The 2004 season began last weekend with a dull Australian Grand Prix, preceded by a boring qualifying session, a walkout by a furious Juan Pablo Montoya, and much more... This is Ann Bradshaw's take of the weekend's events

There is an old saying that one swallow doesn't make a summer. This came to my mind when thinking about the Australian Grand Prix as I am desperately hoping one race doesn't make a championship. I have to be optimistic about the Formula One season ahead of us and hope that what happened in Melbourne last weekend is not indicative of what is going to happen between now and the end of the season.

I consider myself a true motorsport fan and will always watch the Grands Prix, whatever the outcome. However, if we have to sit for another 17 weekends watching such boring racing then I doubt any but the hardened handful will still be turning their TV sets on when the cars hit the track in Brazil in October.

Firstly, I found the new two-session qualifying boring and long winded - it lasted 18 minutes longer than last year's race. I was also interested to hear Bernie Ecclestone tell a reporter from BBC Radio before the double session on Saturday that he thought they had got it wrong. Then I opened the sports pages of the UK's top selling Sunday newspaper, the News of the World, and there was a story headlined The Pits! It reported that the teams were demanding a rethink as they also found the whole affair confusing and a waste of time. Renault F1 boss Flavio Briatore was not mincing his words and was quoted as saying: "This new system is s... We are all going to have to sit down with Bernie and Max and talk this over because only the stupid never change their minds. If we feel it's stupid then it's also stupid for the spectators."

Up until the time I read this I was a bit worried that I might be in a minority with my thoughts on qualifying, as a friend at the race who I sent a text message to was most put out that I should think it a bore. Her text read that 'it was simply fab' and 'everyone here thinks it was great, what is wrong with you'. Sadly for F1 I think she was in the minority!

However, I was still hoping for the clash of the titans in the race. Juan Pablo Montoya was third on the grid and though half a second is a big gap, the commentators were confident he was carrying a lot of fuel so would have a good race strategy. Sadly with less than a dozen laps gone this theory was blown away when he came into the pits and re-fuelled. I was still not going to give up on someone giving the Ferraris a run for their money. Sadly I think this was because I was still mellow from a bottle of champagne before dinner rather than any realistic belief that third-placed Fernando Alonso would rush by Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher. By the end of the 58 laps I was dozing on the sofa and this was more to do with what was or should I say was not happening on the TV screen than the fact the race started at 3am UK time!

I am afraid I can find little else to write about the race and so I shall backtrack a couple of days to pre-race Melbourne and a driver appearance by Juan Pablo for the Williams team's sponsor Allianz. Driver appearances for sponsors are not usually headline making, but this was as he had walked out of a press conference and stormed back to his hotel thanks to a prank that had gone wrong. Not being there it is difficult to know the full circumstances, but it seems a couple of Oz comedians hijacked the proceedings and started to ask Juan Pablo stupid questions and one even asked if he would play golf with his grandmother. I know that the team's driver days are well planned and both the sponsors and the team's marketing department put a lot of thought into making them as pain-free for the driver and productive for the sponsor as possible. I am, therefore, very sad that Allianz had the embarrassment of seeing their invited guests left without a star to talk to.

While I fully support Juan Pablo's stand that pranksters cannot denigrate events like this, I was sad that he could not be persuaded to carry on with his commitment once the couple had been evicted. He has come out of this as the villain, whereas he could have used this as an opportunity to tell the guests, most of whom I think were journalists, that the debacle was an insult to them as much as him. They believed they were attending a press event from which they would get some great quotes from one of the race's pre-start favourites. Instead there were a lot of red faces and the wrong message was being relayed to everyone. I saw the walkout when I switched Eurosport on and I am sure many other people also saw this. I like Juan Pablo. I think he is a great ambassador for the sport as he is lively in and out of the car, but I believe he would have done himself a lot of good by turning the other cheek and getting on with the job in hand.

