Bridgestone, which is in the final year as tyre supplier to F1, is not obliged to supply tyres to the Serbian outfit and according to Stefan GP, it hasn’t come up with 2010 tyres for them to test.

After weeks of pushing hard and issuing go ahead statements, this is the first time Stefan have got some egg on their face. They have been filling the news wires with stories of taking over the Toyota F1 assets, sending containers to Bahrain, hiring ex McLaren designer Mike Coughlan and being in final negotiations with drivers like Jacques Villeneuve and Ralf Schumacher, both of whom have said that it’s not as serious a relationship as that just yet.

This is Formula 1 and stories like this always seem to have a place, so Stefan pumps them out; talk is cheap and there is a voracious media with a great appetite for stories. It’s very easy to get headlines every day until such time as a boundary is reached. Not testing when you said you were going to test is such a boundary.

Interestingly Bernie Ecclestone is a big backer of this Stefan GP bid and an influential figure, yet a supply of tyres was not forthcoming.

Meanwhile I sense a growing lack of patience over USF1′s situation from within F1. Having asked to be allowed to miss the first four races of the season, although some argue that they merely enquired about the possibility, there doesn’t seem to be much sympathy for them, nor much belief that they will get a car out in the foreseeable future.

The FIA has made it clear in a statement recently that, “From a sporting and regulatory point of view, each Team that has registered for the Championship is obliged to take part in every event of the season. Any failure to take part, even for just one Championship event, would constitute an infringement both of the Concorde Agreement and the FIA Regulations.”

As regulator of the series, the FIA has the responsibility to act in the interests of the series, so if there is a belief that the team may make it, if granted a dispensation, that could happen.

However if major doubts exist as to the viability of one of the competitors and another appears to be viable, particularly if it has the backing of the commercial rights holder, then the way is clear for the original entrant to lose his entry.

Time is running out.

“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.