2010 Formula One season

The 2010 Formula One season was the 61st Formula One season of World Championship motor racing competition. Red Bull Racing won its maiden Constructors' Championship with a one-two finish in Brazil, while Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel won the Drivers' Championship after winning the final race of the season. In doing so, Vettel became the youngest World Drivers' Champion in the sport's sixty-year history. Vettel's victory in the championship came after a dramatic season finale at Abu Dhabi where three other drivers could also have won the championship; Vettel's Red Bull Racing team mate Mark Webber, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.

This was Bridgestone's last season as the sole tyre supplier in Formula One as the company announced that it would not renew its contract at the end of the season. After several months of deliberation, Pirelli was chosen as the tyre supplier for the 2011 season at the FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting in Geneva, in June 2010.

The technical and sporting regulations applicable for the season were the subject of much debate. Before the start of the season, 2009 Drivers' Champion Jenson Button joined McLaren, while the 2009 Constructors' Champion, Brawn GP, was bought by German motor vehicle manufacturer Mercedes-Benz and was renamed as Mercedes GP. The 2010 season saw the return of the most successful driver in Formula One history, with seven-time World Champion Michael Schumacher coming out of retirement after a three-year absence.

The season's first race was held on March 14 in Bahrain and the season concluded on November 14 in the United Arab Emirates after 19 motor races held in 18 countries on five continents.

Teams and drivers
The following teams and drivers compete in the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship. With the withdrawal of BMW and Toyota, engine diversity in Formula One dropped to a 30-year low, with just four engine producers powering the entire grid, the lowest since.

New entries process
The FIA announced its intention to open up the grid, aiming for a total of 13 teams, and in July 2009 selected three new teams from 15 new applicants, as well as confirming the entry of all 10 existing teams. The existing F1 teams, under the FOTA organisation, are understood to have agreed a system of technical support to assist new teams. This compromise proposal would involve the supply of parts and design knowledge to the new entrants, but not full customer cars, in return for which the budget cap idea was dropped.

The three teams on the entry list released in July 2009 included Campos Meta, a Spanish team led by former driver and GP2 team owner Adrian Campos and Madrid-based sports advertising agency Meta Image; Manor Grand Prix, an F3 team run by John Booth and designer Nick Wirth; and USF1, a team created by former designer Ken Anderson and journalist Peter Windsor. Following the withdrawal of BMW Sauber, Lotus Racing was accepted to the grid. Manor became known as Virgin Racing after Richard Branson's Virgin Group purchased naming rights to the team, while Campos-Meta was reimagined as Hispania Racing after investor José Ramón Carabante purchased the team from Adrian Campos shortly before the first race of the season. USF1 officially withdrew from the championship in early March, following months of speculation and accusations from whistleblowers that the team had been crippled by mismanagement for months.

The FIA also had several entry bids from other racing teams including World Series by Renault and Le Mans entrant Epsilon Euskadi, Dave Richards' highly successful Prodrive outfit and Italian touring car team N.Technology as well as re-imaginings of former teams March, Brabham, Lola Cars and Team Lotus (not to be confused with Lotus Racing). Other expressions of interest came from Team Superfund, an Austrian outfit to be fronted by former driver Alex Wurz and myf1dream.com, a team established by fans of the sport and funded by their donations. Experienced sports car and touring car entrant Ray Mallock Limited had intended to submit an entry bid, but decided against it following the mid-season political crisis.

Of the most interest to the media was Stefan Grand Prix, created by Zoran Stefanovic and hailed as Serbia's first Formula 1 team. Stefan claimed to have acquired the remains of Toyota's abandoned TF110 chassis and engine and had access to Toyota Motorsport's former headquarters in Cologne, Germany. After being rejected from the grid, Stefanovic filed a complaint with the European Commission over the entry selection process and then announced his intentions to continue development of the Toyota chassis, re-badged as the Stefan S-01, with the team even going so far as to send equipment to Bahrain, Australia and Malaysia. After several difficulties including the cancellation of a planned test in Portugal when Bridgestone refused to supply tyres, Stefan attempted to purchase the defunct USF1 entry, but the moves were blocked. Stefan was finally rejected on March 4 when the FIA stated that it was not possible to issue entries so close to the season opener.

