The Brazilian will get his first taste of official action with Williams at Albert Park on Friday when he takes part in the first practice session of the new campaign.

Senna says he can't wait for the engines to be fired up again after a four-month break.

"About a month after the last race of the season you are itching to get back racing, so four months later I really can't wait to get started," he said.

"Getting into the car on Friday will be very exciting, and I hope we can be competitive from the very beginning. I know the Albert Park circuit, having driven there for HRT in 2010.

"I've also had success, winning three of the four Formula Three races supporting the Australian Grand Prix in 2006, so I have good memories of the place. Pre-season testing was promising, but you never know exactly what everyone is doing. It is certainly very close, so it is going to be very tight this year."

Williams are once again using Renault engines this season and chief operations engineer Mark Gillan is happy with what they've seen so far.

"The whole team has worked very hard over the winter to eradicate areas where we were weaker in 2011, in addition to integrating the new Renault Sport F1 engine, and are now looking forward to starting the season," he said.

"The performance of the RSF1 engine has been as hoped; strong, flexible and with negligible performance degradation throughout its life.

"The weather in Melbourne can be variable, and going by the long range forecasts, this year appears to be no exception. As this is a street circuit, one tends to see a large track improvement through the weekend so we need to carefully monitor the evolution of the medium and soft Pirelli tyres.

"The track layout has above average corner speeds, and the race start fuel load is higher than most circuits, which leads to a relatively hard time on the braking system."

Planet F1