On Your Marks...

I feel like a kid; for me the season starts tomorrow. I know that the first race isn't until 14th March but when the covers come off of 2010s first car in the morning it will seem like the racing has already begun.

Mercedes provided a nice warm up at their PR event on Monday when they launched the new team in their new colours but there was no new car (the car in the pictures is last year's Brawn with a new paint job). For that we have to wait until testing begins on the 1st Feb.

Tomorrow we'll see the car Ferrari hope will launch them and their new star Fernando Alonso back to the top of the tables. If rumours are to be believed it will look very similar to last year's Red Bull.

From then on, the weekend will reveal what McLaren, Sauber, Williams, Renault, Toro Rosso and Mercedes are bringing to the party this season and Monday will be the first test of 2010.

I'll put my thoughts and pictures up here as soon as I can after each launch.

In other news, it seems that the money behind the De La Rosa move was funded by Santander (who also sponsor McLaren and Ferrari - it seems that one bank wasn't too badly affected by the recession!).

Also, USF1 have confirmed that ex-GP2 winner Jose Maria Lopez will drive for them in 2010 although they are yet to confirm when they will first run their new car. Lopez comes with a nice paycheck from the Argentinean government who want to create a new icon in their country. This might be a good move - the way things are going I'm not sure how fruitful the FIFA world cup is going to be for their team this year...

Further changes to the tyre and points regulations have been proposed. I'll have more on them when they are confirmed.

Finally, Bahrain has added an extra loop to the layout of its circuit increasing the length of the track by 1.2Km (0.75miles) - I hope the new section is good.