Huge Formula 1 fan here! Been a fan ever since I could remember, according to those that have known me the longest, ever since I could walk – early/mid ’80s. Properly got into it when Damon Hill started racing in F1, favourite driver, met him on three occasions and a top guy too.

I’m looking forward to this season, as ever with any past ones. New changes, new challenges, not really a new era of Formula 1 cars though. Low noses, limited aerodynamics, 1.6 V6 Turbo engines… Ehmmm… ’80s Formula 1 cars… Anyone? I seem to remember they were quick, brutally quick. However, they’re no match for the bonkers V10s of the ’90s and ’00s.

With regards to the low noses, I wouldn’t want to be in any ’14 F1 car, especially the Mercedes and Ferrari, when the guy in front suddenly brakes, I hit the back of it, lefts up and throws the car’s ar$e end right towards where my head is. No thanks! Ironically, for the 1996 season, the FIA called for new regulations for the F1 cars to have a more blunted, rounded form to prevent punctures and, be much higher to, I quote: ‘Preventing the upshift of a car in front in the event of a collision.’ In other words, stopping the car from flipping ar$e over tit and smacking the driver’s bonce. The FIA have short memories… Must be all those Nazi Gimp Sessions they have.

As for a prediction, it is not possible at this stage …. but at a guess, Raikkonen shows that he is slightly the better driver than Alonso. Alonso throws a big strop, Ferrari favour Alonso with new parts etc. Raikkonen tells Ferrari to stick their job up there a…

It’s going to be very interesting at Ferrari this year, (remember Senna and Prost at McLaren?), I foresee strained relations at Ferrari sooner rather than later. However, they have the strongest driver line-up by far out of all the teams. Both of them are two of the most consistent drivers in the field, if they get along well and the F14-T is half decent, they’re going to be pretty formidable.

We can all accept nature as it’s a way of life, it’s beautiful as it is brutal… It’s when the Human element is added, then it’s a total f*ck up!

F1 cars of each decade since the 1950s cannot be compared to one another. Each decade the technology was pushed to its absolute limits, within reasons of the regulations. The late ’60s and ’70s up until the mid ’80s (even very early ’90s) the technology was pushed to its furthest and even beyond in many cases which would be considered rather extreme by today’s standard. By comparison, the technology today and what the engineers can produce is strictly limited, they’re on a very tight budget and they’re lawed by Rules of what they can do and can’t do, such restrictions were unthinkable back… well actually, as little back as 2008.

Formula 1 has always been about pushing technology and driver ability, what can be said today can easily be said in the ’50s, that’s why the cars have been getting faster and more advanced, simply due to technology. ’50s F1 technology was as state of the art back then as ’13 F1 technology was state of the art yesteryear.

Many people say Formula 1 today is boring… It begs the question; ‘When did they start watching this Sport?’… Because I seem to remember in the ’80s, ’90s and the ’00s that the top two, or sometimes three teams, the better one was 2-3 seconds a lap faster than the team below, those guys were then 3-4-5-6+ seconds a lap faster than the teams below the rest, right from when the lights went out. On average today we’re lucky, or seldom, to see the quickest guy in the field achieve anything more than a 4 second lead by time he takes his first pit stop, on many occasions the gap between the podium finishers has been around that figure or less, much less. Back then, it was common and expected to see the guy in front to lap the entire field by 1 Lap and still have 30+ seconds before the Lapped guy in 2nd crossed the line. That’s unheard of these days.

I’ve followed the sport for as long as I can remember from a very young age – where I could understand what was going on on a very basic scale, mid ’80s. And I can count from the top of my head on both hands where there’s been such close races throughout the three decades, where I can do that I can twice as many close races in two seasons of last and previous, despite Vettel being dominant.

The racing today is much closer.

Indeed, testing is to iron out any issues before the season starts. If everything was fine, there’s no way the teams would let the drivers open up the full potential of the cars, they wouldn’t risk giving too much away. That’s why when you see them out on track, they’re backing off or/and not fully powering up regardless of the times. Most of the time they spend either going pretty slow using all the revs and the 8th gear (yep, 8 gears this year), or going flat out and probably going no higher than 5th or 6th gear. To work out speeds and aerodynamics they tend to use various weird and wonderful devices for measurements.

The first real flat out test is always the first race.

Absolutely. I’ve been watching Sky F1’s Ted Kravits’ Notebook, not actually on Sky, I’m a BBC guy out of principle, but via Youtube (free) and the access he’s got a hold of is pretty overwhelming. He has close up shots of the rear of the likes of the McLaren where they have a controversial system going on, and as far as I know they’re not at all happy with Ted and his handy-cam, they’ve even declined technical discussions with Sky F1 now that some other teams are kicking up a fuss, purely because they haven’t thought of it… Correction: They’ll kick up a fuss if it works.

That’s quite a significant revelation so early in the year. We didn’t get to see Brawn’s ground breaking Double Diffuser until the first race of ’09. But, with the level of access and instant communication today it’s tough for teams to keep elements hidden, Ferrari are taking pretty paranoia like precautions to prevent anyone seeing too much.

Suggesting an element of deception at the public is interesting. It’s not uncommon to see teams, or shall I say; for teams to suggest they’re struggling in an attempt to shake off the others. Red Bull are guilty of this and they’ve “indicated to have had technical issues” in past pre-season tests. Last year, they didn’t run as much as the others because they were having some “technical teething issues”, yet 13 race wins, a Drivers Championship and Constructers Championship later, well… They were fine. I guess they tried to make the other teams think their own cars were up to task to challenge them, there for making them not research much else and introduce improvements to the car before the season got under way. One wonders, are Red Bull attempting to pull the same stunt again?…

Indeed. But with Sky F1 having all year round coverage they’re going to be pushing for news of the updates of the cars. Sky is a money making corporation so they’d do anything to get more viewers, which they kinda need anyway because they’re not getting the number of viewers they’re targeting for. But yes, it takes something special away from the first race of the season. I’d like to get some information, but not too much to a point where everything will seem not new by time the first official Free Practice.

I’ve just learned: To change this years Turbo/KERS V6 engines, it takes approximately 6 hours, compared to 45 minutes previously. So, have an issue in Free Practice 1 which results in an engine change, you will miss Free Practice 2. Have an engine issue in Free Practice 3 which results in an engine change, you miss Qualifying, there for you’ll start at the rear of the grid or from the Pit Lane exit… Oh and, receive a Position Drop for the next race because it’s a penalty for an engine change. That’s… Pretty damn harsh.

Also, teams have a maximum of 5 engines per driver for the whole season as opposed to 8 engines per driver the previous season.