As usual Mark Webber was the favourite with the crowds and I think he is becoming very much the perfect racing driver. He is handsome and eloquent. He is a very, very good driver. He is diplomatic. He is thoughtful and considerate and when there is a good deed happening then he is usually involved. This weekend it was a Grand Prix Drivers' Association initiative that he was involved in. A competition was run with the prize for six fans being a guided tour of the F1 paddock on race day where they would meet Michael Schumacher, David Coulthard, Jarno Trulli and Mark Webber. To enter they had to buy a pin featuring Mark's helmet and the proceeds of this went to Brainwave Australia, a charity that assists young people with cancer. I am sure six people had the experience of a lifetime and many more young people will have benefited thanks to money being put into a worthwhile charity. In a sport where money seems to be all most people think about, it was a great relief to see something positive being done for the less privileged.

My trips to Grands Prix are few and far between now but that doesn't mean I spend any less time going to races. In fact I shall have one of my busiest years, as I shall be working for BMW Motorsport in the FIA European Touring Car Championship for the third season and BMW UK with their new Formula BMW UK Championship. Last year one of the highlights of the ETCC was the racing comeback at our last race in Monza for Alex Zanardi. Alex has always been a popular driver and one I have never heard a negative remark about. I shall always remember the shock in the paddock at the Italian Grand Prix in 2001 when the news came through he had received life threatening leg injuries in a Champ car race in Germany. Everyone was stunned and those of us who had had the pleasure of knowing him felt the tragedy even keener. As the days went on the relief we felt that he would live was enormous, even though we never doubted his motor racing career was over as both legs had been amputated above the knees. It just shows how much we knew about the man and his character.

Just over two years later he was racing round Monza in a BMW 320i and showing the guys who had raced these cars all season a thing or two. It was a dream come true for all of us but he had said it was to be treated as a one off. Luckily for the tens of thousands of fans who went to the race and those millions watching it on TV, the bug had bitten him again and he decided to take up the offer of BMW Italy to do the full season in 2004. I am honoured to be able to work with him this year and if pre-season testing is anything to go by expect to see his name at the top of the results sheets.

I also mentioned my involvement with the new series for the UK, Formula BMW UK. This series was launched a couple of years ago in Germany and won by Nico Rosberg, son of 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg. Last year it went to Asia, with the Chinese winner having a test in a Williams and now it is the turn of both the UK and the USA to launch it. The cars are tough and safe and they have to be as they are they are planned to be the first rung on the single-seater ladder for drivers as young as 15. Most of the 20 drivers registered to date have been racing karts since they were eight or nine but it is still a shock to me to see how grown up they are.

When I attended my first test the old heads on young shoulders amazed me. They looked like mini GP drivers in just about every sense, although I did venture that due to their age it would be inappropriate for a sponsor such as Gillette to be approached! I shall let you know how we get on during the season and no doubt I shall have some stories to tell after our first race at Easter. BMW Motorsport Director, Mario Theissen, is jetting in from Germany to watch the racing and we are also hopeful Sir Frank Williams will be there. Mind you I am not sure whether we should tell them too long in advance as being watched by two of the most powerful men in Formula One when you are still at school must be quite daunting even to the most precocious 15-year old.

Finally I want to end my column on a positive note for Formula One. Ferrari's Ross Brawn said after Sunday's race that the Malaysian Grand Prix could be a very different affair as the conditions will be hot and humid. He also said he doubted they would be able to display such dominance at many of the other races on the 2004 calendar. I for one hope he is right!

About the author:
Ann Bradshaw - Annie - began her motor racing career as a teenager, helping out her brother in local rally races in England, where she grew up. In the 1970s she organised motor racing events in England, and was later the press officer for the RAC MSA - the motorsport governing body in Britain. In mid 1980s, she became press officer to team Lotus, where she worked with Ayrton Senna. Shortly after, she moved to the Williams team and was working there for several years, when once again she found herself working with Senna. She worked with Damon Hill after the Brazilian's death, and moved with the British Champion to Arrows. She also worked with the Panoz team in the United States, before becoming a freelance press officer, now working with Compaq and BAR among others. Annie joined Atlas F1 as a regular columnist in April 2002.

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