"Had a look at the times, it certainly points to a significantly different fuel load to that of piquet because until then piquet was close or matching alonso throughout.

It will interesting to see how the shark fin affects his speed in the start fast sweeping turns, he can be usurped by anyone following close behind at that section.

The start will be important or else the hard effort will be laid to waste. But even with that it will be highly difficult to keep the BMW behind for long, either in the pits or on th track they will start looming large on alonso's mirrors.

Anyone underestimating BMW will be doing so at their peril.

If alonso stop way to early it will leave a sour taste in everyone mouths.

But estimates for now i would say he is 4 laps lighter than kimi and 7-8 laps lighter to the leading BMW"

Yes, regardless how light-fueled he was, he did a superb job in qualifying!   Without a grain of doubt, Renault has definitely improved on their package. I predict a P4 at best   and qualifying top is crucial to ensure that you have a better position during the race. I doubt he can maintain his pace for long, one BMW will get ahead of him and also a Mclaren[maybe]. Remember this, no matter how good you are at defending your position how long can you resist the challenge from the better car? You lose advantage if you cannot build a comfortable gap from your closest rival on track, especially when you pit. The R28 is nowhere as superior as the R25/R27 yet. They made improvements but so did everybody else. Just preventing all Alonso fans from getting their hopes up too high, as always it's better to think of the worst and take delight if it turns out the other way!

Tomorrow promises an interesting race.

yeah,renault is back

either sato or davidson is good enough to replaced nelsinho at renault.
but nelsinho should be given an ample time to prove himself.
of the 2, sato is more experience and the bonus with having him onboard is that he will attract more japanese fan to his team 

i would say.. it is almost impossible..

That's a retarded explanation. Is this the first time you've followed a competitive sport? You can't have one rule applying for one competitor and a different one for another regardless whether they are challenging for the top spot or not. Raikkonen messed up big time and it's entirely his fault. And I'm sure he would have been the 1st to admit so. But I believe the stewards made the right decision in not penalising him. I would still put it down as a racing incident. If the roles were reversed I would have expected the same decision. But you never know with the FIA.