McLaren look ahead to banish F1 boredom

When even Lewis Hamilton's mum finds the season-opening race a bit of a yawn, then Formula One clearly has a problem. "I had dinner with my mum the other night and she said it [the race] was kind of boring," the 2008 champion, who finished third for McLaren in Bahrain, told a handful of British reporters before heading to Australia for round two next weekend. "I haven't seen the race but I've heard from a lot of people that it wasn't positive," added the 25-year-old. "They were so excited by the hype of Michael (Schumacher) coming back and all that and it was just kind of very dull, there was no overtaking." World champion Jenson Button, Hamilton's team mate and fellow-Briton, agreed that it had not been a thriller and said the sport needed to serve up some spicier fare in Melbourne "for all our sakes". "I think that even if you had won the race, you would have thought 'where was the action?'," said the 30-year-old, whose seventh place at Sakhir marked a disappointing debut for the team while Fernando Alonso led a Ferrari one-two. "It's a sport that I love and it's tough to see a procession," added Button. "I think we all put a lot of pressure on ourselves in Bahrain because everyone was saying 'it's going to be the best year ever in Formula One' so we put the pressure on ourselves to perform. But it wasn't an exciting race to watch." Some team bosses have suggested Formula One should introduce a second mandatory pitstop or change the tyre composition to make them less durable. Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has said there is no panic and the sport needs to wait and see what happens. Button agreed with that. "I'm not going to say 'What are we going to do about it? It's terrible' because I think we've got to wait and see," said Button. "It's only one race in, so it's not the end of the world. "There's still another 18 races to go."