Okay doke, F1 is back - and it promises to be better than ever.

Whether it will live up to expectations remains to be seen, but qualifying went pretty well today with the grid a little more unusual than people had probably expected.

Lewis outqualifying Jenson and Vettel being ahead of Webber aren’t big shocks but Alonso being behind Massa and the returning Schuey being behind Rosberg will have raised a few eyebrows I’m sure.

Whether we should be shocked about Schumacher or not is debatable as it is his first qualifying session for quite some time, we’ll wait until after the race before we mark his scorecard.

Which brings us to the race and what the outcome could be - given the testing performance, it looks like the Ferrari will be handy on longer runs so Vettel is going to have his work cut out for him. Whether Massa can stay ahead of Alonso is also something to watch out for - the shorter pitstops will make it harder to use them as a tool to pass you would think.

There’s no denying Alonso is a smart guy so he should be on the ball with tyre management - I would be surprised to see him driving like a loony too early on and ruining his tyres.

Rubens Barrichello is also someone to watch as he will be on the more favoured harder tyre right from the start which may help him in the stint before those ahead get the chance to switch over to that compound.

So, how will it end?

I predict the top 6 to end thus : Alonso, Massa, Alonso, Webber, Hamilton, Button.

As it’s the first race of the season though, anything could happen so I won’t be putting any money on it!