With the weather unlikely to play a major role in today's race, we will probably need to rely on tyre wear, reliability, silliness and outright madness if we are to expect anything too dramatic.

While our current crop of F1 starts are known to have their moments, it is highly unlikely that we are going to witness the sort of gross stupidity we've seen from their GP3 counterparts this weekend. As if 21 drivers being penalised after Friday practice wasn't enough, not to mention two restarts to Saturday's race, this morning we actually had drivers racing and crashing behind the Safety Car. Quite pathetic really.

While Sebastian Vettel must go into today's race as red hot favourite, the German and his Austrian team have been shooting themselves in the foot quite a bit recently. Sure, the youngster will be fired up in front of his home crowd, but as we know from experience he tends to be just a little too emotional and one cannot help but fear that today he could be his own worst enemy.

We have to admit that when, earlier this week, Alonso claimed that Ferrari will win the championship, our first thought was that we'd like a tipple of whatever the Spaniard is on. However, having watched the pace of the two Maranello cars this weekend, one would be stupid to continue dismissing Alonso's claims especially as Red Bull and McLaren continue to make their own mistakes.

Also, a year on from his horror accident at the Hungaroring, how good to see Massa starting from the second row.

Despite the claims that Red Bull has moved on from the Silverstone row, which in turn came amidst claims that the team had moved on from the Istanbul row, many remain sceptical and who can blame them. Having won here last year, Webber will be keen to make it a double, especially with the Silverstone saga still fresh in his memory. And let's not forget, the team, whilst refusing to admit any form of bias, has now said that it will from here on in favour whichever driver is ahead in the championship.

Should Red Bull fail to convert pole into another win, the Maranello duo will be there to pick up the pieces, though, on his Friday and Saturday form, maybe, just maybe, Alonso can take today's race without any assistance from the Milton Keynes drivers.

Jenson Button will be keen to keep teammate Lewis Hamilton behind him but that's a hard ask, the 2009 champion no doubt one of several drivers hoping for a bit of rain this afternoon. With its testing severely compromised this weekend, the Woking team might need to wait until the end of August before it really reaps the benefit of those new upgrades.

While Nico Rosberg will be keen to do his best for Mercedes, the German will be under pressure from Kubica and the Williams, while teammate Michael Schumacher is in for another long difficult afternoon and another (post-race) trial by media.

Sauber - celebrating forty years in motorsport - will be hoping that Kamui Kobayashi can continue his success streak, while Toro Rosso appears to have the edge over Force India here.

One driver who really needs a result here today is Vital Petrov, the Russian, though exciting to watch, simply getting involved in too many incidents. At a time when there is talk of financial problems at Renault, as many as seven drivers are being linked with the French outfit.