Hiding Kovalainen

There have not been such highly-anticipated Formula One debuts in a long time. Of course there are newcomers in Formula One every year, but we seldom have rookie drivers driving for contending teams. The last time a rookie driver for a top team who had generated so much buzz before the season even began was in 2001 when Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya joined the Williams team.

Yet Montoya was a rookie by definition only. When he made his Formula One debut, he was already a proven veteran in other racing series, most notably winning the CART (now Champ Car) series in the USA in 1999 and the famous Indianapolis 500 race in 2000.

This year, we have not one, but two "true" rookies, Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen, driving for the McLaren Mercedes and Renault teams respectively, two of the elite teams. While Hamilton shined in the first race in Australia, Kovalainen had a nightmarish race and a weekend to forget.

For Kovalainen, things started to go wrong during pre-season testing at Bahrain, when he had a heavy shunt in one of the fastest corners and seriously damaged the brand new Renault R27. Kovalainen was lucky to escape serious injury, but the damage sustained by the new car meant that the team has lost significant time in setting up their cars for the upcoming races.

When the team arrived in Melbourne, Kovalainen suffered another setback, when hydraulic problems cost him valuable time on a track which he has never raced before. And despite setting some impressive times during free practice, he could only qualify 13th for the race.

And just when things finally seem to go right for him, when he climbed to the final point-scoring position in eighth late in the race, he went wide on the first corner (which was caught on live TV as the director happened to switch to his on-board camera just seconds before he went off the track, a midas touch indeed), allowing the feisty Felipe Massa to go through. Understandably, his disappointing performance was panned by his team boss, Flavio Briatore, as being "rubbish".

To his credit, Kovalainen acknowledged and accepted the criticism and vowed to fight back in the coming rounds. And I personally want him to appear in the podium at the expense of his fellow Finn, Kimi Raikkonen.

That's because Kovalainen is by far the more articulate and interesting interviewee of the two, and his presence would make the post-race interview far more entertaining. And those who believe that fans will be interested in listening to Kimi's mumbles after watching an hour-long procession without any overtaking have clearly lost their minds.