It seems strange that 2 months before the start of the 1997 FIA Formula One World Championship, I am looking forward to the 1998 season so eagerly. Admittedly, 1997 should see the emergence of Ferrari as a front runner again and TWR pushing Jordan for fifth place, but everyone expects the Williams FW19 to be the best chassis and the Renault RS9 to be the best engine. Jacques Villeneuve will pick up the drivers’ title (apologies to Heinz Harald Frentzen fans but he won't be the force you expect) with Schumacher as close runner up. I could be wrong but I doubt it on the basis of the 1996 season and the recent test times.

1998 on the other hand is a complete reshuffle. Williams, Benetton and Ferrari (at the very least) have lost key technical staff and the Renault power plant that has been so dominant is going. In addition, many of the top drivers contracts will run out at the end of 1997.

Adrian Newey, the Williams aerodynamicist, is more than likely going to McLaren. Ross Brawn, Benetton technical director, has signed for Ferrari. Rory Byrne, Benetton designer, has retired to run a diving school. Finally, John Barnard, Ferrari’s designer, is probably leaving his current team and is almost certain to sign to the all-new Prost run team.

Although these moves have, for the most part, already happened (Barnard is the only one left in place), the 1997 cars are already finished and the remaining staff are more than competent enough to carry the development work to the end of the year. It is in the 1998 cars that we will see the results of the current staff redistribution resulting in a shift in the balance of power. If you look at each team they have all lost one or more key parts of their operation and there is one team who are perfectly placed to pick up the reins as the number one outfit in Formula One, McLaren-Mercedes.

By the start of 1998 the McLaren-Mercedes partnership will have been together for 3 whole seasons and with the massive talents of Adrian Newey to help the design department the Woking team are guaranteed front runners (probably real title contenders for the first time in years). The current driver pairing (Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard) should be kept unless they make big mistakes in 1997, and as they have already proved, they are both hard and fast racers.

Ferrari’s design team is good and with the addition of Ross Brawn the loss of John Barnard shouldn’t cause too many problems (there will be some though). Schumacher will be with them for 1998 and rumours suggest that Mika Salo will be joining them. So the driver pairing will be very strong but they will need to be to counter the Newey/Mercedes combination. Then again, Ferrari always seem to be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with their appalling reliability problems and I can’t see 1998 being any different from all the other years.

The second important change is in the engine supply market. Renault has been the dominant supplier for the last 4 seasons and are leaving having completed all the goals they set out to achieve. Their departure leaves both Williams and Benetton in the improbable situation of have little choice of engines to power their 1998 chassis. Ferrari and McLaren on the other hand will both have their engines programmes well established by then and the Mercedes V10 is already one of the best in F1 today. Ferrari have made great improvements in their new engine, but insiders (including Barnard) think that the refusal to develop the engine to make it lighter will hold back both the engine and chassis development.

Benetton are looking to Honda for their 1998 power needs and have even gone to the lengths of running a motorcycling team for the Japanese giant and there are the links already in place courtesy of the Ligier/Mugen engine deal. Honda are said to have program at one of their R&D sites that develops F1 engines and technology that keep match with whatever the regulations of the time are. If this is the case, a full Honda works attack could be in readied in a very short time and if Benetton are the chosen team we could see them back at the front again.

Williams on the other hand are playing their cards very close to their collective chests, refusing to comment on any number of rumours that have them using either BMW, Jaguar (Ford v10 badged), Porsche or Peugeot. Of these, the BMW seems to be the more likely, although BMW have long stated to get an F1 engine working right would take two years rather than the one they have left. Many "experts" think that Williams will get Renault to supply customer v10’s in 1998 (after all they can afford it) to act as a stop gap. If this is the case, the customer Renault is sure to be lagging behind the full works engines in top end power and drivability resulting in the most successful team in F1 at the moment being relegated to the bottom of the "Big 4".

Finally, there is the matter of driver contracts. Irvine, Salo, Villeneuve, Coulthard, Hakkinen, Alesi, Berger and Hill to mention but a few are all due to sign new contracts at the end of the next season, leaving a glut of drivers for the teams to pore over. Benetton already seem committed to running two Italian drivers (Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli) for 1998 Ferrari will have Schumacher and Williams will have Frentzen so there will be only four top seats for all those drivers to fit into. Hill is likely to stay at TWR if 1997 is not too disappointing. Nevertheless there will still be an interesting scramble for places come this autumn. Of those listed above I expect Coulthard to stay in a McLaren and Villeneuve to stay in the Williams camp, so the choices are narrowed down to two seats and as I said before, rumours place Salo in the Ferrari seat.

All of the above primarily affect the traditional top 4 and don’t even consider the arrival of Stewart Grand Prix, the possible resurgence of Jordan, and the restructured TWR Arrows team. If all the promises we hear from those teams come true, they could all be big contenders. In addition to that, if Alain Prost does buy the Ligier team, he is almost certain to have Peugeot engines thanks to the French government and will almost certainly drag his team to the top of midfield at the very least.

That’s why even though 1997 hasn’t started I can’t wait for it to be over and for the real fun to start March 1998 in Melbourne.