The return of Michael Schumacher; four world champions on the grid; at least three leading teams in which team mates will be fighting head-to-head for the title honours; and the prospect of drivers having to display genuine finesse in nursing their tyres now that refuelling has been banned.

Is it any wonder that 2010 is being billed as a fantastic season for the FIA Formula One World Championship?

First of all, there’s Michael Schumacher on the comeback trail, at 41 still as fit and focused as he was in his heyday when he won 92 Grand Prix victories and seven world titles. And the metamorphosis of Brawn GP into Mercedes GP signals the return of the Silver Arrows to Formula One racing for the first time since the team was withdrawn, victorious, at the end of 1955.

Then there’s Fernando Alonso, adding fresh charge to Ferrari, while Felipe Massa returns as healthy and determined as ever after his horrible accident at Hungaroring last July. Jenson Button is already settling in alongside Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, where he will be determined to prove that the 2008 champion is not going to wipe the floor with him.

Sebastien Vettel and Mark Webber are ready to go head-to-head at Red Bull, and owner Dietrich Mateschitz has made it clear he will accept nothing less than the world championship from one of them. The return of Lotus, meanwhile, spearheads the appearance of new teams from Virgin and HRT.

There are fewer rule changes this year, and the most significant is the ban on refuelling. It has obliged teams to develop longer cars with up to 160 kg of fuel-tank capacity instead of the previous maximum of 80, and to juggle weight distribution. The ban will place a premium on preserving their Bridgestone tyres between the mandatory stop(s) in which drivers must switch compounds. It will also change strategy, and promote greater efforts to overtake, as drivers will be less able to wait for pit stops to make up places. Calculation of testing form has been a nightmare, since fuel loads can vary so much (from 10 to 160 kg). Just so you know, every 10 kg of fuel equates to 0.3 seconds on lap time.

The other major change places much more emphasis on victory, as the new points system goes down to 10th place, thus: 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1.

Each driver now gets only 11 sets of tyres per weekend, six sets of primes and five options. Three sets apply solely to Fridays, and must be handed back even if they aren’t used. And drivers from the Q3 session must start the race on the tyres on which they set their grid time.

The penalty for engine changes has effectively been doubled; it’s now 10 grid positions at the race at which the failure occurs, and for the next. The other significant change once again allows teams to run their third drivers on a Friday, provided they use the engine and tyres allocated to the nominated race driver of the relevant car.


Although there are several new teams joining the grid this year, few would bet against the old established outfits sharing the majority of this year’s championship spoils amongst themselves. So do the big guns head to Bahrain with the power to stay ahead of the chasing pack? We consider their chances…

McLAREN

1 Jenson Button (GBR)
2 Lewis Hamilton (GBR)
If race wins were awarded purely on the basis of looks, McLaren’s MP4-25 would already have a bunch of them this year. A cross between a Formula One car and a Bonneville lakester, the new car is as impressive as last year’s MP4-24 was dull. It looks right, and a huge amount of research and development has gone into it.

It remains to be seen how long peace reigns as 2009 world champion Jenson Button joins 2008 world champion Lewis Hamilton. Predictably, all parties say they are getting along, and both drivers stress that will be the key to developing so they can win races. But let’s just say we’ll see how things pan out when the chips are down and two winners vie for the same trophy.

One, Button, has everything to prove against the other, who could stand to lose his reputation as the best driver out there. Testing has proved they have a very fast car.

MERCEDES GP

3 Michael Schumacher (DEU)
4 Nico Rosberg (DEU)
How much harder will Michael Schumacher find it this time around to establish himself as Formula One racing’s top dog? That’s precisely why 2010 is going to be such a tremendous season. Can a 41 year-old, super-fit, super-determined former champion who hasn’t raced in F1 for three seasons come back and take on all the young lions? Or will team mate Nico Rosberg blow him off?

Few doubt that Schumacher will at least win races; it remains to be seen whether he can challenge for an eighth championship. But how about this scenario? If Rosberg fails to match Schumacher’s pace, and Schumacher thus scores the majority of Mercedes’ points, he might do what Jackie Stewart did in 1973 against the warring Lotuses of Emerson Fittipaldi and Ronnie Peterson, and snatch the title from beneath the noses of McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari as their drivers take points off each other.

Mercedes had weight distribution issues initially, but came back strongly in testing in Barcelona, and Schumacher believes they will be strong. They weren’t exactly weak as Brawn in 2009, were they?

RED BULL

5 Sebastian Vettel (DEU)
6 Mark Webber (AUS)
By the end of 2009 the Red Bull RB5 was the car to beat, and there was no question that had it reached its peak sooner it could have won the world championship. That was how much progress the team made. This year brings with it Adrian Newey’s evolutionary RB6 - and the pressure of expectation. Now we expect the cars not just to win, but to lead the fight for the titles. There is one wealthy Austrian entrepreneur (Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz) who is going to be very angry if his team do not go one better than they did in 2009.

