This is the outcome: two teams will limp into the start of the championship, a third is being pushed into the ring by an invisible hand – you can be sure it is not the hand of Adam Smith – and, as for the fourth, well, you would do better to call on Missing Persons to locate it.

This week, that fourth team — USF1 — finally threw in the towel, after weeks (indeed, months) of speculation. And this evening they have been officially removed from the entry list. But I’ll discuss USF1 in further detail later.

However, this news once again shines the spotlight on the new teams, and the FIA’s process for selecting them. Right from the beginning there was controversy surrounding some of the choices. There is also the fact that new entrants were seemingly forced to use Cosworth engines.

It is worth remembering that there were at least two highly credible entries that were rejected by the FIA, to the surprise of many. David Richards and his Prodrive operation has been looking at entering F1 for years, and indeed had a slot on the 2008 grid until the future of customer cars was thrown into doubt. Lola were another highly credible entry with the ability to field a strong car.

So, what’s going on with the new teams? In this short series of articles I will take a brief look at the five main protagonists — Lotus and Virgin (the good side of the process), USF1 and Campos (the bad side) and Stefan (the ugly side).

The good side of the process

The Lotus position: last?

Lotus driver Jarno Trulli openly admits that the team expects to turn up at Bahrain four seconds off the pace. And yesterday Heikki Kovalainen back-pedalled from comments attributed to him that this year’s Lotus is worse than the Minardi he tested in 2003. The Finn claims the comments have been taken out of context.

Nonetheless, for my money the Lotus team has good long-term prospects. The jury is out on Mike Gascoyne’s abilities as a technical director. He is well regarded and appears to do a good job, but critics point out that he has never produced a World Championship-winning car.

Lotus are at pains to point out that they have had just five months to create this F1 car. That is nowhere near long enough to produce a competitive package. In the long term, they could be headed for a respectable role in the midfield.

The driver line-up of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen is unadventurous, but at least it is credible. Trulli and Kovalainen have both won just one race each, and neither is particularly convincing during the race. But at least they are two established and experienced drivers.

Virgin’s CFD gamble

Virgin — the Richard Branson-backed F1 entry of Manor which has been highly successful in lower formulae — has taken a gamble by exclusively using CFD to design the car, without ever having put the car in a wind tunnel. The car has been blighted by several reliability issues, while typically lapping five or six seconds off the pace. If testing form is anything to go by, there is little for the team to be optimistic about.

On the plus side, they have a credible driver pairing in the former Toyota driver Timo Glock and experienced GP2 racer Lucas di Grassi. Perhaps more important, given the current climate, is the fact that the team appears to have been highly successful in attracting sponsorship. I guess sponsors are magnetically attracted to the golden Virgin brand.

Lotus and Virgin are the two teams that are described by Ferrari as “limping” into the start of the championship. That is the best side of the new teams. The other two new teams, Campos and USF1, have both teetered on the brink of collapse. But that is for the next article…

Of the 25-or-so teams that are angling for some sort of F1 slot next season, only a maximum of five will be happy with the situation as things stand. It goes without saying that the three new teams that have been guaranteed a slot — USF1, Campos and Manor — will be delighted. Williams will also be content, having been the first of the Fota teams to jump ship.

Despite saying friendly words about Fota’s cause, Frank Williams has made it clear that being part of a championship with “FIA” in the title is of paramount importance to his team. Williams have been close to the FIA for years, having been the second team to sign a deal with the FIA to leave GPWC in 2005. Williams are also grateful for the FIA’s stance on customer cars, which mysteriously changed at some point during the past couple of years (much to the frustration of Red Bull). Williams have also designed the cars for Max Mosley’s vanity project, Formula Two. Moreover, Williams CEO Adam Parr is said to have a close relationship with Max Mosley.

Force India are also committed to the FIA’s side, but they seem to be a lot more grudging about it than Williams are. Vijay Mallya cites vague commercial reasons for his decision to jump ship from Fota. Many have noted that Force India must race in 2010 at all costs because it exists only to race, whereas the manufacturers exist to sell road cars. But Vijay Mallya won’t exactly starve to death if he exits F1. He is in F1 to showcase his other businesses, just as the manufacturers are. Sure, Force India F1 Team would cease to exist, but so to would Renault F1 Team if Renault pulled out, and just as Honda Racing F1 Team ceased to be when Honda pulled out. The cases seem identical to me.

