Ferrari’s pre season testing form was confirmed at Albert Park, Melbourne, when Kimi Raikonnen took a seemingly easy win in decidedly Michael Schumacher fashion claiming pole position, fastest lap and the race win.

The bright scarlet suit of Ferrari seems slightly at odds with Kimi’s character. Although he’s believed to be quite a colorful personality off track, he was certainly very reserved during post race celebrations – very unlike what we’ve gotten used to with Schumacher. Whereas his persona out of the car may take some getting used to, if he continues to drive like he did in Australia, he’ll be accepted very quickly by Ferrari fans the world over.

Massa, on the other hand, had to bare the brunt of first race troubles with his V8 powerplant. Nevertheless, after starting in last place due to an engine failure in qualifying, his was able to demonstrate the devastating pace of the Ferrari’s by climbing through the field to finish in 6th place, just four tenths of a second behind Fisichella’s Renault.

While the extent of Ferrari’s supremacy may have come as a surprise, Renault’s lack of form certainly came as a shock, as much to the team as to those watching. Fisi struggled for grip and pace through the weekend and barely managed to scrape a 5th place finish. It appears that their deterioration of form has continued from the second half of last year. Heikki Kovalanien had a disappointing debut, starting 13th and finishing 10th, which he was lucky to do after more than one outing on the grass.

At the other end of the spectrum was a dream debut by 22-year-old Briton, Lewis Hamilton. He kept his double world champion teammate honest all weekend, and at one point even found himself in the lead of the race showing Alonso the way around the track. Alonso was able to get by him during the second pit stop but Hamilton still finished an incredible third and on the podium in his debut race. Moreover, he showed that he’s a real racer going around the outside of Kubica and Alonso at the first corner. Needless to say, a lot will be expected of this young man in the future.

Although his very impressive debut does raise a question that’s been asked multiple times over the course of the last few years – are the F1 cars of today too easy to drive? After all you can’t imagine a rookie getting to grips with a 1,100 horsepower F1 car of the turbo era on his first outing – the flip side of the argument, of course, if that the drivers coming into F1 today are simply much better prepared than their predecessors. Hamilton is a case in point, he’s been preparing for his F1 debut for over a decade, and that was certainly evident on Sunday.

Current world champion, Alonso, seemed to have a fairly straightforward, if not ideal, weekend. He qualified in third and brought the car home in second position. Whereas McLaren seem to have made very positive strides, both in terms of speed and reliability, they still need to do that little bit more to catch the Ferrari’s.

Another first at Melbourne was Bridgestone as the sole tire supplier. They claim to have supplied a mammoth 1,800 tires over the course of the weekend. Both versions of their tires – the hard/medium compound and soft compound – seemed to perform consistently over the course of the race. It must be said, from my point of view at least, it’s nice to see the tires playing a seemingly incidental role in the race results. I would much rather see which team has the best car and driver package rather than whether the Michelins are better than the Bridgestones or vice-versa.

Two other teams of note were the Super Aguris for their fantastic performance, and the Red Bull racing team for their disappointing performance. The Super Aguri team came from being at the far end of the field last year to almost outpacing the factory Honda team all weekend.

On the other hand, there was a lot expected of the Red Bull’s at Melbourne as this was the first outing for their new car designed by ex-McLaren and world championship winning designer, Adrian Newey. Mark Webber made the best of the situation finishing a lowly 13th while his teammate, David Coulthard, decided to drive over, instead of around, Williams driver Alex Wurz.

All said and done, it was an exciting start. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how quickly the other teams can pick up the pace and start challenging Ferrari. In the meantime, if both the Ferrari’s are reliable, there’s sure to be a dogfight between their two drivers, especially since Kimi's tasted first blood.