IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT

COMING up ahead are 18 Grands Prix that will take fans from Australia this weekend to the November season finale in Brazil.

Along the way, the series will also make history in Singapore, as the first-ever Formula One night race moves from being a dream to reality.

While the events are spectacular and the cars stunning, we sometimes overlook the fact that people and personalities play as big a role in Formula One as the machinery.

A driver who can win mind games against a rival has a massive advantage, and if two teammates fall out, then it can spell disaster.

Just look at what happened to Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso last year. Even against the inevitable disruption caused by all the spying scandals, the S$140million fine and effectively losing their chief designer halfway through the season, the McLaren team were still able to maintain their focus.

What really wrecked their championship dreams was the fact that the two supposed teammates spent as much time worrying about beating one another as they did about beating Ferrari.

The result gave us a stunning final race of the 2007 season and history now records that Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen became world champion by a single point.

Ferrari arrive in Melbourne as clear favourites for a race win this weekend.

The car is both fast and reliable and the team are on that roll of confidence that comes from winning the world championship last season. Raikkonen is simply aiming to continue where he left off.

Ferrari also have the benefit of consistency in their team personnel. Technical staff, pit crews and drivers alike have all worked together for a full season and know how each of their colleagues thinks.

That is a big advantage. However, I do not think Ferrari will have an easy run to the chequered flag.

If you look more closely at the two Ferrari drivers, there are warning signs that the team could have similar issues between their two drivers that McLaren had last year.

While Raikkonen is the reigning world champion, Felipe Massa feels that, but for reliability issues that were outside his control last year, the title could have been his.

Watch out for a big Massa-Raikkonen showdown.

The McLaren-Mercedes team have, so far, been the only squad to field a car that has been a consistent match for the Ferrari and I think their new driver line-up for 2008 might just tip the title balance in favour of Hamilton as the season progresses.

In contrast to the dysfunctional relationship between Alonso and the team, the young Finn, Heikki Kovalainen, has fitted into the McLaren corporate culture almost as well as Hamilton.

Both are young, quick and smart, both are surprisingly equally matched in pace and I think Kovalainen is also astute enough to know that by supporting Hamilton in 2008, it could open the way for him to bid for a title in later years.

Meanwhile, Alonso's personality might just get sorely tested again. He may have moved back to the Renault team who gave him two world titles in 2005 and 2006, but they will need to come up with a better-performing car than the one fielded last year.

While I expect Renault to be one of the main players in the battle to decide who is going to be the third-best team after Ferrari and McLaren, it will be closely fought between Renault, BMW, Williams and Red Bull.

And Alonso will face just as tough a challenge from within his own team.

Just as last year, he is partnered by an ambitious rookie. The Australian Grand Prix will be the first GP start for Nelson Piquet Junior, but he is one of the most ambitious hustlers ever to hit a starting grid.

The Brazilian is the son of three-time world champion Piquet senior, and in 2006, ran Hamilton a close second in the International GP2 racing series.

The BMW team were clearly best outsiders last year and have two well-matched drivers in Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica. However, the car has lacked consistency in testing, particularly on long runs as the tyres wear down.

When it comes to personality in the pit lane, you can never ignore Williams.

Thanks to the single-minded determination of team bosses Frank Williams and Patrick Head, it remains the best independent team and I rate Nico Rosberg every bit as good as Hamilton.

Another personality will drive the success or failure of another midfield challenger, the Red Bull Racing team. Designer Adrian Newey has admitted that he pushes the engineering of his cars right to the limits.

As a result, the new Red Bull RB04 is more radical and adventurous in design than many of its rivals, but that might affect reliability.

Two experienced and hard-charging drivers in David Coulthard and Mark Webber will almost certainly make the podium a couple of times this season.

Finally, you cannot talk about personalities in F1 without including Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya, who acquired the former Spyker team and relaunched it as Force India F1.

Interest in F1 is spiralling in India and he has said his target this season is to pull Force India from the back ranks into the middle of the grid.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Mar 15, 2008.