Nico, Nico: what's your beef? It's normally towards the end of a season when the paranoia kicks in. Not the third race. But yet, there he was in the official press conference, straight away giving Lewis an ace hand in the battle of wills.
Nico makes Lewis look cool; no mean feat
Let's be generous: he had a semblance of a point. Lewis was driving more slowly at points in the race, as he obeyed team guidance and conserved his tyres. You'd have thought Nico would have understood all this and, if anything, had a quiet word with the team during or after the race. But no, he went DEFCON on camera and made it even more likely he won't be 2015 F1 World Champion.
The team, you can imagine, was not best pleased. Toto Wolff quickly backed Lewis when pressed, so too did Niki Lauda. Apparently, said Toto, Nico's now calmed down and "realises Lewis wasn't underhand." Nothing like a few handbags to keep it interesting, eh?
Smoking proves bad for Renault
To say Renault had a bad race is putting things mildly: they were slow, they broke down and blew up, they did everything possible to make Dietrich Mateschitz's pre-race threat that Red Bull will pull out of F1 if Renault doesn't improve all the more ominous. It's likely to be more of the same in Bahrain as well, admitted under-fire boss Cyril Abiteboul. It's only by Monaco that the engine supplier expects to see things improve (and, presumably, stop blowing up).
Dietrich Mateschitz's temper equally smouldering
This is development before our very eyes - the engine was below par last year, and Renault is accelerating and shortcutting development to get it back up to speed. An ominous task given the pace of the Mercedes-AMG, which is why the limits are being breached so publically and so often.
It's fascinating for us to watch, and students of F1 history will also note the parallels with Renault's original 1977 F1 entry ('teapot', anyone?) but look at what it achieved after that.
Will it have time, though? Red Bull's patience seems to have long since disappeared: will another smokey engine PR disaster see it flounce off before Renault cracks its problems? And if it does, and Renault stays in with its own team, and does come up with a corking engine that beats even the Mercs, how will Red Bull look then? It's another soap opera playing out before our eyes...
WEC's Silverstone spectacular
Endurance racing is normally just that - slow-burning battles that slowly, steadily test man and machine to the limit. Unless it's the 2011 Le Mans 24 Hours, that is - or, unless it's the World Endurance Championship's opening 6 Hours of Silverstone event this weekend. They got stuck in right from the off and battles raged throughout; by the end, the lead Audi of Fassler, Lotterer and Treluyer won by just four seconds from the Porsche of Dumas, Jani and Lieb. Throw in Davidson, Buemi and Nakajima's Toyota in third for three manufacturers on the podium and a great showcase of WEC's strength was there for all to see.
A British champ, great racing - get along to WEC!
I was one of them there over the weekend. Big interest for me was watching the cars, comparing the thrill to the new-era V6 F1 cars I saw last summer. Verdict? WEC cars are just as exciting to watch and quite a bit more interesting to follow. The variation, the fact there are so many different engines and energy recovery systems (and resultant sound effects), the fact each car has three drivers who have three different driving styles... it's a fascinating motorsport to watch up close, particularly when they're getting stuck in and battling as closely as they were yesterday.
The annual Le Mans pilgrimage proves that sportscars are far from undiscovered - but the World Endurance Championship is, arguably, a series not as many people know about as they should Anthony Davidson as a reigning but unknown British World Champion, anyone? If the Silverstone thriller is a sign of things to come, perhaps 2015 could see many more discover the fascinating series. After the sterile rules restrictions of F1 - where even innovations such as V6 hybrids cause outcry - the flexibility and ingenuity of WEC, and the creativity it's led to, deserves to be embraced.