Yesterday was the first day of proper F1 race weekend action for the new F1 teams – Lotus, Virgin and HRT (Hispania). Here are the photos of their cars on track during Bahrain Friday free practice (click on the thumbnails to enlarge the images):

Adrian Sutil, fastest in the morning session

The 2010 F1 season kicked off today with the Friday practice. Fastets time of the morning session belongs to Adrian Sutil in Force India car ahead of Alonso, Kubica, Massa and Button. We will only find out later this weekend what these times mean … At the other end of the time sheets are as expected the new teams.

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The first race weekend of 2010 F1 season is here, it is time for the round one of 2010 Prediction Game. We have several new drivers, new teams, in fact more teams and drivers than we have had for very long time. We have new team mate rivalries, we also have four world champions on the grid. Predicting the outcome of the first race is never easy. This year the new rules made the predictions even more difficult. Unlike last year no clear favourite for early season wins emerged after the winter testing although Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes are expected to lead the pack. We may get a bit clearer picture after the practice sessions on Friday and Saturday …

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1995 Australian Grand Prix

We have been used to see 10 teams and 20 cars on F1 grid for the better part of the last decade – the most teams we had was 11, the biggest number of teams was 22. Twelve teams were on cards twice in the recent past. Once in 2002 when Toyota was to join the other eleven teams but following the demise of Prost it was back to eleven. Then again in 2008 when Prodrive was granted the entry. But Prodrive failed to turn up (the whole customer car fiasco), four races later Honda pulled the plug on the Super Aguri venture and instead of 12 teams F1 was back to ten.

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2010 Virgin Racing Livery

Here is the final part of the pre-season miniseries of post recapping the changes in Formula One.

Drivers

There were no drivers changes during the 2008 F1 season (other than the seats lost following the demise of Super Aguri) and the only changes in drivers line up ahead of 2009 were related to the retirement of David Coulthard. Vettel moved from Toro Rosso to Red Bull, Sebastien Buemi took Vettel’s seat at Toro Rosso. Buemi was also the only rookie on the grid of the season opening Australian GP last March. What a difference a year makes…

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Karun Chandhok, the latest GP2 graduate in F1

What has been expected is confirmed now. Karun Chandhok was announced as HRT F1 driver for 2010 season. If I am counting correctly he is the 6th 2009 GP2 driver to get the 2010 F1 driver (Kobayashi, Alguersuari, di Grassi, Petrov, Hulkenberg). And that does not include his team mate Bruno Senna (confirmed in November by Campos META) who last raced in GP2 in 2008.

Here is what Colin Kolles and Jose Ramon Carabantes
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Here is the final 2010 season countdown post. Just over a week from now the F1 cars will go out for the first practice session of the 2010 season, 10 days from today the Bahrain GP will start.

All is clear, at least it seems to be. We know USF1 will not make it although one of the team founders (Ken Anderson) still hopes they can do in 2011 what they could not in 2010. With USF1 out gone is also the race drive of Jose Maria Lopez. Stefan GP on the other hand failed to make it to the FIA 2010 F1 entry list and so we will only see 12 teams and 24 drivers in 2010 season.

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FIA published the (almost) final version of 2010 F1 entry list. The most important information the list provides is that there will be only 12 teams on the grid this season. USF1 failed to get ready and FIA decided that it is too late for any other team to enter the championship (see the statement at the end of this post). The entry list also confirms the name change of Campos META team to HRT F1 Team while BMW remains attached to the name of now Ferrari powered Sauber team. The only piece of the puzzle left to filled is the name Bruno Senna’s team mate. The announcement from HRT is expected later today with Indian driver Karun Chandhok said to be the prime candidate for that seat. We can also see that the ex-BAR, ex-Honda, ex-Brawn GP Brackley based Mercedes GP will now race under German flag. So in case McLaren or Mercedes GP drivers win the race we will only hear one national anthem …

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25 - 18 -15 for top three in 2010

Here comes the second part of the miniseries looking at the new face of Formula One. Part one looked at the new races and new tracks, part two is about the rules. Here is the overview of the most significant and obvious rule changes:

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Barely a week before the first practice session kicks off in Bahrain we are a bit closer to the final shape of the 2010 F1 grid.

It is now more less certain that there will be no USF1 team in 2010. The reports coming out last night suggest that the USF1 factory effectively closed down. (And they did so without even making that toaster ). This followed the earlier reports that the team asked FIA to deffer their entry till 2011. With no car, no money and lots of empty promises I can’t see a single reason why would FIA want to block the vacant slot for the team that failed while others (namely Lotus) have shown that things can be done in even much shorter time …

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About a month after first 2010 Michael Schumacher merchandise appeared the Mercedes GP team introduced theirs. The initial 2010 Mercedes GP collection includes the team cap, the caps of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher, track T-shirt, pit shirt, T-shirt for ladies, for kids, backpack and more.

The Mercedes GP merchandise is now available for pre-order from OnPole.com, with shipments expected later this month. Here are few images of 2010 Mercedes GP merchandise:

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CNN logo on Lotus F1 car and driver's helmet

Lotus Racing and CNN International have today announced a partnership deal that sees the Lotus team entering into a long-term agreement with the world’s leading news network. CNN’s logo will feature on the T127 race cars, the drivers’ overalls and on all team clothing.

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