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The inside story of F1 2010's lost teams, #5: Campos Meta 1

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The inside story of F1 2010's lost teams, #5: Campos Meta 1

By:

Jake Boxall-Legge

Aug 26, 2020, 9:46 AM

In the final part of our retrospective of F1 2010's failed entries, we dive into the on-off history of the Campos team. Aiming to make the step up from GP2, financial issues bit the team hard - and it only made it to the grid at the eleventh hour after a buyout

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Out of the FIA's highly contested entry process for the 2010 Formula 1 season, three teams eventually filtered through to the grid in Bahrain to begin the year in earnest - the Manor-owned Virgin Racing, Tony Fernandes' Lotus Racing and the late-arriving Hispania Racing Team.

As much as the FIA sought to invite sustainable teams to the field, all three eventual entrants were hamstrung by flaws: Manor sold up its title sponsorship to Virgin for a pittance and persisted with a car that never saw the inside of a windtunnel, Lotus had to scrape an entry together in six months, and Hispania was the product of a last-minute buyout of the Campos team. Purchased by shareholder Jose Ramon Carabante and his Grupo Hispania investment firm, the team somehow managed to make its way to the Bahrain season opener at short notice, having had no chance to test its Dallara-designed cars before the medium-haul flight to the Middle East.

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Jake Boxall-Legge

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Jake Boxall-Legge Autosport’s Technical Editor. Having studied Automotive Engineering with Motorsport at the University of Hertfordshire, West Country-born Jake's original ambition was to design racing cars. During a year between studies in which he accidentally rekindled a love of writing, he took up a Master's in Motorsport Engineering at Oxford Brookes. Halfway through his master's year, he was offered a place on the Autosport Academy, conducting occasional freelance duties before becoming the press officer for Formula 2 and GP3 in 2018. Autosport offered him a return to the fold later that year to serve as its Technical Editor. His voice appears on a number of videos and podcasts, and can often be found writing about terrible Formula 1 cars in excruciating detail. In his spare time, Jake enjoys baking and blames his failure to make it past the Great British Bake-Off interviews on his tenuous grasp on choux pastry. His dream is to open a brunch cafe - and his willingness to make outrageous puns in inappropriate situations has earned him the contempt of his colleagues.