue car and gets to be Vettel... ;) The other day one of the children had birthday and she had brought some candy to the kindergarten, car-shaped soft sweeties... When it was time for the dessert, one of the children shouted:" We´re having "Vettels" as dessert!" No wonder my colleagues keep joking that we have a "Vettel pedagogic" kindergarten! ;)

Can´t wait to the second testing session at Barcelona next week! I feel soooo bittersweet because this time last year I was there to witness two testing days live.....