It is a tough job predicting the podium and points places for Sunday's Australian Grand Prix but someone has got to do it, and the task has fallen to me.
The rule changes for the 2009 Formula 1 season, the row over diffuser design and the emergence of the Brawn Grand Prix team cast the competition wide open before the cars hit the track.
Finally the cars have got up-and-running in Melbourne and after months of suspense we can get some indication as to form - or lack of it.
Read the rest of this entry
So which current driver's getting this big build-up for the new season? "He's one of the most naturally talented racing drivers you've ever seen. More so than Lewis Hamilton, more so than Michael Schumacher."
Aha, Fernando Alonso, you say. When I tell you that the compliment came from a former McLaren insider, you may want to revise that answer. But keep the Alonso name in mind.
Red Bull's rising star Sebastian Vettel? No. BMW Sauber's highly rated Robert Kubica? No. The answer is Kimi Raikkonen.
Given the Finn's fall from grace after his 2007 championship success, you can understand why Alonso is relevant.
Raikkonen can inspire and infuriate in equal measure, inside and outside Ferrari, and his performances last season reflect the arguments which bedevil the team's current pairing of Raikkonen with Felipe Massa.
The two of them are not strong enough, the doubters say, to match the gold standard set by Michael Schumacher. His successors suffer from too many limitations which Alonso, for example, does not share.
Alonso to Ferrari has become a familiar storyline, with the strongest - and very credible - report last Christmas in the much respected Italian paper, Gazzetto dello Sport, that the Spaniard had already struck a deal to join Ferrari in 2011 - with an option for 2010 should a vacancy arise.
Read the rest of this entry
Jonathan Legard commentated on Formula 1 for the BBC in 2009 and 2010. He wrote regular blogs during that period, giving a behind-the-scenes insight into the grand prix weekends. Jonathan, previously 5 live's football correspondent and before that the radio station's F1 correspondent, is no longer part of the BBC's F1 team. 
