Unless someone does something very, very silly, the World Championship cannot be decided today. That said, after all the silliness of the 2007 season thus far, nothing would surprise us.

Earlier this morning, Lewis Hamilton admitted that he hopes Fernando Alonso will leave McLaren at the end of the year, hopefully heading for Ferrari, in addition to having another clear pop at the Spaniard by saying that he hopes he won't resort to the Schumacher way of doing things, whereby 'anything goes. That said, as we have seen a couple of times this season, most recently at Monza, the English rookie is not above resorting to hard aggressive driving himself.

A short while ago, Bob Constanduros advised us that conditions were "horrible", even wetter than yesterday. That was a couple of hours ago, but it has to be said that right now, just under half-an-hour before the scheduled start, conditions are pretty bad. It is raining hard, and it looks as though its set 9in for the next few hours.

Therefore the planned preamble can be binned and instead we can hope for a great race in which anything can happen. Our only hope is that we get to see a 'classic' wet Grand Prix and not the sort of shenanigans some sections of the media are clearly hoping for.

It's kind of perverse to see the cars on the grid and the engineers working on their laptops, which are shielded by little plastic covers.

Naturally, in these conditions, the 'big four' are favourites, however these races often become something of a lottery, therefore anything could happen, and should the Ferraris and McLarens run into trouble - to put it nicely - anyone of a number of drivers could step up to the plate, the most obvious being Nick Heidfeld.

As if to prove how bad conditions are, Kimi Raikkonen goes off on his out lap as he heads to the grid - bringing back memories of Prost at Imola all those years ago. And before you write in, we know that the Frenchman went off on the parade lap.

We lost several cars in the opening laps in Germany earlier this year, where a sudden downpour caught everyone on the hop. That was the race where Hamilton ticked the remaining boxes, though there are still many fans puzzled by the English driver's return to the race - having spun off - courtesy of a friendly marshal with a crane.

As the cars line up on the grid the rain stops, however, its still very wet out there, and there is plenty of rain cloud over Mount Fuji, not to mention a slight fog. Visibility is poor, and that's before the action begins and the cars begin throwing up those rooster tails. Indeed, Race Control announces that the race will get underway behind the safety car - which means one possible scenario is eliminated from the outset. Nobody wants to see anyone hurt, however, starting a Grand Prix behind the safety car is further proof of the emasculation of this sport. Sad days.

As the field prepares to head off on the parade lap - without Tonio Liuzzi, who is starting from the pitlane - the air temperature is 17 degrees C, while the track temperature is 22 degrees. Humidity is 94%.

Liuzzi qualified on a dry set-up, which has now been changed to a wet set-up (obviously), hence the pitlane start.