The Mercedes SLS AMG, which can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.8 seconds and reach a top speed of around 200 mph, is believed by the Campos team to be significantly quicker than their own F1 car, which Kolles claims is a serious safety issue.

Quick: F1's new safety car

“The Safety Car is supposed to neutralise the race by slowing the entire field down,” Kolles said in a statement to the press earlier today. “But this car is so quick and so powerful, it seems as though it will probably not slow us down at all. In fact, it’ll be a major struggle for us not to be lapped by it. This has obvious safety implications for the marshals working at the track.”

The Campos F1 car is being built by Dallara, who have prodigous experience in chassis construction, but delays in funding the project mean it is unlikely even to be shaken down before the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. Observers are predicting a difficult first few races for the team, though this is the first acknowledgement from them that they are likely to be dangerously slow.

“This is pathetic,” one fan blustered. “Turning up at the first race with a car that’s so far off the pace it’ll be slower than the Safety Car? The FIA should have picked better teams from the ones that applied! This would never have happened with Lola. Right?”

Regular Safety Car driver Bernd Maylander refused to be drawn on suggestions that he might have to swap to last year’s McLaren car in order to keep the field running at a safe pace during caution periods.

Struggling: Team boss Adrian Campos

“We received an email some weeks ago from a government official in Nigeria offering us several million dollars,” team principal Adrian Campos revealed. “All we had to do was wire him a few thousand dollars to set up accounts, authorise the transaction and so on, and then we were assured that our future would be secured.

“However, it’s been a few weeks now and we haven’t heard a peep out of our backer. Of course, we’re aware that these things take time – especially in West Africa – so we’re not really worried yet. Our major concern is getting the money in place to get our cars to Bahrain.”

Campos has already signed Brazilian star Bruno Senna to drive for them in 2010 – the announcement of a second driver has been delayed, reportedly because the team require large amounts of sponsorship before a driver can be signed. With the offer of money from Nigeria Campos hoped to ease sponsorship demands on drivers, as well as taking Formula One into an as-yet untapped market.

As concerns over the whereabouts of the Nigerian money mounted, The Runoff Area was informed that Campos may have found a solution to the team’s increasing financial difficulties. Campos himself was apparently the surprise winner of the Dutch National Lottery, with only a small administration charge separating him from a huge cash windfall.

Games: F1 boss Ecclestone

Often the driver merry-go-round during the close season is figuratively referred to as “musical chairs” because there are inevitably more drivers than remaining F1 seats, but Ecclestone’s idea is to take that suggestion literally, settling who will drive where in 2010 through a version of the popular children’s party game.

With this morning’s announcement that Pedro de la Rosa will drive for Sauber, now just five race seats remain – one each at Renault, Toro Rosso and Campos, and both at USF1. “Now everyone’s pretty bored of waiting for the teams to confirm their drivers,” Ecclestone reasoned, “so it makes sense to just get the whole thing out of the way in one go.”

Drivers such as Kazuki Nakajima, Jaime Alguersuari, Giancarlo Fisichella and Nick Heidfeld are all currently without 2010 seats; they will be joined by potential newcomers like F2 champion Andy Soucek and former GP2 drivers Vitaly Petrov and Jose Maria Lopez to be in with a chance of winning the drives.

“What will happen is that we’ll put all of them in a room, turn on the music and get them to walk around the five chairs in the centre of the floor,” Ecclestone revealed. “When the music stops, they all sit down and the five seated drivers get the race seats. Simple, really. I might even put in on TV. And charge for it.”

It is believed that a similar scheme was tried at Mercedes earlier this year, but it failed when Michael Schumacher deliberately pushed Heidfeld over and stole his chair.

When asked what song would be used for the game, Ecclestone replied: “The Chain. Obviously.”