We are looking for a Fan Ambassador to go to Abu Dhabi in November to have the experience of a lifetime at a Shell V-Power Network of Champions event at Ferrari World- you will be invited to travel business class to Abu Dhabi from London, stay in a 4 star hotel, ride on the fastest rollercoaster in the world and then experience the Yas Marina GP Circuit just a week after the F1 cars have raced on it and days after the Young Guns test. And then we want you to report on the trip for this website.

All you have to do is tell us before midnight tonight (Saturday) – using the comment boxes below – why you (or one of your friends) deserve to win and why you are “as passionate about power and performance as Shell”. Only one entry is allowed per person. Please keep it brief, no more than 300 words

Your entry will be reviewed next week by an panel of bloggers and social media experts and the five most convincing and creative entries will be announced on October 16th – each of the five finalists win a free tank of premium Shell V-Power fuel and a chance to take part in the final stage of the competition, getting a chance to create some content.

To be in with a chance of winning you must:
- Be a resident of United Kingdom
- Be 18 years of age or over
- Have a full UK driving licence
- Be available to travel to Abu Dhabi on 18/19 November until 21 November 2011
- Have a reasonable level of fitness

Good luck and thanks to everyone who has put in an entry already.

For terms and conditions click HERE

Formula 1 seems trivial in comparison to the seismic events going on in the world, however sport and politics have already overlapped this season with the cancellation of Bahrain Grand Prix and I’m sure it will overlap again as F1 forges paths into new markets in an unsettled world.

The new season is here and I’m getting onto a Malaysian Airlines flight to Melbourne via Kuala Lumpur. I’ll arrive on Wednesday night in time for a shower, dinner and hopefully a good sleep before the business starts on Thursday. I’m interviewing Hamilton, Vettel, Webber, Heidfeld among others for Australian TV that day, the everyday interactions of F1 life will quickly get back into step; the lunge and parry of the drivers and media, the mischievous politicking of those higher up the food chain, the bustle in the paddock.

It’s a great feeling, the start of a new season and this is the 22nd time I’ve felt it.

Every year we travel hopefully, wanting it to be a good season low on politics and high on good racing. Lately it’s been pretty good, with seasons going down to the wire more often than not.

This season I reckon we’ll have loads of fun with the Pirelli tyres. It’sgoing to make the strategic side of the racing so much more important.

I’ve started a content strand, kindly supported by F1 sponsor UBS, where I will do a deep dive into the race strategy and how the decisions get taken, with inputs from insiders. I hope you like it, it should help fans to understand in more depth why things happened as they did in the races. I’m also doing pre-race strategy planning content which will sit on the UBS F1 website.

I predict a good battle for the title between Vettel and Alonso, which might get a bit fractious at times. Webber will give it everything to be part of the battle, Hamilton too.

I worry a little bit about his decision to take on Simon Fuller as manager. Hamilton came into F1 with single-minded focus on racing, his Dad’s strict discipline saw to that. Then he split with his Dad, got more into the LA lifestyle with his pop star girlfriend and now Fuller is going to make him into a brand.

Rumblings of unhappiness with the team that brought him into the sport have emerged since that management contract was signed. The relationship between the man and his team is changing. McLaren tried to be clever with this year’s car and it caught them out. Now it’s another uphill fight to catch the front runners.

In terms of other predictions I also think we’ll see a stronger Schumacher this year, mixing it with the younger front runners at times. I also expect quite a split in the middle of the grid with the stronger drivers in slower cars getting ahead of the weaker drivers in faster cars. There is a lot for the drivers to deal with this year with new tyres, KERS, adjustable rear wing and I think it’s a tough time to be a rookie.

The odds for the championship, according to Paddy Power, are

9/4 Vettel
11/4 Alonso
6/1 Hamilton
8/1 Webber
10/1 Schumacher
12/1 Rosberg
12/1 Button
14/1 Massa

What are your predictions for the season? Put them down below and to the one I like the most I’ll buy an Australian GP T shirt and send it to them!

