Three's Company

When Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton filled the podium at the season opener in Australia, they represented (at a combined age of just 74) the youngest podium trio in the history of Formula One. Repeating the feat at Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix didn't just confirm the talent of the young stars in the immediate post-Schumacher era, it also set a notable benchmark of its own.

In its 57-year history, modern F1 has followed a tradition of either early-season dominance or unreliability among the championship front-runners. On 14 occasions, the first two Grands Prix of the year have been won by one dominant car and driver package. Ten drivers managed the feat once - Fangio, Stewart, Fittipaldi, Lauda, Laffite, Prost, Senna, Mansell, Damon Hill and Hakkinen. Michael Schumacher did it a staggering four times, three times with Ferrari and once for Benetton.

Of the remaining 43 F1 seasons in which the opening two GPs were won by different drivers, there have been only five years in which both winners managed to score points in both opening races - and only one year in which the two winners finished on the podium in both races. That was 1981, when the Williams pairing of Alan Jones and Carlos Reutemann exchanged victories and second positions at the first two races in the USA and Brazil.

The other 38 seasons - fully two-thirds of modern F1 history - have featured championship protagonists who have won one of the opening two races of the year, but failed to score points in the other. In 2007, not only have the same three drivers filled the podium in both races so far, we have also seen another set of three drivers (BMW's Nick Heidfeld, Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella) filling positions four to six in both races. It is a measure of consistency and reliability that is unmatched in history. No other F1 season even comes close.

It also underscores what was strongly suspected going into the season - that, with engine development frozen and the engines limited to a fairly conservative 19,000 rpm, bulletproof reliability was going to be a feature of the year. Teams had to hit the ground running. If they weren't challenging for wins right from the start, they couldn't rely on mechanical failures from rivals to make up the early deficit.

Contrast that with 1981 when, despite Williams scoring 1-2 finishes at both of the opening two GPs, Brabham's Nelson Piquet eventually snatched the title from Reutemann by a single point. Or 1979, when Jacques Laffite in the Ligier lapped the Ferraris of Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve en route to successive wins to start the year, only to fall off the pace later.

In today's F1, such dramatic swings of fortune are still possible but extremely unlikely. That is bad news for Felipe Massa. In Australia, he had the consolation of knowing that the gearbox fault in qualifying was beyond his control. Presented with a precious opportunity to come right back at championship leader and teammate Kimi Raikkonen in the very next race, Massa reverted to his wildest instincts - and lost.

It was understandable for pole-sitter Massa to give up his second position to Lewis Hamilton through the first corner complex. With uncertain grip levels and 22 drivers jockeying for limited track space, the cautious approach often pays dividends. There are no points for broken front wings or other contact damage.

It was also understandable for Massa to overshoot the apex once under braking at Turn 4, in his efforts to get past the oversteering McLaren between him and race leader Alonso. Even the great Ayrton Senna made a similar mistake in the 1990 US GP against the then inexperienced Jean Alesi, who gleefully snatched back the position as Senna ran wide.

Ayrton Senna (Mclaren MP4/5B Honda) leads Jean Alesi (Tyrrell 018 Ford) in the 1990 USGP in Phoenix © LAT

However, Senna nailed the pass at his next attempt. When Massa repeated and compounded the error just a lap later, he figuratively undid the good work from his excellent performances late in 2006. Gone was the rock-solid and self-assured Interlagos winner, replaced by the impetuous and unpredictable Massa of the early Sauber days.

In the predatory nature of F1, one driver's mistake can often boost another's reputation. It was presumptuous of Hamilton to declare afterwards that he had 'tricked' Massa into the error. As other incidents have shown, Massa is perfectly capable of losing the car without any trickery from other drivers.

In truth, Hamilton shouldn't have had any hope of defending the position. And, if it had been Michael Schumacher in the 'red blob' filling his mirrors, he wouldn't have. He'd have been passed calmly and easily, and observers would have praised his fighting spirit while pointing out that he still lacked the experience and race craft to stand up to a multiple world champion. As it was, Massa's mistake gave Hamilton kudos on both counts, a timely boost to his skyrocketing reputation.

That's not to say that Hamilton wasn't deserving of fulsome praise. At Sepang, he proved that Australia was no flash in the pan. Once again, the rookie showed outstanding spatial awareness and focus at the start, along with the confidence to pull off a daring passing move.

He also showed a willingness to go wheel to wheel and defend aggressively, on one occasion with an absurdly tight line into Turn 1. There was nothing dirty about it, just good hard 'one movement' defensive racing. Equally importantly, he came through the most gruelling physical test on the F1 calendar with aplomb. Monaco will still test his two-hour concentration ability. However, in pure athletic terms, Hamilton is clearly an exceptionally talented and well prepared F1 debutant.

However, Hamilton has been driving in his mirrors until now. In Australia, he had to hold off teammate Fernando Alonso for most of the race. At Sepang it was the Ferrari pair of Massa and Raikkonen. As Alonso and Raikkonen will attest, it is very easy for a driver to become stereotyped. Both of them were considered 'cruisers' until Raikkonen pulled off the 'victory of the decade' at Japan 2005 and Alonso blitzed the field in the wet at Hungary 2006.

In order to round out his CV, Hamilton will need to do more than overtake cars at the start and then hang on to his position grimly. So the McLaren rookie will be looking forward to his first opportunity to become the hunter rather than the hunted, to either pull off a spectacular pass (beyond the first corner of the race) or to show tactical ingenuity in outsmarting an opponent on strategy. However, he has the rest of the season to accomplish that. For now, after just two races, he can be justifiably delighted with his F1 start.

Felipe Massa, by contrast, doesn't have the luxury of time. Despite his pleas that an aggressive move was his only hope after falling behind Hamilton at the start, he will know that he botched the second overtaking attempt at Turn 4.

Another Alonso-Hamilton-Raikkonen podium (in any order) at Bahrain would not only set another historical precedent (the first time that the same three drivers finished on the podium for the first three races of the year), it would also put Massa's championship aspirations in dire jeopardy.