One thing we can safely say about today's race is that it won't be affected by bad weather. The sunshine and scorching heat experienced on Friday and Saturday will continue this afternoon and into the week.

Therefore, the factors to be considered today are fuel loads, tyre strategy, the inevitable clash at the first corner, and, in McLaren's case, outright silliness.

Fernando Alonso made the wrong choice in his tyre choice for the final run in qualifying, but nonetheless he starts from fourth on the grid. Therefore, we are likely to see the 'big four' battling it out once again.

Despite the points difference between the McLaren and Ferrari drivers, both championships are wide open, and therefore there is everything to fight for.

As ever, BMW will be there to pick up the pieces, with both drivers more than capable of taking a podium spot should any of the guys ahead of them make a mistake.

Nico Rosberg continues to impress, while Heikki Kovalainen is gradually proving his many fans right. It's been a slow, tortuous start to the Finn's first season but he's getting there.

Just as Toyota begin to look good, it all starts to go wrong again, with Ralf Schumacher having a torrid time in qualifying and Jarno Trulli extremely with his car's handling.

The Red Bulls are making steady progress while it would be good to see Anthony Davidson build on his amazing qualifying performance.

For Spyker and Toro Rosso it will be another long hard afternoon, while Honda will simply be hoping to get this afternoon, indeed the remainder of the season, out of the way as quickly as possible. With the engines having been changed in both Hondas the 'Myearthdream' cars start from the very back of the grid, which just about sums up the Japanese team's season. There will be no Turkish delight for Nick Fry this afternoon.

As the cars wait on the grid ahead of the parade lap, the air temperature is 35 degrees C, while the track temperature is 53 degrees. It is absolutely scorching hot.

The tyre options this afternoon are the medium and the hard, however, to make things easier we will refer to them as the soft and harder compounds.

Massa is starting on the soft compound, as is his teammate, whereas the McLarens are on the harder compound.

The entire field heads off on the parade lap, including the Hondas, which are not starting from the pitlane as one might have expected.

Even on the parade lap, Coulthard suspects a problem with his gearbox.

The grid lines up, the engines roar in frustrated anger.

The Ferraris get away cleanly, ahead of Hamilton, while Alonso loses out to both the BMWs. Further back Trulli spins, causing problems for everyone behind him. Amazingly, nobody hits him.