Meanwhile, those aspiring new teams who have not been placed on the entry list have been left with a bitter taste in their mouths. It seems pretty clear now that Max Mosley is banking on some of the existing teams not being around by next season. There is no way that Prodrive and Lola would have been refused a slot otherwise. They — along with other teams — have instead been placed on a “reserve list”, a queue of teams waiting for a slot to become vacant.

You get the sense that Prodrive and Lola are not to keen on being used as political pawns like this. They wanted a fuss-free entry into the 2010 season, but obviously forgot that this involves dealing with the FIA and its vindictive style of operating.

Lola in particular have been spitting feathers. They aren’t keen on being messed around, and are considering pulling the plug on their F1 project before the FIA get another chance to play games with them. Furthermore, Lola boss Martin Birrane has criticised the standard of the three new entries, saying: “one of three that has been chosen is worthy in my view. They will have a proper car. The other two – who knows?”

That sentiment was very closely echoed by Epsilon Euskadi’s Joan Villadelprat who also turned his nose up at the FIA’s vision of F1 2010-style: “I’m a bit surprised because I thought we were fighting against Aston Martin, and Lola, and companies with a pedigree, if you will.” The implication, of course, being that the new teams that have been guaranteed a slot do not have a pedigree.

The FIA may think that new teams will be enticed by a budget cap. But given these grumbles about the standard of the teams currently set to take part this season, they were rather expecting to be competing against the big names with world-famous brands like Ferrari and Aston Martin (manufacturer brands), not a couple of F3 teams.

Another entrant, which is said to be strong by those in the know, has gone as far as to explicitly state that the new teams have been used as pawns. N.Technology’s Mauro Spisz said: “The applications have been used by the Federation as pawns to move in the fight against the teams… We are victims of their war.”

Moreover, N.Technology appear to have been victims of the FIA’s well-known gross mismanagement, alleging that their application was not properly processed, with documents being lost. This would not be a major surprise. The FIA is well-known for being an incompetent organisation. Most famously, it once inadvertently revealed sensitive information about Ferrari and McLaren’s cars due to its own techno-incompetence.

If these strong teams are to enter F1, existing teams must leave. The FIA is banking on it. At the current rate, that actually seems like a fair assumption — though probably only because Mosley himself seems intent on driving them out.

In fairness, people talk a lot about the rumours that both Renault and Toyota are on the brink of exiting F1 anyway. From time to time, it is also said (even by Mario Theissen himself) that BMW may pull out. These three teams are probably the most disposable to F1, and I find it very interesting that it is these three very manufacturers whom the FIA cite in one of its press releases today (I will cover today’s developments in more detail in a separate article). All of these teams are peripheral players in this year’s Championship, and none has a particularly strong pedigree. But to lose all three in one year would be careless.

Renault have won the Championship twice in recent years, but it would not be unlike them to leave the sport. Indeed, with the famously motorsport-phobic Carlos Ghosn in charge of Renault, in a way it’s a surprise that they have not pulled out before.

I could easily imagine the Renault team surviving in one form or another though without the political crisis. The team’s history can be traced back to 1981, when it was Toleman. It became Benetton in 1986 before being bought by Renault in 2000. In this sense, the team has one of the richest histories in the sport, which stretches to half of Formula 1′s history.

For much of the team’s life, the team has rather successfully been run by Flavio Briatore. It is not outside the realms of possibility that, should Renault decide to pull the plug, Briatore could buy the team in an emergency measure and run it as a privateer entry, Brawn-style. But given his acrimonious relationship with the FIA (which is ironic given that he works with Bernie Ecclestone on other business endeavours), that now seems like a distant possibility.

Of the five teams with asterisks next to them on the entry list, McLaren and Brawn are the ones that the FIA cannot afford to lose. McLaren must be kept on board because of their history in the sport, which is rivalled by no-one’s except Ferrari’s. Meanwhile, to lose Brawn — who will almost certainly be World Champions this year — would be a major disaster for the FIA, and would only serve to underline the point that the new teams cannot compete with the best in F1 on merit.

In a way, then, McLaren and Brawn hold the aces. Interestingly, both are a strange kind of beast that is neither privateer nor manufacturer. This gives them a different perspective to the Renault / Toyota / BMW triumvirate — but it also distances them from being enticed by gimmicky budget cap proposals. Brawn could be seen as a full privateer from next season onwards. But the FIA must keep Mercedes happy to keep McLaren on side. Interestingly, Mercedes also plays a major role in Brawn’s success.

