Pastor Maldonado won a Spanish Grand Prix thriller on Sunday to take his first Formula One victory and hand former champions Williams their first triumph in 132 races and nearly eight years.
Formula One's European season fires up in Spain this weekend with Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber leading a fistful of drivers jostling to become the fifth different winner in five races.
Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel won the Grand Prix in Bahrain while rage boiled beyond the circuit among protesters who say the ruling family that crushed Arab Spring demonstrations last year should not have hosted the race.
Formula One's governing body said the Bahrain Grand Prix will go ahead as planned despite ongoing political instability in the country and threats by some groups to disrupt the event.
The Bahrain Grand Prix has so dominated Formula One's news agenda this week that teams and drivers in China for Sunday's race could almost be wondering whether they have landed in the wrong country.
Formula One teams headed to China on Monday still unsure whether their return trip would take in troubled Bahrain for the following grand prix next week amid safety fears and increasingly loud calls for that race to be cancelled.
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso won a dramatic Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday, giving the Italian team one of its more unlikely victories in its long history.
McLaren's Jenson Button won the Australian Grand Prix for the third time ahead of world champion Sebastian Vettel in an incident-packed season opener on Sunday.
Mark Webber has sweated through the European winter to give himself the best possible shot of beating double world champion team mate Sebastian Vettel when the Formula One season starts in Australia this weekend.
Ferrari's dour preseason has undermined the Italian team's Formula One title hopes, and will likely leave a frustrated Fernando Alonso in Red Bull's rearview mirror again.
Rubens Barrichello is bringing his Formula One experience to IndyCar in 2012, and the veteran Brazilian driver can't wait to start his rookie season in the series.
Formula One star Mark Webber says was "hit between the eyes" last year when he was trounced at Red Bull by his world champion team-mate Sebastian Vettel.
Red Bull's double world champion Sebastian Vettel reminds Stirling Moss of Juan Manuel Fangio, the Argentine all-time great who denied the Briton a Formula One title with his dominance in the 1950s.
Michael Schumacher was hoping the late arrival of his new Mercedes would pay off after doing nearly two race distances in last year's car on the second afternoon of Formula One testing on Wednesday.
Jenson Button's body language after the first day of Formula One testing on Tuesday spoke happily of a new McLaren that was everything last year's car was not.
