Woohoo! The F1 team formerly known as Honda has been reborn! All winter long I’ve been worried that the team would not find a buyer after Honda decided to leave the sport. After many twists and turns and rumors that went nowhere, it seems to have ended well. Ross Brawn has managed a buyout of the team, which will be called BrawnGP. Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello will continue as the drivers, though for a while there it looked like Bruno Senna (nephew of the late, great Ayrton) was going replace Rubens in the second seat. And instead of the lame Honda engines they had last year, they’ve secured a supply of Mercedes powerplants for this season. The team had the first shakedown (a really short test to make sure things are working) of the car today at Silverstone in England and will head to Spain for a full three-day test on Monday. I had high hopes for this season, but since the other teams have been testing and refining their cars for a couple of months now I have to be realistic. BrawnGP is likely to be scraping in the midfield at best. Still, it’s sure to be an interesting year with all the rule changes (notice the very wide front wing and the tall, narrow rear wing - oh, and despite this photo slick tires are back!) we could see some surprises. Red Bull and Toyota have looked strong in testing so far, as have Ferrari, BMW and Renault at times. And McLaren are sure to be in the mix despite their form so far. It seems wide open, and we won’t really know until the excitement begins and the red lights go out in Melbourne, Australia on the 29th.