"The people who have built a good car and have the tires sussed out -- Sauber, Williams, Lotus -- could be quite threatening as well."

As for the technical aspects, Scarborough says look out for the development of the exhausts and sidepods and DRS.

Perhaps the most intriguing technical unknowns lie with how teams develop their exhausts, sidepods and their Drag Reduction System (known as DRS), says Scarborough.

"(DRS) is a bit of a killer app-type solution. No one's got it working yet. There will be a number of teams who will try and run it at different races. But really the key thing will be how the teams manage the tires."