Hope springs eternal. This time a year ago, the motorsport world was brimming with optimism that Ferrari would take the fight to Mercedes. Twelve months later, and the situation is remarkably similar.
Unlike in 2016, though, there are sweeping rule changes to assist the neutral fans' desired overhaul of the Mercedes dominance of F1's turbo-hybrid era. So, back for 2017 is the Autosport writers' panel's prediction of how the championship battle will play out.
The method is simple, tried and tested: we all pitch our top 10 and then calculate a combined overall result using the F1 points system. Here are the results.