Therefore, as much as it (apparently) wants to drive the manufacturers out of the sport, Mercedes is ostensibly the one company which the FIA can’t afford to mess around. But, McLaren-Mercedes has been successfully neutered by the umpteenth high-profile hauling over the coals by the FIA. The FIA therefore have the whip hand, and Mercedes may be happier to defer to the FIA’s will than it otherwise would have been. Funny how it works out like that, isn’t it?

By now, it is abundantly clear that last week’s publication of the entry list was not designed to clear up the situation. Every single line in that publication was designed to wind someone up. It’s the way Max Mosley does his business: personality politics, vindictiveness and grandstanding. He clearly gets a thrill out of putting people in painful situations.

The first thing to note is that all ten currently existing teams are on the list in some form or another. Five of the Fota-aligned teams are at the bottom of the list and have asterisks next to their entries. Conditions are still attached to their entries, so their participation in the 2010 season depends on how talks between Fota and the FIA proceed.

There is a deadline of 19 June for the situation to be resolved. That will no doubt be another big news day as the FIA will have a few extra teams up its sleeve ready to take the place should any Fota teams pull out.

Provocatively, the FIA has entered three of the Fota teams — Ferrari, Red Bull and Toro Rosso — and listed them as unconditional entries. These three teams all signed agreements with the FIA and FOM back in 2005 — the last time a breakaway was on the cards. Ferrari feel that its agreements with the FIA have been broken already, therefore it does not have an obligation to enter in 2010. Ferrari have reiterated that they have no intention of participating in the 2010 season unless its conditions are met.

Meanwhile, Red Bull feel that the FIA has reneged on its assurances that customer cars would be allowed. This is a matter upon which Red Bull’s agreement was apparently based. Red Bull have made clear that they have no intention of taking part as either Red Bull or Toro Rosso as things stand.

No matter what contracts have been signed by whom, you do have to wonder exactly how the FIA intends on forcing teams to participate when they have absolutely no intention of doing so. What is to stop Ferrari or Red Bull from competing half-heartedly in protest, sending out underdeveloped cars and a small team who are uninterested in taking part and fail to qualify, or retire after lap 1?

It wouldn’t exactly do much good for Formula 1′s image. I guess the FIA are banking that such a stunt would be bad for the image of Ferrari and Red Bull too, which would put them off doing it.

The most uncontroversial element of the entry list is the inclusion of Williams and Force India. Both teams were recently “expelled” from Fota as they felt obliged to submit unconditional entries due to previous commercial agreements.

The three new teams are USF1, Campos and Manor. This is a surprise to me. I — and I think most others — expected the three teams to be USF1, Prodrive and Lola.

USF1 were always going to be a dead cert. They had announced that they would enter the 2010 season even before there was a suggestion of a budget cap being in place. Indeed, the team has shrugged its shoulders over the idea of a budget cap. It is perfectly content to participate without a budget cap, which rather undermines Max Mosley’s contention that no new teams will enter without a budget cap.

Campos will probably be a solid operation. The team will be headed up by former Formula 1 driver Adrián Campos, who has been a successful team manager in lower formulae. The original Campos Motorsport won the first three seasons of the precursor to World Series by Renault, winning the championship with Fernando Alonso in 1999. In later years, Campos concentrated on GP2 and became one of the best teams on the grid, winning the 2008 Teams’ Championship. Adrián Campos sold that team which is now known as Addax.

Manor is an alliance between Manor Motorsport and Nick Wirth, two solid names. Nick Wirth was a major force behind Simtek. When the team collapsed, he went on to work at Benetton.

Manor Motorsport has a strong pedigree in lower formulae, having run successful British Formula Renault, British Formula 3 and F3 Euroseries operations. Its Formula Renault team is probably most famous for having run Kimi Räikkönen in the year before the Finn took the unbelievable leap all the way up to a full F1 race drive. It also housed Lewis Hamilton when he won the British Formula Renault championship.

All three of these new teams are pencilled in to run with Cosworth engines, although James Allen believes that USF1 is considering switching to Toyota. The use of Cosworth engines is no surprise. Max Mosley’s threatened standardised engine was the Cosworth lump, and their engine which was used by Williams in 2006 is more-or-less up to date with the current regulations.

I find it highly surprising that Prodrive have not been given the nod. The last time the FIA invited new teams to enter F1, Prodrive was the team that succeeded in gaining the place. However, when the FIA decided to ban customer cars, Prodrive were unable to take that slot which has remained vacant ever since. David Richards knows what he is doing, and had a long-term aim to bring the Aston Martin brand to F1. It seemed to be everything the FIA was wanting, but seemingly that is not the case.