Alexander Rossi with former BMW motorsport boss Mario Theissen

The drivers come from all over the world; Bahrain, France, Spain, Israel, Estonia, Norway, USA and New Zealand. There is a requirement for one candidate to come from each of the FIA’s five funding regions; the Americas, West and North Europe, East and Central Europe, Middle East/Africa and Asia/Oceania.

The FIA’s programme differs from other young driver programmes in two key areas; the programme is a training course rather than a source of funding for a season of racing, it’s something that will look good on a CV rather than present a cheque for a drive in F3. Secondly it has a strong emphasis on making the drivers into good ambassadors for the sport, particularly in terms of going back to their home regions and spreading the word on road safety, which is one of FIA president Jean Todt’s principal goals while in office.

As legendary F1 doctor Sid Watkins observes, “The Academy programme aims to ensure that our future stars are not just quick but also have the education and attitude that you need to succeed at the very top level.”

The spotlight on young talent and the opportunities or lack of them at the top level, comes at a time when racing teams are finding it increasingly hard to find sponsorship. It seems that perhaps 10 or 11 of the drivers on the F1 grid this coming season will be bringing sponsorship with them.

The 19 who will take part in the shootout are:

Kevin Abbring, 21, Netherlands
Winner of the Junior world rally championship.

Hamad Ahmed Al Fardan, 23, Bahrain
Finished 4th in the Rotax Max World kart Finals. Finished third in the rookie standings in FBMW Asia.

Paul-Loup Chatin, 19, France
Comes from F4 Eurocup 1.6 where he finished a fourth last season, with two victories.

Albert Costa, 20, Spain
Drove for Räikkönen Robertson Racing in F3. Won the Renault Eurocup in 2009 and graduated to the Formula Renault 3.5 Series in 2010.

Alon Day, 19, Israel
Won the Asian Formula Renault Challenge in 2009. Raced in the German F3 Championship last season. r

Philipp Eng, 20, Austria
Won the Italian Open Masters karting in 2004. Won the Formula BMW World Final in 2007. This earned him a test for the BMW Sauber Formula One team, which he undertook in 2008. Raced in F2 last two seasons.

Robin Frijns, 19, Netherlands
Finished third in the KF2 European Kart Championship. Won Formula BMW championship last season with six race victories.

Adam Gould, 23, UK
Won the Pirelli Star Driver rallying title and with it a Pirelli funded drive in a Subaru Impreza in the British Rally Championship in 2009.

Timmy Hansen, 18, Sweden
Third in the Formula BMW Championship last season

Egon Kaur, 23, Estonia
Won the Estonian Rally Championship in 2006. Has also competed in selected rounds of the World Rally Championship.

Andreas Mikkelsen, 21, Norway
Competed in the Intercontinental Rally Challenge, with a best finish of second on the 2010 Rally Scotland. Won the SWRC class at the season-ending 2010 Wales Rally GB.

Josef Newgarden, 20, USA
Won the TAG World Championship in karting. Runner up in British Formula Ford Championship in 2009 with nine wins. Raced in GP3 Series last year.

Norman Nato, 18, France
Finished fourth in the 2009 KZ1 World Kart Cup. Runner up in the F4 Renault Eurocup 1.6 last year

Alexander Rossi, 19, USA
Won Formula BMW USA series in 2008 he won the series with ten wins from the fifteen races. He completed the season by winning the 2008 Formula BMW World Championship and was awarded a Formula One test with BMW Sauber F1 Team. Raced in 2009–10 GP2 Asia Series. In 2010 finished fourth in GP3 Series. He has former USF1 front man Peter Windsor working in his team.

Jan Skala, 19,Czech Republic
Jan Skala started as a rally driver switched to circuit racing. Won the European Cup Formula 1400.

Richie Stanaway, 19, New Zealand
Originally from a speedway background. Moved to Germany and won the ADAC Formel Masters season championship last year.

