F1 season impossible to predict

Right now, with one final winter testing session to go, the 2011 season appears to be wide open.

The only facts we know are that Team Lotus, Virgin and Hispania are likely to be at the back of the pack trying to catch the more established mid pack teams and the mid pack teams which include Mercedes, Renault, Force India, Sauber, Toro Rosso and Williams hope to catch the lead teams of McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull.

However with testing so far, some would argue that McLaren maybe closer to the mid pack teams than the leaders, but only time will really tell on that point.

If that is the case then Williams will be hoping to take advantage with what they believe to be a well designed car, capable of pushing themselves towards the top end of the grid.

'I think that all the testing that we have been doing show that we have a very competitive car in the FW33 and as long as we develop it quickly, which is what we are doing, I think we'll have a good year,' Williams team technical director Sam Michael said at the teams unveiling of their 2011 colour scheme.

'There's lot of speculation about where everyone is and within Formula 1 teams we have enormous amounts of data, lots of lap times, We know how the aero platform is, and we take photos of the cars, and we have no idea where everybody is. So the journalists don't have any chance to predict it.' he said.

'There is a big group of teams in the middle where you can't predict where people are. We know it's not easy but we hope that this car will take us a step closer to the leaders.'

With the added time before the first Grand Prix in Australia following the postponement/cancellation of Bahrain, Williams will be hoping to resolve the few issues that they still have remaining ahead of the new season.

Tests in Jerez and Barcelona were affected by problems with the rear wing and KERS (which incidentally is no longer a flywheel device like the team previously used in 2009 and is now a battery-based device).