Lola also must have felt pretty confident about getting an entry. Although their last foray into F1 in 1997 was an unmitigated disaster, there were commercial reasons behind it and there was no reason to suggest that they would repeat the mistake. Lola is a classic name which fans of motorsport recognise. And unlike ghostly entries using the names “Brabham”, “March” and “Lotus”, this classic name is the real deal.

It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if Prodrive and Lola are options for the FIA to fall back on in case talks with Fota fail. The ever-present threat that a manufacturer may pull out without warning is also there.

Another notable aspect of the entry is that Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Brawn are all currently without engine deals. But with the manufacturers threatening to jump ship, it probably doesn’t mean much anyway. But it does add further credibility to the idea that Red Bull is angling for Mercedes engines for next season.

This business with Ferrari taking the FIA to court over a veto is very interesting. Ostensibly the loss of the court case is bad news for Ferrari, but in fact their point has been proven. The court did confirm that Ferrari do have such a veto — just that they have failed to play their card correctly.

What this has conveniently done, though, is proved the point that the FIA simply are not to be trusted in this sort of situation. This technical veto — along with a host of financial and sporting perks — was given to Ferrari as a reward for jumping into bed with the FIA the last time the governing body’s power was put into question. GPWC (later GPMA) was an alliance of some of F1′s biggest names. It was essentially a bargaining tool for the teams not unlike today’s Fota. Ferrari was a major player in it — until the FIA lured them away with bribes. With Ferrari gone, GPMA was toothless and little was heard of it ever again.

This time, Ferrari aren’t for turning. The threat to the FIA’s power is therefore much greater this time round. So the FIA has preoccupied itself with looking for ways to either break up or undermine Fota. That is why they have this sudden obsession with new teams, even though there have been vacancies on the grid for over ten years. I seriously doubt we’d be hearing about how vital it is to attract new teams were it not for Fota. By doing whatever they can to bring in new teams, the FIA can ensure that there will no longer be unanimity among the teams.

After all, the FIA does not really have much else going for it. Participants, fans, media commentators and other onlookers have all completely lost faith in the FIA as it brings in ever-dafter regulations that lack any cohesion. For just one example, they will constantly bang on about cost cutting, then force teams to incur further costs by radically changing the regulations periodically.

Moreover, the FIA constantly fail to meet their own regulations, such as when earlier this year they attempted to change the sporting regulations within days of the season starting without first consulting the teams. Nor can the FIA administrate the sport in an even-handed way, as has been patently demonstrated by countless unfathomable stewards’ decisions over the past few seasons. The FIA is also wholly inadequate at formulating or policing the technical regulations, as is apparent with the completely botched introduction of kers and their inability to simply tell anyone if the double deck diffuser was legal.

Earlier this year Fota put forward a measured set of proposals that were based on actual market research which was conducted in an open and transparent manner. By contrast, Max Mosley just plucks new rules out of his freshly spanked arse. The FIA changes the regulations willy-nilly, out of the blue, for no apparent reason, without consulting anyone. The views of the teams, drivers, fans and the wider industry all count for nothing as far as the FIA is concerned.

This is the nub of the matter really. As has now become clear, the budget cap controversy was merely a conduit for a larger battle to begin — a battle over the governance of the sport. Do we want Formula 1 to continue to be driven into the ground by a frustrated politician who has no interest in consulting the people who really matter to the sport? Or would we prefer a future where fans and teams have a say, and where regulation changes can be measured and predictable? Well, I know whose side I’m on.

While people may scoff at the apparent arrogance of Ferrari’s recent statements, they do have a point. As readers will know, I am no Ferrari fan. But there is no doubt that this brand carries a lot of history, a lot of status, a lot of respect, a hell of a lot of fans and money by the bucket load. Arguably, the Ferrari brand is much more famous than the Formula 1 brand.

So Ferrari’s point about the calibre of the supposed new teams is bang on in my view. Make no mistake, the vast majority of these are teams that under normal circumstances would not be able to even consider entering F1, with an F1-standard car at an F1-standard budget. It is feasible only with the FIA promising to skew the rules in their favour — just as they skewed the rules in Ferrari’s favour back in 2005. This sort of crap has no place in a “sport” in the 21st century.

