First of all, congratulations to Lewis Hamilton for getting his season off to the perfect start - he not only drove well to win, but was lucky enough that those thought to be his main competitors for the title all stumbled and failed to finish, although Raikkonen did eventually manage to claim a point.

However, Lewis has said a couple of things since his win which strike me as odd.  Firstly he claims this was his best ever victory - which is weird given that he was very rarely under any pressure at all from those behind him, and neither did he actually have to pass anyone.  It’s perhaps his most comfortable win, but I doubt it will live forever in the minds of his fans as being his greatest victory.

Is this to be his last season? Almost every year since about 2004 has started with that very same question, and each time the answer has been “No” but will this be the year for it to change to “Yes”?

His career, like every sportsman’s, must come to an end at some point and with DC coming up on his 37th birthday you would have to say that the end will come sooner rather than later.

The man himself won’t entertain any talk of retirement until he really has no other choice, which will probably roll around in July at the earliest as historically it’s around this time that Red Bull tend to announce contract extensions.

From a spectator’s point of view is Alonso joining Renault a good thing in the grand scheme of things?

It’s not an easy question to answer.

What it guarantees (hopefully, barring unforseen circumstances) is that the three best drivers are all going to be at different teams for the next year at least.

Unlike this year where Alonso and Hamilton were both at McLaren, next season will see Hamilton remain at McLaren, Alonso at Renault and Kimi at Ferrari.  Throw a BMW driver or two into the mix and perhaps a Red Bull and it sounds like it could be a good year of racing!

It seems Fernando Alonso is being backed into a corner slightly over where he will be driving next season.

Assuming there is to be no contract breaking going on, then where can he go?

There has been much speculation on this which I won’t go over again, but basically he seems to have a realistic choice between Renault and Toyota - between a team who were once great and could believably be great again, and a team who has loads of money, but are unlikely to be great anytime soon.

There is also a vacant seat at McLaren, but that’s hardly a likely option!

I make no secret of the fact that I have been a fan of David Coulthard since he entered F1 in 1994.

DC grew up in south-west Scotland like myself, so the fact that a local boy had made it to the very top of his chosen profession - coupled with the fact that this profession happened to be my favourite sport and was televised every other week made it all the easier for me to follow and support him through his career.