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.

The F10 (Ferrari are back to their old naming convention of naming after the year, after a brief breakaway with the 2009 F60) promises to be a serious contender and if early testing times are any indication, we could see Alonso and Massa being right up there come Abu Dhabi in November. Massa was the fastest person in testing for two straight days before Alonso overtook him on the third day to be the fastest of all the participating teams. Here it should be mentioned that Ferrari stopped development on the 2009 car midway through the season and started the design of the F10, much like Brawn did for 2009 and look where it got them.

Ferrari also has a new title sponsor in Santander. The Spanish bank, forever tied to Fernando Alonso, migrated with him to Mclaren and now to Ferrari. The Ferrari loyalists (including me) always liked the Marlboro logo on the back of the car, the bar code the replaced it once the tobacco ad ban came into being, was even cooler. But the red on white Santander is not so bad once we get used it. The beloved bar code remains also, making it one of the prettier Ferraris in recent times. Keen Indian observers can also spot the hidden away “TATA” logo on the sides.

Form look of the car to the testing times posted to the talented drivers at the helm, all pointers are that 2010 could well be the year of the ‘Prancing Horse’.

2) Mclaren GP – The Brits are all set to re-conquer the world.

Mclaren, forever title contenders, had a poor 2009 just like Ferrari. Struggling to adapt to the rule changes, Hamilton was reduced to getting lapped by Button. They looked like getting their mojo back with Hamilton putting in some fine performances but it was a case of too little, too late as the dismal season for them ended on a sour note. Things also changed in the team, with Mercedes pulling out as partners after more than a decade of being together, Mclaren were once again the quintessential British racing team and they took the British pride a step further, snapping up Briton and current world champion Jenson Button from Brawn. Their all British line-up now includes the last two world champions, this is the first time that this has happened in F1 history.

Hamilton will always remain the Mclaren No. 1 driver, a fact that Alonso discovered to his cost in 2008. How Button will adjust to this as the defending world champion will be crucial for Mclaren to come out of 2010 victoriously. A number of people have derided the move, accusing it for being purely for the money (Brawn didn’t agree to his wage demands) and suggesting that Button will be playing second fiddle to Hamiltion. However, the man himself is utterly confident and currently putting in some good times in testing at Jerez. But he is still a second off Hamilton’s pace and if this continues, then the fairytale of 2009 might just end in tears for Button in 2010.

The car itself, the MP4-25 looks remarkably like last years with a similar paint job but the aerodynamics has been worked upon heavily. The curves of the car are beautiful and in the classic silver livery, the car does look good. It is interesting to note that the Mercedes-Benz name is still on the car despite the company pulling out as full partners, Mercedes just provides the engines for this car. The off-field repercussions of the season will be large as Mclaren is pushing its road-car program vigorously and is seeking to compete with the likes of Ferrari. A victory over them in the race track will go a long way in establishing the brand name of Mclaren, helping it sell cars in the volumes it desires.

There is no lack of motivation for Mclaren this year and they will be out to prove that Mercedes did not play a major role in their past successes. If the plucky Brits can withstand the assault in the tracks, who knows, Ron Dennis might just become the next Enzo Ferrari.

3) Mercedes GP – Schu’s brawn + Brawn’s brain = Success?

Michael Schumacher, the very name fills us with thoughts of victory after victory, of utter dominance and invincibility…and a very RED car. But not anymore, at least not the red car part, Schumacher has done the unthinkable and joined the brand new Mercedes GP team. Only the Mercedes name is new however, as this is the Brawn team that won the driver & constructors championship double in 2009. Led by the indomitable Ross Brawn, mastermind of Schumacher’s incredible run of championships with Ferrari and previously with Benetton, Mercedes are among the favorites to win this year’s championship.

‘Big Schu’ is not the only new thing with Mercedes, as they have also signed the promising Nico Rosberg as their second driver and the rivalry between the veteran champion and young upstart within the team will be intriguing. Test times are not so encouraging for the team as both have been regularly outpaced by their Ferrari and Mclaren counterparts. But things could change quickly as once Schumacher adapts to life in the fast line once again, there could be nothing stopping him. Injury concerns that plagued Schumacher last year are a thing of the past and he is all set to scorch the tracks once more.

