New Teams and Rule Changes for 2010

F1 2010 rule changes-How will the changes effect the races.

No Refueling.

This will create the major changes for 2010 and will mean that the cars will be wider at the back and longer to accommodate a fuel tank that will need to be three times the size of last years cars carrying around 250 litres of fuel.Bridgestone will be introducing a slightly harder compound tyre attempting to compasate for the heavier weight of the cars at the begining of the race.The extra weight may also mean that drivers will have to take more care in conserving their brakes and tires. Some may be wondering how this will affect drivers who have appeared to be heavy on tires and brakes in the past. One name that comes to mind would be lewis Hamilton who had problems in 2009 with these issues.

More Teams.

In 2010 there will be thirteen teams up from ten that will put 26 cars on the starting grid. At the time of writing the teams for 2010 are as follows:-

Teams and Drivers

AT & T Williams........................R. Barrichello + N. Hulkenberg.

BMW Sauber..............................K. Koybayashi + TBA.

Force india...............................A. Sutil + V. Liuzzi.

Mclaren Mercedes.......................J. Button + L. Hamilton.

Mercedes GP Petronas....................N. Rosberg + M. Schumacher.

Red Bull Racing.............................S. Vettel + M. Webber.

Renault F1..................................R. Kubica + TBA.

Scuderia Ferrari.............................F. Alonso + F. Massa.

Scuderia Toro Rosso.......................S. Buemi + TBA.

The New Teams.

Campos Meta......................................B. Senna + TBA.

Lotus F1...........................................J. Trulli + H. Kovalainen.

Virgin Racing.......................................T. Glock + L. Di Grassi.

US F1.................................................TBA.

Changes to Qualifying.

Due to the increased grid size eight instead of five drivers will now be knocked out of Q1 andQ2 leaving ten to fight it out in Q3. Also due to the ban on refueling all the qualifying sessions will be run on low fuel.

Tyres and wheels.

As well as the tyres compound being harder the front tyres will be reduced in width from 270mm to 245mm. This will address a difficulty created last year when slick tyres were brought back but the front tyres width remained the same. This should allow for a better grip balance between the front and rear of the car.

The wheel covers used by teams in 2009 have been banned. This will allow one less thing that could go wrong in a tyre change and also could help with overtaking producing less turbulance behind the cars.

Testing.

The FIA have made a change in testing which will allow new drivers who have not driven an F1 car for two years(or indeed ever before) to test a car at an approved circuit not on the race calender. This will avoid the dangers involved in new drivers having their first in car experience on a race weekend.

Points system.

A new points system is in place and will reward the first ten drivers to finish a race instead of last years eight. There is also a bigger points gap between the first three finishers, although the % of points earned for these places remains proportionally the same, but allows drivers who finish further down the grid to pick up more points than before. The new points system is as follows:- 
1st......25 points

2nd....20 points

3rd....15 points

4th....10 points

5th....08 points

6th.....06 points

7th.....05 points
8th....03 points
9th....02 points
10th...01 points

Well thats all the boring stuff out of the way the rule changes to my mind and will hopefully encourage closer racing but I am not so sure about the new points system. I would imagine that it will take the new teams time to step up to the mat in any meaningful way and start earning points. Last year may also be the exception where four drivers had the oppertunity to win the championship for a large part of the season. Most years it has been a two driver fight and the new points system may well allow one or two drivers to shoot off into the lead and win the championship earlier in the season than ever before.