Watson - F1 more entertaining

The Northern Irishman said that, although Sebastian Vettel dominated last year, the combination of DRS, KERS and a new tyre supplier in Pirelli all contributed to produce some fantastic action.

Watson, who won five Grands Prix in an F1 career spanning 12 years, finishing as a runner-up in the 1982 World Championship, said: "I think it was a great season.

"Obviously it was dominated by a single team and a single driver but we had a lot of technology come in - we had the DRS, the drag reduction system, the reintroduction of KERS, the Kinetic Energy Recover System, and we had Pirelli tyres.

"That in itself provided a lot of overtaking, not necessarily what I would call motor racing, but it provided a lot of entertainment and for the audience they saw racing cars doing something they hadn't seen them do in quite a while and that was passing one another."

Legend

At just 24-years-old, Vettel is now a double World Champion and Watson feels he now ranks alongside Ayrton Senna, Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher as a legend of the sport.

He added: "At the age that Sebastian is, he's won two world championships, I hadn't yet driven a Formula One car.

"The man, you could almost call him a boy, he's just amazing, his ability in the cockpit.

"Maybe more amazing to me is his ability outside of the cockpit, the way that he can deal with speaking in a foreign language, in English in particular, his communication skills are equal of those to his driving skills, he is a remarkable young man.

"And in reality he has the potential to go into 2012, win another world championship, make it three in a row, assuming that Red Bull provide him with the equipment and I think they are going to be a very difficult team to knock off their winning perch, so Sebastian Vettel you have to say is already a great and he's going to look even better probably in ten years time."

Bounce-back-ability

Watson's former team McLaren started 2011 on the back foot after their exhaust design left the car two seconds off the pace in pre-season testing, but they recovered quickly, as Lewis Hamilton took second place at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

The 65-year-old Ulsterman said that such an ability to recover is something McLaren will never lose.

"The thing that McLaren have got is an enormous amount of experience, a huge infrastructure and the capacity to change a car very rapidly which they have had to do with the 2009 car, 2010 car and the 2011 car as well," he said.

"That's something you can't just go out and buy off the shelf; it's something which has evolved over many, many years. They didn't set out to come up with a concept which was not necessarily ideal, but they went down a route which the believed was the way to go.

"They had to retrench, but they can continue with a race programme, which can continue at the same time as a development programme and they can also get into the programme for the following year.

"That's the depth and strength that McLaren have. It's an amazing company, but sometimes people almost joke about McLaren, with its grey paint job, which is a colour Ron Dennis chose as his favourite colour of road car was anthracite, so the team is sometimes thought of as a rather dull team.

"But it's far from that and I think that has been demonstrated by how Jenson Button has stepped up and into the team, and in the space of his two seasons in the team has contributed to the success, but also to the image and the perception of McLaren.

"But as for why they can challenge, the strength, the depth, the finance, and the heritage that the team has, is probably only rivalled by Ferrari."

Prancing horse

Ferrari have had a disappointing couple of seasons, with car designs not good enough to compete with Red Bull at the front. Despite this, Fernando Alonso arguably would have won the 2010 championship barring a botched strategy call.

Watson is convinced that, given the right design team, Ferrari and Alonso can challenge Red Bull this season.

He said: "It will come down to the people that they employ.

"They've now got a very senior former McLaren technical engineer in Pat Fry, he joined the team in 2011 and Pat will no doubt be trying to consolidate the aerodynamic and engineering strength of the Ferrari team by recruiting as he has apparently been doing over the last six months.

"People move around within the industry and it's not always a job for life when you start in Formula One, in fact it used to be far from that.

"So Ferrari are consolidating and trying to strengthen the aerodynamic and mechanical side of the operation and it's about getting all the right people, at the right time in a team.

"They have two good drivers, but one outstanding driver in Alonso, who is the driving force right now I would say within Ferrari.

"Alonso is a driver capable of winning another world championship if not more, and given the opportunity, given the car, I would say he would be the biggest threat to Sebastian Vettel, but it's all going to come down to if Ferrari have provided Alonso and the Italian nation a car to challenge Red Bull and McLaren."Click here to listen to the interview in full