In July Zoran Stefanovic did two things which suggested to Formula 1 insiders that he was not very serious about entering a team in F1. He lodged a complaint with the European Union claiming the FIA forced the potential new teams for 2010 to use engines supplied by Cosworth; and he said that he had taken on Mike Coughlan as his main technical man. If he had not done this Stefanovic would have been taken more seriously, as neither course of action seemed even vaguely sensible, and smacked of someone who was heading into F1 without anyone guiding him as to what to do and what not to do. Since then, to give him his due, he seems to have understood that rocking the boat gets you nowhere in F1 circles and has adopted a rather different approach. It is not clear what has happened with the EU complaint but these things cannot be withdrawn.

After Toyota pulled out of F1, Stefanovic popped up again, talking to Toyota about taking over elements of the F1 team. He clearly has some money to spend, presumably from his AMCO, manufacturing business which does automotive, aerospace and other such work from its base in Belgrade, Serbia.

Yesterday Stefan GP announced that it had successfully passed some of the necessary crash tests to compete in F1, with a car it called the Stefan S-01. The team announced also that it would complete further tests at the end of January. It is clear that the car in question is the car that was to have been raced as the Toyota TF110, although very little else has been announced, not least what engine would be used. Stefanovic visited Toyota in Cologne on December 22 and met with several Toyota people.

Stefanovic is very unlikely to be granted any F1 entry – even if teams drop out – as he has not been through the necessary procedures and the FIA cannot afford to bend the rules for him as that would create a precedent which would not be a good idea.

On the team website Stefanovic is advertising for staff with some posts being “located in Germany” and “the rest of team” in Belgrade, Serbia.

If an entry is not forthcoming, Stefanovic says that he will run the team anyway and use the cars to prepare for an entry in the future, while also providing other teams and young drivers with the chance to test a full-spec F1 car which is not covered by the testing ban. Thus, if Ferrari needs to test a new driver – as happened last summer – Stefan GP will be available for rent. Similarly wealthy drivers can get mileage in the car, if they pay.

Stefanovic obviously has money to spend, but perhaps not as much as he needs as he could very easily have acquired the Toyota entry after the Japanese decided to quit. One can argue that Toyota might have wanted to hold on to its Toyota Motorsport GmbH company, but a little administrative juggling could have sold that company to Stefanovic and created another with the old name in just a few days. That would have got Stefanovic a guaranteed F1 entry for 2010.

If this sounds far-fetched, remember that in 2005 Ilmor Engineering Ltd was acquired by Mercedes-Benz and renamed Mercedes-Ilmor Ltd. At that point founder Mario Illien set up a new company called Special Designs Ltd. Soon after that happened Mercedes-Ilmor changed its name to Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines Ltd and Special Designs Ltd changed its name to Ilmor Engineering Ltd.