Occulomency predicts that next year is going to be even more interesting than this year. The FIA (aka Spanky Mosley's Spanky Squand) have announced that the maximum number of entrants is going to be 13. So we have 10 teams currently (but face facts, Toyota are going to bail out, so it's 9 really), but what has surprised me is the number of teams that have submitted applications that we know of.
- Campos Meta1 - Adrián Campos lodged an entry for his Campos Racing team in conjunction with Meta Image.
- Prodrive F1 - the Aston Martin chairman and Prodrive founder David Richards announced his application to enter Formula One with financial backing from Dar Capital. This follows a previous attempt to join F1 in 2008. It is not clear when the team will race under the Aston Martin name; it will race as Prodrive F1 in 2010 before changing to Aston Martin in either 2011 0r 2012. This is believed to be due to a clause in the contract when Richards bought the firm from Ford prohibiting him from using the name publicly for a certain amount of time.
- Team USF1 - A group led by designer Ken Anderson and former Williams employee Peter Windsor. There is some confusion over the name of the existing group, although the intended team name is Team USF1, if its application to Formula One is successful. The project was originally launched under the name "USF1", and the group's website domain name is USGPE (for US Grand Prix Engineering), in order to avoid conflict with Bernie Ecclestone, who controls the use of the term "F1".
- Lola Cars - The British racing car constructor Lola Cars, which has been involved in Formula One several times in its history, has confirmed that it has submitted an entry for the 2010 championship.
- Litespeed GP - The F3 team has teamed up with Mike Gascoyne who recently parted with Force India.
- March Racing Organisation
- Team Superfund - a new team established by former driver Alexander Wurz and funded by Christian Baha, the owner of Superfund Group.
- Epsilon Euskadi
- N.Technology
- Brabham: "Motorsport aktuell" reported that Franz Himler (Formtech) has entered a team called Brabham.
That's 10 teams applying for sure. Plus there are rumours in the F1 press about five further entrants that have not been announced as yet.
Driver rumours, well it's a bit early in the season but I'll put a bit of cash on Kimi retiring and Alonso filling his seat at Ferrari.
New rules for 2010 should make racing a bit more interesting too.
- Refuelling is to be banned for the first time since 1993. As a consequence, the cars will be allowed to refuel after the third part of qualifying. So back to superfast last gasp Qualy laps.
- Tyre warmers are to be banned. Starts are going to be fun, heavy cars and cold tyres. Nice.
- Formula One Management is offering financial support to all new teams from next season, in the form of $10m along with the free transportation of two chassis and 10,000kg of freight to each race.
- The minimum car weight will be increased from 605 kg to 620 kg, to stop taller and heavier drivers such as BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica being at a disadvantage if KERS is added to their car.
It is rumoured that the whilst theFIA want to make KERS compulsary, FOTA want to ban it on the grounds of cost.
Then there is the budget cap of course. Basically a maximum spend on technology (but not salaries or marketing) of £40m is at this stage optional for 2010, with teams that are choosing to take up the budget cap being allowed greater technical freedom, together with unlimited testing. Teams choosing not to take up the budget cap may spend freely, but will have technical and testing constraints.This rule will change due to protests by the FOTA and Red Bull, Ferrari, Toyota and Renault threatening to leave the sport, but Spanky Mosley always wins, and there will be a budget cap.
In sponsorship terms, next year is going to be a bit different. ING & RBS are pulling out of the sport, and Santander is rumoured to be moving to Ferrari.
Then of course there is Brawn. Virgin has long been rumoured to be purchasing the Brawn team for the 2010 season and may race under the name Virgin Racing or Virgin Grand Prix.
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