While canny strategy and ballsy driving effectively turned the formbook on its head in China, we do not expect anything similar today.

Then again, as he continually matures as a driver - putting memories of what happened here last year firmly out of his mind - Sebastian Vettel does still have that tendency to push just a little too hard, witness his costly mistake on Friday.

However, assuming there is no silliness, today's race is there for the Red Bull drivers to lose.

In Shanghai, Mark Webber was almost as happy as Lewis Hamilton at the Englishman's win, the Aussie proclaiming that it was good for the sport to have a new winner. As talk about his future continues, now would be as good a time as any for Webber to open his 2011 account.

Mercedes demonstrated its ever improving pace with a fine third place for Nico Rosberg, though even Michael Schumacher is at a loss to explain the reason for the (one second) gap between the two. In China, Rosberg was let down by poor team strategy, it will be interesting to see how Ross Brawn and his boys react today.

Ever since they arrived here, the McLaren boys have been talking down their chances. While they were quick on Friday, neither driver looked as convincing yesterday - and the sight of Vettel climbing from his car in Q3, more than satisfied with the time he'd already posted - must have caused Lewis and Jenson to gulp deeply within their helmets. Indeed, the sight of both drivers easing off whilst still on their final hot laps told the story.

While Fernando Alonso dug deep to put his Ferrari sixth on the grid, the Italian outfit still has a long way to go both in terms of pace and reliability. After the three-week break we were expecting more, as, we're sure, so were Fernando and Felipe.

There was another monumental performance from Vitaly Petrov, the Russian continuing to grow in stature; just months after many were pondering whether he was really ready for F1. While some will say that Robert Kubica would have kept him in his place, let's not forget that Nick Heidfeld is no pushover.

Behind the top ten, Williams appear to have made an improvement, mixing it on the grid with the Force India duo. However, these are early days, and there is still clearly a lot wrong with the car and internally within the team. If ever Rubens Barrichello's broad shoulders and wise old head were needed, now is the time.

Speaking of Force India, it's good to see that Adrian Sutil has finally woken from his slumber, out-qualifying Paul di Resta for the first time this year. Perhaps now, with both drivers on form, we might see the Indian outfit push that little bit harder.

It's been a disappointing weekend thus far for Sauber, culminating in Kamui Kobayashi's fuel system problem and Sergio Perez' failure to get the best out of his tyres. Nonetheless, we expect the Swiss team to give a good account of itself today, while Kobayashi's progress through the field should provide some real fireworks.

The Toro Rosso due are down in sixteenth and seventeenth, the Faenza outfit really appearing to struggle here. While one can make the excuse that the midfield group is extremely tightly bunched - which it is - Franz Tost's comments about Daniel Ricciardo's imminent promotion to a race seat cannot be helping morale.

Lotus continues to be the best of the rest, the Malaysian outfit now visibly snapping at the heels of the midfielders. Jarno Trulli continues to lose pace to his Finnish teammate however; yesterday's poor performance was apparently due to his DRS not working.

At Virgin, d'Ambrosio has improved massively in the last couple of races, the Belgian punching well above his weight. Nonetheless, one cannot help but feel that the Russian team needs to take a major look at its CFD policy.

Nothing new to report at Hispania, where both drivers are doing their best despite overwhelming odds. That said, we expect to see both Tonio and Narain go the full distance today.

It's expected that most drivers will be making no more than three stops today, with the hard (prime) tyres said to be good for around twenty laps.

Having not made that final run, Vettel and Webber both have an extra set of soft (options), while the majority of their rivals, including the McLaren duo, have no such luxury.