Every new season begins with high expectations, but the sheer unpredictability of the impending title battle, and an almost unparalleled stellar cast of champion drivers, make this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix the most eagerly anticipated season-opener in recent memory.
James Allen will be bringing itv.com/f1 readers his incisive analysis on all the on- and off-track developments throughout the year.
Here in his season preview he explains why F1 fans are in for a real treat in 2010, and why Fernando Alonso starts as his title favourite by a whisker from Lewis Hamilton.
I cannot tell you how much I’m looking forward to this new season.
I know I get excited every year, but this year is truly special and I know that the people who work in F1, the drivers and teams are as excited as the public in anticipation of this season.
The reason is obvious: We have one of the best line-ups of top teams and star drivers in grand prix history.
It is appropriate that this should happen when F1 is celebrating its 60th anniversary.
Testing has shown that Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes are all on a similar level and the competitive edge will move around between them as the season progresses, depending on circuit configuration and schedule of technical updates.
It’s good to have Ferrari and McLaren back fully competitive.
Last year was quite interesting for the unexpected battle between Red Bull and Brawn, but it lacked the intensity of the duels between the two great old rivals.
Also the season was unbalanced with Brawn enjoying such superiority due to their double diffuser in the first half of the season.
From what we have seen so far in testing, this year will be much more even.
McLaren have got a bit of a jump by doing the stalling rear wing, which every other team will copy if it is found to be legal.
Behind the top four is another close fight between Williams (now with Cosworth engines), Force India (using Mercedes), Renault, Sauber (now with Ferrari power) and Toro Rosso (Ferrari).
Force India looked very fast in testing and will benefit from the continuity of drivers and technical partners.
They buy the whole back end of the car from McLaren and Mercedes and that is a great platform to build on.
Williams are probably faster than they looked in testing as they were playing it conservative on the engine to start with.
The Cosworth is obviously much more powerful than the Toyota was last year and the Williams was third fastest through the speed traps in the Barcelona test.
Driving these cars is a stunning line-up of champions and aspiring champions, which reminds me of the late 1980s days of Prost, Senna, Mansell and Piquet, although there is more of a range of ages than back then.
Fernando Alonso is still the number one in my eyes, for his all-round quality, but Lewis Hamilton has matured a lot over the last 12 months and this could be a huge year for him.
He has the opportunity, if he can take it, to raise himself above great champions like Alonso and Michael Schumacher.
The 41-year-old seven-time champion is the surprise package.
I’ll be honest: I really didn’t believe he would come out of retirement. But I’m glad he has as it creates a thrilling extra dimension to this championship.
Schumacher has nothing to prove and is going to enjoy himself racing men almost half his age, in the case of Sebastian Vettel.
In his first career, Schumacher was always at his best after a break. Three years is a long break, but I expect him to hit the ground running.
Reigning champion Jenson Button has taken on an even bigger challenge, moving to McLaren and taking on Hamilton.
The car was designed around Hamilton, who is nearly 10cm shorter, and the design frozen before Button signed his deal, so fitting his lanky 6ft 1” frame into the car was always going to be tricky.
After some difficult moments in the first test in Valencia, they managed it and Button is now in a position to get the most from his car.
I would expect him to do better in the races than in qualifying, because his style works the tyres better over long runs than over the single lap, but he is an adaptable racer and he may well prove versatile this year.
Adaptability is the key this season – the cars will go from low-fuel qualifying runs to starting the grand prix with 160 kilos of fuel on board, making them some four or five seconds per lap slower than on Saturday.
Drivers cannot do any work after qualifying to change the set-up of the car so they will have to adapt to a car which is constantly changing.
It is for this reason that I feel Alonso possibly has the best chance because he is the most adaptable.
Vettel came of age last season and despite some errors, which cost him a run at the title, he matured into a driver who can dominate a race weekend. Japan in particular was a very impressive performance.
For him this question of adaptability will be fascinating. There is no doubt about his pace or coolness, but has he the maturity and experience to move with the constantly changing conditions?
Mark Webber is a very adaptable driver, but what he needs to find is consistency.
Then we have the returning Felipe Massa, who is unbeatable on his day and was finding consistency when he suffered his accident last season.
Nico Rosberg is perhaps in the least enviable position of having Schumacher unexpectedly sitting alongside him.
He’s put a brave face on it so far, but it’s not really what he signed up for last autumn.
If Schumacher beats him he will struggle to move forward in his career. If however he is able to beat Schumacher, people will say that the great man is past it, not that Rosberg is a superstar.
It’s a tough place to be. Of the top eight drivers, he’s the only one I can’t see winning a race this year.
With new rules outlawing refuelling, the strategy will be fascinating this year.
Strategy will become more reactive in that teams will not be able to plan as much as before.
In general the earlier you pit, the better will be your chance of beating the car you are racing against.
But you don’t want to pit too early, because you need to make your next set of tyres last. I will be very interested to see the teams learning on the hoof.
I’m going for Alonso for champion, but it could easily be Hamilton. It will certainly be a hell of a fight.