BTCC Croft - Turkington Takes Pole

Colin Turkington of Team RAC has taken pole position at Croft. Jason Plato qualified second on the grid with Turkington's team mate Stephen Jelley third. Jelley is certainly much improved this season compared to last year.

Jones, fourth, was the only non BMW/Chevrolet qualifier in the top six. The two Chevrolets of Mat Jackson and Harry Vaulkhard were fifth and sixth fastest respectively.

VXR team mates Jordan and Neal are seventh and eighth whilst current Champion Giovanardi is way back in thirteenth. Jordan is certainly holding his own against his vastly more experienced team mates.

The top ten is rounded out by James Thompson ninth and Rob Collard in tenth.

With a fair wind, this weekend could see Turkington take the lead in the driver's Championship.

FIA Announce New Teams for 2010

The long awaited list of entrants for the 2010 FIA Formula 1 World Championship has been announced today but as the budget cap row continues to simmer (or should that be boil?) nothing can be said to be cut and dried by a long chalk.

THE CURRENT TEAMS

The ten current F1 teams have been granted spots on the 2010 grid.

HOWEVER...... five of those teams have been given a week to drop their conditions or lose their slots. A further three are objecting to being entered!

Of the current teams, only Williams and Force India appear to be 100% confirmed for 2010 as they broke away from FOTA and submitted unconditional entries before the May deadline.

Red Bull, Ferrari and Toro Rosso are the three teams objecting to their entry but the FIA insists they are contractually committed to compete in 2010.

Ferrari has already intimated they may challenge this in the courts and again stated they will not participate in the Championship next year unless their conditions are met.

Brawn, McLaren, Renault, Toyota and BMW Sauber have been granted provisional entries on the basis they drop their conditions by the 19th June. If they fail to do so they face being excluded from the grid.

Due to the proposed FIA budget cap, numerous new teams including Lola, Prodrive, Team Lotus etc are waiting in the wings to fill any vacancies.

NEW TEAMS ON THE GRID

The FIA has announced the three news teams competing next year will be -

Campos Grand Prix

This team is owned by Spaniard Adrian Campos, a former Minardi driver who later became manager to one Fernando Alonso. Campos currently run in GP 2 and were crowned champions in 2008.

Their car will be designed by Dallara and powered by Cosworth who are making a return to Formula 1.

It would appear that Ecclestone wants to keep the F1 interest in Spain alive now that Alonso is no longer in a front running car.

This can be the only reason a team like this got in ahead of teams with the racing pedigree of Lola or Prodrive.

Click here to view the team web site

Team US F1

This team was hotly tipped to join the series as it is known that Ecclestone is desparate to get a foothold in the USA and was heavily backing their bid.

The team will be run by Ken Anderson (ex Ligier) and Peter Windsor (ex Williams) and based in North Carolina. The car will be powered by Cosworth.

Team US F1 have stated they will run at least one American driver but L2F thinks it is likely to be an all American set up.

Several driver names have been put in the frame including Danica Patrick and Scott Speed.

Landing a (potentially) front running female driver like Patrick would be an excellent marketing opportunity and may also help in their stated goal of popularising F1 in the States.

Scott Speed, although undoubtedly cheaper than Danica Patrick, would probably be a liability given his form and team problems at Red Bull.

Manor GP (Manor Motorsports)

This was the surprise of the bunch.

Manor Motorsports , owned by John Booth is a successful team in the F3 Euroseries based in Sheffield.

The car will also run a Cosworth engine.

Why they have been included over more prestigious contenders remains to be seen. They obviously must have said the right things to Ecclestone!

Litespeed & Lotus Group in F1 Squabble

As previously reported in this blog, British F3 team Litespeed have submitted an entry for the 2010 FIA F1 World Championship.

Should their F1 bid be successful, they have been given permission by the rights holder to use the Team Lotus name, resurrecting it for the first time since 1994.

Could be a return of the famous racing green and yellow livery.

Following this announcement by Litespeed, the Lotus Group have issued the following statement......

"Group Lotus PLC and its subsidiary Lotus Cars Limited, the manufacturer of the legendary Lotus Elise and global high technology engineering consultancy, are not connected or affiliated to, nor in any other way associated with the newly-announced ‘Team Lotus’ that has submitted an entry 2010 Formula 1 championship,” ........ “Group Lotus PLC will take all necessary steps to protect its name, reputation and brand image.”

Both sides may be being a bit premature considering the fact that the FIA has not yet confirmed the winning bidders for the 2010 grid.

Lotus Group could be missing a trick here.

If Litespeed/Team Lotus do win a spot on the grid for 2010 and it is a well run outfit, as it should be with the likes of Mike Gascoigne on board, the Lotus Group will indirectly benefit from massive worldwide television exposure equivalent to millions of pounds of marketing spend.