Campos is undergoing a name change today and this will be made public shortly. Sections of the Spanish media have suggested that it will be called “Hispania Racing”, in line with the new majority owner Jose Ramon Carabante’s business enterprises.

Kolles: Turning Campos German

The team will use the Dallara chassis designed and built for Campos and the Cosworth engines they have already paid for.

Adrian Campos is no longer involved; he was apparently offered an honorary position in the team, but turned it down.

Spanish sources say that Carabante has put €12 million into the team already and following a meeting with Bernie Ecclestone last week was encouraged to invest a further €12 million. Ecclestone has apparently assured him that he will get his investment back. It appears that he may be a saviour/broker figure rather than a long term investor, but time will tell.

There have been a lot of rumours that Volkswagen is in the background of this deal, but there are several problems with this theory. The first is that if VW/Audi group were to come into F1, they would probably start with Red Bull Racing as the energy drinks company has poured many millions of Euros into VW/Audi motorsport programmes over recent years in an attempt to get them to come in. And they are at the cutting edge of F1 design technology. Although Kolles is well connected in Germany and the factory will be based there, there are other teams with a better claim on VW/Audi’s attention at this stage than a team which is using a customer car and is starting from scratch.

The other problem is that there is no point in a manufacturer coming into F1 before 2013 as the engine formula will change totally then, so an investment in a 2.4 litre V8 for only a year or two of racing doesn’t make sense. It works for Cosworth because they had an existing engine they could easily adapt.

The rules for the 2013 engine will probably be specified later this year by the FIA and are likely to be very green and futuristic. Max Mosely wanted the formula to be based on fuel use rather than CCs. Jean Todt has indicated that he wants it to be road relevant. Either way it is likely to be a 1.5 litre four cylinder turbo or something of that kind with a big 120 KW electric hybrid motor, harvesting energy under braking.

The FIA will be sounding out manufacturers and potential manufacturers to see what engine would work best and once the new rules are specified, it is possible to imagine one or two manufacturers coming in if the engine is relavant to the motor industry of the future.

Ferrari launched its first hybrid car today, with a KERS system derived from the F1 programme, so this is clearly the direction of travel.

Meanwhile word is spreading from the USA that the staff at USF1 have been told today that the operation is closing down and the dream is over. Eddie Jordan has stuck his neck out again and said that Stefan will be on the grid in Bahrain, with Jacques Villeneuve in the car. He is acting on an inside tip off and this could be a smokescreen, a bit of tree shaking, but with USF1 collapsing and its driver Jose Maria Lopez in discussions with Campos, it looks like Stefan is making a mighty final push to get on the grid next week. The team has not managed to test yet because of a lack of tyres, but has the Toyota chassis designed for this year and a supply of its engines.

Incidentally the information that former McLaren sporting director Dave Ryan is with Stefan GP is incorrect. There were discussions but Ryan did not join the team. However former McLaren designer Mike Coughlan is there. Also negotiating with Stefan is USF1 investor and You Tube founder, Chad Hurley.

It has been suggested that Bruno Senna is required to come up with some money to secure the Campos seat he signed for some months ago and that Karun Chandhok is being lined up for the second seat.

The move follows Campos’ abortive efforts to sell the team to A1GP boss Tony Teixeira.

Tonight Kolles issued a statement, announcing the development. It said that Kolles was tasked with making sure that “the team is fully operational and ready to make its Bahrain debut next month.”

Carabante said, “I would like to thank Bernie Ecclestone, who worked tremendously to support our efforts to keep the team viable. The whole rescue operation has been a race against time with the goal of always having the team run two competitive cars at the first Grand Prix of the F1 season in Bahrain. We have a lot of hard work still ahead of us but we are excited about making our F1 debut and looking forward to a competitive season.”

The move was described as a “rescue” and Kolles issued a bullish statement, “Over the next ten days we will review the entire operation, find the extra funding to ensure the team will make the first race in Bahrain, announce the line-up for 2010 in due time and make the operation viable under Jose Ramon Carabante’s new ownership.”

The team headquarters will remain in Spain. The move is good news for Bruno Senna, the only driver confirmed by Campos so far. He committed some time ago and has since seen other GP2 graduates land secure seats in F1. The car, designed and built for Campos by Dallara, has yet to be track tested and it will be a race against time to have the car ready for the start of the season. There is no word yet of whether the team might manage a shakedown or test before the first race. Either way, Bahrain and the fly-aways will be a very difficult public test for the team. But at least they will be racing.

Nor is there any word on whether the moves behind the scenes which brought this about will lead to an amalgamation of Campos and USF1, or at least the transfer of USF1′s driver Jose Maria Lopez to Campos.

