Quite a few of the loyal readers of this blog are F1 fans, and since the season starts in two weeks I thought I’d provide a recap of all the news that’s taken place over the winter to help you get ready for the new season. To start, there’s been one regulation change that should help jazz up the show this year - traction control is finally gone! All the cars are using a standard ECU (engine control unit) to allow the FIA to prevent cheating. So we should see a bit more passing and the starts (already one of the most exciting moments in sports) will definitely benefit from the lack of launch control systems. On the driver front, the big news is that 2x World Champion Fernando Alonso has moved back to Renault, with Heikki Kovalainen joining Lewis Hamilton at McLaren. Other than that, the driver lineups haven’t changed much. New faces for this year include Nelson Piquet Jr. (Renault), Kazuki Nakajima (Williams) and Sebastien Bourdais (Torro Rosso). There are a couple of new races this year too; the European GP will be held at Valencia, Spain and there is a new stree race in Singapore that will be held at night! Judging by winter testing, it looks like a battle between McLaren and Ferrari for top honors once again - no other team looks set to challenge them for speed. The midfield will be exciting for sure though, as there seems to be very little between then next 10-12 cars. As for my boys at Honda, it’s looking like another trying season, even with Ross Brawn aboard as the new team principal. Still, I’m as excited as always about the return of my favorite sport, and I hope you all will join me in following the new season when the first race starts in Australia on March 16 at 12:30 a.m. I’ll be watching if you want to call and say “G’day mate!”