Team changes

 * BMW announced on 29 July 2009 their withdrawal from Formula One at the end of the 2009 Formula One season, citing a lack of future viability and sustainability for the Formula One program. After a failed buy out from Qadbak Investments, the team was sold back to Peter Sauber. The FIA officially accepted the team to the 2010 grid under the name BMW Sauber on 3 December, using Ferrari engines after the Toyota withdrawal.
 * Toyota withdrew from Formula One on 4 November 2009, due to economic hardship. After announcing they would not sell the team on, their grid slot went to the Sauber team. Then, Stefan Grand Prix claimed that they had acquired rights to the Toyota Motorsport's former headquarters in Cologne and the TF110 that was renamed Stefan S-01.
 * Scuderia Toro Rosso became an independent constructor in 2010, after having their chassis supplied by the Red Bull Technologies design studio for the first years of racing. This had allowed the team to purchase customer chassis, despite the concept being banned by the FIA. This loophole was closed for 2010, meaning that the STR5 2010 car will be the first car Toro Rosso have built on their own, having spent most of expanding their base of operations in Faenza, Italy to accommodate production facilities.
 * Daimler AG, parent company of Mercedes-Benz, bought a 75.1% controlling stake in the 2009 champions Brawn GP, renaming the team Mercedes Grand Prix. Mercedes' former 40% stake in the McLaren Group will be purchased back by McLaren, although Mercedes will continue to supply McLaren engines and sponsorship until 2015. Mercedes signed a sponsorship deal with Petronas, with the Malaysian petroleum company ending its association with BMW Sauber, and the team was renamed to Mercedes GP Petronas Formula One Team.
 * Renault had sold Gerard Lopez and his Genii Capital investment company a 75% majority shareholding, in order to secure the teams future. The team will continue to operate under the Renault name and the engine department remains under full Renault ownership. The deal leaves the possibility for Renault to regain complete ownership once the global economic situation has stabilised.

Driver changes

 * Changed teams
 * Fernando Alonso left Renault to drive for Ferrari in 2010, replacing Kimi Räikkönen who left the team at the end of the 2009 season. Alonso has signed a three year deal up to the end of 2012, with options for further years.
 * Rubens Barrichello moved from Brawn to Williams.
 * Jenson Button joined Lewis Hamilton at McLaren following the failure to negotiate a contract with Mercedes GP, which bought out his 2009 team, Brawn GP. This meant that McLaren had signed the two most recent World Champions, and had the sport's first double champion line-up since Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, also driving for McLaren, in.
 * Timo Glock officially joined Virgin Racing, after leaving the Toyota Racing team.
 * Kamui Kobayashi, who made his dеbut for the now-defunct Toyota team at the end of 2009 covering for the injured Timo Glock, transferred to the newly revived Sauber team.
 * Heikki Kovalainen joined the new Lotus Racing team, after leaving McLaren.
 * Robert Kubica left BMW Sauber to drive for Renault in 2010, as a replacement for Alonso.
 * Nico Rosberg left Williams at the end of the 2009 season after four years with the team, moving to Mercedes GP.
 * Jarno Trulli moved from Toyota to Lotus Racing.


 * Entered Formula One
 * Karun Chandhok, who placed eighteenth in the 2009 GP2 Series for Ocean Racing Technology, joined former iSport International team-mate Bruno Senna at Hispania Racing. Chandhok is the second Formula One driver from India, after Narain Karthikeyan drove for Jordan Grand Prix in.
 * Lucas di Grassi, who placed third in the 2009 GP2 Series for Racing Engineering, joined Timo Glock at Virgin Racing.
 * Nico Hülkenberg, 2009 GP2 Series champion with ART Grand Prix, made his dеbut in Formula One with Williams, alongside Barrichello.
 * Vitaly Petrov, who placed second in the 2009 GP2 Series, moved from Barwa Addax to partner Robert Kubica at Renault, becoming Russia's first driver in the Formula One World Championship.
 * Bruno Senna, nephew of three-time World Champion Ayrton Senna, joined Hispania Racing in 2010, returning the Senna name to Formula One sixteen years after his uncle's death.


 * Exited Formula One
 * Giancarlo Fisichella became Ferrari's reserve and test driver in 2010, having left Force India and joined Ferrari towards the end of . After failing to secure a racing drive, he signed up to take part in the Le Mans Series.
 * Romain Grosjean was unable to secure a contract with Renault, due to Petrov's appointment as Renault's second driver and will compete in the inaugural FIA GT1 World Championship for Matech Competition.
 * After a poor 2009 season, Williams driver Kazuki Nakajima was unable to secure a drive for 2010. On February 19, it was confirmed that he would join aspiring Serbian outfit Stefan Grand Prix, despite their lack of an entry to the grid.
 * Kimi Räikkönen is taking a one-year "sabbatical" from Formula One in 2010 after his managers confirmed that negotiations with McLaren officially came to an end. Räikkönen instead joined the Citroën Junior Team in the 2010 World Rally Championship, driving a Citroën C4 WRC in twelve of the thirteen rounds of the championship.


