World Touring Car independent Mehdi Bennani has joined Wiechers-Sport for the full 2010 season.

The Moroccan driver, who made his series debut on home soil in a SEAT Leon at the Marrakech street race last season, will drive one of the team’s BMW 3 Series.

“We are very pleased that Mehdi has joined us,” said Wiechers team manager Dominik Greiner. “From his very first laps in the WTCC he proved to be very competitive. Our common aim is a place on the podium in the Independents’ Trophy.”

Aly Horma, president of the Marrakech race, added: “As the only Moroccan driver in a world championship, Mehdi will be carrying high the colours of Morocco on the world’s most prestigious circuits.”

Jenson Button says it is time to forget about his 2009 title success and focus on what he can achieve with McLaren in 2010.

The reigning world champion unveiled McLaren’s new MP4-25 with his team-mate Lewis Hamilton in an event at sponsor Vodafone’s headquarters this morning, and said he was now looking to the future rather than resting on last season’s glory.

“After last year you think about what you have achieved and it goes through your mind – the road to becoming world champion,” said Button, “but after that you soon start forgetting because you are concentrating on 2010 and the new challenge.

“I’ve been to a few events and award ceremonies and they bring back memories. To see number one on the car here is special, but we need to forget about last year. It will always be in the back of my mind, but we need to start focusing on the future and this is the future.”

He admitted he was highly impressed with McLaren’s latest design.

“It looks pretty amazing, stood here looking at it,” said Button. “I cannot wait to take a step back and have a better look. I always thought Vodafone McLaren Mercedes put a car together properly and meticulously. For me it looks great.”

Button said he already felt at home in the team, having left the title-winning Brawn team to join McLaren in a shock move shortly after the end of his triumphant 2009 season.

“It has been a very busy January and a very good January, you never know what to expect going into a new team,” he said. “You have your opinion from the outside but you never know what the atmosphere is inside the team.

“I am pleasantly surprised, I feel I have become part of this team in this short period. It’s been a good few days spent at the factory.

“The good thing is the start of 2009 was a difficult period for them, and it gives them hunger to have a good 2010 – you can see that in everyone at the factory. People say it has been the busiest winter ever but they don’t care.

“It is all going along very smoothly and January is great, but I cannot wait for February to start as we get to drive this car.”

Hamilton added that he was delighted to be working with Button at McLaren this year.

“His career has been fantastic, I’ve known him and his dad for quite some time,” said Hamilton. “I won my first ever British [karting] championship on John’s engines years ago and I wanted to follow in Jenson’s first steps – so to be in same team as him, and both having won a championship, is great.

“I look forward to working with JB, and hopefully we can push the team onwards to both championships this year.”

The McLaren Mercedes team launched its new car for the 2010 season on Friday morning, with the target of clinching both titles after a mixed campaign in 2009.

The Mercedes-powered MP4-25 was unveiled at Vodafone UK’s headquarters in Newbury.

McLaren’s new car retains the silver colour of recent years, despite engine partner Mercedes-Benz’s switch of focus to its own ‘Silver Arrows’ outfit.

The car features a high shark-fin engine cover running up to the rear wing, not used by the team in 2009.

The MP4-25 will be driven by Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button this year, the reigning world champion having joined the British squad from Brawn GP, with which he won the title last year.

“It was Alexander Graham Bell who said preparation is key to success and we have prepared for this season more comprehensively than ever before,” said team boss Martin Whitmarsh.

“As team principal I am honoured to represent this great team, but I am one small part of a group of dedicated and fantastic people.

“A great team and a competitive car can only succeed with the best drivers. Neither of our drivers need much of an introduction because between them they have won the past two world championships. We are thrilled this year to have Lewis and Jenson represent the team on track. Both drivers are winners and they want to win this year.

“Every year of F1 racing throws up a unique set of regulation challenges, and 2010 is no exception. We have designed a car that exploits the double diffuser concept.

“We look forward to an exciting championship with many new and notable faces and at least one older one. We remain proud partners of Mercedes-Benz, but we must be at our best to beat the works team.

“Our goal is clear and we aim to win.”

Engineering director Paddy Lowe added: “Firstly we as a technical team faced a great challenge when you have not one but two world champions in the car. We felt some pressure to provide the right equipment to get the job done – we took that seriously.

