The 2010 World Rally Championship, then. What should we be most excited about?

Well, not the change to the points system. The FIA proposed that the new Formula 1 points system, introduced to reflect the increased number of cars on the grid this year, be copied across to the WRC. Why? No idea, but it was approved by “a fax vote of competitors”. That could genuinely have been as little as two people, one representing Citroen and Citroen Junior Team, and other representing Ford and Stobart Ford. Maybe Petter Solberg too.

There are barely ten regular WRC competitors, so points down to tenth place seems like madness. In fact, there are 14 ‘main’ WRC entries – priority 1 and 2, whatever that means – to Rally Sweden, and that includes two very unlikely to bother the top ten. Indeed, at the time of writing the Super 2000 Skoda of P-G Andersson is in the top ten. Is that really the intention of the change to the points system?

Anyway, there is lots to look forward to. Marcus Gronholm back for Rally Sweden, American Ken Block doing a selection of rallies, the success or not of Kimi Raikkonen‘s change of career, the battle between Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen, Petter Solberg with a decent car all year, Dani Sordo and Jari-Matti Latvala trying to string together a decent season finally, and whether Sebastien Ogier will outclass the pair of them. And you can’t argue with a bit of Henning Solberg.

Pre-season preparation is convenient: rather than confusing tests, it’s non-WRC events. So we’ve seen Hirvonen win the Monte Carlo Rally in the new Ford Fiesta S2000; Sordo win the Arctic Lapland Rally, and Raikkonen crash out of the same event.

But what I’m most looking forward to is seeing what the coverage on Dave is like this year. I wasn’t optimistic, on the basis that Motors TV now has extended coverage, but the show’s presenter Neil Cole helpful put me right. So with less celebrities, I’m looking forward to the Rally Sweden coverage on Sunday evening. Fingers crossed, eh?