I did these last year, but I wasn't going to do them this year due to me being back at university, but I've had more than a month of holidays, and two weeks left, so I thought why not? They won't be as good as last years though, as I've had less time to write these.

Anyway, I will put up the teams in the order they finished the championship from lowest to highest. Tell me what you think of the teams and add in some stuff of your own! Also, I would appreciate it, if you could correct me if I am wrong! [IMG]

First up, is the squad that finished at the bottom of the constructors’ championship.

HRT Season Review

HRT have managed to finish ahead of Marussia the past two seasons. Doing it this season though, looked to be a tough task. It looked tough due to the team looking like being in another transitional year, having new owners, and building a new base in Spain.

However, before the season started, there seemed to be good news for the team. Their partnership with Williams had furthered. Their technology supply deal with Williams had expanded, not only where Williams going to supply them with gearboxes, they were also going get the much needed KERS.

HRT team principal Colin Kolles said: “In these past two years we have established a fruitful collaboration with Williams F1 and are pleased to continue having them play an important role in the development of our team.

“Apart from the experience we have accumulated in these years together, they will not only provide us with the latest technology in gearboxes but we will also reap the benefits of having KERS for next year, this being an important step for our team.

“We have grown as a team with Williams F1’s support and we are pleased to continue counting on them in the future, given their trajectory, prestige and renowned experience in Formula 1. This agreement strengthens the development of the 2012 car that is currently taking place at our technical office in Munich.

“At HRT we are working on thoroughly improving the performance of our cars and our target is still to finish in the top ten in 2012. This deal brings us one step closer to that objective.”

Unfortunately for HRT, this deal did not take place. KERS, performance wise would have been a much needed performance boost for the team but it wasn’t to be. With Luis Perez Sala becoming the new team principal along with the new owners, new ideas had been taking place. The team focused more on moving their base to Madrid in Spain, and focusing on reliability after missing the winter tests.

The drivers that were signed weren’t that convincing either, and were like most of HRT’s drivers, unusual candidates. Retaining Narain Khartikeyan for another season despite Vinantonio Liuzzi performing better than him the season before made you instantly think that money again was a real issue for the team. However, signing Pedro de la Rosa, an experienced driver was a step in the right direction, but one could say he gained his seat due to his nationality as the team owners Thesan Capital stated they were going for a “more Spanish” team, signing a Spanish driver and moving the team to Spain certainly indicated that.

The teams car, the F112 was meant to debut in the second pre-season test, but did not due to failing the mandatory crash tests. Fully assembled for the first time in the Albert Park pit-lane, the car was unsurprisingly miles off the pace and unreliable. Both drivers failed to qualify due to them being over the 107% and therefore weren’t allowed to race in Australia. This would be the third year running that the team had missed pre-season testing altogether, and second year in a row that they failed to qualify for the first race.

But by the standards we were expecting, the car was pretty solid; both drivers managed to qualify and both cars completed the distance in round two in Malaysia Hispania's mechanical reliability record was looked to be ultimately better than either Lotus or Virgin, especially considering that Malaysia was like their first proper test session.

They also seemed to have got more exposure than their two main rivals in the first two Grand Prixs, first of all for not qualifying in Australia. Then Narian Khartikeyan’s incident with the reigning double World Champion Sebastian Vettel, which caused a war of words between the two, with HRT’s Indian driver being called a ‘cucumber’.
The team was no match for its rivals on speed, though.

Hispania's pace did actually improve as 2012 progressed, though more through the crew and drivers' persistence than any breakthroughs, for the package was pretty much the same whether it was at a street track or Monza.

And even as it picked up the pace, the rest of the field largely remained out of reach, even their main rivals from the past two seasons Marussia where far ahead.

HRT didn’t even achieve a win in their class, unlike the last two seasons, where at least one race they finished ahead of Caterham or Marussia, be it on merit or through DNFs. It just showed how far back they were from everyone else, and it was becoming very noticeable that they were struggling more than ever.