Meanwhile Stefan GP is waiting in the wings for an opening on the entry list and for the FIA to grant it an entry.

“Stefan Grand Prix writes history! SGP becomes the first team in F1 history who did send a 40 foot container full of equipment to the race in Bahrain without having entry for 2010 season!” said a statement.

“On Friday 29th January we showed our spirit, and how serious our management and our employees are when they say that we are pushing to get the entry, and that they want to race in 2010 season.

“Anyway we are proud of us, and on our power of will, so we will keep going and show some new people belong in F1.”

Stefan GP has taken over the assets of Toyota’s F1 programme and the cars which the team had developed.

They have also made two interesting hirings; last year they recruited designer Mike Coughlan, who was at the heart of the McLaren spy scandal of 2007 and also former McLaren sporting director Dave Ryan, who was ousted last season following Lewis Hamilton’s episode of lying to the race stewards in Melbourne.

Notwithstanding the Melbourne episode, Ryan is one of the most experienced and respected figures in F1 with a pedigree stretching back to James Hunt’s days.

An experienced hand like Ryan will know the difficulties of getting freight out to early Grands Prix, something some of the other new teams are grappling with as they get up to speed on how F1 works.

They are pushing hard because they are aware that the sale of Campos to A1 GP boss Tony Teixeira is not being met with approval at the higher levels of the sport.

Some of the key staff from Toyota’s programme are still there including technical director Pascal Vasselon. Sources suggest that the cars should be quiet competitive, if given a chance to compete, particularly in qualifying, although the Toyota’s fuel consumption was not as competitive as the benchmark engines and so they may have to run slightly heavier fuel loads in races, if they get the chance to race.

That will depend on the proposed takeover of Campos. Some powerful figures are said to be unsure about it. Ferrari are owed several million euros and it is hard to see how they would approve of him making an entry without settling the debts.

The issue was discussed at yesterday’s F1 commission meeting.

Meanwhile it appears that the proposal for new teams to be allowed to have three ‘no-shows’ at Grands Prix has now been agreed. It appears that these can be taken at any time so it is theoretically possible for a new team to miss the first three races of the season and start at Shanghai on April 18th.

Meanwhile word is reaching me that A1 GP boss Tony Teixeira has now agreed a deal to acquire Campos, the money is yet to be handed over, however. Campos has a slot on the grid this season, Stefan does not, but wants one badly.

And, intriguingly, with several new teams struggling one way or another, it appears that a deal may have been agreed whereby the new teams will be allowed three ‘no-shows’ at races in the next season.

Stefanovich (right) in Cologne last month

The deal is reputed to be a very generous one, it gives a team the cars Toyota developed for 2010, plus technical support from the staff Toyota has maintained for very little cost. It’s almost a turn-key operation. I’ve spoken to some of the new team owners about this deal and they had their own reasons for turning it down, despite the fact that the alternative requires massive investment and infrastructure. In the case of Lotus, the specific terms and conditions were not attractive, as they involved Lotus dispensing with the services of key personnel. Ironically many of the Toyota staff have now gone to Lotus, so much so that Jarno Trulli says he feels very at home already with the team.

As FOTA president Martin Whitmarsh said before the Stefan announcement on Friday, “Toyota built two cars that were available from Christmas, and I am rather surprised that some of them (new teams) did not do that – they rather looked a gift horse in the mouth. That was perhaps the wrong decision, but nevertheless they had their own reasons for that decision. We have to see in the coming weeks or months whether we can help those new teams to be there to add to the flavour and diversity of F1.”

It’s pretty late in the day now, the deal was on offer last November. Team principal Zoran Stefanovich appears to enjoy some governmental support thanks to his industrial connections in the aerospace and aviation business. He has been looking at Toyota F1 since the pull out and has been a frequent visitor to the team HQ in Cologne, Germany. He has been putting out regular messages, such as the car, dubbed S-01, passing its crash tests on 29 December. But it has taken until now for him to commit. The question is, why has he committed now? Is there about to be a 13th slot on the grid for him?

The team has said that if it does not get an entry this time it will test throughout the year, as it is entitled to do as it would be outside F1 restrictions. But this statement looks like the firing gun for a period of pressure to get a race entry in 2010.

Teixeira with Felipe Massa

Teixeira recently lost a $4.5 million lawsuit with Team USA over withdrawing their franchise in the A1 GP series.

It’s a very delicate process and needs to be handled carefully, but the FIA and FOM will understandably want some assurances; the last thing anyone wants is for the whole new teams initiative to turn into an embarrassment.

The next F1 commission meeting this week will be very interesting.