Pick up F1 championship edition asap. It'll take a while to really get used to it at first. But once you do you'll be amazed at how good it is.
Tips, firstly turn off all the driving aids with the exception of traction control and anti lock brakes. Everything else will breed bad habits and slow your learning process trust me. Your a big F1 fan and should know most tracks fairly well, so turn the racing line off. You spend more time watching that and running a slower lap because of it. Three good tracks to start out on, firstly France. It's really good fun to drive and is a good place to learn how to drive the kerbs, plus with the two fast chicanes you learn how well the car handles at speed. second track is bahrain, it's a good circuit to learn how to drive the fast straights into uphill/downhill hard braking zones. Finally Canada, as its a low downforce circuit so you get to learn the braking zones and how to handle the car with minimal wing through some tricky corners.
On the kerb thing, dont hit them, simple as that, till your certain of which you can use and which you cant (the final chicane at magny cours) just avoid them or you'll spend your time spinning out.
There's a man after my own heart.. :)
Proper driving ;)
I got my PS3 today, from Currys of all places :o

They price matched Amazon (the cheapest I could find!) which surprised me a bit..
I'll be looking into F1 games and that one will be top of my list, as you say I do know most of the tracks, Fuji is the only one I don't really know. It's a shame Suzuka isn't on the calendar anymore, I always found that track to be the best one to learn handling on, it had all characteristics.. a good series of esses at the beginning, long fast sweeping corners, hairpins and chicanes.
Ah well, my learning curve starts all over again.. ;D
Cheers for the recommendation Craig. :)