Privateer teams may be romantic, and I would love to see decent private teams to be able to compete at an F1 standard on merit, just as Brawn and Williams do today. But F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsport. And though some of the proposed new teams are accomplished enough at certain levels, few if any could claim to be on the cusp of being at F1 standard in normal circumstances.

As Joe Saward put it, it beggars belief that Max Mosley would think that it would be worth trading names like Ferrari, Toyota, Renault, BMW and potentially Mercedes for names like Wirth Research, Epsilon Euskadi, RML, Formtech, Campos and so on. Ask Max Mosley’s precious “man in the pub” about any of the names from the first list, and their eyes will light up in recognition. Asking about names from the second list would elicit a nonplussed response.

A grid full of teams like this, and with none of the historic and famous names that mean so much to people, would be an empty F1 indeed. It could be a return to the bad old days of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the grid was full of half-arsed operations which polluted the field and acted as mobile chicanes. The FIA went too far in its efforts to get rid of these teams in the mid-1990s. Now it seems happy enough to go too far back the other way.

Max Mosley’s case seems utterly weak. He should know that too, because the last time he threatened the teams by forcing them to enter at short notice, the list of “new teams” was similarly long. Of these teams, one — Prodrive — was given the nod. It never materialised because the FIA decided to forego the biggest opportunity to cut costs they could ever ask for by making customer cars illegal.

As before, these new teams look like paper tigers. Yet Max Mosley is hinging the future of the sport on them because he finds it more palatable than relinquishing any of his power.

In a letter (PDF link) sent to each of the teams earlier this month, Max Mosley said:

Formula One is becoming unsustainable. The major manufacturers are currently employing up to 1000 people to put two cars on the grid. This is clearly unacceptable at a time when all these companies are facing difficult market conditions.

But it makes me wonder quite what qualifies Max Mosley to declare F1 “unsustainable”. I can’t help but notice a glaring hole in Mosley’s argument.

A central pillar of our economic system is the idea that individuals and firms are able to decide for themselves how best to use their resources. After all, the individuals and firms (in this case the F1 teams) have all the necessary information at their fingertips. If Formula 1 is sustainable for a team, that team enters. If it is unsustainable for a team, it does not enter. Simple as that.

If an F1 team finds it to its own advantage to employ 1,000 people to put two cars on the grid, so be it. That is a fact of life. If the teams really feel a need to cut costs, they will. It. Is. That. Simple. The idea that people make these decisions for themselves is a central pillar of liberal society.

Meanwhile Max Mosley, the head of the governing body, is sitting in an ivory tower and has seemingly just decided that he knows better than the teams. Despite the fact that he has absolutely no experience and no knowledge whatsoever of what it is like to run an F1 team in 2008. Sure, he was heavily involved in March — but that was over thirty years ago, when F1 was a very different world indeed.

To underline just how little information Max Mosley has on what it takes to run an F1 team, think back to his proposed budget cap. That was apparently met with some mirth among the teams. Flavio Briatore was particularly taken aback:

I already pay 40 per cent less than the cap. If I want to keep to the limit then I need to spend more. It’s nonsense.

So here is the situation. We have ten parties that find it sustainable to enter F1. We have one party that thinks it is not sustainable, and that is the party with the least amount of information on it.

Sure, there could and perhaps should have been twelve teams on the grid this year. But let us not forget that the reason the smaller teams left is because they were not given a suitable guarantee that customer cars would be allowed. And who is responsible for that? Oh yes, Max Mosley.

Right there, we had the perfect opportunity for costs to be cut in F1. But Max Mosley failed to let it happen. I can only conclude that he is not actually interested in cutting costs. This adds yet further weight to the suspicion that the FIA will use the “cost cutting” explanation to justify any of their mad schemes for the future of F1. “Cost cutting” is the back door through which Max Mosley’s endless vanity projects are shoved through.

McLaren Mercedes

Last year people were saying that Fernando Alonso had made a big mistake by signing for McLaren while Renault were undoubtedly the strongest team. It’s amazing how a few winter tests can change the world topsy-turvy.

The McLaren is said to be right up there at the top. What a turn-around after 2006 being McLaren’s least successful Formula 1 season for at least a decade. Alonso at least looks almost certain to win races this year. Relief for all at Woking after a victory drought last year.

Barring any serious mishaps, I would guess that Alonso is once again in the running for the Championship this year. Even if the McLaren turns out to be a bit of a turkey, if anybody on the grid can win with a mediocre car it is Alonso.

