The anticipation with which we greet the 2010 Formula 1 season is probably only surpassed by the number of unanswered questions about the season ahead.

How long will the much-professed good relations between Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button last before they implode?

Before the hate mail starts, remember, the record shows that it was Hamilton who took a machete to the McLaren policy of parity between team-mates when he saw that the team's qualifying plan for Hungary was going to cede the advantage to Alonso and refused to follow the team's plan. Unless Hamilton has mellowed substantially, I can only see only two possible outcomes; either the Kovalainen model where Hamilton is clearly cock-of-the-walk and thus all is happiness and light, or the Alonso model, where Button demonstrates that 2009 wasn't just about the car and the warm glow of all those preseason interviews disappears by free practice in Australia. The corollary question is who the British press will side with should the relationship between them implode.

Which car is really fastest?

With the re-introduction of racing without refuelling, winter testing has been harder to interpret than usual. Different drivers, on different days, some running qualifying laps interspersed with others on race simulations, all combined with rainfall which will have made the British contingent feel right at home, contributed to making it nearly impossible to draw any specific conclusions.

It is clear though that McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes (nee Brawn) have built speedy machines. Quite how fast, we will not know until qualifying in Bahrain. What is apparent is that Ferrari successfully applied the Brawn maxim of refusing to flog a dead horse and focussed on 2010 when it became apparent that 2009 was a lost cause. McLaren seemed to expend more effort on development with half an eye on creating a platform for 2010, a strategy which appears to have paid off.

Adrian Newey's Red Bull ended the season with the best run of results and his was the only car that could consistently live with the Brawns during their early season pomp. The fact that so many of their competitors have copied significant aspects of the 2009 Red Bull concept gives them a head start in terms of understanding the nuances of the aero- and mechanical dynamics. While Ross Brawn's band of talented men and women apparently haven't turned out an overwhelmingly dominant car again, you wouldn't bet against the combination of Brawn at the helm and Schumacher at the wheel turning it into a regular race winner before too many sunsets have gone.

Is the Sauber really as fast as the times suggest?

After the Barcelona test a motor racing buddy and I were discussing Sauber's apparent winter testing form and he said it's worth sacrificing meaningful data to win sponsorship because without money you can't go racing in the first place. I like his brand of cynicism but in this case I doubt it's true because it doesn't strike me as the way Peter Sauber operates. In 1993 his team made their debut in Formula 1 at Kyalami with only a credit to their engine supplier on the car and they are still going today.

Are Virgin and Lotus really that slow?