It has been a particularly eventful off season with many of the stories having little to do with the actual racing. The biggest racing related story was of course the return of the Honda/McLaren partnership. Pre-season testing was not without troubles, so it will be a tough debut this weekend. The tests also revealed that Mercedes still holds an advantage, so going into the weekend the German team is the big favourite, closely followed by the similarly powered Williams team.

Right now the biggest question marks concern the Sauber vs Giedo van der Garde lawsuit and the doubts over Manor F1's participation. As it stands, the judge has ruled Van der Gard has a right to a seat in one of the Saubers but the team is still pushing ahead with running Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericson. If the matter is not resolved, it could very well spell the end for the Swiss team as it needs the funding supplied by Nasr and Ericson to survive. Manor made a last-minute appearance but software issues may rule the cars out from participating.