F1 starts on 29th February in Bahrain with the Qualifying round and Poll Position decided on a Friday before the Race is held on Saturday 2nd March, the first of 24 races taking us into December.
Why not make it all a tad more interesting by having some additional bias in each race then, by having Drivers, and Teams you've a vested interest in, as they battle to build your points tally each weekend in my F1 competition.
I like a bit of F1, but I would not confess to be knowledgeable of the sport. (Is it a sport, see immediately I'm confirming my ignorance of potentially critical information).
BUT, underlined and in capitals so must be an important but, I think I can make a competition out of it that anyone can have a stab at, and perhaps find it makes each race more intriguing.
SO what's it involve then. Put simply, each race you need to pick 5/6 drivers you think will do well, and as many as 6 teams (if you really want to spread your risk). In addition you have to 'guess' at a few other things that will happen, all of which will hopefully add you points to the Competition table.
Here's a bit more detail.
Driver Of The Meeting - Each race name the Driver you think will earn you the most points in both Qualifying and the Race. It may not be as obvious as you think though as coefficients will adjust points won.
Team Of The Meeting - Team instead of Driver, but again perhaps not as obvious as coefficients kick in.
Driver & Team Race Positions - Place the top 5, points awarded for spot on and halfies if one place out, and you can mix and match, so you could have Max in an Alpine in 1st place, or Lewis in a Ferrari in 3rd (as if that's ever going to happen). And yep, coefficients adjust points won.
10th Place and Over Taking - Points are awarded for guessing the driver starting 10th on the Grid (not necessarily qualifying 10th!!) and then for the driver that makes up the most places from the Grid to the end of the race.
DNFs & First Retirement - More points can be collected for guessing not only the first Driver out of the race, but also the number of Drivers that Do Not Finish.
There are also points on offer for being within a few seconds of the Fastest Lap, a slightly bigger range allowed for being close to the Winning Margin, and points gained for guessing the TOTAL number of Pit Stops made in the race.
AND, bold, under-lined, because I've just thought of it, every race there will be additonal points for the three players that finish on our race podium. First place will pick up 20 additional points, 2nd 10 and 3rd 5.
But, WTF are the coefficients mentioned that will adjust the scores in the Driver and Team categories.
In an attempt to make the competition more competitive and perhaps less of a Max/Red Bull parade, I've given each Driver and Team a coefficient, based on last year's points.
Max and Red Bull have a rating of 1, the rest are adjusted against that rating, with a cap put on the high number.
These will stand for the first 10 races, but I will then recalculate from race 11 onwards based on the rankings this year.
So whereas Max will pick you up 25 points if he wins the race for you, Lewis could pick you up 61.50 points.
All you need to do before the Bahrain race, is head over to the website and register. You can do this on your mobile, but the site is a lot easier to navigate, and looks better, on a desktop. Just click on the Link.
Oh, and send me your money, I will let you have details of how to send your £30 sign up fee over, a percentage of which will go to Prostate Cancer UK.
The balance will be spread across the Players that finish up on the podium at the end of Race 24 (certainly 3 places, maybe 4 depending on numbers playing), and there will be a 'random' prize, paid out to the player in the place in the table, that is the same as the number of podiums claimed by British Drivers this year. If Lewis, Lando & George muster 17 podiums, then 17th place will get a pay-out!!!
There's a lot more detail on the website, so come and have a look see..........