Molly Taylor, 22, Australia
She moved to the UK to compete in the full British Rally Championship in the Suzuki Swift Sport Cup, winning three of the six events.

Stoffel Vandoorne, 18, Belgium
In 2009 he finished as runner-up in the CIK-FIA World Cup in KF2 category. Won the F4 Eurocup 1.6 series, taking six wins. In 2011, he will graduate to Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup.

Joni Wiman, 17, Finland
Has competed in karting, rallying and circuit racing. Came second in the 2008 European Championship in karting. Raced in the 2010 Formula Renault UK Winter Series.

I’m interested in this because I’m always interested in future trends. In its statutes the FIA now has an “Electric and New Energy Championships Commission” and many of the world’s leading car manufacturers are investing heavily in EVs for the road.

It’s not surprising therefore that a group has got together to see if they can make a business out of EV Racing. They have done a deal with Creative Artists Agency to help them develop the brand, marketing, sponsorship, broadcast and so on. CAA works with sports properties like the New York Yankees and Madison Square Garden as well as managing personalities like Jack Nicklaus. Former Manchester United chief executive Peter Kenyon is part of the team.

The plan is to have races in the UK, USA, Portugal and Spain. There are plans for a race at Silverstone on 6th August, Snetterton 20th August, Rockingham 10th September, and Brands Hatch on 23rd October. Qualifying and race take place on the same day and the races will last 30 minutes.

According to the EV Cup statement, “The historic seven-race green motorsport series, the EV Cup, will include two principle classes of zero emission electric cars – the City EV cars, where drivers will compete in carbon-free, race-prepared urban THINK cars, and the Sports EV class, which will feature teams racing 185 KPH Westfield iRacers.”

The problems holding back the spread of EVs on the road are cost of batteries and worries over limited range. I really believe that if they can solve the range issue, then electric car sales will rocket.

If the EV Cup can ultimately get the manufacturers and automotive engineering companies to use racing as a test bed for development, as has been one of motorsport’s key roles since it began, it can only help the industry.

I can see this kind of thing increasing in profile and popularity, particularly if they make the racing entertaining. I might take my boys along to the race at Silverstone to have a look. But I think it will be a long time before it replaces the internal combustion engine as a prime mover of racing cars. The noise is a crucial part of racing. EVs make no noise at all and that is culturally very awkward for race fans. What the EV Cup initiative and other like it will do, however, is put the spotlight on F1 to make sure that it is evolving in the right way technologically, with energy regeneration a central part of its specification, as is planned for 2013 and beyond. Whilst not under immediate threat from it, the sport cannot afford to dismiss it either.

“We are creating an opportunity for the EV manufacturers and suppliers to promote their technologies in a new and exciting way. Green motor sport is a reality,” said Sylvain Filippi, the Director of the EV Cup.

“The EV Cup is a ground-breaking concept that creates unique marketing and sponsorship opportunities for major brand advertisers, through social responsibility programmes and other marketing initiatives,” said Peter Kenyon of CAA Sports. “We look forward to utilizing our resources across the globe in sports and entertainment to help build the EV Cup into a premier racing series and valuable advertising platform.”

The EV Cup already has some backers from the motor sport world like Ben Collins (aka The Stig) and Damon Hill.

There are so many ways to look at the story of Ferrari’s 2010 season, but let’s start with the helicopter view, the overview in other words. Ferrari hires Alonso (finally) gives him a winning car and despite a few mistakes he establishes himself as clear number one, takes the chances, wins races and then loses the title at the last round due to a bad mistake on strategy by his team.

The inescapable conclusion from this is that Alonso owed Ferrari one after his early season mistakes, but he made good. Now Ferrari very definitely owe Alonso one after the error in Abu Dhabi. And that sets the scene for 2011.

