Planet-F1

Australian Grand Prix Preview

Tuesday 11th March 2008

Welcome to a new season of races on Planet-F1. We could have published a season preview, but the Australian GP preview is very much the same thing. Because the fact is that the teams are all waiting to see their relative performance in Australia to work out what they do next.

Look ahead to the months of June and July? It's not possible, right now the 11 race teams want to be reassured that they're at least where they think they are, if not a little better.

The phoney war of winter testing and other cars running with uncertain fuel loads is over, now it's the real thing.

Though we will know a lot by the end of testing on Friday, we still won't know the whole picture. That's because the Albert Park road circuit in Melbourne needs a lot of rubber laid down before it starts acting like a GP track.

With little grip and barriers in close proximity, it's an interesting place to see how the cars will operate without engine braking and traction control. And by interesting of course I mean potentially very disastrous.

The team to beat will be last year's winners Ferrari. In the 2007 race Kimi Raikkonen stormed away for a win and the car looked uncatchable. We subsequently learned that a lot of this advantage was thanks to an illegal movable floor (though only illegal once the test had been properly implemented at the correct loads).

Ferrari arrive at the race as everyone's hot favourites for another season of domination. Though they were not always fastest in winter testing, they were consistently fastest over the longer runs. Snapping at their heels were McLaren.

So in a way, plus ca change from Brazil 2007 - McLaren faster on the one or two banzai laps, with Ferrari faster over a race distance and the rest struggling to catch up.

The car right behind Ferrari and McLaren should be the Renault. Given that the team very publicly quit developing last year's R27 car halfway through the season to work on the R28, nothing less than third place in the pecking order will do. Flavio Briatore has done well to get Fernando Alonso back on board, but the car should have been testing a lot quicker.

Ferrari's tester Marc Gene was convinced that the slow times were a massive exercise in sandbagging and that they would spring a surprise, but it's looking increasingly likely that the car is just down on pace. If that's the case and they can only manage fourth or fifth, then they might not even hang on to Alonso for 2009. He may have returned to the team he calls his 'family', but family rows can be the worst.

An outfit with no such worries is the resurgent Williams team who have been consistently quick in testing, but haven't done the major mileages and race simulations of some of their rivals. It's important to have a well-balanced car for Melbourne that gives the drivers confidence, because they have to flirt so dangerously with limited run-off areas.

This is why last year's third quickest team, BMW, are likely to be struggling. Right from the time the charismatically named F1.08 was introduced the engineers were getting complaints from Messrs Kubica and Heidfeld that the car was undriveable. Heidfeld now says that the team were right to take the radical approach and that they are making "rapid progress". We shall see on Saturday.

"Rapid progress" seems to be the phrase of the hour as Honda have also been making "rapid progress" thanks to their final, private, three-day test at Jerez. The lack of running alongside other faster cars gives them at least the crumb of comfort that they are improving relative to the baseline of last year's 'Earth Dream'.

The freedom to improve will certainly be there with Ross Brawn guiding progress and Yasuhiro Wada returned to Honda HQ for a job in the PR department (you'll notice not an engineering role).

Honda's great rivals Toyota, who had an inauspicious start to their testing programme, believe that they are on the verge of a breakthrough. Instead of being at the arse end of the mid-grid, behind BMW, Renault, Williams and Red Bull, Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli believe they have the speed to be at the front end of it.

Red Bull should have been able to solve their hydraulics fragility of last season. With Webber and Coulthard continuing in 2008, the old gits team are high on experience and wilyness, but getting low on patience. A lack of reliability would be even harder to endure this season, which is almost certainly Coulthard's last in F1.

Toro Rosso, thanks to the strength of their Ferrari engine, have had a great off-season and one of the most fascinating duels of the season will be the battle of the Sebs - Vettel versus Bourdais.

Force India have been making progress (probably "rapid") thanks to an owner, Vijay Mallya, who is actually prepared to put some investment into the team. The only team that has stood still is Super Aguri who have been beset with financial difficulties. The lack of solid news has been greeted by speculation based on whether their garage was being prepared for the first race or not - the kind of thing that happened to Arrows before they slid into the abyss. Spookily Super Aguri is based in Arrows old HQ at Leafield.

With all 11 confirmed we're ready for the five red lights on the grid at Melbourne.

Though Ferrari and McLaren are likely to be the class of the field, the grid has closed up so that the difference between pole and P20 could be as little as two and a half seconds at some races. A lack of traction control will provide more errors and force drivers to take a lot more care accelerating out of corners. Wet races will be especially gripping.

Finally, we have the prospect of our first night race and also a new circuit at Valencia. The 2008 season has a lot in store. With Ron Dennis announcing that he will be on the pitwall in Melbourne only today, all the pieces of the jigsaw have finally fitted into place. Let's go racing.

Andrew Davies