Formula One Features — January 2011

Going into 2010 Sauber's position looked precarious. There was the BMW withdrawal, the buy-back by Peter Sauber, the 11th hour entry debacle and promising testing times that looked increasingly like sponsorship runs when the C29's performance was revealed in the first few races.

For the first time Toro Rosso had to build its own chassis. Giorgio Ascanelli explains that when you haven't got huge resources you have to lay down the chassis patterns relatively early, and at the time the team did that in 2009 the wind tunnel wasn't working and they didn't know how to use CFD properly.

Lotus Racing's first season, and its 'best of the new teams' achievement has probably got lost in the row over the rights to the name. Although, like HRT and Virgin, they failed to score a point, it was a more than decent effort from a standing start.

Hispania Racing Team lent new meaning to the term last minute. The first lap driven in anger by Karun Chandhok was not in practice for the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, it was in qualifying!

If anything was predictable about the 2010 F1 season it was that the three new teams were going to be in a separate championship. Virgin Racing was born at a time when Max Mosley was talking about a 30m pounds budget cap and the very future sustainability of F1.