Australian Grand Prix Preview: Who ordered the prawns?

There’s an Aussie saying, ‘Don’t come the raw prawn with me, mate’, that F1 fans would do well to heed as this season’s opener in Melbourne nears.

It translates politely as ‘Don’t try to fool me, you slippery fellow’ and it could have been crafted to apply to 2016 title favourites Mercedes.

After utterly dominating Formula 1 for two seasons, thanks in no small part to their brutally efficient engine, Mercedes have hinted that they could face a title challenge from Ferrari this year.

Two words apply to that claim: raw prawn.

Speed demons

Ferrari were fastest in pre-season testing but they used grippier tyres to set their times than Mercedes, and who knows what fuel loads they were running with.

Mercedes, for their part, completed a remarkable shakedown of their car, covering a distance equivalent to 19 grands prix with a grand total of one significant problem – a transmission issue on Lewis Hamilton’s presumably exhausted W07.

So, even if Ferrari do show good pace at Albert Park this weekend, they are going to have to demonstrate top-notch reliability throughout the season to stay in touch with Hamilton and Rosberg. Having said that, it will be disappointing if Sebastian Vettel isn’t mixing it with the Mercs, and he could be close enough in pace to split them if fate smiles on him.

The F1 Saturday show

What else should we look out for at the Australian Grand Prix?

Firstly, don’t miss qualification. This year’s will-they-won’t-they changes to Saturday qualifying are going to provide plenty of fodder for pundits and excuses for drivers as the new knock-out system gets its first airing.

The key difference in the new qualifying format is the gradual elimination of slower drivers as each session passes.

Now, these are the most professional racing teams on the planet so they’ll have worked out plan after plan for qualifying and, as Fernando Alonso said: ‘We will do very fast laps when it’s time to do it.’

With that in mind, and in the spirit of F1, expect complaints about cars being blocked, particularly in the early part of Q1, and a general sense of chaos surrounding tyre and strategy decisions.

Significantly, there will be only two cars left on track as the third and final quali session comes to an end – rather than the ten-car jamboree we’ve come to love and expect – and these two cars are likely to have cooked their tyres to stay in the shootout.

Let’s hope we’re not all shuffling off to put the kettle on or grab a cheeky Foster’s before Q3 has ended, or F1 will have to rethink its qualifying changes yet again.

Go, go, go!

Once the lights go out for the Australian Grand Prix, it will be a Mercedes v Ferrari sprint to the tricky first corner – and not just at the front of the field.

Mercedes supply the engines for Williams, Force India and Manor, while Ferrari supply engines – albeit 2015 spec units – to Toro Rosso, Sauber and the new Haas team.

Williams and Force India are expected to score well, although Force India may be distracted by the financial cloud hanging over boss Vijay Mallya, who has been summoned to appear before Indian investigators on Friday.

As for Williams, they last won at Albert Park way back in 1996, when Damon Hill was man of the moment, but this year they’d be pleased with a fifth place.

Toro Rosso will also be battling in the midfield, and their Ferrari engine may well help them stay ahead of their big brothers at Red Bull, who are still struggling with Renault power or, rather, a lack of Renault power. Hey-ho, at least the same problem afflicts the Renault team.

Even the undoubted talent of local hero Daniel Ricciardo won’t be sufficient to drag Red Bull into contention for a top-tier finish, unless the favourites hit a catastrophic run of bad luck.

Back in the cheap seats

Fans will be watching US newbies Haas In Melbourne, after their impressive debut in testing. It’s not just their racing experience outside of F1 that’s helping them impress – that Ferrari engine, plus Ferrari gearbox, Ferrari suspension and some other Ferrari gizmos is a clever package for a new team. Will it be My Little Pony to Ferrari’s prancing horse?

McLaren … well, what can we say? Honda engine, that’s what we can say.

That leaves Sauber and Manor, battling to stay off the bottom of the table.

The gloves come off

Pit-to-car communications have been hugely restricted for 2016 and drivers will be responsible for much more managing of race strategy. One side effect of this could be drivers choosing to adopt a more aggressive strategy than their teams may like at key points in the race.

Think of Lewis and Nico battling it out, but without Merc boss Toto Wolff on the blower telling them both to turn down their engines and save their cars. Wolff has not only said his drivers can race each other, contrary to his warnings in the winter break, he has also said that he expects their rivalry to ‘get nasty’ again.

Now you know why Merc was testing car reliability to the extreme in those Barcelona tests.

The big downside of restricting radio communications is that it will choke off our best supply of driver spleen-venting; and those people who make Kimi Raikkonen quote T-shirts are in for a tougher season than usual.

Still, bring it on, raw prawns and all.