Ignoring the fact that he has a 0.549s advantage over his teammate and the fact that he believes the W06 is the best car he has ever drive, no doubt Lewis Hamilton will remember the events of twelve months ago when he had a 0.364s advantage over Nico Rosberg but retired after just two laps.
That said, the Mercedes has looked pretty bullet-proof here, and indeed throughout winter testing when a couple of teams only needed one engine to see them through all twelve days.
With such an advantage, the only serious threat to Lewis - other than a sudden change in conditions, another unforeseen technical issue or himself - comes from the guy in the other Mercedes, Mr Rosberg.
Though the German was quickest in both of yesterday's sessions, today he hasn't looked quite as convincing.
Of course, for all our sakes, for the sake of F1, we need Rosberg to take the fight to his teammate today and throughout the season, otherwise the title is retained by the Briton before the battle has even begun.
Other than Mercedes, the other big talking point is Williams and Ferrari, the pair looking pretty evenly matched up until now.
Of course, had it not been for his back pain, Valtteri Bottas might well have joined his teammate ahead of the red cars, but the fact all four are covered by just 0.369s shows how tight it is.
Though the Grove outfit appears quietly confident, let's not forget the long run pace of the Maranello cars on Friday.
That said, in a late, low blow, a couple of hours before the race Williams cast doubt on the Finn's ability to race having suffered tissue damage to his lower back. Though doctors subsequently felt he was OK, the Williams driver failed to completely pass the FIA's extraction test and was therefore deemed unfit to race, leaving the Grove outfit with just one representative and dropping the grid to 17 entries.
After a difficult build up, Daniel Ricciardo did well to get into Q3 far less take seventh on the grid, Daniil Kvyat's thirteenth, the result of a gearbox issue, possibly closer to the true current form of the RB11.
It was always on the cars that one of the Toro Rosso kids would pull off a major coup, and while a mistake cost Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz rose to the occasion tasking a superb eighth.
Early days, but at this stage the Red Bulls look as if they have a serious fight on their hands from their sister team.
A strong performance from the Lotus duo also, the Enstone team - now powered by Mercedes, of course - an entirely different kettle of fish to the also-rans we witnessed last year.
While Sauber has been overshadowed by the legal case involving Giedo Van der Garde, an episode from which the Swiss outfit does not emerge well, full credit to drivers Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson who have both performed well beyond expectations under he circumstance. The Brazilian looked to have made it into Q3 today - a superb effort - only to lose out to Pastor Maldonado.
With the late launch of the 2015 car, Force India always faced an uphill struggle, particularly in the opening races however, Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez appear to have a good foundation for the season ahead... finances permitting.
Then there's McLaren. In all honesty, as the Woking team and Honda work on their many problems the best thing to do is to treat today's race as a glorified test session, learning as much as possible and to ignore the howls from a media always out for a bit of controversy.
A two-stop strategy is theoretically fastest for today's 58-lap race. The quickest strategy being to start on softs, change to softs again on lap 27, then mediums on lap 52.
A one stop is also possible, with the quickest option in this case being to start on the mediums and then change to softs on lap 24; same quickest option if starting on the soft and then changing to medium on lap 34.
However, there is a reasonably high safety car probability - a safety car figured last year - and that will have an effect on strategy.
As the pitlane opens, the air temperature is 17 degrees C, whilst the track temperature is 35 degrees. The damps patches that followed overnight rain dried many hours ago and as the clock ticks down to the 16:00 start time conditions are ideal, if still a little breezy.
One by one the drivers leave their garages, Williams hopes resting entirely on Massa.
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