I am more worried about Lewis Hamilton. The poor guy has never even entered a Formula 1 race, and already the British media is shining a powerful spotlight on him, hyping up his chances. We are already sick of the tedious, clichéd references to “the Tiger Woods of F1″ and the fact that he is Formula 1′s first ever black driver when he isn’t.

It is surely a bit much for a young débutante to take. Remember what happened with Button. He had so much hype that his entire career ended up being an albatross around his neck. Let’s hope the same thing doesn’t happen with Hamilton. Some people are saying he can win a race this year. Maybe he can. But I hope he doesn’t get criticised too much if he fails to do so in what is, after all, his first ever season in an F1 car.

Renault F1 Team

This is probably the year where is all starts to go wrong for Renault. Winter testing hasn’t looked too hot. Renault boss Carlos Ghosn’s is lukewarm towards Formula 1. Despite the belated announcement of future commitment to the sport, it wouldn’t surprise me if things start winding down for Renault if results are average this year.

It was the uncertainty over Renault’s future in Formula 1 that has left them with a hugely unimpressive driver line-up this year. A team that has won back-to-back world championships shouldn’t struggle to get the best drivers, but it managed to lose Fernando Alonso (whose own manager is Renault’s director!) and failed to lure Kimi Räikkönen.

As such, Renault are left with the increasingly unimpressive Giancarlo Fisichella as its lead driver and the untested Heikki Kovalainen as his team mate. Rookie Kovalainen might turn out to be really good, but as things stand the driver line-up definitely lacks the superstar status.

Remember just how badly Fisichella did compared with Alonso in the past two years. Fisichella struggled to win more than one race per season. If they were to rely on him, Renault would have been screwed. Now they are relying on him, and it seems as though the car isn’t up to scratch compared with its rivals.

This will probably be a disappointing season for Renault. We’ve seen it happen before to the same team — two back-to-back championships were scored by what was Benetton, thanks to a certain Michael Schumacher who promptly went off to a mid-field team in desperate need of a resurgence. The parallels with Alonso’s move to McLaren are almost uncanny.

Scuderia Ferrari

If you were to ask me four months ago, I would have said that Ferrari — and specifically Kimi Räikkönen — would have run away with this year’s title. Now I am not so sure. Ferrari still look like the strongest team, but McLaren will probably give them a run for their money.

And the usual questions about Räikkönen have to be asked. Every so often somebody comes along and claims that he is not interested or determined enough, that he doesn’t communicate well with his engineers and that he drinks too much.

As such, this is probably a make or break year for Räikkönen’s career. If he fails to impress this year, in a Ferrari, then he probably never will. As things stand, it is uncertain whether Räikkönen is really to blame for his poor record as of yet, or if it was his slow and unreliable McLaren.

But Räikkönen’s début was in 2001, and within a year he was being touted as a future World Champion — before Alonso started truly turning heads. Since then Alonso has won two titles, and Räikkönen has won barely a handful of races.

Räikkönen is indeed impressive, most often when the odds are stacked against him and he has had to start from the back of the grid (Spa 2005) or the time when he had to go out first in qualifying for the 2005 Hungarian Grand Prix. But we have yet to see if he can be a world champion. He has never had a better chance than the one he will have this year, so he had better make the most of it.

It is almost the reverse case for Felipe Massa. A year ago he was seen as an unsafe pair of hands, and his signing to Ferrari stank of nepotism more than anything else. He also made some clumsy errors at the start of the season.

That all changed by the end of the season. He matured immensely to the stage where he could win grands prix in his own right. His performance at Turkey was very impressive. He will win races this year, and Kimi Räikkönen will be an interesting barometer for his talent.

But while it is fathomable to imagine Massa beating Räikkönen, and Räikkönen has a good chance of winning the championship, it still feels a little bit wrong to talk about Massa as a potential world champion. I could be proved wrong though!

Honda Racing F1 Team

Apparently Honda’s testing has been going pretty badly. Even the Honda team themselves — known for unrealistically hyping themselves up right back from the days of BAR — seem pretty subdued about their chances.

Moreover, Button’s belated début win doesn’t seem to have lifted the pressure off him. In fact, people are now asking him to win regularly, as his Hungarian win was a little bit of a fluke.

It’s difficult to know what to really expect of Honda this year. By the looks of things, they won’t be visiting the podium as regularly as they might hope, and that second race win will be as distant as their first always seemed to be (remember, their first win was a fluke).

