Yes boys and girls, it’s that time of year. Winter is breaking and open wheel racing is about to get underway. Along with that come my predictions for how the season will shake down.

Last years predictions were… well, not so accurate. I did get one thing right when I said Champ Car driver Sebastien Bourdais would be a flop. He was. But I predicted Bruno Junqueira would win the championship. He did not.

We can’t all be perfect, and I’ve never been accused of being Jimmy the Greek here. (Throwback to you 80s era football fans.)

What we can look forward to in the big 04?

F1
Kimi Raikkonen will win the F1 championship. Michael Schumacher will be in second and Juan Pablo Montoya will be third.

Fernando Alonso will continue to be the angel. They’ll refer to him as the next great one at least 45 times again this year.

Rubens Barrichello will be treated like “that other driver at Ferrari,” while Jenson Button will be talked about a lot because he’s not Jacques Villeneuve.

My favorite F1 driver, Juan Pablo Montoya won’t do so well this year. I predict a good race or two, but his differences with Williams BMW will show as the season goes on.

Champ Car
It will be Paul Tracy and Bruno Junqueira fighting it out for the championship, and again, I’m going to predict Bruno to win it.

There will be no big personality stories this year, though they will try to make a few. The big story will be ticket sales. Expect Champ Car to put on a full PR blitz at every race about how many people are coming and how popular they are, then try to keep the half empty stands off camera.

How will it go down? We?ll find out starting on Sunday with the opening of the F1 season in Melbourne.