The detail is more complex and more controversial, of course; Alonso is hired as the team lets Raikkonen go. The Finn turned out to be not what the team was looking for, Alonso fitted the bill much better, he’s more in the mould of a Schumacher. After the euphoria of a debut win, there were some sticky moments early season, when he made out of character mistakes, like jumping the start in China or crashing in Monaco, but overall he got himself into a position to win the title, which is what you get when you hire Alonso.

Meanwhile the team showed great compassion towards its other driver Felipe Massa, keeping a seat open for him despite his head injury and backing him with a new contract, when he was struggling in the early summer. But the defining moment of his season – and to many fans of Ferrari’s – was the team orders episode in Germany.

Massa was moved aside by a message from his engineer Rob Smedley, who didn’t try too hard to disguise it. The TV director ran the audio clip and the world knew what it meant. The stewards said Ferrari had broken the rules and fined them, many fans and media felt the same way and called for stronger punishment. In the end the FIA couldn’t or wouldn’t do any more with the case on the basis of the evidence, but it did force the removal of the team orders rule, so now the big switcheroo can be done at will and I’m sure we will see team orders being used in 2011.

A fair minded person might say that the FIA’s lenience over Hockenheim leveled the scores a bit with the two episodes in Valencia and Silverstone where Alonso came out very much on the wrong side of the FIA and its stewards over episodes involving the safety car and lost a hatfull of points. In Valencia he lost out through no fault of his own, in Silverstone he tried to be clever passing Kubica and then got unlucky as Kubica retired so he couldn’t give the place back as the FIA asked him to.

Of course that episode in Hockenheim didn’t happen in isolation, many roads led to it. Alonso was angry in Australia to be left following Massa when he felt he had a chance to challenge Button for the win. In China he was behind Massa again and took matters into his own hands, passing the Brazilian in the pit lane. The team’s reaction to that told you everything about its attitude to the drivers’s roles; good on Alonso, driving like a champion. Massa’s mistake in Hockenheim was not staying far enough out of reach.

On the technical side Ferrari did a great job on the whole. The car was quick in testing, almost as quick as the Red Bull in the early races, but then tailed off as they lost ground trying to incorporate an F Duct. Monaco was a chance, but Alonso blew it. Turkey was the low point; an uncompetitive mess. A crude blown diffuser gave an uplift in performance from Valencia onwards, moving Ferrari ahead of the McLaren on pace and then a second more sophisticated one put them right in Red Bull’s wheeltracks, where they stayed to the end. This was enough to give Alonso a chance to fight back and he did so with three wins in four races from Monza to Korea.

As a result of Abu Dhabi Ferrari have changed the whole way they plan and execute race strategy with new people and new processes. It should make them more sure footed in key moments, certainly the background to every decision will be much more profound. The change sees two Englishmen called in to bring calm to the hot seats – an echo of the Brawn era?

Change where necessary, yes, but the fundamentals of this team remain the same; give Alonso a fast enough car and Ferrari will be in the title fight come Brazil in November. Where Massa fits in is anyone’s guess.

Alonso photo: Darren Heath; Drawing: Paolo Filisetti

For a full look back on the 2010 season, with race reports, detailed stories from behind the scenes and personal anecdotes, grab a copy of the JA on F1 2010 Season Review. It’s a limited print run and most are now sold, but if you haven’t bought one yet now’s your chance. It costs just £9-99 plus postageBUY BOOK

It was a season of two halves for the team, with a lamentable first half and a fairly positive second half. Kamui Kobayashi turned out to be a real star and he’s the first Japanese driver I’ve encountered who has a big appeal to European fans. I thought Sato would be popular in Europe but it didn’t work out that way, whereas Kobayashi has a real fighting spirit and an air of cool about him which makes him a fan favourite.

His bold pass on Alonso in the closing stages of the race at Valencia was a real highlight of the year for its sheer audacity alone. Of course he had a massive advantage being on new soft tyres while Alonso was on old hards, but it was still great to see a Sauber passing a Ferrari. It reminded me of Jean Alesi in the Tyrrell attacking Ayrton Senna in Phoenix in 1990. Kobayashi reminds me a bit of Alesi, actually.

