This young man is worth watching in coming years. Give him a performing car and he will give you results. The machinery given to this man is no indication of his talent, proven by winning the Indy Lights championship in 2006 and he was left to rue a poor-quality Sarah Fisher Racing entry in Kansas, Texas, Mid-Ohio and Chicago.

Despite a difficult introduction to the series, hastily placed into the drive at HVM from Barber onwards, Bertrand adjusted to the series rather quickly. Looking through his results, with his race finishing position becoming higher up the field as the season progressed, Bertrand will surprise few when he achieves success in the IndyCar Series. With a best finish of 10th at Kentucky, give this kid a bit more time to find his feet and the success will come.

Having recently announced her retirement from full-time in-car competition in order to focus on running her team, Sarah has started well by investing in the recruitment of Ed Carpenter for 2011, although we may see Sarah appearing at the Indy 500 in a second car. For 2010, Sarah competed well in an underperforming car, even leading some laps at Chicago.

Driving for four different teams in 2010, this inconsistency resulted in some poor finishes for Graham, whose standards would obviously be higher by virtue of his famous surname. Despite this, seven top-10 finishes from 12 starts show that this young man has what it takes to deliver when the team name stays the same all year…

A fairly consistent finisher, E.J. was unlucky to have not had better results in 2010. When everything came together, he delivered exceptional results, such as his podium in Iowa. But that was very much a rarity, and he picked up only one other top-ten finish all season. It is expected that E.J. will retain his seat for 2011, but more is expected.

Exploding onto the scene in her very first race in Brazil, leading 4 laps even, Simona experienced all the highs and lows one possibly can in her debut season, including a very frightening fiery accident in Texas. For one reason or another though, poor reliability and some amateur handling errors caused a few too many retirements for the Swiss miss. HVM Racing have confirmed De Silvestro will be returning to the seat in 2011.

All set for a big year was young Mike Conway, even qualifying on the front row at Barber Motorsports Park. Three top-ten finishes by Kansas had heralded his arrival before a massive accident on the last lap at Indianapolis sidelined him for the remainder of 2010. Expect big things from the returning Briton in 2011 and beyond.

Definitely the highest-profile signing of the 2009 off-season, the veteran of 90 starts in Formula 1 was widely tipped to struggle to adapt to the nature of oval-racing in the USA. Unfortunately, plenty of instances where Takuma qualified well up the field were not converted into positive race results. If he can keep his car out of the wall come race-day, bets on Takuma will pay dividends, as the raw pace and talent is there.