The 2008 F1 season is almost upon us. For the next 9 months I’ll be spending every other Sunday afternoon shouting at the TV – don’t bother trying to call me during a Grand Prix, I won’t answer! So with the opening race in Melbourne less than a week away I’ve been gazing into the crystal ball to come up with my top 10 predictions for the upcoming season:

1. Ferrari and McLaren will again be dominant and will have a significant gap to the other teams (okay, I started with an easy one!).
2. Hamilton will not have the “difficult second year” that many have predicted and will again be fighting for the championship.
3. Raikkonen and Hamilton will eventually emerge as the only serious contenders for the title.
4. Williams will emerge as the next-best team, having overtaken Renault and BMW.
5. Rosberg will continue to improve and unless he is fighting for podiums by the end of the season, Frank Williams will lose him for 2009.
6. By mid-season Alonso will be wingeing about his team’s performance. This will be the trigger for him leaving Renault at the end of the year.
7. If McLaren manage to win at least one title, Ron Dennis will retire at the end of the season.
8. Barichello and Button will drive some great races that will go largely unnoticed as they’ll again be consigned to the midfield but they’ll make excuses that next year’s car will be better because it will benefit from the full influence of Ross Brawn. Same excuse just a different person to pin their hopes on.
9. Night races will get rave reviews from commentators and spectators but will be a complete waste of time for television viewers (the mass majority of the audience) who will hardly notice the difference under all those floodlights. Hardly environmentally friendly is it?
10. And the big question: Who’ll emerge on top by the time they reach Sao Paulo at the end of the season? Hamilton will take the driver’s title and Ferrari will take the constructor’s. Is that sitting on the fence?