Double world champion Fernando Alonso heads into this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix the bookies' favourite to scoop his third crown at the end of the season, following a strong showing in pre-season testing by Italian marque Ferrari. At odds of 5/2, Alonso is being touted as reigning champion Jenson Button's successor in 2010, with the Briton lying just sixth on the list, at an outside 11/1.

With four teams expected to battle it out for victories over the course of the year, the top four favourites for the 2010 title come from four different outfits. Joint second favourites are McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel on 4/1, while odds of 5/1 are being offered for the returning Michael Schumacher to extend his record to eight titles.

Team-mates of the top quartet make up the next four favourites in the same order, with Felipe Massa (8/1), Button (11/1), Mark Webber (12/1) and Nico Rosberg (20/1) all being considered as outside bets should their team-mates and rivals falter.

BMW Sauber's impressive pre-season form has seen the bookies place rookie Kamui Kobayashi on odds of 40/1, followed by Renault's Robert Kubica (50/1). Rubens Barrichello, Nico Hülkenberg and Pedro de la Rosa are all at 66/1.

At the other end of the scale, punters can get odds of 500/1 for India's Karun Chandhok to land the title in his rookie year, while Jaime Alguersuari and Lucas Di Grassi are next worse off on 300/1.