BMW Sauber F1 Team

BMW Sauber is a team to be really excited about. Mario Theissen is clearly determined to make the team a success, and they look to be on their way to becoming a regular front-running team.

Even last year, BMW were seriously impressive, to the extent that they were possibly the second-fastest car at Monza, a true speed circuit. This year BMW have been turning heads during winter testing.

BMW is also associated with some very strong up and coming drivers. Robert Kubica is clearly an exciting talent, and people will be expecting a lot from him this year. Kubica was brought into the team mid-season last year after impressing as a third driver. He replaced world champion Jacques Villeneuve.

Now a BMW’s new test driver, Sebastian Vettel, is also putting in impressive performances. Nick Heidfeld had better watch his back!

Toyota Racing

The most unromantic team. A corporate juggernaut, nobody seems to like Toyota. They just throw money at F1 and are never able to achieve results, and their aloof image makes them highly unpopular with fans.

Their driver line-up is also less than inspiring. Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher may be established names and proven race winners. But they are also a pair of over-rated and overpaid dinosaurs. Ralf Schumacher’s recent claim that he is the third best driver in F1 was notably laughable.

Moreover, bar a brief successful period at the start of the 2005 season, Toyota have constantly unveiled mediocre car after mediocre car. It just isn’t good enough for a team with a budget that dwarves all the others. If it really is the case that Toyota are only in F1 to sell cars (and it certainly looks that way), then it is highly embarrassing that “the car in front” is actually the car behind.

The smart money appears to be on Toyota pulling out of Formula 1 before too long. They have already made a step in that direction by deciding to supply engines to Williams. Williams may have had a bad spell recently, but it is a name that you don’t mess with, and they are on the resurgence.

Many are tipping that Williams-Toyota will beat the actual Toyota team. That could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and leads to the end of the Toyota F1 team as we know it. They wouldn’t be missed.

Red Bull Racing

It’s not looking good for Red Bull. They brought superstar designer Adrian Newey on board, and Newey has produced a car that bears his distinctive hallmark as seen at McLaren over the past few years.

Unfortunately, he has also brought with him the unreliability issues that have dogged McLaren over those same years. It begs the question — are Newey’s designs the cause of the failures? His tight chassis is said to be causing cooling problems in the Red Bull.

Moreover, the drivers are complaining that they cannot squeeze into his tightly-sculpted car. This is a theme we are familiar with from McLaren — particularly when Alex Wurz couldn’t race because the car did not have the capacity for his tall frame. An F1 car is no good if you can’t fit a driver into it.

Even worse, the uncompromising chassis design doesn’t even seem to be particularly fast. It can’t be the engine’s fault — they have the world champion’s Renault powerplant in the back. Maybe Newey should be designing yachts after all.

There is also the question of where Red Bull’s driver programme has gone. David Coulthard has been there for the past two seasons, but now he is joined by Mark Webber. For a team with such a youthful image, Red Bull has the oldest driver pairing on the grid this year (an amazing feat when you consider Toyota’s drivers).

Webber knows the team well from back in his Jaguar days, so this is something of a homecoming for him after a period of false hope at Williams. But Williams are turning the corner, and this year’s Red Bull car is disappointing — he’s jumped ship and chosen the dinghy with a puncture in it (albeit a very nice looking dinghy).

The team itself is actually ten years old this year, having begun life back in 1997 as Stewart Grand Prix. Over the years, the team has occasionally shown great promise, particularly in its amazing 1999 season, complete with race win and 4^th in the constructors’ championship.

But otherwise — whether it felt strong or not — the team has resolutely refused to finish higher than 7^th in the championship. By the looks of things, unless their fortunes drastically improve, they look set to retain their mid-field reputation.

Williams

The dark horse this year? Williams have had a shockingly bad few seasons. This once great name of Formula 1 has been languishing ever further towards the back of the grid. The much-trumpeted partnership with Cosworth was doomed as the car proved to be both unreliable and slow.

You would assume that there are some serious long-term problems somewhere in Williams. I get the impression that during the BMW years they were too busy pointing the finger at anyone but themselves instead of actually getting round to fixing the problem. Perhaps the team was too arrogant to believe that it could be their fault?

Anyway, there are signs that Williams have finally taken action to stop them from falling even further back. And a Toyota engine should propel them further than the Cosworth was able to.

The Toyota deal is interesting. As many people have noted, it is entirely possible that the Williams-Toyota could beat the actual Toyota team. In that case, it could be curtains for Toyota’s team. That could open the door for Toyota to develop a long-term relationship with Williams as an engine partner. Both Williams and Toyota would probably be able to achieve more this way.

