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It’s been nearly five months since Lewis Hamilton passed Timo Glock on the last lap of the last Grand Prix of 2008 to claim the World Drivers’ Championship but the wait is nearly over.  Winter testing in Europe and the Middle East has finished and twenty racing cars have been boxed up and flown to Australia where teams of engineers are preparing them to hit the track on Friday.

Melbourne’s Albert Park Circuit will see Formula One’s first ever twilight race on Sunday and it promises to be a thrilling start to the season but the outcome of the race is anything but certain.  Will the new over-size front wings be smashed to pieces as drivers dive for the first dusty corner?  Will McLaren reveal they’ve been sandbagging in testing and blow everyone away like they did in 1998?  Will those teams who decide to run KERS suffer reliability problems or will it give them an overtaking advantage?  Will Brawn GP finish 1, 2 (only to have them taken away when Red Bull make an official protest over their fancy diffuser?)  And will the high-tech RB5 finally give Mark Webber a decent finish in Australia or will he be outdone by his new team mate Sebastian Vettel?

All these questions and more will be answered on Sunday but now is your chance to predict the future in the 2009 Formula One World Championship f1buzz.net prediction game!

The rules are simple. Just leave a comment on this post with your driver predictions for the race in the following format:

Pole:
First:
Second:
Third:
Fastest lap:

Points will be awarded like this:

• Predict pole position: 5 points
• Predict 1st: 10 points
• Predict 2nd: 8 points
• Predict 3rd: 6 points
• Predict correct driver on podium but not in correct position: 3 points for each driver
• Predict fastest lap: 5 points

You can enter up until the start of qualifying on Saturday.  Don’t worry if you have already entered your predictions on a previous post they will still be counted!

Good luck and enjoy the race!

Bernie Ecclestone thinks the new scoring system announced by the FIA on Tuesday could give Jenson Button a crack at the Championship in 2009.

Official Aussie bookmaker, IASbet.com currently has Jenson Button priced as favourite to win in Melbourne ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Massa, Rubens Barrichello and Lewis Hamilton.

When Bernie was asked by Autosport about his predictions for the championship at an Australian Grand Prix press conference he said:

I suppose an awful lot will depend on these regulations, but if Brawn has got it right, then there is a chance that for the first three races we could maybe see Jenson winning.

Now that it is not points that decides the championship, if he has three races in his pocket then it is not bad – although I suppose in the end you have to look at the old timers like Alonso, Kimi, Felipe and Mr Hamilton.

I think he’s right and I’d love to see Jenson challenging for the Championship this year.  God knows he’s been waiting a long time for a car that could give him a serious chance at it.  But my favorite Bernie comment from the press conference was this, when asked about the legality of the Williams, Toyota and Brawn diffusers:

I guarantee whoever wins the races in Melbourne will be told they are cheating, and it doesn’t matter who it is.

Unfortunately, I think he’s right there, too.