 * Returned to Formula One
 * Pedro de la Rosa returned to Formula One driving for the Sauber team, having previously served as test driver for McLaren. His return ends a three-year absence from racing, his last Grand Prix start being a half-season campaign in.
 * Seven-time World Champion Michael Schumacher officially joined Mercedes GP on 23 December 2009, ending a three-year hiatus from the sport. Schumacher had originally intended to make a comeback with Ferrari in to stand in for the injured Felipe Massa, but was prevented from doing so by a motorcycle accident injury, and the Mercedes contract was not signed until he was given a clean bill of health. Schumacher previously raced for Mercedes in the 1991 World Sportscar Championship.


 * Mid-season Changes
 * Sakon Yamamoto, who last drove in Formula One for Spyker and tested for Renault, replaced Bruno Senna at Hispania for the, having previously taken part in Friday practice at the . The team confirmed that Senna would return to his seat for the . Yamamoto then replaced Karun Chandhok from the onwards, except the races in Singapore, Brazil and Abu Dhabi, where the seat was filled by Christian Klien.
 * During the mid-season hiatus, Nick Heidfeld left Mercedes GP to take up a new role with Pirelli as their official test driver ahead of their return to Formula One.
 * Following the end of the European season at the, Pedro de la Rosa was dropped by BMW Sauber and summarily replaced by Nick Heidfeld, who last drove for the team in . It was reported that the change was made because of de la Rosa's poor performance relative to team mate Kamui Kobayashi in general and Heidfeld's knowledge of the Marina Bay and Yas Marina circuits in particular. With Heidfeld joining Sauber, former Renault driver Romain Grosjean was drafted in as his replacement for Pirelli.
 * Hispania Racing test driver Christian Klien replaced Sakon Yamamoto for the after Yamamoto allegedly contracted food poisoning ahead of the race, but was later seen in the Singapore paddock suffering no apparent symptoms, sparking talk of unpaid debts by the Japanese driver and further financial afflictions for the team to deal with when the logo of one of Klien's personal sponsors appeared on the car for the weekend. Team principal Colin Kolles confirmed that the arrangement would be for one race and Yamamoto would return to the cockpit at Suzuka provided he recovered in time. Klien also replaced Yamamoto at Interlagos and Abu Dhabi, though no explanation was given for the change.

2010 calendar
On 21 September 2009 the provisional 2010 calendar was issued by the World Motor Sport Council containing 19 races, followed by a second provisional schedule which had the Abu Dhabi and Brazilian Grands Prix switching dates. The final calendar was released on December 11, 2009.

Calendar changes

 * The Bahrain Grand Prix was run on a new layout at the Bahrain International Circuit. In this configuration, the drivers leave the old circuit shortly after turn four and follow a loop of nearly 900 metres in length, before re-joining the circuit before the old turn five. This increased the overall lap distance from 5.412 km to 6.299 km. The race will revert to the circuit's original layout from.
 * The British Grand Prix was originally planned to move from Silverstone Circuit to Donington Park in 2010, but the owners of Donington Park failed to raise the necessary £135 million bond to redevelop the circuit and infrastructure. After extended negotiations with Bernie Ecclestone, the organisers of Silverstone came to an agreement that will see the British Grand Prix hosted by the circuit for the next seventeen years, utilising the new "Arena" configuration which increases lap distance by 760 m.
 * The Canadian Grand Prix returned in 2010 after its one-year absence.
 * The Japanese Grand Prix was due to return to Fuji Speedway for 2010, as part of a year-on-year rotation with Suzuka Circuit. However, Fuji's owners Toyota announced that they had abandoned plans for Fuji to hold the race, citing the global recession as the main reason for this. Suzuka will continue to hold the event in 2010 and in 2011.
 * South Korea made its first appearance on the F1 calendar under the name Korean Grand Prix with a race being held at the Korean International Circuit in Yeongam on 24 October. On the 12th October, the circuit passed its inspection.

Scoring system
Points are awarded to the top 10 classified finishers.

Drivers
$†$ Drivers did not finish the Grand Prix, but were classified as they completed over 90% of the race distance.

Constructors
$†$ Cars did not finish the Grand Prix, but were classified as they completed over 90% of the race distance.