The grid looked - well, weird. Down amongst the dead men who didn't make it to Q2 yesterday, Hamilton shared a row with Trulli; Massa and Alonso were behind them.
As the red lights went out, Barichello's car went phut. In-car footage from a Ferrari showed how rapidly F1 cars accelerate and how little time a driver has to work out that the road in front of him is full of stationery car and then react. The answer? Far less time than mere mortals could possibly respond.
Hamilton found a totally empty line down the right hand side: everyone else was lining up for a wide entry into T1 but he took a brave chance, standing on the brakes at the last moment and appearing in Kovallainen's braking / turning zone immediately before the apex. The Finn took evasive action as everyone piled through turns 1-2 and 3 and up the hill to Turn 4.
The first lap seemed to last for ever. Everywhere there were cars on the wrong line, diving across lines and generally some of the most frantic racing F1 has seen for, perhaps, decades.
But the Ferraris and Button made little progress. Button had been unhappy with his car all weekend - except in the wet and then he fell off. On the softer option tyre, he struggled for any reasonable form of handling; on lap 10, he pitted for the harder tyre. The team say this was the plan because they knew the car worked best on them. But they made a serious error: they should have changed again for around lap 35 (of 54) the harder compound tyres went off and after that Button - who had set a succession of FTDs was a sitting target. The plan was to get him ahead of Hamilton when Hamilton stopped but Button's tyres were already costing him time by then and Hamilton came out of the pits one car length ahead of Button after a not particularly quick stop.
Within a few laps, Hamilton was six seconds ahead of Button. Button was able to close that to just over three seconds but only because Hamilton got boxed up behind Sutil who, as Hamilton complained to his crew, was "too quick on the straights."
Button started to have his own problems with Massa sitting on his back wing. After several laps, and at least one failed passing try each lap, Massa finally squeezed by, blasting away from Button whose grip had turned to mush. Then it was Alonso's turn. Alonso had struggled all race with a downshift problem. But he still had no trouble cruising up behind Button.
Pit to car radio for Massa had made it plain that Ferrari were pushing their engines to the maximum, even saying to use the overtake button to, er, overtake Button.
When Alonso, who had made several ill-timed attempts to overtake at the end of the long back straight, was suckered into a dive up the inside of Turn 1, he clearly had his right foot hard down - and either sparks or pieces of shrapnel glinting in the light flew up from the back of his car. Overcooking the entry, he had to stamp on the brakes and Button simply waited for Alonso to shoot across his bows then took the normal racing line through 2 and 3. But just as he entered Turn 2, a huge cloud of smoke burst from Alonso's engine and he retired.
Hamilton's day was very nearly spoiled by some dodgy dodging about on the main straight: he was reprimanded, mid race, but not given any further penalty for weaving in front of Petrov. Hamilton and Petrov had a serious ding-dong battle for several laps - and it was by no means certain that Hamilton was going to come out on top. Having passed Petrov, Hamilton seemed to be taken by surprise that the young Russian in his first F1 season was still anywhere close: Petrov dived back under Hamilton and retook the place which he held onto despite furious attempts by Hamilton.
What of Vettel, Webber, Rosberg and Kubica? Well, after the first half-dozen laps, they really did not feature in the action at all: while it was hardly an easy Sunday afternoon drive for either of them, nor were they unduly troubled by frequent attacks. Schumacher parked his car after "something broke" - seemingly a suspension part but there's some debate over which wheel was at fault. In interview with the BBC he said that the car was going quite well until that point. Not well enough: he was nowhere near Rosberg.
So the rain didn't come; the overtaking problem made itself felt again but not as much as previously and Red Bull brought both cars home without anything breaking or either of their drivers running into someone else. And in doing so secured a first and second to elevate both the drivers and team into contention in the championships.
Next race: Shanghai. Where it has also, from time to time, rained hard. The smaller teams will be hoping for that as it is clearly a performance leveller.
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