According to reports today, the plan for a joint car launch between the thirteen teams set for the 2010 grid have finally been shelved, with the teams citing "logistical reasons" for the cancellation of the planned common launch day.
The plans, originally developed during a meeting of the F1 Commission earlier this month, would have seen all 13 new 2010 cars unveiled at the same event, set to be staged in Valencia ahead of the opening pre-season test at the nearby Circuit Ricardo Tormo. The launch was planned for January 31st.
The proposal was designed to help teams cut costs, though some suggestions placed the cost of the whole event at a not-inconsiderable 2 million Euros, and many of the smaller teams expressed concerns that the scheduling of the joint event threatened to overshadow their own launches with the more glamorous, and frankly more important, launches from the bigger teams.
The likes of Ferrari's launch, with local hero Fernando Alonso there to reveal his first Ferrari drive, would likely have caused other launches to rather pale into insignificance.
There were also concerns that some of the teams, in particular the four new-for-2010 squads of Lotus, Virgin Racing, USF1 and Campos, would simply not have their cars ready in time for the launch day, though given it's proximity to the first day of testing, that situation should really have been unlikely.
And now a report in Auto Moto und Sport has said that the event has now been officially scrapped, citing logistical reasons as the cause of the cancellation.
The German source now says that teams will launch their cars in individual events around the end of January, though they will continue to aim to keep the events as low cost as possible.
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