Several Argentinian media outlets are reporting that contracted driver Jose Maria Lopez is actively seeking another F1 drive, with support from Bernie Ecclestone, having been told yesterday by USF1 sporting director Peter Windsor that the team would not be able to give him machinery with which to make his F1 [...]]]> At least, it appears that way.

Several Argentinian media outlets are reporting that contracted driver Jose Maria Lopez is actively seeking another F1 drive, with support from Bernie Ecclestone, having been told yesterday by USF1 sporting director Peter Windsor that the team would not be able to give him machinery with which to make his F1 debut.

Head of business development Brian Bonner has taken up a position with Akron-based firm B4 Marketing.  There remains no sign of a car, or of the component parts necessary to construct one.  It is believed that the USF1 Type 1 was booked in for official FIA crash testing but that the team did not turn up.  As far as the shakedown the team had publicly stated would take place at Barber Motorsports Park this month, Petrolheadblog understands that the track received an enquiry about available dates for a shakedown run which was not subsequently followed up.

Consider this.  Williams, a team entering its 33rd season in its current guise, launched their 2010 car at the beginning of this month.  The car shown at launch, a launch which took place on the date planned by the team some weeks in advance, was the only FW32 in existence at that time.  At the end of the second pre-season test in Jerez last week, the team’s second chassis was still at the Williams factory in Grove, still not ready to go.

Official scrutineering prior to the Bahrain Grand Prix takes place in 21 days time.  Even if USF1 have the finances and the staff to carry on, that’s 21 days in which to complete a car, launch it, go through some kind of initial shakedown and systems check, complete a second car and ship the equipment from North Carolina to Bahrain.  While that’s going on, a second driver is needed, as is traditional when a team is required to enter two cars.  Adrian Valles, hailing from an area in the extreme east of the USA known previously as Spain, was reported to be that driver and to be bringing 8 million Euros of sponsorship money with him.  It can be assumed with some degree of safety that were Valles and his backers set for USF1, official confirmation would by now have been issued.

YouTube CEO Chad Hurley seems to have realised that the game is up, with associates of Hurley having ran the rule over the Dallara project due to supply Campos Meta’s cars for 2010.  The Dallara is almost complete and has passed FIA crash testing, but as Campos are known to still want the car once they have the funds to pay for it, whether Hurley will follow up his initial enquiries is unclear.

Waiting in the wings, making enough noise to disrupt the headline act, are Stefan GP, who are still aiming to test at the end of this month but don’t have a tyre contract.  Bridgestone, F1’s official tyre supplier, is unwilling to provide any tyres to a team without an official entry, so the demothballed Toyotas – now in Serbian red – may yet remain idle.  Recent speculation places Indian driver Karun Chandhok at Stefan, in a move that would suit Bernie just fine.  F1’s commercial supremo is working hard to secure support and backing for a Grand Prix just outside Delhi, support that would come more easily if he had an Indian driver to market alongside the existing Force India team.  Said Indian driver has an influential father and brings around $6 million in sponsorship too, but none of that means a lick unless the car has rubber on each corner.

It seems certain that USF1 can be struck from the 2010 entry list.  It seems equally certain that should Campos or Stefan GP appear in Bahrain, they’ll be in something of a mess.  Today in Jerez, the Lotus T127 completed 76 laps in largely damp conditions, running reliably all day on its first test appearance.  As previously reported here, Lotus did not have an entry until last September.  If USF1 have been unable to show any sign of a completed car despite having been granted an entry in June and begun preparations some time earlier, what kind of questions should be raised about the management of the whole operation?

Shall we have [...]]]> There are reasons why nothing has been posted for a little while, all of them rather too mundane to detain you with here.  Time that might otherwise have been spent doing this had to be spent doing something else instead.  There is, of course, a quick and easy fix: match my current salary.

Shall we have a little refresher?

