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Looky-likey #1 - Sauber

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Crikey! I thought the Brawn team had packed it in! Oh, hang on... it's the new Sauber car, rising from the ashes of BMW in a not-very-phoenix-like blaze of.. er.. black and white. And their drivers are dressed in white too. Still, it worked for Button & Co last year...

One small (financial) point... there doesn't seem to be any sponsorship. Hang on... (gets magnifying glass out) yes, I can definitely see something on the wing mirror. That's got to be worth at least £50, and they've got 2 mirrors!

pre-season preview? Why not...

Much like Williams being run by the chap whose name is on the car, I always had a soft spot for the Sauber team. They never quite seemed to be a "big" team (big as in run by a car company) but sometimes managed to punch above their weight. Peter Sauber seems like a top bloke too - wide smile and a cigar. Brilliant. Then he decided he'd had enough and BMW waved some cash at him. Being a car company, they got cold feet when the recession bubbled up and their most recent car was slow even by Luca Badoer's standards. So Peter's got the team back. Could be a tricky season though... An old driver with lots of testing experience (De la Rosa), but not much racing, and a fiery kid with only a couple of races to his name (Kobayashi). Last year's Beemer wasn't great, so how much can they improve on a much smaller budget?

Pedro has been a test driver for McLaren since 02, but has raced a couple of times as stand-in. He was OK, but never set the track on fire in his racing days. Very much a safe pair of hands, he'll probably be OK, but I suspect he's a bit rusty and will take a while to get back into the rhythm of it all.

Kobayashi was brilliant in his couple of outings for Toyota last year - no-one seemed to phase him, and he wasn't afraid of being a bit rough either to maintain his place. He should be entertaining to watch this year, if only to see how long it is before someone punches him for crashing in to them.

(Alarmingly, tonight's cassette seems to have some Whitney Houston on it. Stop shouting woman!)
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