Formula 1 is back. Not with a bang but rather with battery regeneration and energy recuperation. With 50% power coming from the battery pack, drivers have had to learn new tricks both old and new. So how did the racing fare?

Off the bat, it's evident that Mercedes has nailed the new regulations producing a car that is at the top of the pile. Leclerc in the Ferrari offered some opposition but Ferrari's botched VSC strategy put waste to that hope and Ferrari's chance of a potential win. 

Antonelli had a botched start but the ease with which he made up ground was testament to the car's performance and his quality as a driver.

The first couple of laps were interesting but flattered to deceive. The dogfight between Leclerc and Russell was very promising, with the requirement for energy recuperation leading to the positions being exchanged almost every corner. Once Leclerc pulled some sort of a lead, Russell seemed to have issues following Leclerc which was repeated in the duel between Max and Lando but that may also be due to the gap in performance between the Mercedes and Red Bull power trains.

I foresee that the smarts in the teams will now figure energy recuperation strategies, where to do so, how much to spend and overall come up with some pre determined strategy that takes the decisions farther away from the driver. Today's race being the first had some unknowns and hence the excitement but I don't think this is going to last.

Arvid Lindbad was the driver who stood out with his ability proving why he was promoted to the Red Bull sister team so quickly. He showed none of a rookie racer and always seemed quite confident and decisive during the race.

With the new regs a lot of teams seemed  to be in the mix in the top 10 positions instead of this being limited to the regular bit hitters like Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull. But today's race will be debriefed threadbase, the data pored over and analysed several times over and energy deployment strategies developed for each track.

Unlike previous years, F1 teams have some powerful allies in Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and a whole host of other models and agents to do this. Might be a great leveler, that.