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Remember that Mercedes concept livery?  Here’s the real deal, or as real as a deal can be when it’s painted on last year’s Brawn:

Elegant, classy, understated and yet still distinctive and recognisable.  You may feel differently, of course, and while that’s fine, you may wish to consider this: what if you’re completely wrong?

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USF1 have announced their first driver for 2010.  You may recall that the stated aim was to promote US talent in all areas of the sport, including driving, and if so you won’t be at all surprised to learn the name of the good ol’ boy they’ve signed.

Jose Maria Lopez.

Lopez comes from Argentina, which as far as my atlas can tell is somewhere in the extreme south of the USA.  His record in the junior classes is alright but not exceptional (winner of the now-defunct Formula Renault V6 Eurocup in 2003, solid in F3000 and GP2 thereafter but only a single race win to his credit), and while he’s gone on to great things in the competitive touring car series held in his home country, he ended up there because Renault didn’t see enough in him to employ him further after his stint on their Young Driver Programme.  With no recent single-seater running and a start-up team supporting him, Lopez could find himself settling in for a rather long 2010.

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Staying with USF1, they’re about to demonstrate that they’ve really been building a racing car all this time.  Their first F1 machine, Type 1, is scheduled to turn a wheel in anger for the first time at Barber Motorsports Park at some point in February, before joining in the final European tests prior to the season opener in Bahrain on March 14th.  The car is yet to break cover and the team have kept something of a low profile, leading to increasing doubts over their participation, but at least they have some kind of plan in place.

The same cannot be said for another of this season’s new teams, Campos Meta, who have been very clear in saying that their car isn’t finished yet and might not run at all prior to Bahrain.  Their being in Bahrain is apparently certain, but the heat of a desert nation is not the ideal place to give a car its first shakedown.  In fact, the first race isn’t the ideal place to do it regardless of location.  Bruno Senna remains contracted and ready to drive, his teammate may not be known until the eve of the first race, and the team continue to actively seek investors.

Lotus will have their car ready for launch on February 12th and running at Jerez 5 days later, while Virgin aim to give their machine a shakedown in the first week of February prior to joining the established teams at Jerez on February 10th

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Red Bull and Force India have taken the decision to skip the first test of the winter in Valencia next week, citing a desire to spend more time working on the design of their cars.  Dark mutterings have inevitably followed, but it should be remembered that Red Bull did exactly the same thing in 2009.

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With refuelling banned for 2010, the Sporting Working Group have voted to introduce a rule stating that the top 10 qualifiers must start the race using the same set of tyres they qualified on.  This has yet to be ratified by the F1 Commission or World Motor Sport Council but looks certain to be added to the 2010 rulebook.

The objective is to maintain some kind of strategic element, giving teams the choice between qualifying well on a soft tyre that might not be ideal for the start of the race or sacrificing grid position for a good race tyre.  Whether the idea has any bearing on the tyre choices made by the teams will depend largely upon the compounds that Bridgestone provide.  If there’s little appreciable difference between the softer and harder options, there won’t be a decision to take.

Also awaiting ratification is an amendment to the existing points system.  The SWG meeting resulted in a proposed scoring system of 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1, with points being issued down to 10th place.  The aim here is to encourage drivers to push for victory by increasing the points weighting for the winner, while also ensuring that drivers and teams finishing lower down the order still have something to race for by extending the points-scoring threshold down to 10th place.

There was a time, not at all long ago, when points were awarded to the top 6 drivers, 10-6-4-3-2-1.  When that points system was introduced in 1991 there were 31 cars entered each weekend.  Only 26 could start the race, 20 of those would end up with nothing to show for their efforts, and as a result a point was a precious and valuable thing.  That system was weighted more heavily towards the winner than the proposed 2010 system too – assuming the same drivers finish 1-2, it’ll take 4 races this year for the leader to build up an advantage greater than the points available for a race win, a race more than under the 1991-2002 system.

There’s not necessarily anything wrong with the new system.  It’s just that the old one was better.  Am I wrong?  Let me know.