Formula One: Australian Grand Prix can be anyone's race

Fernando Alonso has a much-improved car compared to last year, yet he reckons there are nine other drivers capable of beating him to the chequered flag on Sunday, writes Gary Meenaghan.

Spanish driver Fernando Alonso says this year will be different for Ferrari. Clive Mason / Getty Images
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MELBOURNE // Such are the fine margins in Formula One these days, Fernando Alonso said there are as many as 10 different drivers capable of winning the Australian Grand Prix this weekend.

Following last year's remarkable sequence of seven different race winners from the first seven races, expectations are widespread regarding a similarly unpredictable start.

Ferrari's Spanish driver, however, expects fewer surprises from the smaller teams and a much tighter battle between the top five marques.

"No one knows who can win this race at this moment," the two-time world champion said. "We have to answer some questions that winter testing never answers.

"This year, with consistency in the rules, I expect the five top teams to have a little advantage and not to have many surprises in the first five races.

"From these top five it is hard to see who has the extra two- or three-tenths that can make you win. Now it is hard to choose one favourite."

Ferrari, Mercedes-GP, McLaren-Mercedes, Lotus and constructors' champions Red Bull Racing all showed potential on different days of pre-season last month, but no team dominated.

What is certain is that Ferrari are in a far stronger position now compared to when they arrived in Australia last season.

Alonso finished fifth at Albert Park in 2012, but the result was a consequence more of the Spaniard's excellence than the performance of the car, which was so off the pace that neither car progressed to the top-10 qualifying shoot-out at the race.

The 31 year old continued to extract the absolute maximum out of the car throughout the season to eventually lose the championship at the final race.

"I think it was not difficult to start better than last year, it would be difficult to start any worse," he said.

"Winter has been much better than last year and this gives us confidence and optimism to start the season and we arrive here with 100 per cent of the potential of the car. Hopefully it is enough to be competitive and score some good points."

Having come within a few laps of the world title in Abu Dhabi in 2011 and then again last year, Alonso is determined to secure a third world championship this season. "Sure, we lost twice in the last three years in the last race," he said. "But hopefully this year we can change the final result."

Felipe Massa, Alonso's teammate, came close to losing his seat last year, but the Brazilian said, with the sport's regulations not changing massively, he can pick up where he left off after improving in the second half of the season.

"For sure things are different, but the car is more or less moving in the same direction and that can be very important for me to have a better season and a completely different championship from the beginning to the end."

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