From the Darkness into the 5 Red Lights

From the unbearable silence to the sound of 22 V8 engines accelerating into Turn 1 at Albert Park. This is what has driven my passion for F1. This is what the first notes of The Chain do to me on the first day of coverage every year. This is the reason I get up at a godforsaken hour to tune into live coverage of Melbourne. The beautiful, momentary pause between the lights going out and 22 drivers putting the pedal to the proverbial metal.  That is the moment when the off-season becomes a distant memory and last season becomes just another footnote in the history of the sport.

This year the sound of The Chain won't be heard before the live race.  This year, sadly, I won't be able to watch it live on the BBC so I'll have to find it elsewhere...

With 9 days to go to the Australian GP it's prediction time for the first race! About time!

I wrote these predictions down four days ago and have been trying to write justifications for them but, having failed to do that this year I'm basing my predictions on my complete inability to get my head around the sheer volumes of data, lap charts, testing regimes, etc.

Over the 12 days of testing I've read, seen, and written about so much stuff that I just can't functionally pull all of the disparate information into any coherent narrative.  Believe me I've tried to write the "complete" summary of where everyone seems to be after testing but, while I think I might have an insight I can't provide it as an outsight.

My predictions for Melbourne are based on my own understanding of the teams and testing and are probably completely and wildly inaccurate. My  results are reliability assumed, with everyone finishing the race

World Drivers' Championship Standings after Melbourne

2013 Helmet	Position	Driver	Team
	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull 25
	2	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari 18
	3	Mark Webber	Red Bull 15
	4	Jenson Button	Mclaren 12
	5	Felipe Massa	Ferrari 10
	6	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes 8
	7	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes 6
	8	Sergio Perez	McLaren 4
	9	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus 2
	10	Valtteri Bottas	Williams 1
	11	Pastor Maldonado	Williams
	12	Romain Grosjean	Lotus
	13	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber
	14	Paul di Resta	Force India
	15	Adrian Sutil	Force India
	16	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber
	17	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso
	18	Jean Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso
	19	Jules Bianchi	Marussia
	20	Charles Pic	Caterham
	21	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham
	22	Max Chilton	Marussia

Now, I'd prefer if Mark Webber won in Melbourne because it's his home race and I like him a lot as a driver but I'm not giving it to him based on his team-mates previous performances.  Similarly Felipe might be in the running for second and, on the same basis Fernando Alonso gets the nod ahead of him.

Jenson Button, I believe is still faster than Sergio Perez, so he gets the nod as does Lewis over Nico, though I'm open to Nico proving me wrong. Where team-mates are side-by-side the names are interchangeable as with Mercedes, Williams, Force India, and Toro Rosso.

I'm pretty sure that we'll see at least one of the Williams and one of the McLaren's retire, due to the fact that these are not evolutionary cars unlike the majority of the rest of the field, so technically there's more chance of something going wrong.  I also think one of the Lotus might fail to finish due to their inconsistent nature over the course of testing so far.

That would give points to Sauber or Force India should their lead drivers come home.

You might notice that I've put Jules Bianchi ahead of the Caterhams and that's because, after only one and a half days of testing he was right in the mix.  He might well be Rookie of the season if he can continue in that vein.  It's not inconceivable either that Esteban Gutierrez ends up behind the Toro Rosso's if they have made improvements which they have deliberately "Sandbagged" throughout testing.  They did a good enough job in Jerez to warrant a closer look.

But I'm excited because I've seen the lap charts from Barcelona, read the experts and listened to the teams, and I think I can give a good guess as to who's been sandbagging and who has given it their all.  I think I may have an idea of what we'll see Down Under even though the weight of information has left me reeling.

It looks as if Sauber are slightly faster than Force India at this stage, with Toro Rosso coming up fast behind Force India.  This is based on similar testing runs, but without knowledge of the fuel loads.

Mercedes look as if they may be just ahead of the Ferrari and on a par with the Red Bull, particularly over one lap, but both of the latter two teams are well known to run heavier fuel loads to hide their true speed. No matter, the Mercedes cars are there or thereabouts.  They are likely to be in the mix at the front.

McLaren look to be off the pace by around 0.3 of a second but once again without fuel data it's based solely on the similarities between their test runs with those of other teams.

Williams seem to have been doing their own thing and therefore I can read nothing into their performance other than to say that it is consistent, though it is worth noting that the driver's consider the car to be significantly better to drive than last year - that does not necessarily translate to quicker.

Lotus have shown the ability to consistently put in the laptimes over the long runs so it may be that they, once again, will have a good relationship with the tyres and can challenge at the front on a mixture of speed and strategy.

Caterham, as I've said before would appear to be under serious pressure from the Marussia team.

When all is said and done though, testing is, for us fans simply a portal through which we must travel to bring us from the darkness of the off-season to the 5 red lights; from the unbearable silence to the sound of 22 V8's fighting to achieve the first win of the season.  All this is happening in less than 10 days.  Be prepared!

Predicted Constructor's Championship after Melbourne

	Position	Team	Points
	1	Red Bull	40
	2	Ferrari	28
	3	McLaren	16
	4	Mercedes	14
	5	Lotus	2
	6	Williams	1
	7	Force India	0
	8	Sauber	0
	9	Toro Rosso	0
	10	Marussia	0
	11	Caterham	0