F1: let the games begin

The cancellation of the planned first race of the season in Bahrain has given some drivers an extra few days at home. Rubens Barrichello is delighted to have had some extra time with his kids but he "can't wait for the red lights to go out."

Team Lotus has used the time to make one of the season's more significant signings: their previous reserve driver, the talented but generally overlooked Fairus Fauzy has gone over to the rival Renault team (which may or may not be called Lotus Renault by the time the season starts on Thursday when teams sign in for the first race of the season - according to the official F1 website, the team has not been formally renamed - although Nick Heidfeld's official team pic shows a large Lotus badge on his racing suit). Today, Team Lotus has announced the signing of Karun Chandok as reserve driver. Chandok is potentially one of F1's future stars: he is incredibly knowledgeable about cars and their behaviour. Often sitting in the co-commentator's chair at ESPN Star, his ability to read not just race strategy but also the tiniest detail of how a car is behaving reduces his far more experienced lead commentator to sounding like an opinionated but fundamentally clueless chatterbox. Chandok's dismissal from the HRT team last year was a shame in some respects but, frankly, the team was, simply, not up to the standards he needs. Interestingly, this year HRT has chosen another Indian driver: the returning Narain Karthikeyan who has turned up with sponsorship from TATA. Chandok doesn't bring a sizeable purse which is vital to HRT which has also signed up Vitantonio Liuzzi - and he won't have come cheap. HRT was very late with its new car, managing only one pre-season test session. But the car is looking good after some serious closed season work. Whether the team is right to lay blame on last season's drivers - who were both in their maiden season and hardly ready to handle a car cobbled together under difficult conditions - is open to debate.

In fact, of last year's débutantes, only Team Lotus has kept faith with its original driver line-up: Trulli and Kovalainen. And elsewhere on the grid, a raft of drivers new to F1 are occupying seats: at Sauber, Sergio Perez joins (former?) wild man Kamui Kobayashi; Pastor Maldonado brings much needed funding to the second seat at Williams, Nick Heidfeld is formally now a driver at Renault in place (for this season) of the seriously injured Robert Kubica, Paul di Resta takes the second chair at Force India (explaining why Liuzzi was available to go to HRT). Last of last year's new three, Virgin, have teamed Jerome d'Ambrosio with last year's team leader Timo Glock.

Gone from this year's roster are Christian Klien (who seems to be everyone's favourite last choice for mid-season seat swapping - a great shame because he is talented), Sakon Yamamoto (there just isn't enough Japanese commercial interest in F1 now the manufacturers and Bridgestone have gone), Bruno Senna, Lucas di Grassi, Nico Hulkenberg and Pedro de la Rosa.

Some will be surprised that Torro Rosso have retained Sebastian Buemi who seemed to be a magnet for every kind of problem last year. Even more surprising is that he keeps the same team-mate: Jaime Alguersuari who disgraced himself on a number of occasions - but demonstrated that, when it all comes together, he can mix it with the mid-field with some success. Even so, his five points last season compared with Hulkenberg's 22 raises some questions.

In fact, amongst the mid-field and lower ranks, the driver changes make the sport look like it did in the 1970s and 1980s with money trumping talent for a place in the cockpit.

Up at the pointy end, McLaren's Button has become a fitness fanatic and is now a serious contender in the insane sport of triathlons. He spent part of the winter training with Lance Armstrong to improve the cycling part of his combination - and Armstrong said that he was pleased that Button had not been a competitor to him during his time racing. However, Button is probably wondering if his brain is going to fade: his father recently reported his car stolen before realising he was looking for it in the wrong town! Hamilton has had a relatively quiet off-season, plodding away in the gym and relaxing to focus on the forthcoming challenge. He and Button both intend to beat the Ferraris and the Red Bulls - and, of course, each other.

Mark Webber, all his niggling injuries now had time to heal, has spent a lot of time playing with his dogs and chatting to customers at the pub he co-owns near the Red Bull factory; Sebastian Vettel has been surprisingly low profile in his first winter as F1 World Champion: one suspects that it was all a bit overwhelming for the German who, it is easy to forget, was a teenager not so long ago.

Alsonso and Massa have been hard at work at the Ferrari factory: the team has not found the integration of the new rules easy and testing (off-track, of course - there is no way Ferrari would test new parts on an old car around their private track, is there?) has been intense. Pre-season testing was not encouraging and both drivers head for Melbourne, probably wishing for rain - and hoping the factory can find them some more downforce and ooomph for Malaysia just two weeks away.

Pirelli are the biggest unknown quantity for Melbourne, but not the only one. No one knows how the new tyres will stand up to the rough, bumpy and abrasive surface of the street circuit.

Over at Mercedes, Ross Brawn is hoping that the new specifications will mean that the new car will have some of the success of the Brawn GP's first. Schumacher and Rosberg are saying nice things but they seem somewhat trite.