British Racing Green is back in Formula 1 with the reveal of the new 2010 Lotus T127 on Friday!

Reportedly there are a lot of ex-Toyota people working for the Malaysian-based team, which could explain why the nose reminds me of Toyota's TF109.  Not the wing, but the vertical mounting and the nose cone itself.  One thing we haven't seen yet with this season's debuts are these sidepods.  The tops are dead flat on the Lotus, as opposed to swooping or curved; interesting look, this.

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And so last year's runner-up has finally brought their challenger to the track, and how does it stack up?

Um... it's pretty much the same.


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Force India was my choice for "most improved" team last year, so I've been eagerly awaiting their 2010 charger.  Would they make radical changes?  Gently evolve?  Leave the car be?
The answer turns out to be "evolve."  Nothing shocking here; the only real changes are those prescribed by the rule book.


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The virgin Virgin Racing team debuted their first car online today, and it's different...

Touted as the first F1 car designed entirely in computer with zero wind tunnel testing, the VR-01 appears to have some roots in the IRL.  Which makes perfect sense, considering that Virgin's technical designer, Nick Wirth, did a lot of work with Dallara on their IRL chassis.  Specifically, that nose!  Mosquitos have wider probosces.  Compare the VR-01's needle-point nose to the humongous beak on the Renault, for example.

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In many ways the Toro Rosso STR5 has been the car I've been most looking forward to.  This is the first time the team has had to field an original design, as opposed to being a "client chassis" of the parent Red Bull team.  This puts them in an interesting position of being an experienced F1 team, but never having built their own car.  The question in my mind was how inventive they would be.

The answer turned out to be "not very."  It's essentially an updated STR4, which was the safe way to go for a relatively small team with an all-new design staff.

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Williams rolled out their new car at the first test in Valencia, and it's... conventional.

High nose with just a small downward angle.  Larger sidepod intakes. Pretty vanilla.



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Mercedes brought out their 2010 steed today, and it's pretty clear why they didn't want to roll their car out first.  It's got some interesting things in it, things that we haven't seen before!

No glamour pics, I'm afraid.  Reportedly, this chassis has been worked on (as the Brawn BGP-02) since the 2009 "summer break", so they've already filed off the rough edges.  It's a high nose (though not as high as some), with a serious nod to last year's Red Bull RB5 in that it copies the "V-nose" concept.  You'll note the raised edges, which in the MGP-W01 run all the way back to the cockpit.  The sidepod openings are huge in comparison to those in the McLaren or Ferrari.  The really innovative bit, however, is the air intake above the driver's head.  The structure serves two purposes on a F1 car: it gets air to the engine (ergo the name) and it acts as a roll bar to protect the driver in case the car ends up upside down.  In the past, the entire thing has been protective, built up out of carbon fiber to meet the required strength.  In the Mercedes, however, there is a thick vertical support on the centerline of the airbox that serves the same purpose.  The inlet is, in effect, split into two and is considerably larger as a result.


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