Inside Line: Party modes, mistakes, excuses and humility

Much has been written about Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton's mega-lap in qualifying which was good for pole by 0.7 of a second, but on race day, Lewis and Mercedes were among the big losers because it was their race to lose and they did just that.

Toto Wolff's "software bug or an algorithm" excuse was out from left-field and awkward, even stunning their former driver and world champ turned pundit Nico Rosberg.

Human error - collective or solo - is human and forgivable, it's only F1 not a world war guys! Again look at Haas...

For sure second will be a bitter pill to swallow for Merc but they leave Melbourne knowing that in the W09 they have the best piece of kit on the grid by a country mile.

Valtteri's big prang in Q3 brutally revealed his shortcomings at the wheel of said car. The weekend will have seen the Finn's shares plummet perhaps to the lowest nadir of his career so far in silver.

Lewis will bounce back as he tends to do, but the Merc guys must come clean on the 'party modes' that none of their customers seem to know how to find. Please send them the manual!

While they wallow in self-confidence Toto and his merry band should take a look around at their customer teams and be alarmed at how pitiful they were at the lakeside park. All four of them - white ones and pink ones - at the wrong end of proceedings.

Force India's fall has been dramatic and one can only hope it was an Albert Park exclusive glitch, while Williams were a total shambles. But those are stories for another day.

Ferrari were not alone when they were shocked by the pace of Lewis Hamilton whose pole-winning lap time was seven-tenths faster than Kimi Raikkonen in the best of the two red cars. When the time popped onto the timing screens that afternoon, Formula 1 took a collective sigh of disbelief.

Nevertheless, credit to Ferrari chief Maurizio Arrivabene who has a knack of rallying his men in times of need, they pulled a rabbit out the hat as they capitalised on the Mercedes "software bug or an algorithm" strategy problem.

More like a masterstroke by Ferrari that will be a lesson in humility for the world champs who were searching for answers that were not at all hidden.

But Arrivabene was not getting too excited: "We must stay calm. It's only the first race. But there are those who speak and there are those who do the facts. I do not put myself in the middle of a skirmish between drivers, I just say that the race is on Sunday, the points are on Sunday and on Sunday we scored the points."

Sebastian Vettel, in the wake of Hamilton's "wipe your smile" quip, must be applauded for not being tempted to milk the situation. The door was open after the race on the podium and in the presser, but he did not walk through it. Classy gesture.

Not sure if Hamilton had the savvy to appreciate the message in the reconciliatory act by his rival, but it must be said that immediately after the race the Briton was honourable in defeat, in parc ferme congratulating his arch-rival for the win. Humble pie had been eaten by the reigning world champ. Respect.

Kimi was in good form all weekend, outqualifying Seb and then showed strong pace in the early stages of the race. As usual, the veteran Finn looked strained on the podium, but as an avid Kimi-Smile-Spotter I did notice twitches of bewilderment, surely he was asking: WTF am I doing on the third step and not the top step... again!

My logic - and perhaps his - is that his pace was handy early on, Merc messed so up so next would be Kimi? No. Seb goes by and Kimi rejoined in third-placed where he stayed until the black and white waved at the end of it all. Maybe that's why afterwards he seemed more aloof than normal.

In the aftermath of a sweet victory, the boys at Ferrari are no fools and they know that they were gifted this win, they will take it, but they tackle the rest of the season knowing that their car is good but at this stage no match for the Mercedes.

We are in an era of Mercedes domination and like everyone I want this long-standing imbalance to end, despite me being an admirer of what that team has become and achieved, plus I am a fan of Hamilton since the day he walked up to Ron Dennis and... you know the story.

So Ferrari as underdogs giving it to Mercedes gave me pleasure because it only augments the anticipation of the second episode of this 21 round contest in the Bahrain desert.