Sauber was in rebuild mode last season after BMW’s withdrawal from the sport in 2009. There was some solid budget there from BMW to design and develop the car and they kept some BMW branding as a result – pretty much the only branding on this alarmingly white car – but this was the Sauber team pure and simple back on its own as a small independent, a place Peter Sauber hoped he would never be again.

He has to be admired for his survivor spirit and he ended the year with a very solid looking partnership with Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world via his Telmex company, which could be the salvation of the team. Sergio Perez is the lucky Mexican driver who gets the race seat as part of this deal and it’s happy days all round at Hinwil.

The technical department did a poor job with the car, which was a real handful to drive at the start of the season. It had two or three inbuilt aerodynamic imbalances and poor traction out of slow corners. It was also unstable mid-corner, judging from early season super slow-mo shots. James Key, who knows more about getting bang for your buck in F1 than anyone except his mentor Mike Gascoyne, joined the team after the season started and did a great job to turn the car around into scoring solid points in the second half of the season.

Pedro de la Rosa started out the season as Kobayashi’s team mate, but found himself replaced by Nick Heidfeld from Singapore onwards. De la Rosa was a curious signing by Sauber; he undoubtedly had the engineering ability but he’d never been super F1 quick. What he did bring with him from McLaren, however, was a heads up on the devilishly clever F Duct idea. Sauber was the first team to have a copy on its car, so they had clearly started developing it before the season.

Heidfeld jumped into De la Rosa’s seat for the last five races and had a go, but he had to bow to the inevitable when the Telmex deal came off for 2011. So he’s on the sidelines again.

Will Sauber be any stronger in 2011? They are in that group along with Force India, Williams and Toro Rosso who will all be hoping that the rule changes don’t move them further away from the front runners (I think they will) and who will also be looking over their shoulders at Lotus in particular, who have targetted them for their second season in F1. That’s a big gap to bridge, but the Lotus strategy was always more geared to 2011 that 2010, which was a ‘getting to know you’ year.

Photos: Darren Heath

According to the team’s website, “Neil Martin takes on the role of heading up the new Operations Research department. A 38 year old Englishman, Martin previously worked for Red Bull and prior to that McLaren and he will now report directly to Technical Director, Aldo Costa.

“At the same time, Costa’s deputy, Pat Fry will, in addition to his current role, take on the job of head of race track engineering. Up until yesterday, this position was held by Chris Dyer and his role within the company will be redefined in the next few days.”

So as predicted Dyer falls on the sword for the strategy mistake in Abu Dhabi.

Meanwhile Neil Martin is an interesting appointment. He comes from the financial services field originally and wrote a programme which he realised had uses for F1 strategy. He showed it to McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh who hired him on the strength of it.

He was headhunted by Red Bull and headed up their strategy unit until last year when he promptly left the team. Last summer there were suggestions he would be joining Ferrari but I got a categorical denial from Ferrari when I asked. On the face of it, it seems that the events of Abu Dhabi have prompted a rethink. Ferrari say this is not the case and that Martin was hired before Abu Dhabi.

Although Ferrari say that Martin’s role is not specifically to run race strategies, it is more of a strategic overview role looking at ways of improving operations across the board, his appointment will also have been at the behest of Fry with whom he worked at McLaren. It takes up part of the role Fry was due to have and has been done because Fry now puts his head in the lion’s mouth as head of track operations, making the big calls, an area where Ferrari has struggled a few times in recent years.

Probably the least talked about team in F1, I have to admit I’ve always found Toro Rosso a bit of an enigma. Why does Red Bull persist with owning a second team now that the rules prohibit the kind of chassis data exchange which used to make it a low overhead business and now that the main Red Bull team is competing at the highest level? Is there any scope for the team to grow and if so in what ways?