“It is a very sophisticated car but very elegant. That comes from unprecedented collaboration between aero team and mechanical design team.”

Test driver Gary Paffett will be the man in charge of taking the new car for its first laps on Monday, when pre-season testing kicks off at Valencia.

Ferrari will have to wait until Monday for its new car to make its track debut after poor weather conditions prevented Felipe Massa from running today.

The Brazilian was originally scheduled to run with the F10 at Fiorano yesterday, when the team launched its new challenger for 2010.

However, the ice on track made it impossible for Massa to run and the shakedown was postponed until weather conditions improved.

On Friday Ferrari confirmed that track conditions were still too poor for any running.

Massa will thus test the car for the first time when pre-season testing kick off at Valencia on Monday.

Former Formula 1 driver Nelson Piquet says he ‘cannot wait’ for his American stock car racing debut in the Daytona ARCA race on 6 February.

The Brazilian confirmed today that he had secured a deal with Eddie Sharp Racing – which took Justin Lofton to the 2009 ARCA title – to race in the season-opener, as revealed by AUTOSPORT earlier this month.

“I’m very excited,” said Piquet. “I can’t wait to reach 200mph side-by-side and rubbing paint. The plans for the season are coming together really well and I am racing with a very strong team. I can’t wait to get out on track.”

Team boss Eddie Sharp is confident Piquet can go a good job for the team in his debut.

“We are excited to have Nelson driving for us in Daytona this year,” Sharp said. “He will represent ESR well, and we believe he will gain some good learning miles in a stock car, especially racing at Daytona.”

Piquet’s first stock car race will come in South Africa this weekend, when he contests the Free State 500 at Phakisa.

Skoda’s factory IRC team will contest the next two South American rounds of the championship, the Czech firm has announced today.

Beyond admitting it will run an expanded IRC programme this year, Skoda has not yet finalised its precise plans for 2010 – but Juho Hanninen and Jan Kopecky will make the trip across the Atlantic for the Curitiba Rally and Rally Argentina in March.

Skoda did not contest the Brazilian event last season, but it has competed on the WRC-qualifying Rally Argentina four times, with its best 2002 result coming in Carlos Paz when Toni Gardemeister placed his Octavia WRC in fifth place.

Skoda spokesperson Karel Pokorny said: “We will run two cars in Brazil and Argentina. Skoda has some experience in Argentina from the World Rally Championship but we have never been to Brazil so that will be something new.

“We saw last year the pace of the Fabia Super 2000 on gravel on the [rallies in] Azores and Russia and we hope this will continue when we go to Brazil and Argentina.”

Williams has signed Formula 3 Euro Series frontrunner Valtteri Bottas as its official test driver for the 2010 Formula 1 season.

The 20-year-old Finn, who is managed by former world champion Mika Hakkinen, steps into the role vacated by GP2 champion Nico Hulkenberg, who has been promoted to the Williams race team this year.

“This is a great way to start 2010,” said Bottas. “I am very honoured to have been selected by a team as prestigious as AT&T Williams, one of the most significant names in the sport.”

Bottas pledged to do his utmost to justify Williams’s faith in him.

“This is an important step in my career but now the real work starts to get to the top,” he said. “I am sure I will learn a lot with the team and I trust that together we will achieve great results for the years to come.

“This opportunity gives me even more positive energy to improve as a driver and achieve my future targets as my ultimate goal will be to become Formula 1 world champion one day.

“I take the opportunity to thank Sir Frank Williams and the senior management of the team and also to thanks my management and my sponsors for all their work and support so far.”

Bottas finished third in his F3 Euro Series rookie season last year with top team ART, and is among the 2010 title favourites having completed a deal to stay with the squad.

Sir Frank Williams added: “Valtteri’s CV is very impressive, with a long list of success in the right junior formulae. We hope that the role of official test driver in our squad will provide him with another step in his development. We wish him all the best in the Formula 3 Euro Series this season.”

Kimi Raikkonen insists he has no particular target in mind for his first competitive outing at the wheel of the Citroen C4 WRC on this weekend’s Arctic Rally, after completing the shakedown yesterday.

