The 2010 season is upon us, with the Bahrain GP this weekend, so lets take a few moments to have a look at the state of the teams, drivers and rules, and what we think might happen.
The Rule Changes
Many of the rules stay the same this year, however there are a few big changes that we need to be aware of.
London, 11th February 2010, Mario Andretti, Tony Brooks, Ron Dennis and Jacky Ickx were last night inducted into the very first Motor Sport Hall of Fame.
Drivers past and present – Sir Stirling Moss and Sir Jackie Stewart among them – plus celebrity guests including James Martin, Jodie Kidd, Britt Ekland, commentators and opinion formers all gathered at Camden’s iconic Roundhouse to witness the induction of four of the greatest names in the sport.
New pictures coming thick and fast from the test at the moment, thanks to ScarbsF1 on twitter for most of them. I’ll update this post with interesting stuff coming through.
McLaren – Here you can see the cooling slots on the McLaren car, just above the sidepods. These are probably for airflow/electronics cooling.
They turned up this morning just on the left hand side of the car, and moments ago this pic was snapped with both sidepods having the cooling slots installed.
We have a few more cars to oggle over that were launched over the weekend.
First up is the Renault R30. The team seam to have changed colour scheme to yellow and black, and the car looks good for it. Although I’m sure Eddie Jordan might have some interesting words about it come the first race.
Another day, another F1 car. Today was the launch of the MP4-24.
The car looks quite aggressive, and we are told that the rear diffuser is very aggressive, and was not allowed to be photographed (in fact it had a blanking cover over it).
More news and info on the launch over at F1 Fanatic as Keith was there.
Here we have the new Ferrari F10.
Remember the new rules of smaller front wheels and bigger fuel tank have been put into place on the new car, and it’s borrowed from a lot of last years cars (Red Bull, McLaren and Williams definitely in there)
Here’s a sneak peek of the 2010 Ferrari colours. These are not on the 291 (2010) car, but rather the F60 (2009) car.
Obvious changes are the Santander logo on the rear wing, I’ll miss the Marlboro ‘Bar Code’
Fernando had the car out on the Paul Ricard track and he said the new car ‘is almost ready’ so lets hope we see it soon. Suppose McLaren/Lewis will have to stop making Lego bridges now.
Some pics from the Mercedes’ Launch event. Note however this is not the 2010 car launch (the W01 will launch February 1st), rather the colour scheme launch.
Mercedes’ have this to say about the colour scheme
Akio Toyoda : "Based on the current economic environment, we realise we have no choice but to withdraw. This has been a very painful decision. I offer my deepest apologies to Toyota’s many fans for not being able to achieve the results we had targeted."
Seems that Toyota are not going into the next season of Formula 1. That will Leave F1 with just 3 Manufacturer’s in the sport next year, Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari.
