The 2010 Formula 1 season is just weeks away and the excitement has reached a feverish pitch. Arguably the greatest champion of all time returns after a three year hiatus, perhaps the only driver to defeat this great champion has finally made it to a team that justifies his talent, the last two world champions team up together for the first time in F1 history…these unprecedented, unexpected and totally unbelievable developments has made F1 fans salivate at the prospect of the “Greatest Season Ever”. IndianAutoTalk provides you with a rundown of all the leading contenders and the machines that will be powering them. This is Part 1 of a three part series.

1) Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro- Alonso in red, enough said.

Ferrari had a woeful 2009, the car was just not fast enough to compete. The horrific injury to Filipe Massa just worsened what was already a pathetic year for them, with just one race victory and a few podium finishers. This was undoubtedly the worst season for them in recent memory and hopefully, this has fired people up at Maranello. Brightening their chances even more this year is the arrival of golden boy, Fernando Alonso from Renault. That Alonso was destined for Ferrari was an open secret, but after years of maneuvering the move has finally happened and seeing him in scarlet red has the ‘tifosi’ all worked up. Add to the equation, the return of Massa from his life threatening injury and the good form he has displayed in testing with GP2 cars, there is much room for optimism.

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Rule changes are inevitable as well as invigorating for any form of sports, more so for Racing and even more for Formula1. Thought the reason for FIA changing rules every year is change for the sake of change, the main reason is to prevent F1 racing from changing into a parade. Besides that, this season’s regulations require an acknowledgement of economic hampering. All these contribute for one heck, I mean two hecks of changes.

No Refueling for the entire race
As the teams are used to designing their cars and their race strategies considering the option of refueling during race, this rule of no refueling changes everything the teams have learnt from their past experience. This is good for the sport as the 4 new teams Lotus, Campos, Virgin and US F1 even out with the biggies in this perspective at the least.

New Points System
FIA has become generous with the points as it lashes out 25 for the race winner and points for the top 10 finishers. Finishing second is good enough for 18 points, rest of the positions get 15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1. FIA hopes the difference of 7 points between the first and the second places will lead to some serious racing for the top spot rather than drivers doing math and settling down for second place.

There is a third change regarding improving the credibility of the Race Stewards. Race Stewards include 2 international and 1 national Steward who review race incidents. This bench will now be headed by a former F1 driver. This could be good as a driver will comprehend the necessity of certain actions during high speed racing better than well, the current bunch. These being the changes made to the new season, some interesting considerations which didn’t make it were points for fastest lap and pole position.

If that headline can’t have 3 exclamation marks then nothing can. They are back in business the ultimate F1 duo of all time. After a couple of months of hard speculation BBC hints that the German has signed a deal with the newly formed Mercedes GP under Ross Brawn who seems to turn anything into gold with his touch. The deal is worth 7 million for the 2010 season and will be extended if the going gets good. This deal effectively hammers Michael’s current role with Ferrari as its brand ambassador.

Though this might be the delight of the century for motorsport fans, back in Maranello the Ferrari tifosi is heartbroken especially Ferrari boss Montezemolo who quotes “the real Michael is the one who raced for Ferrari” and “this is the new Michael”.

Somewhere down the line when Schumi was sitting out on the Ferrari paddock, he must have realized that he doesn’t belongs on the paddock but further north and that spurred up with Montezemolo’s idea of Schumi standing in for injured Massa added up and here we have the big headline “Schumacher is back”. This is the most bonkers news in motorsport history;the only thing that could top this would be if the late Ayrton Senna comes back to life!

Force India is having quite a handful to deal with these days. Force India has alleged that Lotus has stolen the Aerodynamic design of its 2010 F1 car. According to Force India, Aerolab which is Force India’s former wind tunnel operator has sold vital Aerodynamic data of the Team 2010 F1 car to lotus. Force India claims that Lotus’s front wing assembly of its wind tunnel model is similar to Force India’s on top of that Lotus’s wind tunnel car’s tire has handwriting of Force India’s staff.

These allegations come in the midst of Aerolab’s legal battle against Force India for breaching contract obligations. Mean while Force India won a legal battle against Etihad Airways and Aldar Properties which paid of Force India $ 4.7 million.

As Mallaya’s saying goes “you win or lose, you have to booze”!

5 would be incredibly low for the number of MotoGP championships he has won, what I am referring to is the number of BMWs he has taken home so far after winning this year’s BMW Best Qualifier Award!

The Doctor was presented with a brand new BMW M3 during yesterday’s award ceremony. Before getting the keys to his new Bimmer, Rossi was given the keys to the new M house’s power horse The BMW M3 GTS for a lap around the track.

GTS has a 4.4litre V10 which churns out 450bhp is grounded through a 7-speed double clutch gearbox. All this is a bit too good for a car which tips the scale at 1490kgs, it was so good that Rossi couldn’t stop at the end of his lap; he took it for another.

When Rossi spoke about the GTS “it was amazing in the GTS, Just amazing, it was great, especially under braking with the light weight that it has”. He was so amazed that he wanted one for himself and was found making enquiries.

To add to Rossi’s excitement of winning a brand new M3, Mr. Thomas Schemera, the Director of Sales and Marketing for BMW M Power told “I think he (Rossi) is very convinced about the features and the abilities of the car and we would be very happy to let him have one of the hand built cars that echoes the iconic 3.0 CSL racer from the mid 70s.”!

Kudos DOC!

Image Gallery: GTS unveiling & Rossi’s M3

Have you ever wondered who would win or at least how it would be if you pit the best racing drivers from every turf of racing one against the other? Well there certainly is such an event which happens every year, this year with the venue was set in Beijing and the champions clashed it out with their hearts and souls to clinch the ultimate glory.

The event saw the likes of 7-time F1 Champion Michael Schumacher, current F1 champion Jenson button, 8-time le Mans winner Tom Kirstensen, 5-time Moto GP champion Michael Doohan, triple World Touring Car champion Andy Priaulx and double World Rally Champion Marcus Gronholm.

But none of them were the best of the best; the winner was Double DTM titleholder Mattias Ekstrom who won his third Race of Champions crown yesterday, beating out seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher in the final. After winning his way through his group, he beat Tom Kirstensen in the quarter final and Jenson in the semi to face-off Michael in the final.

Michael has never been able to win one loosing it multiple times on the finals. The only F1 driver to have won the ROC is Heikki Kovalainen. But all wasn’t lost for Michael as he helped Germany win the Nation’s Cup for the third time with the help of team-mate Vettel.The cars the lot was racing with were Ford Focus WRC, Volkswagen Scirocco, KTM X-Bow, Solution F Prototype Opel touring car and three different specially-equipped sprint cars.

Image Gallery:

Click through for the Button Vs Schumi race Video and more!