F1: 2010 season gets underway in Bahrain

The Formula One 2010 season is starting this weekend at Bahrain, with the field almost ready for what seems to be one of the most competitive seasons of the last years. Eleven teams, 22 drivers, among which four world champions, Michael Schumacher’s return, changes in the points system, new regulations and three new teams are some of the ingredients of a predictable spicy season.

At the end of last year Bernie Ecclestone couldn’t be a happier man, with the announcement of Michael’s Schumacher return to F1. At the age of 41 the seven-time world F1 champion the German will sit in the cockpit of the returning Mercedes GP, claiming to be fit, focused and willing to add some more victories to his 91 Grand Prix first places, and to fight for another championship.

Together with Michael Schumacher, the 2010 season will count with a total of four world champions: Fernando Alonso (2005/2006), Lewis Hamilton (2008) and reigning champion Jenson Button. Joined by Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg, the 2010 season seems to start as an eight-man battle.

Trying to make races more competitive new changes into car regulations and points system have been made.

In the 2010 season races the top-10 cars will receive points, thus: 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1. The seven point difference between first and second place main goal is to encourage drivers to fight for first place instead of settling for second place.

As for the cars, in this year’s season there will be no refueling during the races. This forced teams to develop longer- wheelbase cars with up to 160kg of fuel-tank capacity instead of the previous 80kg, and to rearrange weight distribution. More weight of the car will implicate more cares in the preserving of the Bridgestone tyres between the mandatory stop(s) in which drivers must switch compounds.

Each driver will have 11 sets of tyres per weekend, six sets of primes and five options. Three sets can only be used on Fridays, and must be returned even if they aren’t used. Drivers from the Q3 session must start the race on the tyres on which they set their grid time

Lotus, Virgin and HRT are the new coming teams to the Formula One paddock, in a process that saw USF1 and Stephan GP fail to secure the conditions to start at this weekend’s Bahrain GP starting grid. The 2010 will also see five rookies – Nico Hulkenberg, Vitaly Petrov, Karun Chandhok, Bruno Senna and Lucas di Grassi – make their debut on F1.