When your car's too slow to get near any other teams, your reputation depends on how you fare against your team-mate, and by that measure Pedro de la Rosa did really well compared to Khartikeyan, who was no match for de la Rosa, despite the latter last being in F1 in 2010 with Sauber, and a one off race in Canada 2011, plus being in his 40s.

The team-mate battle was no contest, during when both cars where in the race, Khartikeyan didn’t finish ahead of de la Rosa once, with Pedro beating him nine to zero. Qualifying was another annihilation, as the Spaniard out-qualified his Indian team-mate, 15-3. The closest qualifying session between the two was in India, where de la Rosa beat Khartikeyan by one thousandths of a second.

But Khartikeyan did get the teams highest position though, that was in Monaco, where he finished 15th, which was last place. He also went on a string of two weekends where he out-qualified his team-mate from Italy to Singapore, and then out-qualifying him in the last race Brazil.

De la Rosa’s finest moments came in qualifying, when he qualified 21st ahead of Charles Pic’s Marussia and only a tenth behind Timo Glock in Monaco, and then again qualifying 21st ahead of both Marussia cars and his team-mate, half a second ahead of Glock, and 1.8s ahead of his team-mate. A good result was looking likely in Canada, but brake problems hit both HRTs, which later on became a big problem for the team. Also, in Suzuka he out-qualified Pic’s Marussia, Petrov’s Caterham qualifying in 21st, again a tenth behind Glock. His races were merely him racing by himself as he was quite far ahead of Khartikeyan on performance level.

It would be usually be unfair, to draw too many conclusions about the ability of anyone lumbered with a Hispania, but this season it was totally one-sided, and there were no driver changes at all for the team this season, apart from the odd few practice sessions for their third driver.

Pedro de la Rosa had shown enough that he wasn’t bad racing driver, and his sacking from Sauber in 2010 was a little unfair.

It was by far Hispania’s worst season to date, and it should, sponsors were nowhere to be seen on the car as the team continued to not impress, the team wasn’t anywhere near it had been the seasons before compared to its competitors, and the owners did not want to invest anymore into the team, and put the team up for sale in November.

The team hasn’t been bought and has missed the team entry deadline, and so, won’t be on the grid next year.

I, however, think they performed admirably with all the troubles they’ve had to overcome ever since they were formed. If they had stable backing, I think this team could have progressed quietly through the field, but no one was willing to invest, and now they have to depart from F1.

Will they be missed? To many people, they won’t be, but there are minority of people who will be sad to see them go, as an F1 fan, it’s always sad to see a team leave.

Highlights: Assembling both cars for the first time in Australia. Not changing their drivers once this season.
Lowlights: Not making it to winter-testing, and hiring a mobile-chicane to drive one of their cars.

" title="ty" /> Rage " title="hug" />

Summed it up quite nicely Rage....

you wanted us to point out errors? I didnt find any ... But you might want to correct some spellings

Rage thank you very much for you big effort! " title="ty" /> " title="hug" /> I'm also waiting for reading the others! t" title="hat" /> " title="ii" />

Marussia Racing

It’s easy to forget that Marussia were on the pace of Caterham in their first season.

Since then matters appear to have become worse, not better. Richard Branson’s interest in giving proper funding to an F1 team was always suspect and so it was proved. Russian sports car manufacturer Marussia took over, who were their main sponsor last season.

This year like HRTs looks to be a transitional year for them, as it’s the first time they are using the windtunnel for their car, they have new owners, and new personnel.

Timo Glock had been retained for the year. Good news for the team, as he’s an experienced driver, knows the team well, and is the type of driver the need to bring them up the field. But his devotion to the cause is laudable but you have to wonder whether it’s in the best interests of his career. Not only has he been well out of contention for points, but beating a succession of rookie team mates can hardly be stretching his driving skills.

Another rookie in to the team to side with Timo Glock, he is Charles Pic. The 22-year-old’s CV conspicuously lacks a championship win in a junior category. But fared well in his last GP2 season, brings in some money for the team, and is a young charger who could keep Glock on his toes.

