Kimi halts old guard

Formula One is holding its collective breath. Two races into the season and the Ferrari team have yet to win. Michael Schumacher must have been feeling like a lost soul as five different rivals visited the podium in Australia and Malaysia and the world champion was excluded from official media interviews for two successive races, an indignity he hasn't suffered since July 2000.

Worse than that, with 24 being the average age on the rostrum last Sunday, Schumacher, at 34, has been enrolled as a member of the old guard. It would be foolish to write him off, but there are signs that the Malaysian Grand Prix heralded F1's new generation as Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, with a combined age of 44 and just one third of Schumacher's race experience between them, respectively started from pole and won for the first time.

It is difficult to judge whether or not the trend will continue in Brazil next weekend , but the fact that Schumacher made mistakes in both races suggests that the pressure of actually having to slug it out wheel-to-wheel may be unfamiliar territory for a man accustomed to running unhindered at the front. Even more important is the reason why he was forced into the Malaysian rough house in the first place.

Schumacher's second-row grid position in Sepang was due entirely to the tactical options introduced by new regulations concerning a driver having to qualify his car in race trim. Renault locked out the front row thanks to choosing to run the cars of Alonso and Jarno Trulli with less fuel. The downside was having to bring Alonso's leading car into the pits five laps earlier than the eventual winner, Raikkonen, thus giving the Finn an opportunity to make his escape when his car was running light.

Renault considered that to be a price worth paying. Given that a win was improbable for a team suffering from a power deficit, this was Renault's best chance. Under the old system of qualifying, Schumacher almost certainly would have been on pole. As it was, he was trapped behind the Renaults and, in a desperate bid to keep David Coulthard at bay, drove into the back of Trulli.

A long catalogue of 'if only' excuses was opened on the spot. Schumacher and Trulli left the road, an immediate disaster for Trulli who was seen by Renault as having a better chance than Alonso, thanks to running more fuel and stopping later. Having predicted Schumacher's excesses to perfection, Coulthard avoided the carnage, but the failure of an electrical component caused the Scot to vent his spleen over McLaren's preparation.

The deeply frustrating loss of a second win for Coulthard and an easy one-two for his team was only partially compensated for by a mature victory for Raikkonen as mounting evidence that McLaren-Mercedes - and, significantly, tyre supplier Michelin - have upped their game.

The same cannot be said for Williams-BMW thus far. Last year's championship runner-up are struggling to provide Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya with equipment to beat Renault, never mind McLaren and Ferrari. To add to their problems, Montoya's potential was surgically removed by Antonio Pizzonia as the Jaguar driver wiped off the Colombian's rear wing in the first-corner chaos. Once repairs had been carried out, Montoya's lap times suggest that Alonso's third-place finish would otherwise have been in doubt, particularly as the 21-year-old Spaniard was struggling with a fever that was just as debilitating as gearbox trouble on the Renault. And so the 'if only' list continued.

What remains beyond doubt, and goes against grave pre-season predictions, is the remarkable mechanical reliabilityof the cars, despite the rules forbidding any work on them between the end of qualifying and the start of the race.

There were 13 finishers at the end of the longest and one of the toughest grands prix of the season. The teeth-rattling surface of Interlagos may be a different story on Sunday, but, in the meantime, there appears to be little cause to tamper further with the rules for as long as they are upsetting the old order in every sense.