The FIA Formula 1 entry list has been published and there are a few surprises, not least that Lotus Racing is still there as Team Lotus. The list also confirms that Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen are to stay on next year. There is no change (apart from the car numbers) at Red Bull Racing, with McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes offering no surprises.
Renault keeps its original name and the chassis name Renault while only Robert Kubica is confirmed as a driver. Williams has confirmed only Rubens Barrichello, while Force India and Scuderia Toro Rosso have both failed to nominate either driver, but otherwise remain as before. Sauber has become the Sauber F1 Team, as expected, with cars called Sauber Ferraris, while the HRT F1 team has no drivers confirmed, nor for that matter does Virgin, now known as Marussia Virgin Racing.
The full list is as follows:
1 Sebastian Vettel (D), Red Bull Racing, Red Bull Racing-Renault; 2, Mark Webber (AUS), Red Bull Racing, Red Bull Racing-Renault; 3, Jenson Button (GB), Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, McLaren-Mercedes; 4, Lewis Hamilton (GB), Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, McLaren-Mercedes; 5, Fernando Alonso (E), Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, Ferrari; 6, Felipe Massa (BR), Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, Ferrari; 7, Michael Schumacher (D), Mercedes GP Petronas, Mercedes; 8, Nico Rosberg (D), Mercedes GP Petronas, Mercedes; 9, Robert Kubica (PL), Renault F1 Team, Renault; 10, TBA, Renault F1 Team, Renault; 11, Rubens Barrichello (BR), AT&T Williams, Williams-Cosworth; 12, TBA, AT&T Williams, Williams-Cosworth; 14, TBA, Force India F1 Team, Force India-Mercedes; 15, TBA, Force India F1 Team, Force India-Mercedes; 16, Kamui Kobayashi (J), Sauber F1 Team, Sauber-Ferrari; 17, Sergio Perez Mendoza (MEX), Sauber F1 Team, Sauber-Ferrari; 18, TBA, Scuderia Toro Rosso, STR-Ferrari; 19, TBA, Scuderia Toro Rosso, STR-Ferrari; 20, Jarno Trulli (I), Team Lotus, Lotus-Renault; 21, Heikki Kovalainen, Team Lotus, Lotus-Renault; 22, TBA, HRT F1 Team, HRT-Cosworth; 23, TBA, HRT F1 Team, HRT-Cosworth; 24, TBA, Marussia Virgin Racing, Virgin-Cosworth; 25, TBA, Marussia Virgin Racing, Virgin-Cosworth.
So Team Lotus are listed, as is Renault F1 and not Lotus Renault, I assume there’s still time to change all this???
Hey Joe,
Does this mean that Lotus are still Lotus then and Group Lotus aren’t going to be represented by name?
Or can things still change?
Cheers
John
Joe,
Interesting to see that Team Lotus is the official entry. Are you still sticking by your earlier posts?
Have a good one,
Tom
Tom M,
No of course I am not sticking by my previous posts. What a silly question. I was wrong. It happens. I can live with it.
Team Lotus, they are the good guys right?
Bob,
Yes, looks like the good guys have won the game thus far…
Interesting that Force India haven’t confirmed a driver yet. Would be good to see Hulkenberg given a seat. I think the team have got all they can get out of Sutil, he’s quick but still seems very error-prone and should move on somewhere else. Di Resta would merit a shot too, so maybe it’s farewell to Liuzzi.
Heidfeld would be a very smart signing for one of the lower teams such as Virgin. They could tap into all his experience and move forward. He’s a safe pair of hands and would bring the car home in a race of attrition, which might just yield the odd point…….
Glock surely deserves a move back up the grid and if Williams can find some big sponsorship dollars from anywhere but Venezuela, then maybe he could slot in there?
Team: RENAULT F1 TEAM (FRA)
Constructor: Renault
Team: TEAM LOTUS (MAL)
Constructor: Lotus Renault
Hmmm!
joe, why is button with number 3? hasn’t hamilton scored more than button
antony,
This is up to the team to decide.
Hi Joe
So how does this list impact the Lotus/Lotus issue as discussed in your last post? All remaining the same? Or will they change names at a later date?
Once the entry list has been published they can change the drivers. A competitor may change the make of engine at any time during the Championship. All points scored with an engine of different make to that which was first entered in the Championship may count (and will be aggregated) for the assessment of a commercial benefit, however such points will not count towards (nor be aggregated for) the FIA Formula One Constructors Championship.
With the exception of those whose cars have scored points in the Championship of the previous year, applicants must supply information about the size of their company, their financial position and their ability to meet their prescribed obligations.
Very interesting to see Button with number 3 and Hamilton with number 4 – It was understandable when Button was world champion that he would be 1.
I guess they have something to the effect that the most recent world champion will always carry the higher number.
I couldn’t imagine Alonso or Vettel accepting the same sort of treatment!
Chris D,
Some drivers do not care what number they have. Some have such fragile egos that they need a lower number than their team-mates. These things are negotiable, except in the case of the World Champion. And if he retires the driver that takes his car is given number 0.
Part of me is delighted by this as it confirms Team Lotus or as contributor Bob puts it, the good guys, are there. Maybe the group thing has now sunk or they have realised the idea mooted all along that the car group piggy-backs off the F1 team from a marketing point of view.
Force India… hmm. I am not sure what that tells us. I think the feeling was Sutil was waiting to see if the Merc drive was available if Schumacher retired. From what it seems, he is OK with the Pirelli tyres so he stays on. That means some of the cards which were falling into place now have nowhere to fall. So what does FI do? Keep Sutil? Keep Liuzzi? Drop one of them for di Resta?
