McLaren get to retain number 1 & 2 on their cars this year by poaching Jenson Button. There’s no doubt that he’ll drive car number 1 while Lewis Hamilton will drive car number 2. Martin Whitmarsh takes additional responsibility as the Chairman of FOTA, the association of Formula 1 teams. Mercedes has taken over Brawn GP, Norbert Haug will get to play a larger role in the new team and Ross Brawn retains the role of Team Principal.
Michael Schumacher makes a return to active racing with Mercedes GP. Would anyone ever have imagined Michael S to don an apparel which had the silver arrows on it after such a long, passionate and successful sting in Maranello? The Tifosi are going to be disappointed, but I hear German pride will kick in this time. I feel sad for Felipe Massa, he earned his stars under the tutelage of Michael Schumacher and was blooming into an exquisite driver in his own right when fate intervened.
Felipe returns back to racing only to find Fernando Alonso as his teammate, this is the one big bit of ill luck I’d attribute to his career through out which he’s been denied a little luck. Though they won’t accept this, Felipe will be expected to play no 2 to double world champion Fernando otherwise we all know how it might end up given Fernando’s days with McLaren with a certain rookie named Lewis Hamilton who was making his debut in F1 in 2007.
12 teams are listed on Formula 1’s official website, which means we’ll see 24 drivers on the grid. A 13th team might just make it on to the tarmac eventually, and that’d most likely be Sauber who lost BMW’s backing and have been left to fend for themselves. The 2010 season will see the return of Cosworth as an engine supplier. Teams that commit themselves to the £40 million budget will get slightly more freedom technically and commercially. Lotus makes it’s return to F1, Campos and Virgin are the other two teams that will race in 2010.
Such teams will be allowed to run movable front and rear wings and also have an engine with no rev limit (current max is 18,000 rpm). Commercially there are more incentives like an annual payout of US$10 million, free transportation of two chassis and freight of up to 10,000 kgs in weight along with 20 air tickets for each event held outside Europe. These are certainly welcome moves which are bound to excite the new teams but will Ferrari or McLaren be enthused? That’s something we can all debate on.
The new season will also see a ban on refueling, cars will start with fuels to last a full race, I hope to see cars running out of fuel every now and then. The front tyres are slated to be made narrower, minimum weight of the car has been increased to 620 kgs (currently 605 kgs) and the points system has been revamped. 25, 20, 15, 10, 8, 6, 5, 3, 2, 1 point wait to be awarded to I, II, III, IV …… X positions on the grid departing from the current system of awarding points to the top 8 drivers.
Another interesting move to encourage overtaking is to ban wheel fairings, this year you won’t see those wheel cover like things on McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari etc which have a vent to direct the hot air from the brakes escape in a particular direction which aids in increasing downforce making the air dirty for the car behind. Ron Dennis is expected to be seen more on the track now that Max Mosley isn’t at the top of the FIA, Jean Todt has already started discussions to find out ways to make Formula 1 more environment friendly.
Force India and RedBull haven’t change their driving line up and 19 drivers have been confirmed by the teams as off today:
| McLaren | Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton |
| Ferrari | Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa |
| Mercedes GP | Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg |
| Red Bull | Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber |
| Williams | Rubens Barrichello, Nico Hulkenberg |
| Renault | Robert Kubica, ??? |
| Force India | Adrian Sutil, Vitantonio Liuzzi |
| Torro Rosso | Sebastian Buemi, ??? |
| Lotus | Jarno Trulli, Heiki Kovalainen |
| Campos | Bruno Senna, ??? |
| Virgin | Timo Glock, Luca di Grassi |
| ??? | ???, ??? |
There’s also been a fair share of drama and outrageous ideas been exchanged. The czar who owns F1 wanted medals to be awarded instead of points and recently he was in the news for saying that cars should be allowed to use run off areas, alternate routes a certain number of times in each race to make up track positions. KERS is officially in the reckoning for 2010 however I believe the teams have mutually agreed to not use this system although the increased minimum weight should give sufficient leeway to teams with heavier drivers in trying this technology.
At the end of this year we’ll also know which direction Force India will tilt given the media attention this team gets in India. Will it be a productive year or will FIF1 end up in the also ran list? Currently they have a technical agreement with McLaren where Mercedes provides engines and McLaren supplies gearbox, electronics and other hydraulic systems. What’ll happen to this arrangement now that McLaren and Mercedes are two distinctly separate entities?
There is also news doing the rounds that double diffusers will be banned completely. Given the fact that Red Bull’s competitiveness is almost entirely due to Adrian Newey’s aerodynamics and a good part of that performance comes from it’s diffuser we’ll have to wait and see what the teams are going to do to play around the rules and try to squeeze that wee bit of performance from their respective cars. From next week we’ll start seeing new cars being unveiled.
I hope we get to see tons of good racing and at the end of a year have a worthy champion, over to Bahrain everyone, cheers !!!
