There’s Lewis Hamilton, convinced that Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari have taken the status of favourite away from himself and Mercedes, but likely nonetheless to have a very competitive car beneath him.

And then there’s Fernando Alonso, a racer of similar calibre, wondering whether nine other teams will start ahead of his McLaren-Honda when the 20-car grid forms for Sunday’s Australian GP.

Ten years ago, when Hamilton made his debut here, the pair were team-mates at McLaren. Alonso was the big star, the reigning champion of the previous two seasons who had switched from Renault. Hamilton was the new kid who was expected to show quite well. Depriving Alonso of second place on the entry to his first Grand Prix racing corner was rather more spectacular than that, and the Englishman has continued in that same aggressive vein ever since.

The 2017 Formula 1 grid Show all 20 1 /20 The 2017 Formula 1 grid The 2017 Formula 1 grid Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari Vettel finished fourth last season and will hope improvements to the team's 1.6-litre V6 will help him back onto the podium. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari The experienced Finn largely underperformed last season. At 37, could be his final season racing for a top team. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Sergio Perez, Force India Perez retains the drive he has held since 2014. Force India again use the Mercedes-AMG engine. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Esteban Ocon, Force India The talented 20-year-old raced in 9 Grand Prix for Manor last season and earns a call-up to a much more competitive team. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Romain Grosjean, Haas Haas had a very good season last year, finishing 8th with their Ferrari engine. Grosjean will look to improve on his 13th place finish. AFP/Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Kevin Magnussen, Haas The Dane moves from Renault to Haas. Struggled last season. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Stoffel Vandoorne, McLaren The talented Belgian, who scored a world championship point in the unfamiliar MP4-31 last year, replaces Jenson Button at McLaren. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Fernando Alonso, McLaren The youngest double champion of all-time remains at McLaren for the 2017 season, despite a well publicised approach from Mercedes. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes The team - and driver - to beat since the infamous V6 rule changes came into place in 2014. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes Bottas replaces world champion Nico Rosberg at Mercedes, Will push Hamilton all the way this campaign. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull Adrian Newey has completely redesigned the RB13 for the 2017 season and Ricciardo will be hopeful of bettering last year's 3rd place finish. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Max Verstappen, Red Bull There will be plenty of attention on Verstappen as he completes his first full season at Red Bull. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Nico Hulkenberg, Renault Hulkenberg moves to the team from Force India, replacing Kevin Magnussen. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Jolyon Palmer, Renault The Brit came under pressure last year for a disappointing 18th-place finish. Will be hopeful of improvement. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Marcus Ericsson, Sauber Sauber were poor last season and were plagued by retirements. Ericsson nevertheless remains with the team for a third campaign. AFP/Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Pascal Wehrlein, Sauber The 22-year-old wins a drive at Sauber, moving from Manor Racing. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso Resigned to Toro Rosso after plenty of speculation; will be desperate to show he shouldn't have been replaced by Verstappen at Red Bull. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Carlos Sainz Jr, Toro Rosso Now in his third season with the team. Toro Rosso this year return to a Renault engine. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Lance Stroll, Williams 18-year-old rookie. Stroll's first appearance in the car didn't inspire confidence, he spun the car in testing. Getty The 2017 Formula 1 grid Felipe Massa, Williams Heroically returns to the team after Bottas departed for Mercedes. One of the most experienced drivers on the grid. Getty

He lost a fourth world championship through a combination of mechanical ill luck and the departed Nico Rosberg’s relentless pursuit of success last year, but is as determined as ever to win back his crown as Formula One moves into an exciting new era of faster, more powerful cars with wider tyres, more mechanical grip and shedloads of extra downforce.

Five times a pole winner here, and twice a victor, Hamilton loves the new cars that have been created to regenerate the thrill for disaffected fans.

“As drivers, we want to drive the quickest cars in world,” he said on Thursday. “The new cars are faster than the cars we had last year, much more of a challenge to us, and more in the direction that an F1 car should be. We are athletes, and F1 should be the most physically demanding sport. That hasn’t been the case in past years.”

As Hamilton’s star has continued to rise since his shock move from McLaren to Mercedes in 2013, the race wins have kept flooding in.

Meanwhile, a return to Renault saw Alonso win twice more in 2008, once so controversially in Singapore’s ‘Crashgate’ when team-mate Nelson Piquet Jnr assisted him by crashing deliberately. But the switch to Ferrari, which promised so much, ended in a disastrous implosion of frustration in 2014 and saw the 35 year-old Spaniard return to the McLaren team on which he had grassed to the sport’s governing body, the FIA, in that polemic-ridden 2007 season when they were accused of stealing Ferrari design secrets.

Today, Alonso finds McLaren troubled for a raft of different reasons, most of which centre upon Honda’s failure to produce an engine which is both reliable and powerful enough to challenge the might of Mercedes and the apparently resurgent Ferrari.

Somebody crassly asked Alonso yesterday if he felt he would have the chance during the year of challenging for the title. Somehow, he managed not to scream in frustration at the ineptitude of the enquiry.

“We have to wait and see how this first race will develop,” he said though gritted teeth. “There is a question mark over exactly where we are after all our troubles in testing recently, when we were not able to push the car on any lap due to different problems. Hopefully we will see where we are, but there is still a long way to go for us and a there is a lot of work to do. The team is always working 100 percent to identify the problems, so we need to see what we can find on the track.”

It’s tragic to see a driver of his calibre running round at the back, a point stressed by Hamilton who says he relishes any kind of battle and that success always tastes better when you have really had to fight for it.

“Having more teams and drivers fighting for wins is what racing is about,” the triple champion said. “Every year you go out to beat everyone, and the more of a fight you have, the more satisfying it is when you are victorious. I’m up for a challenge and a fight every year, it’s what I prepare for.

“I haven’t had a lot of battles with Seb on the track, and of course I’d love to have that and the fans want to see it. And we need this guy” - he gestured to Alonso – “to have a good car and to fight with us before his time’s up. We want to see the best of Fernando, the sport needs that and he deserves it. I’ve never seen the fans so excited about a season, so more of these kind of experiences would be welcome.”

Valterri Bottas will partner Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes in 2017 (Getty)

The absence of the 2016 champion, Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg, doesn’t bother him at all, however.

“It doesn’t make any difference to me whether the reigning champion is here or not. We are all out there to beat each other, you just want to beat whomever you are up against. It doesn’t matter whether they are a champion or not.”

F1’s new owner Liberty Media have massive hopes for a title fight under the new rules, which have thrown so much back into the melting pot in the hope of toppling Mercedes from their domination of the turbo-hybrid era which began in 2014.

Ferrari showed very strong form during testing, but Vettel yesterday was at pains to play down their likely performance.

“So far we don’t know anything, so it’ll be exciting to find out where we are on Saturday and Sunday, when we will get our first impression,” he four-time champion said. “Last year did not go the way we expected, so we have really focused on ourselves this year. But testing times don’t matter that much, so we’ll see. Right now we are a bit in the dark, like everybody else.”

That amused Hamilton.