Jake Humphrey: My buggy buddy Alonso has the drive to succeed

Either way, after the first Formula One race of the year Down Under two weeks ago, I jetted off to Hamilton Island, the gateway to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

It was nothing to do with Lewis Hamilton, I must point out, and everything to do with 'getting away from it all'. Or at least that was the plan!
The reality was that as soon as I landed, the first person I bumped into was former double world champion Fernando Alonso.

You know someone has made it in life when their golf buggy has been 'pimped up' in Ferrari red with shiny alloy wheels to match. Much to my delight, however, just like mine, his buggy was limited to 20mph. It's the closest I'll get to keeping up with him on Tarmac.

You can forgive Fernando the need to have a week's holiday so soon into the new season. Having missed out on the title at the final race of 2010, he and Ferrari were keen to make amends and get the new year off to the perfect winning start in Australia two weeks ago.

Sebastian Vettel, meanwhile, had other ideas. The young German dominated the action in Melbourne by bagging pole, controlling the race and not even looking threatened despite the four previous champions starting behind him, sharing 11 titles between them.

So, round one to Sebastian and Red Bull but how do you go about beating them? Well, let's start with McLaren. Slow and unreliable in pre-season testing, fast and on fire when it really mattered. Jenson Button was penalised, Hamilton's car was broken, yet still they picked up points. The team from Woking will be Red Bull's biggest threat this Sunday.

Then there's Ferrari. They've brought in the former commander of the Italian Red Arrows to get their team in the groove but perhaps the greatest pilot of all is already on the books. Alonso has galvanised the team around him and they are targeting tomorrow's pole position shootout to show how much they've improved in the past two weeks.

And then there's the seven-time champion, Michael Schumacher. He has won here at Sepang more times than anyone else on the grid but he's 42 and the temperatures regularly top 35ºC here, so how much will fitness and youth come into play?

One thing that will play its part is the weather. If it's roasting, expect the tyres to struggle in the conditions and we could see each car stop four times during the race. That's 96 pitstops! On the flip side, if the famous Malaysian monsoons put in an appearance then expect the unexpected.

So, who to back? Well, we're expecting rain so while you can't write off the 'regenmeister' Schumacher, if Alonso's golf buggy skills are anything to go by, it might be his weekend!