The team has made a break with the past in more than just its name. The Marussia MR01 marks a departure from their previous attempts to develop an F1 car without using a wind tunnel. Former technical director Nick Wirth was shown the door last year.

The team embarked on a new partnership with McLaren but were keen to play down the role it will have in their performance.

The team can also draw on the enormous experience of new technical consultant Pat Symonds, who left the sport under a cloud in 2009 following the ‘Crashgate’ revelations.

The team continued with the outdated Cosworth powered engine for 2012 but were not running a Kinetic Energy Recovery System. This looked to be a setback due to their main rivals Caterham having KERS and the improved Renault engine.

The team have been slightly unlucky to finish last in both seasons so far despite often having been quicker than HRT. Ending the year better than last must be their goal – but the same was true in the last two seasons as well.

The team had a setback before the season started. The new car failed the mandatory FIA crash tests, and missed the second test of winter testing to sort the car out before the first race of the season. The car made its debut at a shakedown test at Silverstone before the first Grand Prix.

They started the season well with Timo Glock being the only finisher out of Caterham and Marussia, gaining a 14th place at Round 1 in Australia.

The team had another setback when their third driver Maria De Villota crashed heavily into the lift gate of the team transporter, and sustained serious injuries while performing a straight line test for the team head of the British Grand Prix. She lost her right eye as a result of the accident, and the team went on to further investigate the strange incident that occurred.

After that though, it seemed to be a quiet season for them. Caterham had the performance advantage over them, and were slipping away from them. The drivers were having their own races for the majority of the season, occasionally with a Caterham in the mix. But their big breakthrough came when Timo Glock finished in 12th ahead of two established teams and the Caterhams. This was crucial for their fight against Caterham for 10th place in the constructor’s championship.

The real story at Marussia was Charles Pics emergence as a F1 driver, with not much of CV in motor racing to brag about, he managed to be a match for the rated Timo Glock in his debut season.

The two drivers didn’t get along well, and there was a rift within the team. It all came from an incident in Hungary Timo Glock accused Pic of blocking him in Hungary.

Glock had this to say about the incident:

"Maybe he doesn't understand the English on the radio," the angry Glock said.

He insisted it was "pointless" to try to sit down with the 22-year-old, because the blocking had happened several times this year.

"It's up to the team to solve it."

They had a big duel in Spa, with Pic coming out in top. Pic showed that he was no pushover, and will push Glock all the way.

The team held on to the 10th place in the constructors, right up until the last race, where they had a big battle with the Caterhams, in a gruelling race.

Timo Glock looked to have had the 11th place for Marussia in the race until problems hit, dropping him to the back of the field. Pic and Petrov battled for several laps for 13th place. Pic stayed ahead of the Caterhams for most of the rest, getting challenged by both at different times, but then faltered 7 laps from the end when he backed off too much from a blue flag, and Vitaly Petrov moved to 11th, giving Caterham 10th place in the constructors.

Not that Pic would mind, as he’s moving to Caterham next year.

Although Pic proved to match Glock compared to his last two team-mates, he becomes the only team-mate that Glock has ever beaten in the championship table.

Glock, who I used to view as one of the most solid drivers in F1, didn’t shine this year. However, unlike racing for a midfield team it’s extremely hard to stand out when your races involve seeing a Caterham in the distance and occasionally an HRT in your mirrors. The fact that Pic was so strong with such limited running also didn’t help.

There’s justifiable hope on the horizon as the 2013 challenger will be the first Marussia/Virgin car to be designed from scratch using a wind tunnel as well as CFD – something that should have been done three years ago.

Highlights: Finishing 11th in the Constructors for the first time and running Caterham close right to the very end.

Lowlights: Losing 10th place at the last race with a few laps to go, along with Maria de Villota’s accident.

Rage thank youvery much again! " title="ty" /> " title="hug" />