Last but not least, and I cannot remember where I read it, one contract which has not been resigned is that of Jonathan Legard. It was rumoured a while ago but it seems to have come to pass. For those of you that don’t have to suffer the dire commentary on the BBC this is irrelevant but for those of us that do, the news of JL returning to football commentary would delight me as much as Tony Fernandes running a black and gold Lotus next season.
I think it’s funny there’s no number 13.
So much for simulators
About this issue with the newest version of the concorde agreement, and the way it restricts changes to the name of constructors – surely any rule which limits the ability to attract ownership and/or sponsorship income linked to naming rights is ridiculous in a commercial sport.
So – let me get it clear in my head:
There is a team name and a constructor name.
If you are AT&T Williams (constructor name is ‘Williams-Cosworth’) – you can change to ‘Williams-Renault’ if you change engine suppliers, but you can’t change to ‘happy-cosworth’ without a loss of income. Is that right?
But you can also presumably change to ‘Aldi Williams’ if AT&T dump you and you hire a new title sponsor’ – without penalty?
If you are Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro (constructor name Ferrari) and you switch to cosworth engines (bear with me…) what happens? Could you become just Cosworth? – Penalty or not? Ferrari – Cosworth? Penalty or not?
And finally if you are Renault F1 Team (constructor renault) and your title sponsor becomes Lotus, don’t you become lotus renault F1 team without penalty (as with the AT&T Lidl case above. what about if you badge the engine lotus?
If you badge the engine Lotus you would be a Renault-Lotus as opposed to a Lotus-Renault. If you were just a Renault (the engine and the chassis can be the same) Lotus could be a title sponsor and this would create a Lotus Renault. However, we do not always refer to teams using their sponsors, so the car would still be a Renault.
Joe, should we read “TBA” as ” Seat For Sale”?
I think it actually speaks quite well of Hamilton that he doesn’t feel he needs the lower number. And I’d like Button’s agent for negotiating that one!!
Apologies for the potentially stupid question, but Im asking it regardless …
If a name change for (the team known in 2010 as) Lotus was required for 2011 would there be any benefit to doing it before the entry list, or does this list merely reflect no decisions having been made so far?
D,
The lists reflect the name of the car for the season. It can be changed but only if one accepts the loss of status (financial and otherwise) that goes with it, or one has the agreement of everyone. In this case, I think that Tony Fernandes would find support from other teams as the Lotus Group plans seem – in the real world – to be rather too good to be true. F1 does not want car companies that collapse…
[...] they are the good guys right? Yes, looks like the good guys have won the game thus far… via The 2011 FIA Formula 1 World Championship entry list « Joe Saward’s Grand Prix Blog. [...]
“A competitor may change the make of engine at any time during the Championship. All points scored with an engine of different make to that which was first entered in the Championship may count (and will be aggregated) for the assessment of a commercial benefit, however such points will not count towards (nor be aggregated for) the FIA Formula One Constructors Championship.”
Nerd that I am that has me scrabbling through my memory banks trying to recall if it’s ever happened…
What if Fernandes is a Dany’s spy ? And this whole judge story is a cover ? hehe…
TKC, I’m certain no such engine switch has occurred since the quoted regulation came into play. Brabham transitioned from Ford to BMW power during the 1982 season, but points accrued separately then and it was Brabham-BMW that finished 7th in the F1CC that year, two places ahead of Brabham-Ford. (I believe scoring by chassis-engine combination goes back to the beginning of the F1CC in 1958, although the first instances of points being scored by the same chassis with different engines didn’t occur until 1960.)
@ Mark Jackson & @The Kitchen Cynic
In 1990 Life replaced their own Life engines with Judd power near the end of the season.
Then about halfway through 1991 Footwork (Arrows) replaced Porsche V12s with Ford V8s
However not one of these four configurations of car and engine managed to score a single point
I personally hope that we’re gonna see Alguersuari and Hulkenberg on that list of yours any time soon, Joe!
[...] The 2011 FIA Formula 1 World Championship entry list The FIA Formula 1 entry list has been published and there are a few surprises, not least that Lotus Racing is still [...] [...]
Chris D wrote: “And I’d like Button’s agent for negotiating that one!!”
I reckon that neither Button nor Lewis give a flying monkeys whether they’re driving car number 3 or 4. The only number they’re concerned about is the number 1 that comes with the WDC. They probably flipped a coin or, as you suggest, the team decided to give the lower number to the most recent WDC winner.
I’ve been looking back over about the last twenty years of McLaren driver numbers, excluding seasons when they employed the previous champion, and I can’t say I’ve spotted a pattern. The interesting part was between 1996 and 2001 where it started out Hakkinen/Coulthard, but in 1998 swapped to Coulthard/Hakkinen, then in 2001 (after Hakkinen had won his two championships – won in 1998 and 1999, so had no. 1 for 1999 and 2000) it was again Hakkinen/Coulthard.
Perhaps it’s based on the number of points that the driver has secured over his career? Coulthard certainly outscored Hakkinen in 1997, but only by 9 points. I’m not sure if they were close enough for this to make a difference. Button currently has 541 points to Hamilton’s 496.
Rather late in the day but I’ve come up with a solution to the ‘when is a lotus not a lotus’ shenanigans.
As with small children fighting over a cake, the name should be split in two.
Each can then incorporate their share of the name into a title which reflects their sporting heritage.
Tony, as the rightful owner (fully paid) of the Team Lotus brand, gets a name which reflects their considerable previous success, but also their tendency towards the end to produce the odd dog.
Danny gets a name that fully reflects all that he is likely to bring to the sport.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you
Team WinaLOT
and
US F1
Dodger, I’ve just seen that they’ve switched hamilton to number 3 on the FIA’s official list. Looks like he’s just gone into the ‘fragile ego’ camp!
http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pressreleases/f1releases/2010/Pages/f1_2011_entry.aspx