2010 F1 season preview: Lotus

Lotus were the last team to gain an entry for 2010 – but so far they look like the most promising of the new teams.
Even so they’re still expecting to start the year around four seconds per lap off the pace. Can the team do justice to their historic and evocative name?

Trulli: Lotus “four seconds off the pace”

Jarno Trulli believes the pace shown by Lotus in his last day of testing will be much the same at the first race of 2010 at Bahrain in two weeks’ time.
Trulli said he expects the T127’s performance to be:
What we’ve seen here, no more. We’ll probably be four seconds off.
Jarno Trulli
However he praised the work [...]

Lotus sign Trulli and Kovalainen for 2010

Lotus have confirmed their two drivers for their return to F1 in 2010.
Ex-Toyota driver Jarno Trulli will join the team, being re-united with designer Mike Gasconye for the fourth time in his career.
He will be partnered by Heikki Kovalainen, who was squeezed out of McLaren by the arrival of Jenson Button.

2009 F1 driver rankings part 2: 15-6

We began the countdown of the top drivers of 2009 yesterday looking at the least impressive racers of the year.
Today we cover the other drivers who failed to make it into the top five – with more of your comments and ratings of the class of 2009.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix fastest lap analysis

Drivers’ fastest laps

Rank
Driver
Fastest lap
Deficit to fastest lap
Laps within 1% of personal best

1
Sebastian Vettel
100.279
0
21

2
Sebastien Buemi
100.326
0.047
14

3
Lewis Hamilton
100.367
0.088
10

4
Rubens Barrichello
100.449
0.17
21

5
Mark Webber
100.571
0.292
26

6
Jenson Button
100.642
0.363
29

7
Nick Heidfeld
100.672
0.393
29

8
Jarno Trulli
100.723
0.444
21

9
Kazuki Nakajima
100.754
0.475
8

10
Fernando Alonso
100.757
0.478
6

11
Kamui Kobayashi
100.779
0.5
21

12
Kimi Raikkonen
100.843
0.564
6

13
Adrian Sutil
100.904
0.625
11

14
Robert Kubica
100.924
0.645
27

15
Nico Rosberg
100.997
0.718
24

16
Giancarlo Fisichella
101.132
0.853
2

17
Vitantonio Liuzzi
101.277
0.998
5

18
Heikki Kovalainen
101.316
1.037
20

19
Romain Grosjean
102.274
1.995
23

20
Jaime Alguersuari
103.318
3.039
10

Top 50 fastest laps

Rank
Driver
Lap time
Lap

1
Sebastian Vettel
100.279
54

2
Sebastien Buemi
100.326
55

3
Sebastian Vettel
100.328
18

4
Lewis Hamilton
100.367
16

5
Rubens Barrichello
100.449
54

6
Sebastien Buemi
100.513
54

7
Rubens Barrichello
100.514
55

8
Sebastian Vettel
100.53
16

9
Mark Webber
100.571
14

10
Sebastian Vettel
100.594
53

11
Lewis Hamilton
100.599
15

12
Sebastian Vettel
100.642
39

13
Jenson Button
100.642
49

14
Jenson Button
100.659
15

15
Rubens Barrichello
100.666
15

16
Sebastian Vettel
100.668
38

17
Nick Heidfeld
100.672
54

18
Mark Webber
100.713
16

19
Jarno Trulli
100.723
49

20
Jarno [...]

Vettel leads a Red Bull one-two in finale (Abu Dhabi Grand Prix race report)

Sebastian Vettel took advantage of problems for Lewis Hamilton to win his fourth Grand Prix of 2009.
It was a one-two for Red Bull as Mark Webber kept Jenson Button at bay to take second place in an exciting end to an otherwise predictable race.

Final 2009 F1 championship standings

Drivers’ championship

Driver
Points

1
Jenson Button
95

2
Sebastian Vettel
84

3
Rubens Barrichello
77

4
Mark Webber
69.5

5
Lewis Hamilton
49

6
Kimi Raikkonen
48

7
Nico Rosberg
34.5

8
Jarno Trulli
32.5

9
Fernando Alonso
26

10
Timo Glock
24

11
Felipe Massa
22

12
Heikki Kovalainen
22

13
Nick Heidfeld
19

14
Robert Kubica
17

15
Giancarlo Fisichella
8

16
Sebastien Buemi
6

17
Adrian Sutil
5

18
Kamui Kobayashi
3

19
Sebastien Bourdais
2

20
Romain Grosjean
0

20
Vitantonio Liuzzi
0

20
Jaime Alguersuari
0

20
Kazuki Nakajima
0

20
Luca Badoer
0

20
Nelson Piquet Jnr
0

Constructors’ championship

Driver
Points

1
Brawn
172

2
Red Bull
153.5

3
McLaren
71

4
Ferrari
70

5
Toyota
59.5

6
BMW
36

7
Williams
34.5

8
Renault
26

9
Force India
13

10
Toro Rosso
8

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix result

Position
Driver
Laps
Delay
Gap

1
Sebastian Vettel
55

2
Mark Webber
55
17.857
17.857

3
Jenson Button
55
18.467
0.61

4
Rubens Barrichello
55
22.735
4.268

5
Nick Heidfeld
55
26.253
3.518

6
Kamui Kobayashi
55
28.343
2.09

7
Jarno Trulli
55
34.366
6.023

8
Sebastien Buemi
55
41.294
6.928

9
Nico Rosberg
55
45.941
4.647

10
Robert Kubica
55
48.18
2.239

11
Heikki Kovalainen
55
52.798
4.618

12
Kimi Raikkonen
55
54.317
1.519

13
Kazuki Nakajima
55
59.839
5.522

14
Fernando Alonso
55
69.687
9.848

15
Vitantonio Liuzzi
55
94.45
24.763

16
Giancarlo Fisichella
54
-1 laps
-1 laps

17
Adrian Sutil
54
-1 laps
3.53

18
Romain Grosjean
54
-1 laps
0.969

Not classified

Lewis Hamilton
20
-35 laps
-34 laps

Jaime Alguersuari
18
-37 laps
-2 laps

Abu Dhabi GP qualifying in pictures

With a spanking new multi-million pound venue and a golden sunset, F1’s photographers have outstripped themselves capturing some truly gorgeous pictures from today’s qualifying session. Here’s the pick of the bunch.

Untouchable Hamilton claims Abu Dhabi pole (Abu Dhabi Grand Prix qualifying)

Lewis Hamilton dominated qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to take pole position by two-thirds of a second.
The two Red Bulls will line up behind him but team mate Heikki Kovalainen was left 13th after his McLaren broke down during Q2.