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FIA issued 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship entry list. Six teams have both drivers listed including Lotus (staying with Trulli and Kovalainen). Renault and Williams still haven’t confirmed team mates for Kubica and Barrichello, while no drivers have been officially confirmed by Force India, Virgin, HRT and surprisingly also Toro Rosso.

Team formerly known as Lotus Racing is listed as Team Lotus with Renault engines, BMW is no longer part of the name of the Sauber team. Here is the November 2010 version of 2011 F1 entry list:
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Bridgestone Formula One Tyres

The upcoming 2010 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is not only the drivers title deciding race but also for the foreseeable future the last F1 race for Bridgestone tyres. The Pirelli era (and not only in F1) will begin. Here is a brief look back at Bridgestone in F1.

Bridgestone tyres appeared in F1 for the first time in 1976. The first and for almost 20 years the only driver to use Bridgestones in F1 was Kazuyoshi Hoshino (Heros Racing). He entered only 2 races – 1976 and 1977 Japanese GPs. He retired from the first one because he ran out of tyres.

The proper entry into Formula One came in 1997 ending five years of Goodyear monopoly. Bridgestone supplied 5 teams in their first year in F1 – Arrows, Prost, Minardi, Stewart and Lola (although the MasterCard Lola team never really made it).

“We scored points in our first race and the first Bridgestone podium came in our second race. We even came very close to a win with Damon Hill in the Arrows Yamaha at Hungary so this was a very good debut for us.” – Bridgestone Motorsport Tyre Development, Hirohide Hamashima

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Fernando Alonso on Singapore podium

Fernando Alonso won the eventful 2010 Singapore GP only 2 tenths ahead of Sebastian Vettel. Mark Webber’s early pit stop gamble (behind safety car) paid off, he finished third just ahead of Jenson Button. Lewis Hamilton crashed out for the second time in as many races.

2010 Singapore GP Race result (updated twice):

1. Alonso
2. Vettel +0.2
3. Webber +29.1
4. Button +30.3
5. Rosberg +49.3
6. Barrichello +56.1
7. Kubica +1:26.5
8. Massa +1:53.1
9. Sutil +1:52.3 (+20 sec penalty)
10. Hulkenberg +1:52.6 (+20 sec penalty)
11. Petrov + 1 lap
12. Alguesuari + 1 lap
13. Schumacher + 1 lap
14. Buemi + 1 lap
15. di Grassi + 2 laps
16. Kovalainen + 3 laps

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2010 Hungarian GP podium

Mark Webber took full advantage of safety car combined with Vettel’s drive through penalty and won the 2010 Hungarian GP. Webber now also leads the drivers championship. Fernando Alonso finished second ahead of Sebastian Vettel. Felipe Massa spent most of race on his own between the top three and the pack behind him and ended the race in fourth. Vitaly Petrov (P5) and Nico Hulkneberg (P6) scored their best F1 finishes to date. De la Rosa scored his first points after his return to F1 for 7th place. The final points scoring positions belong, Button, Kobayashi and Barrichello.

Michael Schumacher finished 11th but will be investigated after the race for almost pushing Barrichello to the wall while defending his 10th place. All six new teams cars finished the race for the first time.

Update: Michael Schumacher was given 10 places grid penalty for the next race (Belgian GP).

There were few incidents during the pit stops under safety car. Robert Kubica was released into the path of Adrian Sutil, Nico Rosberg lost a rear wheel that went traveling and jumping through the pitlane (without causing any serious injuries thankfully).

2010 Hungarian GP Result

1. Webber – Red Bull – 1h41:05.571
2. Alonso – Ferrari +17.821
3. Vettel – Red Bull +19.252
4. Massa – Ferrari +27.474
5. Petrov – Renault +1:13.100
6. Hulkenberg – Williams +1:16.700
7. de la Rosa – Sauber +1 lap
8. Button – McLaren +1 lap
9. Kobayashi – Sauber +1 lap
10. Barrichello – Williams +1 lap

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It was not to be for Felipe Massa

The Hockenheim race stewards clearly did not like what happened on lap 49 of 2010 German GP … Ferrari were found guilty of breaching Article 39.1 of the Sporting Regulation which bans the team orders in Formula One. They were also found guilty of bringing the sport into disrepute. The result of the race stays at the moment but Ferrari were fined $100,000. The case was also referred to the World Motor Sport Council for further consideration.

So, it looks like Ferrari blokes are the only ones convinced by the Ferrari story …

Photo: Bridgestone Motorsport

Ferrari is running a special livery this weekend in Turkey to celebrate their 800th F1 Grand Prix race. The “800th Grand Prix” logo appears where until recently the controversial bar code used to be. Here is the picture (click on the image to enlarge):

Special Ferrari livery for Turkish GP to celebrate 800th F1 race

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Felipe Massa - The second fastest driver in Saturday practice

Robert Kubica was the fastest driver in the final practice session for 2010 Monaco GP ahead of Massa, Webber and Hamilton. Four different cars among top four. We had a glimpse of what the qualifying may be like with traffic affecting the lap times quite a lot in the closing stages of the session.

Fernando Alonso, the fastest driver on Thursday, faces race against time to get his car ready for the race after hitting the wall early on during the practice causing heavy damage to his car. UPDATE – Fernando Alonso will not take part in the qualifying after damaging the chassis in the FP3 accident. He will use new chassis in the race and therefore will have to start from the pitlane.

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2010 Formula One Team Logos

Here is another regular start of the season feature – look at all the logos of Formula One teams. Lot’s of changes compared to the year 2009 (see 2009 F1 logos here). Gone are the Toyota and Brawn GP logos. We have four brand new logos instead – Mercedes GP, Virgin, Lotus and Hispania. Then there is the BMW logo missing in BMW Sauber logo following BMWs pull out from F1 as well as the ING brand missing from Renault F1 logo.

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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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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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Lotus Debut for Jarno Trulli

Today is the last test session in Jerez this winter. There will be three drivers changes – Nico Rosberg takes over from Michael Schumacher, Vitantonio Liuzzi from Adrian Sutil and Jarno Trulli will make his Lotus debut. Here is the Saturday line up:

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Lotus T127 in action in Jerez

The voting in the poll for The Best 2010 F1 Livery has ended. From the beginning it turned into the battle of two new teams. Lotus and Virgin together received almost half of all the votes. It was a tie for quite a while but at the end it was the Lotus T127 with most votes next to its name. BMW Sauber ended up as the least popular livery on the grid. Here is the result of the poll:

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