Previewing The Australian Grand Prix

With the exception of a Championship cliffhanger, the Australian GP is the most eagerly anticipated race on the calendar. It's where all the off-season bluffing stops and where all the chassis and aero rethinks begin. Melbourne is back in its No.1 position after a small dalliance with the Commonwealth Games handed the honour to Bahrain last season.

The Albert Park circuit can be a tricky opening race with a sometimes dusty surface and not a huge amount of run-off in places, as Michael Schumacher found out to his cost last year, when he smote his Ferrari against the wall just after the final bend. The final corner at Melbourne, like the Champion's Wall in Montreal, has claimed a fair few top-class victims over the years.

For those ghoulish members of the press corps (like ourselves) it seems a pity that the organisers have now reprofiled it to make it more survivable, should a driver make a mistake. It's not a dangerous corner, it's just one you have to get right. Considering the salaries of the F1 pilots in 2007, it would be nice to leave them something to do.

On the subject of F1 drivers we have a greater percentage of paid drivers on the grid than ever before. Only the two Spyker drivers are contributing to their places on the startline which should make for better and more competitive racing right the way down the field.

Heikki Kovalainen (Renault) and Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) are unusual in that they are rooky drivers in very powerful teams. BMW's Robert Kubica should really be added to that list as he only made his race debut at Hungary in August last year. He won't have raced at any of the circuits in the first half of the year including Melbourne.

Given that BMW are the fourth quickest (and they think they're the third quickest) team it's remarkable to have effectively three rookies in the four top teams.

Kovalainen and Kubica are so well settled in their teams, that some bookmakers are prepared to offer better odds for their vastly more experienced team-mates - Fisichella and Heidfeld. That's not the case with Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, but hardly surprising as he's teamed up with the unshakeable Fernando Alonso.

Hamilton will have to contend with an unprecedented amount of attention as he becomes: "the Tiger Woods of F1" to the less-than-regular F1 viewers. This is the constituency Bernie Ecclestone is trying to appeal to get back his viewers lost in the disastrous (for TV ratings) 2001-2003 period, when to the outsider it seemed like Michael Schumacher won everything.

Schumacher may be gone now, but his absence hasn't affected the confidence of the team which starts the new season as almost everybody's favourites to win both titles.

Ferrari have had a good winter season and with Felipe Massa leading Kimi Raikkonen on the timesheets they have two, not one, potential World Champions.

Ferrari also have a good track record around Albert Park, though Raikkonen has qualified here a lot better than Massa in the past. With a few off-track excursions during practice last year Felipe looked like the step up into the seat vacated by Rubens Barrichello was too much for him.

Massa and Christian Klien's Red Bull contrived to have a coming together in Turn 2 and collected an innocent Nico Rosberg in the process. Massa went straight on into the barriers, wrecking his second Ferrari in two days while Rosberg limped back to the pits with a terminally damaged rear wing.

Hard to believe then, that less than a year later and Massa arrives at Melbourne as a lot of people's favourite to be the 2007 World Champion.

Raikkonen, like all sensible team-mates will be keen to establish an advantage over the bloke with the same equipment as him. More than any other team, it's good to be ahead at Ferrari, because if it comes down to imposing team orders Jean Todt will favour the guy in front.

Down the rest of the field there are other key team-mate battles - Fisichella will have to try and resist Kovalainen, the same with Heidfeld and Kubica. Both Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher will be eyeing up potential moves at the end of the 2007 season and will want to show who is the major talent. Jenson Button and Tonio Liuzzi have already established an edge on their team-mates, but if David Coulthard wants another season in F1 he'll have to closely match Mark Webber, or better him.

The proximity of the barriers in Albert Park could well bring out the first Safety Car in 2007 and with it a whole barrel of new fun. Because now when the initials SC come up, the pitlane is immediately closed and nobody can nip in for a crafty pit-stop. Instead the Safety Car picks up the leader, and anybody not on the same lap has to overtake the crocodile of cars and unlap themselves.

This means that when the green flag signals go again, first place to last place are assembled behind it in the correct order. The SC won't disappear until this process is finished, which means that until everyone is line astern behind it, the pitlane cannot open. This could be very tricky if a car is running low on fuel and due to pit when there is a Safety Car incident.

If this is the case, then teams are going to have to leave a lap or two of fuel in the car when they schedule a pit-stop - in case they're made to go round a couple of times because of a closed pitlane.

From a racing point of view it will inject new drama into a race by lining up all the points scoring positions, with no inconvenient pair of Super Aguris in between and in the way at the re-start.

At the time of writing, the row over whether Super Aguri and Toro Rosso have legal cars is still unresolved. There has been a fair degree of quiet in the run-up to Melbourne suggesting a solution or a compromise is at hand. Though by leaving the debut of their car very late Super Aguri are keeping everyone guessing.

Teams will also have to adapt to racing with two different types of Bridgestone tyre over the race distance and we will start to see the most advantageous form of tyre usage emerging.

It will be very strange to be starting a Championship without Michael Schumacher on the grid, for the first time since 1992, but all the portents are there for a gripping season. Let's hope we start with a ripper.

FH