In the 22 Grands Prix that have taken place at the Circuit de Catalunya, the pole-sitter has gone on to win the race – the most recent being Pastor Maldonado (who starts from 17th today) in 2012.

Whether Nico Rosberg will become the eighteenth is highly dubious.

As we have seen previously, Mercedes appears to have a fixation on taking pole position rather than concentrating all its efforts on the race, opting for Saturday’s headlines over Sunday’s result. To the outside it’s short sighted logic, but, then again, it’s their team.

Therefore, if we discounts the Silver Arrows duo, who will still no doubt pick up a decent points haul, today looks to be about Red Bull, Lotus and Ferrari.

While Mark Webber starts from seventh and Felipe Massa ninth, following his penalty, neither should be written. Indeed, we see the Australian as today’s dark horse.

However, for most, it would appear that today will be between Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen.

Over the years, the bland nature of the circuit, combined with the huge amount of testing done here – especially in the days when tests were held just a few weeks beforehand – earned it the epithet Borecelona. Hopefully that will not be the case today.

As in 2012, the Pirelli rubber means we should always expect the unexpected, which is why we refuse to rule out Massa or Webber.

With no chance of rain spoiling the party, we will have to rely on silliness, unreliability – a rarity these days – errant protestors and our old friends tyres.

As the big guns battle for the podium, it will be interesting to watch the progress of the Force Indias and Toro Rossos here, both teams having been mighty impressive all weekend. Sadly, the same cannot be said of 2012 winner Williams, whose fall from grace is truly alarming.

That said, if the Grove outfit is hurting, what about its Surrey rival McLaren, where, after just four races, Martin Whitmarsh finds himself fending off talk of ‘quitting’. In all honesty, the decline at Woking hasn’t been sudden, and while many cite the decision to come up with a completely new car as the reason, one cannot help but feel that the company has lost direction in its attempts to spread itself into various other markets.

Sauber appears to be having a typically Swiss weekend here, all neutrality and not actually doing anything, while the Caterham/Marussia battle continues to entertain, the Anglo-Malaysian outfit having lost some of the ground it appeared to have gained in Bahrain.