BMW Sauber unveiled today in Valencia their first post BMW era F1 car – the Ferrari-engined C29. The car features high nose, shark fin and almost all white livery with dark sidepods and no sponsor logos (yet). It is very much the old BMW style livery with black (or dark grey) replacing the blue.

Earlier today the team announced new sponsorship deal with Japanese hair shampoo brand Scalp-D. The Scalp-D logo will be visible on the rear wing endplate of the new Formula One race car as well as on the team’s trucks and garage equipment.

(more…)

The Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team unveiled its 2010 car today at Vodafone UK’s headquarters in Newbury. The new car keeps the silver red colour combo and features quite extreme looking version of shark-fin engine cover. Here is selection of images from the 2010 McLaren F1 car launch including photos of the car, the race drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button and their helmets.

(more…)

2010 Ferrari F10

The 2010 launch season proper is here. Ferrari unveiled their 2010 F1 car today in Maranello. The usual red livery features quite a lot of white too this year following the arrival of Santander – front wing, rear wing, the barge boards.

It looks like the 2009 Red Bull nose made it to 2010 Ferrari car …

(more…)

Jose Maria Lopez during his days with Renault

USF1 team has finally confirmed their first driver for their debut F1 season – the Argentine José Maria López. Whether this was wise choice only time will tell. His only previous F1 experience is from his testing duties with Renault back in 2006 (the team claims he has 6,000 km of F1 test mileage under his belt). López also scored one F3000 podium in 2004, one win, one pole and total of six podiums in GP2 in 2005-2006. Since 2007 López competed in TC2000 series in Argentina. Here is what Ken Anderson had to say:

“So many things go into starting a Formula One team from scratch. You can nail every step along the way but if you don’t have the right guys in the seats, everything else is for naught. With Jose Maria Lopez we have further positioned ourselves for a successful 2010 debut campaign.”

One has to wonder what (other than financial and government backing) makes a driver with no F1 racing experience “the right guy in the seat” of a rookie F1 team …

Lopez’s US F1 contract was officially announced by the President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, in the Casa Rosada (Government House) in Buenos Aires on January 25.

“The Argentine government is very happy to get behind this exciting new project and we wish Jose Maria and the team all the best for the 2010 season.” – Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

“This is a truly memorable day for me, my family and the people of Argentina. I have been working towards this day for much of my life and I can’t thank Peter and Ken enough for this opportunity. Of course a new F1 team faces many challenges but our goal is to improve with each race and build a foundation that will eventually see this team competing for wins and championships.” – José Maria López

This announcement leaves only three vacancies on 2010 F1 grid – one each at Renault, Campos Meta and USF1.

Photo: Renault/LAT

Mercedes GP unveiled their 2010 livery today at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. Here is the official description of the colour scheme. (Photos inside the article):

The new silver and green livery creates a true marriage between the heritage of the Silver Arrows and the team’s title partner PETRONAS. The legacy of the Silver Arrows goes back to the 1934 Eifel Race when, on the evening before the event, the white paint was sanded off the Mercedes W25 race car to fulfil weight regulations (750kg formula) and the silver colour of the aluminium surface of the car appeared. This season, with the return of the Silver Arrows, the MGP W01 will shine in silver combined with a flow of iridescent silver and green shading. On the nose and other parts of the car, traces of black carbon fibre visible are visible – a reminder of the first Silver Arrow of 1934.

(more…)

Lotus F1 Racing Website

New F1 teams, new F1 team owners resulted in (among other things) in new online presence. Here is an updated list of Formula One teams websites featuring all the 2010 F1 teams. Former BrawnGP website is now redirected to new Mercedes pages (new site to be launched on 25th January). BMW Sauber F1 (while still keeping the “BMW” as a part of the official team name) have been moved away from the BMW Motorsport site to a new blog like team site. Renault website reflects the departure of their title sponsor ING.

(more…)

The 2010 season countdown is back. It is 50 days to the start of 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix. We are now only days from the first 2010 F1 car launches with Ferrari, McLaren, BMW Sauber and Renault all set to unveil their cars before the end January. McLaren team has announced their launch will be streamed live on the team’s official website on 29th January at 11:00 local time. Ferrari’s new car will only be unveiled on January 28 but some pictures of what the 2010 Ferrari livery may look like have been leaked out already – see here.

(more…)

Valentino Rossi started his two day test in 2008 Ferrari F1 car yesterday at Catalunya racetrack in Barcelona. Here are few images from the test arranged by Ferrari as a reward for Rossi’s 2009 MotoGP title.

(more…)

Contrary to reports that Giancarlo Fisichella is closing on the race seat with Sauber the Hinwill team has picked Pedro de la Rosa to partner the rookie driver Kamui Kobayashi for the 2010 season.

“Pedro has spent many years working for a top team at the highest technical level. We as a team stand to gain from his experience, and the same goes for young Kamui. The combination of a seasoned racer and an up-and-coming young driver has repeatedly proved a very fruitful one. I don’t expect either of them to disappoint in 2010. Of course it is also crucial that we provide them with a decent car; I feel positive about our in-house progress on that front too. We were able to continue work on our 2010 car as scheduled throughout the recent period of uncertainty.” – Peter Sauber

“I always firmly believed I would be given another chance as a team driver. Since the number of test drives were radically reduced, this was what I was working towards. I’m really excited about the season with Peter Sauber’s team, which has been a solid fixture in Formula One ever since 1993.” – Pedro de la Rosa

Pedro de la Rosa, the 38-year-old Spaniard,has 71 Grands Prix under his belt and worked with McLaren as a test and reserve driver for seven years from 2003 through to 2009. During that period he raced for McLaren the team in nine Grands Prix. In 2005 he finished fifth in Bahrain (substituting for injured JP Montoya) and claimed the fastest race lap. In 2006 he stepped in after Montoya left F1. In eight races he scored 19 points and took second place in the wet Hungarian Grand Prix.

De la Rosa made his first Grand Prix debut in Australia in 1999 for Arrows following his test driver job with Jordan a year earlier. He moved to Jaguar for the 2001 and 2002 seasons. Then came his testing days with McLaren.

The last quality race seat remains with Renault. There is also Nick Heidfeld still without a drive for 2010 season.

Photo: F1Wolf.com

Time to start catching up with things after my 2 weeks break. It is also time to start getting used to new looks of F1 drivers in their new team colours. Here is Fernando Alonso sporting Ferrari red and his new helmet. Well, the helmet design is similar to his 2009 one with few Ferrari tweaks. The most obvious change is the barcode that represents the only remaining tobacco money in F1 …

(more…)

Air Niki

Interesting beginning of year 2010 for me. I took flight from Frankfurt to Vienna on Air Niki earlier today. While waiting in the departure hall I overheard a mother explaining to her son that Niki in Air Niki stands for Niki as in Niki Lauda, the three times F1 world champion. Knowing that Niki Lauda flies the planes himself I wondered what are the odds to actually end up on a plane piloted by the man himself. Well, quite good. Minutes later while making the usual pre-flight talk the flight attendant said: “Your captain today is Niki Lauda”. And so he was.

If you close up on the cockpit (this photo) you may spot the visor of Lauda’s cap .