F1: Melbourne's Black Swans coming home to roost?

After the lack of racing in Dubai, everyone in F1 and all its supporters are hoping that Dubai was the odd-one-out so far as this season's events go, an extended test, familiarisation with a longer car, different tyre wear, changed front-grip and a car that was, at the start of the race, carrying weight the equivalent of a very fat passenger.

It's a very short pit lane: Williams estimated time lost in Dubai to be 28 seconds from exiting the track to re-entry: that seems to be right as the pit-lane-limiter on/off times were about 22 seconds for most cars. In Melbourne, Williams estimates a time-loss of around 18 seconds. That ten seconds makes a considerable difference in strategy for tyres: in theory it means that a three-stop strategy might be better than a two stop. That almost makes it worth the top ten blatting off for five laps on their qualifying tyres and making a very early stop. With tyre-wear on the sliding back-end going to be a problem, it all looks obvious.

But it's a tight, twisty track, and a much shorter lap than Dubai. Tyres will wear much faster than they did in Dubai: the extra fuel in the back of the car will make it pendulum - and sideways slip tears up the tyres much more than straight line running. That indicates hard tyres for durability. But the twists and the need to get maximum grip out of corners as the power is applied and maximum traction under braking indicates soft tyres would be best.

So, expect the front runners to start on soft, run for around 10 laps and take on a new set of hards for around 30 laps (when the car is still heavy) and then switch to softs for the last 18 laps.

But also expect to see at least one or two cars run out of fuel: there is almost no chance that the race will be run without a safety car. Each lap behind the safety car saves at least one kilo of fuel. Williams expect fuel consumption of 2.36kg/5km. The lap is 5k.3km. So, roughly, each lap behind the safety car saves a third of a lap.

Here's where the gambling comes in: Melbourne always has some kind of incident at the first corner after the start. It's a right/left combination that's not quite a chicane but it's certainly tight. Then there's a fast straight into a 90 degree right and a faster left, that is often the scene of accidents that started in the first combination and finish seconds later.

And that's before the cars get to the narrow, fenced in sections with little or no run-off.

Teams will expect perhaps a 70% chance of a safety car on the first lap. Cars will pit for replacement bodywork at the end of the first lap. They may take on fresh tyres - by no means certain with the new restrictions. That will drop them to the back of the pack behind the safety car. If front running teams stop at this point, they will be on the same fuel loads as the cars at the back - and probably the same, harder tyres.

The gamble for some teams will be that there will be a total of, say, 12 laps behind the safety car. On Williams' figures, each 5km worth of fuel costs seven hundredths of a second. So by taking account of the fuel saved behind the safety car, a team can reduce its starting weight by as four laps worth of fuel - that's a per lap saving of 0.28. There is nowhere in the aero or mechanicals of the car that it can suddenly gain more than a quarter of a second.

Someone will be willing to take that risk, perhaps with a number two car. Will we see it with Rosberg, or Massa? Already both of them are being used as testers for their team-mate, being brought in first to get data on tyre wear and the effects of minor changes before their "senior" comes in one or two laps later. This was the Ross Brawn-Schumacher tactic at Ferrari and it paid dividends. By bringing in the car running second first, the leading car benefited from additional information. That didn't work as well as expected in Dubai - Rosberg was in front - but there is no doubt that it is the plan.

But the core problems remain: the cars are just not fast enough. Expect some daredevil dives for overtaking but it's a low-grip track so even those will be scarce.

But everyone needs Melbourne to be a good race: the teams are trying to sound upbeat but none of them are demonstrably hopeful that there will be glorious competition.