Turkey preview - fancying their chances

Talking up their chances in the media (well, ITV-F1): BMW, Red Bull (car should suit track), Renault, Williams, Toro Rosso (figured out the car, apparently. Clue: tall thin wing is the back, wide tea tray thing the front), Brawn (but see next section), Toyota, Force India (but, only in the keep up the form sense), Massa (looking for 4th win at 4 year old track - didn't win in his Sauber in 2005), Kimi Raikkonen (although a week ago, shortly after the Monaco GP)

Talking down their chances: Brawn (well, expecting more challengers), Kimi Raikkonen.

From which you should deduce: Massa to beat Raikkonen and McLaren to go backwards. Or, you should ignore all this "cheap talk"

Monaco preview

Weather doesn't look like being important, so expect a fairly boring race. What will matter here is mechanical grip, and those experts I've heard say that it favours Brawn, and perhaps Toyota, but not to rule out Ferrari, Red Bull, Alonso or Hamilton. Which is to say, that half the field is worth backing. To that list I'd like to add Rosberg, who is usually quick around Monte Carlo, and add in a note that anyhting can go wrong, and usually does.

Despite this, I'm making some fairly tame predictions:

Win: Webber
2nd: Barrichello
3rd: Button
4th: Glock
5th: Vettel
6th: Massa
7th: Alonso
8th: Hamilton

Obviously, rain will change everything (go Sutil, go, go) as would any safety cars/virtuoso performances.

Tyres: soft and super-soft here, which is an exception to the usual "one compound apart" rule - this will reduce the benefits of extreme strategies, and probably return us to the "2 stops for frontrunners, 1 stop for the rest" strategies of years gone by.