US F1 out, Stefan GP out – the FIA publish the revised 2010 entry list

The FIA have issued the revised entry list for the 2010 season that confirms neither US F1 or Stefan GP will be at Bahrain. The release basically denies Stefan GP entry as it says
it is not possible for a replacement team to be entered for the championship at this late stage
I guess their dream was good while it lasted. It all comes down to whether they could have raced I guess and the FIA didn’t think they could. It remains to be seen whether Campos Meta under the new title of HRT Cosworth will manage to make the grid as no one has seen the car – it is due to be launched soon though.
Other things worth noting from the list are the lack of a second driver for HRT to partner Bruno Senna and the fact that Campos Meta can rename the team but that BMW Sauber Ferrari [...]

What are Lewis Hamilton’s chances of the world title in 2010

Lewis Hamiton enters the 2010 season as one of the two favourites to bring home the title, along with Alonso. Last season he started as the favourite though that was quickly revised after we saw how slow the McLaren was, so it’s all down the car right? I’m not so sure.
This years McLaren looks fast, it’s topped the times at the last two tests though not by much. It seems that a lot of teams are on the pace this year and it’s not going to be a simple matter of my car is faster than yours. At least four of the teams have quick cars, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull – Force India and Sauber have also shown themselves to be fast during the tests. This means that we might see more honours shared this year and that you might have to fight for every place, something a [...]

Can Jenson Button retain the title this year?

Arguably Jenson Button has the least chance of retaining his world title since Jacques Villeneuve pulled on his Williams helmet in 1998. With Ferrari signing Alonso and Mercedes bringing back Michael Schumacher plus the fact that Lewis Hamilton is now Jenson Button’s team mate there will be much more competition this year for the top set of points, and I haven’t even mentioned the Red Bull team.
Jenson Button will first and foremost have to beat his team mate to win the title and that is going to be a tough ask, he’ll have to do better than Fernando Alonso did in 2007, Hamilton has improved since then too. Button moves to McLaren as the World Champion as Alonso did in in 2007 but he’s also British and Hamilton did alienate a portion of the McLaren team last year after his antics in Australia so Button’s in a stronger position. What [...]

New Boys

The 2010 season sees four new teams appear on the grid, along with the return of Peter Sauber who takes back the BMW team. Indeed the manufacturer defection goes even further as Renault have sold a large chunk to an investment firm, with only Mercedes coming into F1 we’re looking at a season full of independent teams. The Final list for 2010 is:

Mercedes
Red Bull
McLaren
Ferrari
Sauber
Williams
Renault
Force India F1
Toro Rosso
USF1*
Campos*
Virgin*
Lotus F1*

* = new team
I’ve said before that I think the old teams will have a tremendous advantage going into this year where not many of the regulations have changed, not to mention the experience of the teams at these new organisations. Presumably they have experienced staff with Toyota shutting up shop and Brawn laying off half their staff at the beginning of the year but they won’t have all been racing together before. The Mercedes and Sauber teams will also have restructuring to [...]