I can tell you now for starters - the only reason Villeneuve will be in Bahrain is for the parade of former World Champions.

Looking forward to 2010 a lot more than I've been to recent years. Alonso, Schumacher and Hamilton in hopefully competitive cars and throw the Red Bulls in for good measure.

My anticipation for the new season has been quelled by Klien not getting on the grid tho, and the new teams woes (Including being around 3 or 4 seconds off the pace)

Massa or Vettel for pole.

You got that one right..No Stefan GP for 2010.

Str8, Good pick, though the Red Bull looks fast....but fragile

I wouldn't believe those rumours that the Red Bull is fragile. They were mostly precautionary stops that the Bull had. I think they should be quick and reliable, also I am not convinced that the Mercedes diffuser is that amazing. I have seen some big rumours in my short time, remember the Hole-y Nose by Ferrari in 2008, lot of hype but it wasn't as big as people predicted.

By superdiffuser, I think they mean copying the others who already have bigger diffusers - it's why they didn't have it for testing.

Heck, A little more enthusiasm wouldn't go amiss

Reading back through the comments it does seem that we lack enthusiasm for Bahrain... I blame USF1, we've been so caught up in the "will they wont they" that I reckon we have season opener fatigue. Give us another day or so and we'll be typing like .. well I don't have a decent adjective!

Is it something to do with the location maybe, we're all used to getting up at the crack of 3am to watch the Aus GP .. makes me really feel the season has started and getting up early is part of the fun. Bahrain shouldn't really have that slot (nor Abu Dhabi the final one) in my view .. this is too civilised having a race at a normal European audience time so it doesn't seem as special.

Getting back to Bahrain though, excited? .. I seem to have lost the plot

Q? Can McLaren win at Bahrain, they've never won here before.

Yep, It's not the same when the opener isn't in the middle of the night. It's like a tradition at this stage....and Klien not getting a drive, added with the new teams about 4 seconds behind has dampened my excitment a little..

Hopefully Alonso v Massa v Hamilton v Button v Vettel v Schumacher v Rosberg will take away my pain

Can McLaren win? You bet.

That's a matter of opinion, I don't particularly think that getting up for a race signals the opening of a season. It just shows our commitment for the sport we love. For me its a pain as my weekends are my sleep days so I don't particularly enjoy 4am races. And since Kimi isn't there maybe my brain will automatically fall back asleep .

Well Martin Brundle's season opening reviewmight get the juices flowing a little more.

I read somewhere yesterday that Ferrari tip Red Bull for Bahrain, saying that they have the best package and seem to have ironed out the reliability issues.

Though the article did call Red Bull a "British Team". As much as that is wrong, is it actually true because they may be Austrian and are OFFICIALLY from Austria but they are based in Milton Keynes. So where are they from and from what country would you classify them to be from?

You could link this to my "when is a new team really a new team" blog post, as the two questions are very similar.

Red Bull are officially registered with Companies House in the UK (they evolved from Stewart), but they are registered with the FIA as an Austrian team. Didn't the FIA play the British national anthem and show a British flag when Red Bull won their first race?

Force India are officially registered with Companies House in the UK (they evolved from Jordan), but they are registered with the FIA as an Indian team (I think).

In the late 80's/early 90's Ferrari's cars were designed by Brit John Barnard in Guildford, Surrey - although they were made in Italy, and so were the engines. He called the design centre "GTO" (Guildford Technical Office) which, if you know your Ferrari history, was a bit of an in-joke. Did that make those Ferrari cars British or Italian?

I think you can nominate any country when you register your team with the FIA, it's all philosophical...

F1 does tend to do your head in doesn't it, That's why i tend to avoid reading too much into articles such as the USF1 'will they wont the feature in 2010'. Never been a fan of USF1 from the beginning truth be told, I remember laying into them in an article you (i think) wrote highlighting the Americans arrogance. They boasted they'd planned their F1 plight for 3 to 5 years and in the end it fell flat on their faces, Amusing to say the least.

Not too fussed F1 is kicking off at Bahrain this year, Turning a negative into a positive, At least one boring circuit is out of the way early on. I'm excited as ever this season, It's been a long time since we Alonso fans had something to cheer about!

You were right, but not anymore - he's joined the BBC commentary team.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81968