It is traditional here at SofaF1 to have our predictions for the qualifying and race on the Friday before each race. But as we’ll be doing the race predictions next Friday and we won’t want to get it all confused I think this Friday is the day for our championship predictions. But first, like an old friend who smells a bit, the traditional round up blather.

The massive shake up in F1 has meant that some have said this season will be impossible to predict others have suggested the same old usual suspects will be holding up the front of the form book.

Ferrari have seen massive change, and although Kimi would have been a dead cert number one driver there this time last year people have been seriously critical of him over the off season. Bernie has even said that he prefers Massa. How things pan out between them will be electric.

Alonso joins McLaren, and so does Hamilton. Another fantastically exciting driver combination. Alonso is likely to out class the rookie, but Hamilton might still win a race. But can the car hold itself together this year? McLaren didn’t win any races last year.

Talking about winning last year what about world champion winning team Renault? It seems losing Alonso has hit them hard. But perhaps their car will be slow but reliable? Whatever, new man Hekki should prove to be an interesting man to watch.

Or will the upset of the year come from BMW? Who have been going so well this winter. Or Honda? Or the Adrian Newey designed Red Bull?

With Michael gone, the king is dead. Long live the king, but who will it be?

This year we shall be asking you for your top eight drivers for each race and the one person you think is going to be on pole. We should have from you your top eight drivers for the championship and the driver you think will be on pole the most over the season.

A brief re-cap of the rules:

For each race you get:

2 points for pole.
2 points for each race position you get right.
1 point for each race position within 1 place of what you guessed.

First place counts as double so 4 points if you get that right, 2 points if the person you picked to come first comes second.

And everything is doubled again for the championship points. Note if two people tie for number of poles people who picked either get the points.

Rather nicely this means that each race is worth 20 points. And rather less nicely this means the whole championship is out of 380.

Well good luck, Scott’s speed, and see you on the Sofa!