“The Silver Arrow” cars are reminiscent of the Silver Arrow Mercedes cars that dominated the pre-World War II racing scene. Petronas is the main sponsor this year and their logo on any car looks good. Period. The all German combination shouldn’t be overlooked either, as this season promises to evoke nationalistic pride for the first time in F1.

The return of Mercedes as a racing team, the return of Michael Schumacher, there are plenty of stories surrounding Mercedes GP, but the biggest story could well be the return of the Brawn & Schumacher combination, the return of the ‘invincibles’.

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.

Here is the Button VS Schumi battle:

YouTube has tons of Videos on the Action check em out here.

Image Gallery:

A1 GP is like a world cup of Motor racing, pitting nations against one another, with a same spec car designed by Ferrari. It is the brainchild of Sheikh Maktoum Hasher Maktoum Al Maktoum of Dubai. This is the Event in which Indian’s F1 fame Narain Karthikeyan is currently racing for the Indian team.

A1 GP had a rough start with the initial season in 2005 seeing a loss of US$ 250million. It had never been able to rack in big sponsors and its share values dropped as low as 48% in one year of its creation. On top of that the logistics company which is responsible for transporting cars from race to race around the world is holding the cars ransom for payment, if that doesn’t do it Fiat which owns Ferrari has threatened to sue A1 GP and impound the cars for which A1 GP owes Ferrari US$ 2 million.

If you thought the problem ends there, you would be wrong. FIA the regulating body of all motor races has deemed the A1 GP cars unfit for racing and has asked to improve its designs, making it handful. Amidst all these problems, this 2009-2010 seasons opener at Australia’s Gold Coast which was scheduled for the 25th of this month is cancelled.

The Brazilian GP has always been a hum dinger, this year was no exception. Though it doesn’t mark the grand finale this year, it concluded the championships with Button clinching the Driver’s and maiden team Brawn GP the Constructor’s championship.

Before the race started the gap in championship points between Button and Barrichello was 14 and all Barrichello has to do is finish the race in position above 5 as long as Button doesn’t score a point. This did look conceivable as Barrichello started the race in pole and Button way back from 14th on the grid.

As the race progressed so did Button, but the Brazilian on the other hand let it slip after each pit stop, the final blow came when Hamilton over took him, Hamilton got in contact with Barrichello and punctured the Brawn’s rear tire while doing so. Barrichello after the incident had to visit the pits and finished the race at 8th position. Button finished on 5th with 4 extra points adding up to a tally of 89.

Vittal who was in 3 in the overall driver’s championship, bumps ahead of Barrichello with a 4th place finish in Brazil and tally of 74 points leaving Barrichello high and dry with 72 points. With one race to go this season at Abu Dhabi Rubino can mend some of the damage by getting back his 2nd place back.

Force India’s 3rd place qualification for Sutil ended up on the first lap with a spectacular crash taking out himself, Trulli and Alonso. The battle even continued outside the track with a verbal conflict between Sutil and Trulli who was seen very unhappy with the former.

P.S: Webber won the Race.

Click here for the 2009 Brazilian GP result.
Click here for the Driver’s championship standing
Click here for the Constructor’s championship standing

First lap fire ups :

The extravaganza as we mentioned earlier started with the Red bull 2005 F1 car being assembled. Then David Coulthard emerged in the scene around 2 as mentioned earlier. He took out the car in the sea-link for just one run and clocked a top speed of 260kmph. No official timing was recorded during the single run. He made a couple of donut spins at the end before the car tyres were shredded.

The whole place was electrifying with the sound of the car which made the wait in the sun worth. The event even saw a line of celebrities lining into catch a glimpse of the speed machine Gul Panang, Dino Morea, Amrita Arora and Arbaaz Khan were seen keen.

Check out the videos from the event:

Image Gallery:

Source: team-bhp

As reported earlier, the Red bull F1 car run by David Coulthard in Mumbai’s famous Bandra-Worli sea link will happen in under an hour.

Yesterday saw the preparation of the Red Bull F1 car in Mumbai. check out the Video. we will bring you the video of the car running in a short while.