It has been for sale at various stages along the way and no doubt Red Bull would be willing to sell if the right kind of buyer came along to focus resources on Milton Keynes. The Toro Rosso team is well inside the limit for the Resource Restriction Agreement era, has reasonable facilities in Faenza, Italy and a wind tunnel in the UK. It’s not as attractive as Sauber, with its full scale wind tunnel and CFD facilities but it’s a proper racing team.

I can see why there were strong political reasons for the Red Bull team to buy the Minardi team from Paul Stoddart in 2005, it gave them a second vote and that proved important when it came to the teams’ vote on going to a single tyre supplier, which led to the departure of Michelin from F1. But the team doesn’t really feel like it has a sense of purpose or direction. It’s always in the shadow of the man Red Bull team and diverts resources away from it. Now the expansion of the grid with three new teams means that Red Bull’s share of the vote has been diluted to two of 12 votes

The model is based on young driver development – initially there was a push to develop a US driver, something both Red Bull and Formula 1 would dearly love. Scott Speed proved not to be the right guy and since then the team has developed Sebastian Vettel, now a world champion.

The 2010 season was Toro Rosso’s first year of making its own chassis and that inevitably came with a high price tag in terms of a learning experience. There were some scary moments, such as when Buemi’s wheels blew off under braking in China, but on the whole the team did a reasonable job given its resources. Engineering chief Giorgio Ascanelli oversaw the evolution of a car from the DNA of the previous year’s Red Bull, with a double diffuser, which became a blown diffuser in September, but never gained a raceable F Duct.

The year was very much one of making up the numbers for the team with Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari both having reasonable seasons, punctuated with the odd moment of brilliance and the odd howler, such as Buemi’s collision with Timo Glock in Korea.

Buemi had four points scoring finishes including an 8th in Montreal, while Alguersuari scored points three times, including a fighting drive to 9th in Abu Dhabi. It’s hard to evaluate how much of a success the season was for the team.

Alguersuari tended to qualify around P16/17 with an uplift towards the end of the year, including an impressive 11th on the grid in Singapore. Buemi was a place or two further ahead in general, but his performance tailed off in the final part of the season. Buemi started strongly, but the final third of the season saw the Spaniard getting the better of him to the point where some doubts were raised about whether he would keep his drive for next season.

With the next wave of young Red Bull talent coming through, led by Australian Daniel Ricciardo, the pressure is on Buemi and Alguersuari. Although the team confirmed both of them for 2011 during last season, the recent FIA entry list had TBA against both the teams’ race numbers. I think there’s a good chance we will see Ricciardo in one of the cars at some point in 2011.

Photos: Red Bull (top) & Darren Heath (Alguersuari)

I found the Renault team very interesting to study this year on several levels. Organisationally, the team had new ownership in the shape of tech investor Gerard Lopez and his Genii company. It retained some participation from the Renault car company, but that ended after the season finished as Genii bought out Renault’s 25% stake. The intention is to sell between 25% and 40% of the company to Group Lotus, which also becomes title sponsor for the next three years. Lopez has all sorts of innovative ideas of how to use the F1 team as a platform and the Lotus deal clearly has a lot more to do with a wider business play. Since 2009 this team has moved in two phases from being a manufacturer team to an independent. The problem now will be one of positioning over the use of the Lotus name, with Tony Fernandes already running Team Lotus.

Operationally, the team was led by Eric Boullier, who seems a disciplined, clear sighted manager. James Allison took over as engineering guru from his mentor Pat Symonds, while the old firm of Alan Permane and Rod Nelson decided how they go racing. It’s a very experienced line up of guys, now in their 40s, who were the juniors when Benetton was winning in the 1990s and now they are in charge.

The team had a new lead driver in Robert Kubica and he took up where Fernando Alonso left off; he’s fast, consistent, makes few mistakes, is strong in races and provides good leadership from the cockpit. He was paired with Russian rookie Vitaly Petrov. Initially Kubica wasn’t too happy about not having an experienced driver alongside him during a time when testing is banned as it inevitably slows development. Also Petrov was unable to hit the target of 50% of the lead driver’s points. But the Russian did contribute to the story of the season and his presence encourages Russian interest in the sport which is a price worth paying in my view.

