The Lotus T127 features the same colors made famous by the Lotus of old. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Lotus

The return of Lotus is one of the more intriguing stories of the year. The team that scored title successes with Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jochen Rindt, Emerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti was finally closed its doors at the end of 1994, but the name lives on in a new outfit put together by Mike Gascoyne, the former technical chief of Toyota and Force India. The team has the blessing of Lotus Cars and is based in Norfolk, so there are links with the original organization. This time around most of the finance comes from Malaysia, and there are strong ties with the country through energetic team boss Tony Fernandes. The car was designed in Cologne in an office set up by Gascoyne for some of his former Toyota colleagues, and when the Japanese manufacturer withdrew, Lotus attracted many of the key race engineering staff, so this is a team with experience. It also has two topline drivers in Trulli and Kovalainen. Testing suggested that Lotus will, like Virgin, be some way off the established teams. Reliability will also be an issue in these early races.

No designation was given to the new HRT car that was unveiled in Spain last Thursday. (Photo: motioncompany)

HRT

Fernando Alonso has done much to bolster interest in F1 in his native Spain, but until now the country has not had a team to support. The man who originally kickstarted the new project is Adrian Campos, who briefly raced for Minardi himself in the eighties and later guided the early career of Alonso. He’s also ran teams in F3 and GP2 before deciding the time was right to move up to Grand Prix racing. He took the sensible step of contracting Dallara to build the car in Italy, rather than building its own, while former Ferrari team manager Daniele Audetto ran the commercial side. All looked good until the winter, when it became apparent that the Meta group had failed to find the funding it had promised. With bills not being paid the project appeared close to collapse until shareholder Jose Ramon Carabante took control and asked former Force India boss Colin Kolles to run the team. Work restarted and against the odds the cars will be in Bahrain, with rookies Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok aboard. With no testing it’s an understatement to say that it’s going to be tough, but Dallara should have provided a solid base.

The BMW-Sauber team for 2010 will be run by founder Peter Sauber who took over the team after BMW withdrew. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

BMW Sauber

It’s all change at the Sauber team this year following BMW’s decision to withdraw from the sport. After four years in the hands of the Munich manufacturer the team is once again being run by its founder, Peter Sauber, although the Swiss veteran has handed over the day-to-day operations to others. BMW invested a lot in the facility in Hinwil, which is clearly first class, and much better than when Sauber sold it. But naturally money is tighter now and a lot of personnel have been shed, and the car has been ominously lacking in sponsorship in testing. Sauber insists that he has the money to finish the season, so he must have got a good dowry from BMW, although the fact that the team has retained its former name – and the car is a ‘BMW Sauber Ferrari’ – is a complete joke. It’s going to be interesting to see how the team deals with what will be a difficult transition period, but the car has impressed in testing. Kamui Kobayashi and Pedro de la Rosa clearly have their strengths, but it would have been fascinating to see a truly top driver in this car.

Virgin's 2010 car, the VR-01 had limited testing but seems to have all the ingredients to show progress this season. (Photo: Virgin Racing)

Virgin Racing

Manor team boss John Booth was hugely successful in Formula Renault and F3 – helping the likes of Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton to progress – before deciding it was time to make the step up to F1. Looking for someone to design and build a car, he quickly hooked up with Nick Wirth, former boss of the Simtek team that competed in Grand Prix racing in 1994-’95. Crucially Manor then successfully persuaded the mighty Virgin Company to abandon Brawn and instead join its start-up operation. This is a very ambitious organization, and appears to have the ingredients with which to make progress. And it has two very solid drivers in Timo Glock and rookie Lucas di Grassi. Like Lotus, the team didn’t get much testing and there were a lot of teething problems, so these early ‘flyaway’ races are going to be about damage limitation.

Adam Cooper notched up his 25th season as a racing journalist in 2009. Born in London, England, he saw his first F1 race at age 10 in 1976. He began freelancing for Autosport magazine in 1985 and was on the fulltime staff from 1987-92. He then went freelance again, initially spending two years in Japan before following the 1994 Champcar series from a base in Indianapolis. He has not missed a Grand Prix since Suzuka ‘94, a run that has extended to Abu Dhabi ’09. Adam has written books about Eddie Irvine, Piers Courage and Michael Schumacher and hosts a race preview show on Sirius XM. He has written about F1 for SPEEDtv.com since 2005. Check out Adam's Blog or follow him on Twitter