It's the dawn of a new F1 season and with that, we've got a F1 podcast series on Newstalk.com called Inside F1 that will be going out every second Thursday before each Grand Prix weekend.

So throughout the season, you'll have access to interviews and historical features by Neil Kavanagh, Annie Kane and I.

On our debut podcast, we preview the new F1 season with the very knowledgeable  and FIA-accredited Thomas Maher of FormulaSpy.com.

He takes us through all the key points from the way the internal battle between Mercedes pair Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg will unfold, and why Ferrari have made a step forward as Sebastian Vettel follows in Michael Schumacher's footsteps 20 years on from when Schumi made the move to the Prancing Horse.

We also talk Honda-powered McLaren and the effect Fernando Alonso's mysterious pre-season crash will have on a team already struggling a little bit with testing issues.

And of course we run the rule over an inexperienced driver lineup at Red Bull and the challenges Williams and Lotus could provide ahead of the season-opening Grand Prix in Melbourne.

Listen to the full interview via the podcast player below

In this week's episode, we also take an in-depth look at the cheeriest man in the F1 paddock,Daniel Ricciardo, with Australia's RF1 editor Richard Bailey.