If you are looking for a detailed analysis on who will be competitive and who will not be competitive, you are dreaming. No-one knows that because there has been no opportunity for any comparisons between any of the teams. No-one has a car ready to run and they do not need them until the first week of February because of the testing ban, although I am sure that finished cars will be seen on rigs for some weeks before that. Similarly, teams will be working on virtual cars in their simulators. Without track data it is hard to know how they can do this, but there are some seriously clever engineers out there…
What we can say with certainty is that there is an entry list:
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
McLaren-Mercedes MP4-25
1 Jenson Button
2 Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes GP Petronas
Mercedes
3 Nico Rosberg
4 Michael Schumacher
Red Bull Racing
Red Bull-Renault RB6
5 Sebastian Vettel
6 Mark Webber
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro
Ferrari
7 Felipe Massa
8 Fernando Alonso
AT&T Williams
Williams-Cosworth FW32
9 Rubens Barrichello
10 Nico Hulkenberg
Renault F1 Team
Renault R30
11 Robert Kubica
12 To be announced
Force India F1 Team
Force India-Mercedes VJM03
14 Adrian Sutil
15 Tonio Liuzzi
Scuderia Toro Rosso
STR-Ferrari STR5
16 Sebastien Buemi
17 To be announced
Lotus F1 Racing
Lotus-Cosworth
18 Jarno Trulli
19 Heikki Kovalainen
Campos Meta 1
Campos Dallara-Cosworth
20 To be announced
21 Bruno Senna
US F1 Team
USF1-Cosworth
22 To be announced
23 To be announced
Virgin Racing
Virgin-Cosworth VR-01
24 Timo Glock
25 Lucas di Grassi
Sauber
Sauber-Ferrari C29
26 Kamui Kobayashi
27 To be announced
Reserve drivers named thus far are Giancarlo Fisichella (Ferrari), Fairus Fauzy (Lotus) and Alvaro Parente (Virgin).
What a coincidence! All the new teams are using Cosworth engines!
Sorry, couldn’t resist that one
I’d be mighty surprised to see Michael Schumacher racing the #4 next year, even disregarding the chinese superstition, I don’t think he ever drove the car with the higher number before.
Wow, Kobayashi in the first Sauber… PS must really see something special in him. Surely we’ll see Fisichella or Heidfeld in the second, and I think it will be Fisichella — a known quantity, still fast on his day, and presumably he’ll come cheap with the Ferrari connection. Not, of course, that he was tremendously impressive in the F60 last year, but they won’t want to make the mistake of having an inactive reserve driver again.
The hole in the Campos and USF1 ranks must be waiting for men who arrive with dollars. I would have thought that Petrov would have been snapped up by Campos or Renault by now…
Happy New Year Joe!
Any word on what Kubica is going to do? Has he received enough info from Renault F1 so he’ll stay there or will he leave (to where?)?
This is really depressing for Heidfeld fans like myself. From possibly going to McLaren or Mercedes GP to a possible early retirement. I don’t think Renault OR Sauber will pick him up. So what now? USF1?
Where is Heidfeld?
Is it just me, or is it that the first 4 teams on that list fill any self-respecting F1 fans with a sense of utter thrill and anticipation that you had your first visit to a theme park as a kid?
And the last name on that list raises a smile as well.
Are the racing numbers confirmed for each driver?
Interesting that Senna has been placed as the number two driver already and that Schumacher has been given ’4′ instead of ’3′.
Rich Watts,
Not everything is fianlised. Nico was given 3 before Michael was nominated as a driver. We will see what happens. I just filled in the logical space.
Happy New Year Joe
Forza Massa,
Lucky number 7!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know you said grandprix.com is dead but did you know it currently has a EuroTunnel ad on it? Ironic in the light of last week’s posts…
6 seats to fill on 5 teams. This should bode well for drivers wanting to move up from a lower series. My guess is that the teams have been holding out naming drivers in hopes that someone will show up on their doorstep with a multi-million dollar sponsor in tow. Maybe the teams are just looking for a driver that will drive for free and pay their own expenses. Whatever the case everyone had better get a seat and a backside to put in it picked out soon.