Sebastian Vettel is relishing the chance to prevent Michael Schumacher from regaining his status as Germany’s leading driver, while Mark Webber begins the season in much better shape than he did in 2009, when his legs were still hurting after his Targa Tasmania shunt. Their prospects look very rosy. The RB6 is very quick, but is it reliable?

FERRARI

7 Felipe Massa (BRA)
8 Fernando Alonso (ESP)
Ferrari had a terrible time in 2009, after they focused so much on the title challenge in 2008. The F60 scored only one victory, and it was aided by KERS. That wasn’t enough. Part of the problem was that car’s architecture prevented use of a proper double diffuser. Now that shortcoming has been resolved, along with a general lack of downforce, and the F10 has been impressive throughout testing.

Ferrari’s V8 is perceived to have relatively high fuel consumption, however, which could oblige them to run more fuel load than their rivals. If this proves to be the case, Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso could find themselves able to qualify well but less competitive than they should be in races. The inter-team battle between the feisty Spaniard, who is desperate to get back into a championship-contending car, and the fully-recovered Brazilian, will be one of the season’s highlights.

WILLIAMS

9 Rubens Barrichello (BRA)
10 Nico Hulkenberg (DEU)
Will 2010 be the year in which Williams score their first win since 2004? In Singapore last year Nico Rosberg ran strongly enough to suggest that just a little more luck might tip the balance, and the new FW32 is, according to technical director Sam Michael, an aggressive design that started with a clear computer screen.

The switch from Cosworth to Toyota never did the team any real good, apart from bringing US$20m of the troubled Japanese company’s money (which was offset by Kazuki Nakajima’s allergy to scoring points). But the switch back to Cosworth might just prove hugely beneficial. A lot of work has gone into reconfiguring the CA2010 version of the engine around a 18,000 rpm limit, and it was always pretty good on fuel economy, which will be a crucial factor this year.

The team’s form in testing has looked good, especially as Williams habitually ran with plenty of fuel, so they are definitely a dark horse. Rubens Barrichello left nobody in doubt about his hunger last season and still has the fire to win, while Nico Hulkenberg has the perfect opportunity to learn from the most experienced man in Formula One racing.

RENAULT

11 Robert Kubica (POL)
12 Vitaly Petrov (RUS)
If ever there was a team in the middle of a major rehabilitation programme, it’s Renault. After the departure of Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds in the wake of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix scandal, Renault has had to regroup and pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

The technical team remains unchanged under Bob Bell, and so far the R30 hasn’t looked too bad in testing, as many of the R29’s shortcomings have been addressed. But it could be a while before things gel fully as the team has two new drivers to work with. Robert Kubica has talent the equal of Fernando Alonso’s and Lewis Hamilton’s, which means he can win races and challenge for championships - if the machinery is right. Team mate Vitaly Petrov is less easy to quantify; he has won GP2 races and shown well in that series, but so did his predecessor Romain Grosjean.

The team are now 75 percent owned by entrepreneur Gerard Lopez, who has entrusted experienced team manager Eric Boullier with masterminding the overall programme. The first signs are that the Frenchman is approaching his job the way a racer would, focusing entirely on performance and leaving the theatrics to other outfits. They’ll be less flamboyant at Renault this year, but you know what they say about the quiet ones…


Can the midfield teams really upset the order at the head of the grid? We consider their chances…

FORCE INDIA

14 Adrian Sutil (DEU)
15 Vitantonio Liuzzi (ITA)
Force India was the surprise of 2009, especially in the second half of the season when the Mark Smith/James Key VJM02 really came on strong on the fast circuits where its relative lack of downforce was not such a disadvantage and its low drag made it very fast in a straight line. But for Ferrari’s KERS, Giancarlo Fisichella would have won at Spa, which just goes to show just how hot the car was there.

The VJM03 has addressed the downforce problem, and after his first experience with the car in the first test at Jerez Vitantonio Liuzzi described it as “the best Formula One car I have driven.” They might not be fighting for the championship, but Liuzzi and team mate Adrian Sutil will be another mano a mano act well worth watching. The German is quick but erratic, the Italian quick, smooth and smart.

It remains to be seen whether running third driver Paul di Resta on Fridays will take away anything from the race drivers’ progress, but it’s a great way to play the young Scot in for the seat he is expected to take from Sutil in 2011. This is another dark horse worth keeping an eye on, even though Key recently left to join Sauber.

