10 Reasons Why F1 Is Anything But Boring

#1 Red Bull's problems with the new car are so grave that head honcho Helmut Marko has even suggested they may never catch their rivals this season. A bit of reverse psychology, you may think, but Red Bull emerged from pre-season testing with an appalling reliability record coming from more than one aspect of the vehicle, meaning that the current and four-time champion Sebastian Vettel completed just over 850 kilometres, almost 2,000kms less than Mercedes' Nico Rosberg.

In interview, Marko stated: "The opening race comes at least two months too early for us. This is a very serious matter. At the moment we do not know in what time frame it will be possible to catch up, or if it is possible at all."

"We are struggling with turbo lag. You step on the gas, but the power does not arrive. It comes all of a sudden, the wheels spin, the car slides and you lose speed. We are working with (power-unit supplier) Renault on the test benches day and night to improve the situation for Melbourne."

Rather like Manchester Utd losing their talisman manager, THAT little nugget, if nothing else, has blown this season’s race wide open.

#2 Lewis Hamilton being partnered with his buddy from go-carting days Nico Rosberg and a Mercedes car with real promise makes him competitive for the first time in a while and he posted fastest times in Bahrain tests, just a few days ago. If he’s both happy and confident, it’s gonna be interesting.

#3 The new car. Every team has had to go back to the drawing-board and come up with a completely new vehicle to fit in with the swingeing new F1 car design regs.

#4 The race locations. Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur, Sakhir, Shanghai, Catalunya, Monte Carlo, Montreal, Spielberg, Silverstone, Hockenheim, Budapest, Spa-Francorchamps, Monza, Singapore, Suzuka, Sochi, Austin, Sao Paulo and Yas Marina… the list resembles not one, but about 20 Bond movies, all rolled into one.

#5 F1 have announced they will be awarding double points for the last race of the season in Abu Dhabi. Do What??!

#6 Turbochargers are back. Need I say more

#7 Kimi Raikkonen is also back- at Ferrari, the thoroughbred team with whom he won the title, in 2007.

#8 Ron Dennis has been wooed back to McLaren subsequent to their disastrous 2013 season, with the express intention of turning everything back to winning ways for the dreadfully underperforming Woking crew.

#9 The outsiders in with a shot. Like young buck Kevin Magnussen, son of a racing father, who spent most of last year locked into a black F1 simulator, putting the hours in with the McLaren development team. Effectively, he’s done more time in the new car than anyone else on the grid this season. He’s also spunky, Danish and up for it. Watch out Button, he’s got zip.

#10 The women. Whether they be WAG’s or models. It seems they LOVE nothing more than acres of really smooth tarmac, men sporting onesies and high-pitched engines. Who knew?

There’s a palpable air of uncertainty to this year’s competition, the like of which hasn’t been seen before, certainly in my memory. A combination of the new car spec, driver shuffling, team heads coming, going and in some cases, coming back again, stringent fuel limits, potentially dodgy Pirelli tyres getting a new three year deal… it all adds up to a wide open season, where so much has been shaken up in so many different areas of the game, that no one can reliably predict a winner.

For the first time in a long time, certainly within the top four, it can truly be said that it’s anybody’s race. This season it will be the team, including the driver, that best copes with the unexpected in adversity that may well pull off the much-coveted 2014 season laurels. All that running alongside the high profile soap of whether F1 Billionaire Bernie goes down for bribery…

Oh, man.