The season-opener in Melbourne not only produced a riveting and unpredictable race, but also some interesting observations.

One: Some predictions based on pre-season testing came true, while others did not.

McLaren, Ferrari, Williams, Red Bull and Renault pretty much produced the form they showed during pre-season testing.

BMW Sauber had a troubled winter, but came good on the day — time will tell whether the F1.08 is such a sensitive beast that finding its “sweet spot” is a matter of luck, or whether the team really sandbagged during the off-season.

Few expected Toro Rosso to have such a strong showing, with Sébastien Bourdais running as high as fourth and keeping Fernando Alonso’s Renault at bay before its Ferrari engine cried enough. Imagine what could happen when the STR3 makes its appearance in Turkey.

Even fewer expected that Honda would run well inside the top ten. Clearly Ross Brawn has already made his presence felt.

Two: Pre-season form cannot predict complacency. That was clearly the case with Ferrari, who seemed to have bought the hype that they would be almost unbeatable, at least in the early part of the season.

So they turned up in Melbourne expecting an easy ride, but almost immediately lost their way on set-up. Neither driver was happy with his car as early as Friday afternoon already — and then things got worse.

What caused Räikkönen’s fuel pump failure during Qualifying and four of the six Ferrari-engined cars’ retirement due to engine systems’ failure during the race? Accusations are flying left, right and centre that it is the fault of the “McLaren” ECU, but why would only the Ferrari engines have been affected?

Every other team also had to adjust their software to the architecture of the MES/Microsoft unit and none of them complained after Sunday’s race that that was a hindrance in their progress.

The more likely scenario is that Ferrari has underestimated what it will take to remain on top of the tree in 2008. After the Aussie GP one cannot help but get the sense that the fanatical attention to detail during the days of Todt, Brawn, Martinelli, Byrne and Schumacher is absent.

This includes design, manufacture, quality control, installation, preparation and many more systems and processes that have to be in place for a team to achieve success in Formula 1 — exactly what happened in the years 2000-2004 when “Ferrari” and “reliability” were synonymous.

If true, it will not be the work of a few days to rectify the situation and the Prancing Horse may well continue stumbling for a while.

Three: Just about everybody underestimated the effect of the ban on electronic driver aids, including the drivers who, almost as one, declared prior to the Melbourne race that they hadn’t really noticed the difference. Many, if not all, of the numerous incidents and overtaking manoeuvres during the race were as a direct result of F1’s return to basics.

Seemingly they have also not yet learned that testing and racing are different matters altogether.

This is great, however, as those drivers who use their heads and skills better than others will continue to flourish, even if they have inferior equipment at their disposal.

If the season continues to produce such unpredictable races, we are in for an even better one than expected.