TORO ROSSO

16 Sebastien Buemi (CHE)
17 Jaime Alguersuari (ESP)
If you focused only on testing times from Jerez, Toro Rosso are likely to run at the front this year. Both Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari were very fast there in the new STR5. This is the handiwork of the team themselves for the first time, as the rules now preclude teams sharing a design with others as Toro Rosso did since 2006 with elder sibling Red Bull.

Of course, you’d have to be remarkably naive to believe that there hasn’t been some benefit from having Adrian Newey working for your big brother, and the STR5 bears a strong resemblance to last year’s car and the multiple race-winning Red Bull RB5. Whether it too can win this year is a moot point. Franz Tost’s team does not have the same budget as Red Bull itself, and there were plenty of times last year when that was clearly a serious disadvantage. There is no reason to suppose this year will be that different on that score.

Buemi showed a lot of flair last year and comfortably saw off Sebastien Bourdais who, though he never clicked in F1, was no slouch as all his Indy car wins demonstrated. Alguersuari came into Bourdais’ place with less Formula One experience than any graduate in history - a few straight-line tests and nothing else - but demonstrated that he is not out of his depth. It’ll be interesting to see how these two youngsters develop, and just how competitive their rides will prove.

LOTUS

18 Jarno Trulli (ITA)
19 Heikki Kovalainen (FIN)
Air Asia boss Tony Fernandes has infectious enthusiasm for the Lotus marque, and race fans all round the world have welcomed back the iconic green and yellow colours made famous in the sixties by legends Innes Ireland, Jim Clark and Graham Hill.

Arguably the most focused and cohesive of the new teams, Lotus Racing’s T127 is the work of Mike Gascoyne whose pedigree includes spells with McLaren, Sauber, Tyrrell, Jordan, Renault and Toyota. His new car is a no-nonsense, smartly conceived design intended to give the new team the ideal equipment with which to learn its trade. Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen are both Grand Prix winners who can be relied on to squeeze out everything it has to offer.

Fernandes has been discovering just how big a mouthful he has to chew and even he does not have endless cash to spend on his latest venture, but the team have ambitious plans to score world championship points and is determined to get among the tail enders of the 10 established teams. On paper, at the very least, they have the best chance of doing that of the new equipes.

HRT

20 Karun Chandhok (IND)
21 Bruno Senna (BRA)
The Spanish team was one of the first to announce a driver - Ayrton Senna’s popular nephew Bruno - but have since been troubled by financial problems. Then majority shareholder owner Jose Ramon Carabante took full control of the outfit from founder Adrian Campos, and it was announced that former Force India manager Colin Kolles had joined, together with ex-BAR Honda/Red Bull technical guru Geoff Willis.

Both are smart moves, and the latter was credited with engineering reliability into the hitherto fragile Red Bulls last year. The team has also been rebadged HRT (it was Campos) and this week signed GP2 winner Karun Chandhok to partner Senna. And even though they will arrive in Bahrain having completed no pre-season testing, Kolles was in a positive mood at Thursday’s official presentation launch in the Spanish city of Murcia.

BMW SAUBER

22 Pedro de la Rosa (ESP)
23 Kamui Kobayashi (JAP)
Many people thought it was all over for Peter Sauber when BMW announced that they were pulling the plug on their Formula One operation. But Peter is a tough cookie and there was no way he was going to lose the team he built up. Eventually BMW accepted his offer to buy it back.

It’s going to be a tough struggle, but the Swiss independent was one of the last privateers standing when all the manufacturers had found a musical chair, and if anyone knows how to survive in the Piranha Club, it’s the team from Hinwil. Pedro de la Rosa brings huge experience from his six-year spell as McLaren’s test driver, while Kamui Kobayashi showed fantastic potential in his three outings at the end of 2009.

VIRGIN

24 Timo Glock (DEU)
25 Lucas di Grassi (BRA)
Virgin’s whole Formula One venture has been an oddity, right from the start of Richard Branson’s tense involvement with Brawn last year when it soon became clear that he had paid a little but got a lot in terms of exposure. He’s paying even less this time around, if you believe the stories, but now the cars are painted in his colours and called Virgins. Will he succeed, the way he has in the airline business?

Team manager John Booth has a Yorkshireman’s detestation of nonsense, and while he has no Formula One experience he knows how to run a race team. Nick Wirth has been in F1 before, with the ill-fated Simtek team and then Renault. Designing the VR-01 wholly by computational fluid dynamics and without any recourse to a wind tunnel was a bold move, especially for a newcomer.

But that is something to applaud. Losing the front wing in the car’s first test at Jerez - a problem that also beset the Simtek at Imola when Roland Ratzenberger was killed in April 1994 - isn’t. Timo Glock is a great little race driver whose feistiness will stand the team in good stead; Lucas di Grassi has done well enough in GP2 to deserve this chance to show his Formula mettle.