The 2007 Formula 1 world champion is using the first round of the Finnish championship as a warm-up for his inaugural World Rally Championship campaign with the Citroen Junior Team, which gets underway in Sweden in a fortnight’s time.

Joining him on the event is Citroen’s factory driver Dani Sordo, who will provide a useful benchmark a near-identical car.

“I don’t have any special target,” said Raikkonen at the pre-rally press conference in Rovaniemi. “This is just for learning. We will just drive and see how we are. There are many things to find out.”

According to his co-driver Kaj Lindstrom, Raikkonen’s biggest challenge will be learning to use pace notes: “You need the confidence to trust and commit to the notes,” he said. “This is where we will improve most. But I have no doubt that Kimi has the speed.”

Raikkonen completed yesterday’s shakedown stage without any problems, taking just two runs through what will be his final preparation before his inaugural rally in the Citroen.

Raikkonen and Sordo will face little opposition on the event, as the overwhelming majority of entrants are driving Group N machinery. The opening stage of the rally gets underway at 12:23 (local time) today. The first car is due to enter parc ferme after leg one at 21:12 tonight.

The conditions for the event are perfect, with temperatures hovering around -20C and snow still falling.

Lotus Racing has announced its new car launch will take place in central London in two weeks’ time.

The team had already revealed its car will be unveiled on 12th February, and has now confirmed the event will take place at The Royal Horticultural Hall.

The Lotus name is returning to Formula 1 this year after leaving the sport at the end of the 1994 season.

SunTrust Racing will start on pole position when the Daytona 24 Hours gets underway on Saturday, after a superb lap by Max Angelelli in today’s qualifying session.

The Italian – who will share SunTrust’s #10 Dallara-Ford with Pedro Lamy, Ricky Taylor and team boss Wayne Taylor – set a time of 1m40.681s, nearly half a second clear of nearest rival Oswaldro Negri Jr.

“It was important to get the pole, I can’t deny that. We wanted pole badly,” said Angelelli.

“I was pretty confident. Our Dallara chassis and Ford engine are always good. Now it is up to us drivers to make it happen.”

Behind Angelelli, less than a tenth of a second covered the next four cars, with the two Michael Shank Racing Riley-Fords lining up ahead of Ganassi’s two Riley-BMWs.

Christophe Bouchut put the best of the Level 5 Riley-BMWs on the outside of row three, while last year’s winning team Brumos will start seventh with Darren Law, Hurley Haywood, David Donohue, Raphael Matos and Butch Leitzinger.

Former Grand-Am champion team GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing missed qualifying completely after NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson crashed its #99 Riley-Chevrolet while avoiding a GT car in practice. After initially thinking it would have to bring in a replacement car, the team is rebuilding the chassis with a new rear end. Johnson, who will share the car with Alex Gurney, Jon Fogarty and Jimmy Vasser, is having the new section flown in using his private plane.

SpeedSource took GT class pole for the third straight year, although this time it was Jeff Segal in the #69 Mazda who claimed the top spot, with double class polesitter Sylvain Trembley only third in the sister car, behind the Racers Edge Mazda.

Pos  Drivers                                    Car             Time

 1.  Angelelli/Lamy/Taylor/Taylor               Dallara-Ford    1m40.681s

 2.  Frisselle/Negri/Pew/Wilkins                Riley-Ford      1m41.100s

 3.  Allmendinger/Frisselle/Patterson/Valiante  Riley-Ford      1m41.110s

 4.  Dixon/Franchitti/McMurray/Montoya          Riley-BMW       1m41.147s

 5.  Papis/Pruett/Rojas/Wilson                  Riley-BMW       1m41.164s

 6.  Bouchut/Bourdais/Collard/Maassen/Tucker    Riley-BMW       1m41.463s

 7.  Donohue/Haywood/Law/Leitzinger/Matos       Riley-Porsche   1m41.513s

 8.  Barbosa/Borcheller/Dalziel/Rockenfeller    Riley-Porsche   1m41.603s

 9.  Braun/Jonsson/Krohn/Zonta                  Lola-Ford       1m42.060s

10.  Garcia/Manning/Menard/Rice                 Coyote-Porsche  1m42.074s