As for the drivers, Nico Rosberg showed great promise at the start of last season but started to make himself look a bit silly for the rest of the season. It was almost the reverse of what happened to Massa.

This year will be vital for Rosberg. If he doesn’t impress this year, that could be that for his career. Personally, I think he has the potential of someone along the lines of a Heidfeld. But not an Alonso. Probably not even a Coulthard. But we’ll see.

The choice of second driver, Alex Wurz, is very interesting. I always felt that Wurz never got the chance he deserved in F1. His height (and therefore weight) didn’t help matters, and he was notoriously unable to fit into his McLaren when required to stand in for injured Montoya a couple of years ago.

Wurz exploded onto the F1 scene ten years ago now, but most of his experience since then has been as a test driver. He might be a bit rusty at racing. Then again, when he (eventually) stood in for Montoya, he was no slouch. But Wurz is undoubtedly in the twilight years of his career.

Scuderia Toro Rosso

Okay, there is no avoiding the issue now. Customer cars. Essentially, the Toro Rosso is alleged to be the main Red Bull car with a different paint job. Cue hysteria from other teams — most notably Williams and Spyker, who risk being the worst team of the year (and would thereby receive no prize money whatsoever).

I’m not sure what to make of it yet. At the moment, I am prepared to tentatively support the Toro Rosso design. After all, Sauber’s (alleged) copycat Ferrari was never properly investigated, and Ligier’s copycat Benetton got away fairly lightly. So there is a precedent here.

It also provides a juicy chance to directly compare the Renault and Ferrari engines. The Red Bulls will run with Renaults, and Toro Rosso (being Italian) will race with Ferraris. These are probably the two best engines in Formula 1, and it will be fascinating to compare them in two near enough identical cars.

The problem with Toro Rosso’s approach is that the Red Bull could well prove to be a turkey for all the reasons discussed above. In that case, they might have been better off just quietly designing a cheap and cheerful car, rather than risking the controversy and ultimate failure of the Newey design.

Toro Rosso keep the same drivers as last year. It’s difficult to know what to make of Liuzzi and Speed. Liuzzi shows occasional glimpses of promise, but not often enough. Speed is mostly good for the comedy value. He did provide the funniest moments of last year including:

• Sweary-poos incident at Australia with kind-of team mate David Coulthard in the steward’s office
• “…last night, I had a boner — this big!“
• “Someone’s head is gonna roll!”
• “I definitely think we should go onto dry tyres very soon.”

Spyker F1 Team

There doesn’t seem to be much to say about Spyker. They are pretty much destined to be at the back of the grid. Mike Gascoyne is a big name designer there, but nobody seems to think he’ll be able to pull them around.

To think that not so long ago this was the Jordan team. In 1999 they were just spectacular. For a brief period it looked as though they were capable of winning a championship. Ever since then, it has been a depressing, terminal decline to the point where they are the worst team in the field.

At least Spyker has a little bit of a better image than Midland did!

Super Aguri F1 Team

Hats off to Super Aguri! They did ever so well last year having only been invented mere months before the beginning of the championship, and with a four-year-old Arrows car that wasn’t even that good four years ago.

Then they built their own car and it got to the stage where Sato drove a convincing race to finish in tenth place in Brazil, ahead of all the Red Bulls and Midland / Spykers. Now they have what is supposedly a Honda car, they ought to be punching at that sort of level on a regular basis from now on.

The driver line up is not to be sniffed at either. They have ditched their pretensions of being an all-Japanese team after finally realising that Japan has no good drivers. Takuma Sato remains, but his team mate is now Anthony Davidson. Just a few years ago, it was conceivable that this could have been the actual Honda line up. So it’s not bad at all.

Davidson will also be relishing the chance to finally get a full-time F1 drive. Sato has his moments. He appeared to calm down a lot last year after an unforgivably erratic time at Honda. If they can pull their act together, Super Aguri might well end up scoring the odd point this year.

Conclusion

So, here are my final predictions:

World Champion: Kimi Räikkönen. But if the McLaren is half good (which it seems to be), then Alonso could give him a run for his money. What a mouth-watering prospect!

Constructors’ Championship:

1. Ferrari
2. McLaren
3. Renault
4. BMW
5. Honda
6. Williams
7. Red Bull
8. Toyota
9. Super Aguri
10. Toro Rosso
11. Spyker