What is your drivers top 10 of the last decade? Other sites seem to be in to that?
Louis S
I have not thought about that. Maybe other sites are into that sort of thing. I would rather have a break!
One thing that seems odd to me is that USF1 comes after Campos and Lotus. Did they not signal their intent to enter a year before the others and were reported to have paid their entry fee much earlier than both Lotus and Campos Meta? Can you explain, if there is anything to explain, why they are further down the list. Also I am completely aware that the number means nothing at this point in the season, aside from garage placements.
Happy New Year
Joe — Thanks much for this list! It’s perfect.
Things like this should be composed on a neatly-archived wiki somewhere, rather than pestering individual journalists… The internet hasn’t yet caught up to all our needs. Sometime in 2017, one of us will be thinking “Didn’t Campos flirt with Massa in 2009 or something?”, and it would be nice to be able to look it up.
Crid, this info is on wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Formula_One_season
Thanks. Driving a Ferrari-engined with number 27 must be something special. Kobayashi has shown some flashes of great-racing, it could suite him.
@ Proesterchen
In ’91 Schuey drove the number 32 for Jordan, before switching to the 19 at Benetton until the end of ’93.
For the ’94 season he drove the number 5 car
@ Proesterchen
Apologies – I misread your comment, but I still think his Jordan car was the higher number of the two cars
@Crid: not sure what criteria you require for a “neatly-archived wiki,” but the sometimes-reliable Wikipedia has substantial articles on (I think) every WDC year through 2009. No reason to think this won’t continue.
@Leigh: not true – according to Forix Schumacher’s Jordan teammate, de Cesaris, carried #33.
I agree with you that you cannot make any predictions at all about how good each team will be, at least until the first few tests, but it is amazing how many forums and other blogs confidently trot out predictions which is pretty silly especially considering how wrong most people were last year with the unexpected success of Brawn.
Can’t wait for February now.
Do you know when the first test dates are and where?
What about Jacques Villeneuve with USF1 ? I still surprised that Windsor said that JV is on the list ! Windsor used to demolish JV every time he had the chance… Please JV, find a seat !
By the way, there is no confirmation yet that Kubica will be with Renault… He can run out from his contrac if he wants (where to go ? Sauber ? Rallye ?) .JV drove for Gerard Lopez at Spa this summer (24 hours)… I’m dreaming (!!!), but we never know !
Look at 2 pictures between JV and Lopez (Lopez is on the right) They seem to have some fun, no ? The link:
http://www.onroule.ca/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=5836
Sorry for my english, i’m trying my best !
> not sure what criteria you require for a
> “neatly-archived wiki,”
Well, what I mean is, one problem with Wikis can be that they’re so terribly up-to-date. It’s fun to go through old newspapers to see how truths and stories emerged before the history gelled. “Golly, some people thought Hitler might not be that bad a guy.” “Some people thought Zeppelins were going to be the future of commercial aviation.” “Some people thought KERS would be fun for spectators” etc etc.
(BTW, is there a special name for this current pre-season, or interregnum? Like there is for the “silly season”?)
I can imagine there’ll be a time in five years when you’ll want to remember some little bits of gossip about what Kubica’s contractual obligations to Renault were thought to be in December, before the Schumacher announcement. But in 2015, all you’ll be able to read on Wikipedia was that “Kubica was the first driver to be signed with the French manufacturer for the 2010 season”, or something like that.
The history will have been made clean and tidy and less informative. The details will still be out there on individual blogs, but they’ll be harder to get at.
But I appreciate the time Joe took to knock out this list, even if other bloggers have probably done it too, and forty percent of it will have changed by March 1st.
What I mean is, this is an opportunity for some F1 fan to come up with some participatory, Digg.com-style web innovation and get filthy rich. If you’re the one who does it, throw me a bone for giving you the idea, OK?
Called it. MSC to drive the #3 Mercedes:
http://www.bild.de/BILD/sport/motorsport/formel1/2010/01/20/michael-schumacher/wirbel-um-schumis-start-nummer.html