The 2008 Formula season kicks off in Melbourne, Australia this weekend, to start a season that has more than the normal number of unknowns clouding anyone's predictions. I'm not going to run through the drivers one by one, as bc525 already covered that one (check out his Jan 25th blog). Instead I'm going to cover the talking points ahead of the season.

1) The Spygate Fallout - For those of you living under a motorsport rock, 'Spygate' was the discovery that the McLaren team had had access to confidential Ferrari documents and designs, and had been using them on it's own car. The initial ruling was that McLaren were docked all of the constructors points - the reason their cars will carry numbers 22 and 23, rather than 3 and 4 - reflecting their real performance. The fallout continues to rumble on, various members of the McLaren team being called to court and rumours that team principal Ron Dennis is on the way out. The teams 08 car was subject to FIA checks to make sure that the Ferrari data wasn't still being used. On initial models of the car a few elements were ruled too similar, but what these elements were is probably only known to the FIA and McLaren. Looking at the off-season test times McLaren don't seem to been effected too badly, but F1 tests are notoriously mis-leading.

2) Alonso's Annoyed - After having a season where the world seemed against him at McLaren Fernando Alonso has made a prodigal son like return to Renault - the team he won two drivers titles with. Last season was not a good one for Renault. There many be all sorts of reason for it - sub-standard drivers, the loss of tyre partners Michelin etc, but they were below par. On Alonso's return a budget increase for the team was promised. Again, judging by the test times Renault are in top regions of the time sheets again.

3) Super Aguri Saved? - Despite an outstanding season for the tiny team last season their main 2007 sponsors, SS United, pulled out of their deal with team, meaning that for a while the team's existence was seriously threatened. They had to cancel tests and the futures of their drivers were in doubt. Until this week, when the UK based Magma Group have brought the team. The team's new car hasn't been tested so it's practice runs in Melbourne will be the first time the cars has run timed public laps. Coupled with the fact that it's a Honda customer car, and Honda are, well, rubbish, it may well be back to nil points.

4) And this week the name is..... - Jordan, no Midland, no Spyker, no it's, erm... Force India. OK, OK so apart from sounding like the sub-continents's answer to Mighty Morpin' Power Rangers it might not be all bad. The new owner wants to bring some stability back to the team after a few years when they changed names like underwear. The team are also free from the customer car grumbles that plague fellow back-markers Super Aguri and Toro Rosso, and have a driver pairing that could suprise a few. Adrian Sutil is a young guy, who despite being unknown has one feather in his cap. 2007 Monaco GP, it's practice it's raining and Sutil bests the whole field in a poor car - imagine him in a good one. He's partnered by Giancarlo Fisichella, who may well have been World Champion by now, had his career not coincided with Michael Schumacher, and Fernando Alonso, and Kimi Raikonnen. They may well score a few lucky points this season, but far more important is that come March 2009 we're still writing about Force India and not 'Generic Rich Businessman's Plaything F1 Team'.

5) Traction Control - Is no more. Hooray! Basically TC stops the drivers lead foot from spinning the car into the nearest barrier. There'll be no more super clean starts, look for buckets of wheel spin and complete choas. Also look for drivers to be more careful on the accellorator out of corners as too much oomph too soon will have them pirrowetting off the track. This means that different drivers could come to the fore, whoe driving styles suit the new technology, or at least have been able to adapt fastest and best. There are worries this could be more dangerous, but consiering that it will also lower speeds slightly and most F1 tracks have run-offs the size of small African nations it's nothing to worry about.

6) The Standard ECU - I'm have no idea what an ECU does, but I know what it stands for - Electronic Control Unit - so it controls the, well, electrics. And now all the teams have to use the same one, but what they've done with it is different. Many teams have spent large chunks of testing trying to get the best performance out of it. Oddly, especially considering the Spygate fiasco the maker of this ECU seems odd. It's McLaren. Or actually a subsiderary company owned by McLaren. Yes, and the next COT design is going to be by GM.

