Formula One / David Croft / 12 March 2010 /

Formula One is back and David Croft is trackside at qualifying in Bahrain. Our man reckons the season's curtain raiser will be fascinating viewing but where is he putting his money?

It's been fascinating this week to hear the drivers talking, trying to be confident without being over-confident. Unless you're a clairvoyant nobody really knows who's on top and who starts the opening race of the season with the best car.

Red Bull suffered a few reliability issues during Friday practice, and a broken drive-shaft cost Mark Webber [8.4] some vital track time in the afternoon. His team mate Sebastian Vettel flat spotted a tyre in the morning which did nothing to help his pace either.

Lewis Hamilton [4.8], just four laps into a long stint in the afternoon, reported that his rear tyres were destroyed and that he had to come back to the garage. Jenson Button [11.5] suffered no such problems on his long run, on the softer, option tyre.

Meanwhile, at Mercedes Michael Schumacher [9.6] admitted that he was a bit rusty as he fended off questions as to why Nico Rosberg managed faster times then him in both sessions. Rosberg [14.5] ended the afternoon as the quickest man on the track. The weight of expectancy though, despite Schumacher stressing that he puts huge pressure on himself to succeed, is large and the expectations of his fans and German media alike are even greater. Are those expectations realistic? Not on the evidence we've seen so far, but in the past we've seen Schumacher raise his game when it counts.

For Ferrari a sedate afternoon of tyre comparison accompanied a morning where both drivers could be reasonably satisfied with their efforts. The Italian team, and they weren't alone in this, did admit that they hadn't got the set up completely right and that they were having problems with some of the bumps on the track.

Force India had an excellent morning and may be in a position to spring surprise and a decent points finish. Williams could be close to them come the race and Sauber won't be far behind with a car that looks to be kinder than most on it's tyres, thus increasing the strategy options open to them.

As for a race winner, don't read too much into Friday's times. Treat the practice sessions as an extended test and watch closely on Saturday morning. It's impossible to know the exact fuel loads the teams were running at a particular moment and, with the spread of weights far greater this season, it's easier to disguise genuine pace or flatter to deceive.

So picking a winner at this stage will be difficult. But what will be crucial for whoever comes out on top on Sunday will be the way they look after their tyres in the early stages and handle the 160kg or so of fuel sloshing around behind them. Which for me puts Jenson Button in the frame given his style. His is a style very much suited to winning at a track where keeping the momentum and flow in and out of the slow corners is vital. It could also pay to follow a team with a good track record, if you pardon the pun. Which puts Ferrari in the frame given that, not only have they won three of the six previous races here, but their drivers have won four of the Grand Prix between them.

So with that in mind, and from studying the quiet, calm and purposeful way he's gone about his business so far in Bahrain, I'm giving Fernando Alonso the edge. I stuck my pin by his name for the drivers championship too and given that the winner of the opening race of the season has gone on to become world champion in eight of the last 10 years, a win for the Spaniard could be a good omen.

But there's one more part of the equation that you need to be wary of, and that's the rule this year that a driver inside the top ten, must start the race with the same set of tyres he set his fastest Q3 lap on. A rule that could have a major effect if a driver opts to go with the softer tyre to set what he hopes is a time good enough for pole, but then finds that they don't last very long on a full tank in the early stages on Sunday. Are teams prepared to sacrifice race pace and risk tyre degradation in their pursuit of pole. Obviously if you can combine both demands then you're laughing, and a lot of the work we saw on Friday afternoon was spent trying to find the answer to just that conundrum. But who's got the answers? Nobody's saying and more to the point nobody's smiling too much either. Not the most helpful situation for punters and pundits alike, but boy does it make for an exciting and intriguing weekend ahead.

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