Kubica did a brilliant job, with some stunning drives like the podiums in Australia and Monaco. After a difficult final year with BMW in 2009, he restored his reputation and most F1 insiders and fans would like to see what he would do if given a race winning car. So far most of his career has been lived outside of the pressure of a season-long title fight. I’d love to see how Kubica handles real high stakes pressure; I suspect very well

Technically the team produced an okay car, which wasn’t generally quite as fast as the Mercedes, albeit was occasionally faster on certain circuits, probably due to Kubica making the difference.

I was blown away by the array of new front wings coming out of Enstone; it seemed like there was a new one virtually every race. They were beautiful, cascading creations, illustrating that the self confidence of the aero department was coming back after a tough time under old boss Flavio Briatore. And although it took them a while to get an F Duct on the car it worked brilliantly first time out in Spa.

Where will Renault be in 2011? Mercedes are expected to get into the fight with McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari. Can Renault make that step too? It means finding about 7/10ths more than the Red Bull designers find. With new rules on rear wings and diffusers anything’s possible.

Williams is considered the weather vane of F1 – if it is in reasonable shape, then F1 is in good shape. The team struggled during the manufacturer era, whereas this moment should be good for the team, with the Resource Restriction Agreement pulling the staff numbers and resources of the leading teams down.

The team is definitely in transition from the late Frank Williams/Patrick Head days to the Adam Parr/Sam Michael days. This means everything from finding sponsors and drivers to technical direction. In practice it has been this way for a while but now it’s official.

The Williams team entered 2010 having not won a race in five years and while that didn’t change, there was at least the pole of rookie Nico Hulkenberg – the team’s first pole position for five years – at the Brazilian Grand Prix to boost the team. Sadly, that wasn’t enough to save his job as just nine days later he got the boot with this season’s GP2 champion Pastor Maldonado taking his place. Several sponsors left the team at the end of the year; RBS and Philips particularly and Maldonado brings a significant sponsorship package from Venezuela. This allows the team to retain Rubens Barrichello, whose impact on the team was very noticeable as the year went on.

Williams had a reasonable car at the start of the year, but it wasn’t very driver friendly. And Williams’ resources are not what they once were, so they couldn’t afford to run multiple programmes or take a wrong direction. With his 18 years experience, Barrichello made suggestions for an aerodynamic direction which really started to show results in the second half of the season. From Valencia onwards he qualified in the top ten at every race, bar one. He lined up seventh on the grid for the final race in Abu Dhabi, a very positive sign. Where Williams were impressive technically was in being able to incorporate the blown diffuser straight away. They brought it to Valencia, tested it on Friday and raced it on Sunday. McLaren struggled to do that.

Barrichello told me at the end of the season that he thinks his input on the design phase of the 2011 car should make it a more driveable car from the outset. He’s loving being listened to by his team and is driving very well. He should easily have the measure of Maldonado. This year Hulkenberg was on his pace in the second half of the season and the German was always faster than Maldonado when they were team mates in GP2.

Will the Williams team win again? Will the new management team be able to build it up to championship level using the existing business model and technical team? It’s a long term process and no doubt Parr has a strategic plan.

The team is diversifying into hybrid technology in partnership with the authorities in Qatar and I suspect that Parr has also had extensive discussions with the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar about getting more involved with the team as Abu Dhabi is with Ferrari and Bahrain with McLaren. That could be a bit of a game changer for the team if they pull that off. For 2011 they have the funds from Maldonado as well as other sponsorship income and FOM money, but the fact that they had to drop Hulkenberg tells its own painful story.

I’ve seen Williams from close up through several phases of their history, particularly the long, successful period of the 1990s. F1 is a different game now and needs a different road map. Let’s hope Williams finds it.