A phenomenally successful F1 team which won nine constructors' titles in 20 years (it took Ferrari 50 years to do the same) but which usually dispenses with the services of the drivers who win the title for them: Alan Jones, Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost and Damon Hill all took championships and then left the team at the end of the year, for one reason or another.

The team hit a purple patch in the 1990s, when a combination of Adrian Newey's ground-breaking designs, some jolly clever electronics and a handful of half-decent drivers resulted in repeated title wins. The 1992 and 1993 Williams are probably the most technologically advanced Formula One cars to date and you could almost say that they drove themselves, without wishing to devalue the titles that Mansell and Prost won with them, of course.

This period also produced the iconic blue and white Rothmans livery, which looked great but which was probably responsible for shifting truckloads of their cigarettes. The team did attempt to make amends later, however, by running cars plastered with stickers for Niquitin and thereby promoting something to help you give up what they'd been urging you to become addicted to a few years previously.

For the 2004 season, the Williams challenger sported a highly unusual "walrus nose", which did nothing for the car's performance but which did at least mean that Ralf Schumacher was no longer the ugliest thing in the paddock. The innovative nose proved uncompetitive and was replaced by something more conventional in the second half of the year. Ralf also proved uncompetitive and was replaced by someone more talented at the end of the year.

The racing arm of the road car manufacturer founded by Colin Chapman, Team Lotus competed in Formula One from 1958 to 1994, scaling a great number of heights and plumbing as many depths along the way.

Stirling Moss scored the first Lotus F1 win at Monaco in 1960, besting the then dominant Ferrari team as he did so and thereby earning the cars a permanent place in the dotdotdotcomma hall of fame.

This victory was, slightly embarrassingly, for Rob Walker Racing, a customer of the Lotus team; the first Team Lotus win didn't come until the following year at the 1961 US Grand Prix but it was to be the first of many: Team Lotus was the first squad to reach 50 Grand Prix wins, beating Ferrari (which was the second team to do it) again, despite having entered F1 eight years after the Italian team. You can probably see now why Lotus has a special place in our hearts.

Lotus pioneered many concepts in F1, among them monocoque chassis, using the engine as a stressed member (no laughing at the back), mid-mounted engines, four-wheel drive, ground effect, carbon-fibre bodywork and, erm..., tobacco sponsorship, over which we shall discreetly draw a very big veil, pausing only to note that the Gold Leaf-sponsored cars and the iconic JPS livery did look pretty bloody good. *cough*.

When he wasn't being showered with glory in F1, Chapman was in America, showing the locals how to go racing at the blue riband Indianapolis 500. His car almost won at its first attempt in 1963, was leading when it retired in 1964 and finally won the event in 1965. Job, as we believe they say, done.

The team was never quite the same after Chapman's death in 1982 but it did continue to win the occasional race until the 1990s, when its slow decline accelerated as the sport's costs spiralled and the unedifying eleventh-hour alliance with Pacific Racing is best forgotten.

Virgin Racing is either just the kind of underdog team that deserves your loyalty and support or the latest considered marketing ploy of that unashamed self-publicist Richard Branson, depending on your point of view.

The team is actually Manor Grand Prix in a new suit, since it was John Booth's team - which has enjoyed considerable success in junior single-seater categories since it was founded in 1990 - that was awarded a spot on the F1 grid for 2010. Before the FIA entry list was published in late 2009, however, Virgin had swooped in to become the title sponsor and install as team principal one of their own high-flyers, who was quickly replaced when it became apparent that he knew even less about racing than Flavio Briatore.

The team is therefore competing as Virgin Racing, which we keenly anticipate will lead to all sorts of unintended commentary box doubles entendres, along the lines of "that Virgin looks a bit of a handful in the wet", which is the sort of thing that amuses our little brains.

Manor is based in the UK in two sites: one in Sheffield and the other just next door in Bicester. In that regard, Manor has following the BMW-Sauber approach, although Manor's two sites are at least in the same country, and Booth is confident that his squad can emulate the success enjoyed by BMW, right up to the point at which they collapsed.

Bolstering the Manor workforce is experienced entrepreneur Nick Wirth, whose engineering company has no doubt done this, that and the other thing with varying degrees of success. For a couple of years he was the founder, owner and technical director of the Simtek F1 team, which achieved levels of performance suggesting that Wirth held most of the other positions there as well.

Wirth will shoulder the responsibility of producing the cars and his 2010 challenger is the first F1 car designed using solely CFD simulation technology - no wind tunnels here, thank you very much - so with that level of innovation behind them, it will be fascinating to see exactly how many seconds off the pace the car will be.

Drivers for the first season are Timo Glock, who shows every indication of being the new Nick Heidfeld (which isn't intended as completely insulting, even if it sounds like it is), and Lucas Di Grassi, who has a very nice line in world-weary abuse for other drivers when he's been punted off which we reckon he'll have plenty of opportunity to use.

Like the country they called home, Team US F1 had no history. Fittingly, they chose to base themselves in Charlotte, in one of the Carolinas, a place that has no connection with F1, other than coincidentally having the same names as a couple of grid girls who once briefly made Eddie Irvine's acquaintance.

Soon after the team's inception, it stated its aim to find two American drivers for the 2010 season. Its failure to do so was the source of much amusement in certain quarters and struck some observers as being almost as laughable as the decision to base an F1 team in the US when there isn't even a race there.

The team principal was a chap called Ken Anderson, whose 30 years in motorsport saw him as an Indy car designer, F1 team technical director and wind tunnel constructor.

His fellow director was a total arse called Peter Windsor, whose 30 years in motorsport journalism saw him get right up the noses of anybody who appreciates impartial reportage. He was, in every measurable way we could think of, the next Craig Pollock.

The team had looked unlikely to make it to the grid in 2010 since its inception and there was little surprise when news broke in early March that the team had notified the FIA that it would "not be in a position to participate in 2010".

Anderson and Windsor chose to delegate the task of telling their employees that they were out of a job, failing to have the decency or courage even to turn up at the factory for the announcement.

Which pretty much tells you all you need to know about them and how they ran their almost-team.