Despite Renault’s 2010 car launch being just hours away, we all have a pretty good idea of what we are going to see.

Drivers

Vitaly Petrov

GP2 runner up Vitaly Petrov is expected to be unveiled as replacing Romain Grosjean at the launch in Valencia today.

Petrov brings plenty of sponsorship, namely Russian gas giant Gazprom, rumoured to be as much as £13 million – but team principal Eric Boullier insists he has been hired on his driving ability first and foremost, then his sponsorship opportunities:

“I am looking for talent first and foremost, but then after that I do need to consider the sponsorship opportunities. People say we are only looking at Petrov because he is bringing a lot of money, but he is not the richest driver we [were] talking to.

“Obviously it would be wrong of me to ignore his nationality – he could potentially open up a new sponsorship market for us in the future. Russia is not an easy market and today F1 is not as popular there as it is in some other countries.”

The news means that the top three finishers in last year’s GP2 championship – namely Nico Hulkenberg (Williams), Petrov (Renault) and Lucas di Grassi (Virgin) – will all be rookies on the 2010 grid.

It is expected that Dutch-born Chinese Ho-Pin Tung, a Gravity Sport-managed driver, will be Genii Capital-controlled Renault’s reserve driver for 2010.

Renault R30

In both the previous 2010 launches – McLaren and Ferrari – images of the car have been leaked before its actual unveiling. And with the 2010 Renault R30, it is no different!

We have long expected Renault to return to their retro yellow and black livery, (like this one in 2007 that celebrated 30 years of Renault in F1) and it seems that they are going to. A drawing of the R30 (above) has been published in a french magazine and official Renault images of the R30 (below) have appeared on French website Toilef1.com.

Renault are to unveil their 2010 challenger at 15:30 (GMT). All images and video from the Renault launch will be on the blog and there will be tweets throughout the launch on our Twitter page.

Sauber are also launching their 2010 car today, at 13:30 (GMT). For dates of all the announced car launches, visit our calendar.