F1 2010’S TEAMS THAT WEREN’T

Thanks to the financial broadside levelled on Formula 1 by the coronavirus pandemic, the current cast of teams could be forgiven for getting a little hot under the collar when it comes to perusing balance sheets. Luckily, the latest Concorde Agreement and cost cap show that F1 has learned from the mistakes of the past.

Last time, the global financial crisis almost changed the face of F1 altogether. Manufacturers Honda, Toyota and BMW all withdrew, while the Honda-backed Super Aguri squad had also hit the wall mid-2008 as money proved scarce. To fill the gaping void, then-FIA president Max Mosley unveiled a new tender process to welcome teams into F1 for 2010 with a Resource Restriction Agreement – a promise of a £40million budget cap – to sweeten the pot.

Many teams submitted serious entries, from which the FIA selected three: Virgin Racing, Campos Meta 1 and US F1. After Toyota elected to end its fruitless F1 tenure, Tony Fernandes’s Lotus Racing team got the call-up as late as September 2009, meaning it had just six months to get an entire squad together before the start of