7) Things that go Vroom in the night - Racing at night is the in thing around motorsport this year. MotoGP has just come out of Qatar after it's first night race, and other than having a carbon footprint only ecplised by China it went well, no one couldn't see and drove (or should that be rode) straight on at a corner, no-one's visor was obscured by a mass suicide of moths. And now F1 wants a go - in Singapore. I'm not sure it's going to work. it's on a street track, famously dangerous for proximity of cars to wall, and now they want to do the first race at a track (it's got a bridge as well, and I mean a bridge over a harbour, not a bridge over the track) in the dark. Bernie's gone mad!!

8) More Street Circuits - Along with Singapore comes Valencia. Another street circuit, around a harbour, seems they're in fashion as well. Considering people have been complaining how dangerous Monaco's twisty Armco fringed track is for a few years to add two more Monaco's seems an odd move. Actually considering how awful Montreal was last year, perhaps the lads at the Molson Race in Toronto should phone up the FIA.  

After an eventful 2007 the F1 season has already started the busy off-season. They've already had the first pre-season test, and the drivers merry-go-round has been kicked into the highest gear.

The worst kept secret in sport came out when Fernando Alonso, left McLaren - a team he's fallen out of with so badly his face is probably on the cafeteria dartboard - for Renault, the team he scored both his world driver's titles with, to join GP2 and test driving graduate Nelson Piquet jr . To greet them the French marque has agreed to increase funding (although this may just be Alonso's wages, and to pay for the extra motorhome for his ego) to try to improve on last season's disappointing performance when veteran underperformer Giancarlo Fisichella and rookie Heikki Kovalainen combined for 3rd in the Constructors race (remember McLaren were disqualified, so realistically this is 4th) and only a handful of podium places.

The exodus of the old Renault pair looks set to be the main source of headlines so far, with Fisichella joining the open auditions for the new Force India team. However, Kovalainen has gone onto much better things. He's joined McLaren. And now he thinks he's Lewis Hamilton. He says he is 'confident' of the team treating him as an with Hamilton.  This is pretty unlikely, especially because of 2007. Hamilton will be the undisputed number 1 in that team, not only because of last years results, but because his Ron Dennis' pet project. However, I fear if he does. This question of equality is one of the main reasons for the Alonso bust up, as Hamilton was elevated above his real status.

Also the FIA have the decision on whether any of the technology McLaren stole from Ferrari has been incorporated into their 2008 car. Obviously the internal workings of an F1 car are massively complicated but I wonder how much can realistically be that different in the era of identikit cars, when they pretty much all look the same. Perhaps McLaren should be working on a 6 wheeled-car to escape any accusations?? 

So, Juan Montoya (or however many names he has this month) isn't suprised about the McLaren scandal in F1, or "Stepneygate" as it's been called after the Ferrari employee who leaked the initial info to McLaren.

Why should he be suprised? Firstly he was with McLaren for umpteen years, and for a load more was around F1 with the Williams team. F1 may be the most competetive motorsport in the world, as not only do you have multi-million pound/euro/dollar sponsorships and wages on the line, but increasingly so the fates of major car makers are pinned on the outcome of a 2 hour race every few Sundays.

But isn't competition a part of all sport. Haven't people in all sports been trying to get through tiny loopholes since the beginning of time (unfortunately the results of random drug tests from the Ancient Greek Olympics haven't survived to the present day). Whether it be types of steroids in sports like athletics, football - both mine and yours - and just about any other sport. Or the more technology driven 'cheating' that motorsports attracts.

Last year Ferrari were stopped from using a flexible wing that gave them more downforce in corners and flexed flatter to provide less drag in a straight line. Honda (or BAR Honda as they may have been) were disqualified from a race and barred from a further two for having an under-weight car in an after race inspection.

In NASCAR it's no different, in fact there may be more attempts at getting through the loopholes, and heaven only knows how many of those pass unnotived through the scrutineers stations and so never reach public awareness. Just these last few seasons Chad Knaus has been suspended twice, Evernham Racing has had points taken from all of it's teams after Daytona, at least 4 cars have been found to be too low - Andretti and Vickers were kicked out and two other (Gordon and someone else) were stopped from practising or qualifying for the following race. And, my personal favourite in the 'Yeah, how were you planning to get away with that one" class - Waltrip's attempt to get away with some substance (did they ever find out is that was jet fuel?) in the engine.

So in summary. Juan has pointed out the blindingly obvious. Cheating, as much as it shouldn't be part of sports is and we should never be suprised of the lengths desperate men with their cheque-books go.