World champion Jenson Button may not have a home race next year

Silverstone has been given a new deadline of December 11th to get a deal in place to hold the British Grand Prix.

Bernie Ecclestone had previously given the circuit until November 7th to sign a contract but, not for the first time in his negotiations over the 2010 British Grand Prix, the critical date has been moved back.

However it seems what Silverstone realy needs from Ecclestone is not more time to settle a deal but more favourable terms.

Three days ago Donington Ventures Leisure Limited went into administration having failed to complete the work they needed to host the 2010 British F1 round at Donington Park. It’s hard to credit their optimistic claims they might still hold a British round of the world championship in 2011.

It’s not unreasonable for the British Racing Drivers’ Club to want to avoid a similar fate by locking themselves into the same payment structure Donington were facing – a 17-year deal costing them a total of £370m.

Silverstone is developing other areas of its business in order to remain profitable. A new complex at Stowe has been revealed which is designed for testing cars and motoring products.

Ecclestone, as ever, refuses to countenance giving Silverstone special treatment in order to secure a British Grand Prix in the calendar. He told The Times:

Of course we want a British Grand Prix. I’ve been spending an awful lot of time trying make sure it does happen, but there is no chance of an exceptional contract for Silverstone. Why should there be?
Bernie Ecclestone

I’m sure many of us can think of good answers why F1 should not cut yet another popular and historic race from its calendar.

It seems hard to believe F1 could end up with a Lewis Hamilton-Jenson Button British ’superteam’ at McLaren – but no British Grand Prix. But those who’ve been following F1 a long time have become used to seeing the sport shoot itself in the foot in this way.

There have been optimistic rumours about government ministers getting involved (there is a general election next year which the current government is expected to lose, which might encourage some action), and a potential combined deal which would also bring the French Grand Prix back as a 20th race in 2010.

So far none of this has come to pass. In the final reckoning, it will surely come down to Ecclestone’s call whether he wants a British Grand Prix on the calendar in 2010. An this time his deadline might be a real one.

19 days and counting.

Silverstone, Donington and the 2010 British Grand Prix

• Silverstone given until tomorrow to accept Ecclestone’s £370m offer
• Another Donington deadline missed: will Ecclestone give Silverstone its race back?
• 2009 British Grand Prix in pictures
• 2010 Donington Park F1 track revealed
• Donington Park, Silverstone, Brands Hatch and the British Grand Prix
• 2010 F1 calendar

Could he finally be about to make the connection, three years after his last F1 race? It seems to be more speculation than substance at the moment, but the prospect certainly is an appealling one…

Michael Schumacher ‘will drive for Mercedes F1 in 2010′ (BBC)

Eddie Jordan: "It started with a meeting between Michael, Ross Brawn and Daimler chief executive officer Dieter Zetsche at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. At the moment, it is not possible for Michael to drive for Mercedes because he has a consultancy contract with Ferrari. But I understand he was due to meet Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo with a view to him being released – and that it will be approved because it is in the interests of F1. "

New Shareholder (Williams)

"Frank Williams and Patrick Head announced today that they have sold a minority interest in Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited (Williams F1) to an investment company led by Austrian investor Toto Wolff. Mr Wolff also joins the company’s Board."

Bernie Ecclestone ready to drop British Grand Prix (The Times)

“The World Council will meet and we will just pull it off — we will have to. We’ll have no other choice, if we don’t have a contract. We shouldn’t have anything on the calendar unless we have a contract in place.”

Jenson Button contract breach let £12m Brawn deal slip away (Daily Express)

"Just a month after being lifted to the heights of world champion by his team, Button was left in no doubt that he had let them down in a phone call with team principal Ross Brawn at the weekend. That came after a breach of contract when Button was shown around the McLaren factory, a move which shocked Brawn, who thought he was still in the middle of negotiations with Button."

McLaren gain retribution by luring Button with £18m deal (The Times)

"Button is thought to have fallen out with his former team over money with his camp claiming he was being offered £4 million for next year. The team have since said that they were offering £8 million. Either way there seems to have been a breakdown in relations and The Times understands that neither Button nor his advisers have been taking calls from Mercedes’s management for over a week."

Salo and Trulli’s taste of NASCAR (Motor Sport)

"Mika Salo and Jarno Trulli each spent a day this week behind the wheel of one of Michael Waltrip Racing’s Toyota NASCAR Sprint Cup cars."

John Surtees pilots electric Ginetta G50EV through Channel Tunnel (Autoblog)

"Motor racing legend John Surtees added a bit of history to all three items by being the first person to drive a production car through the tunnel (usually, it's just trains and service vehicles down there). The F1 World Champion's vehicle of choice was an all-electric, all-sexy Ginetta G50EV."

These are links I’ve bookmarked using Delicious. You can see my Delicious profile here.

How well will Button and Hamilton get on next year?

It’s been said the driver policy at McLaren is simple: find the two best drivers available and hire them.

Once again they have hired a pair of champion drivers, something which is not that common in F1. The surprise 2010 pairing of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button is the latest in a series that includes the likes of Alain Prost, Niki Lauda and Ayrton Senna.

McLaren’s newest champion duo has a lot to live up to. How will they compare to the past greats of the Woking team?

Alain Prost and Niki Lauda, 1984-1985

Greatness: Ended up with seven championships between them, each winning one while team mate to the other. They benefitted from the exceptional power and flexibility of the TAG-sponsored Porsche 1.5-litre turbo engines, as well as an excellent John Barnard-designed chassis, which won 12 of the 16 rounds in 1984.

Each was a master in the art preserving a car over a race distance and working their way through the field to victory. The same season they won 12 races they had only three pole positions – and they were separated by just half a point at the end of the year.

Weakness: Their second season as team mates was a disaster for Lauda, who slumped to tenth in the championship, largely due to a string of car failures. Lauda left the team at the end of 1985 unhappy with what he perceived to be Ron Dennis giving preferential treatment to Prost.

Record: Prost won his first of two championships while Lauda’s team mate, and went on to win three more. Lauda’s 1984 title was his third and last after winning two with Ferrari in the 1970s.

Alain Prost and Keke Rosberg, 1986

Greatness: Rosberg made a one-year stop-off at McLaren while en route from Williams to retirement. Although the McLaren-TAG now lacked the outright pace of the Williams-Hondas, a dramatic twist at the final round let Prost in to claim a sensational second championship win.

Weakness: Just one podium finish for Rosberg who struggled to adapt to the MP4-2C. But the pair remained on good terms and Rosberg was happy to support Prost’s title bid in the latter stages of the season.

Record: Rosberg joined defending champion Prost for 1986 having won the 1982 championship for Williams despite taking just a single race win that year. Prost won his second world championship while the pair were team mates.

Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, 1988-1989

Prost and Senna fought on and off the track

Greatness: Probably the greatest driver pairing of all time. Not even Michael Schumacher-era Ferrari matched the dominant form of Prost and Senna in 1988, winning all bar one of the 16 rounds and finishing one-two in half of the races. Prost’s consistency and Senna’s daunting one-lap pace made them a formidable duo the likes of which has scarcely been seen before or since.

Weakness: Certainly the most infamous driving pairing of all time. Fell out over Senna’s defensive driving at Estoril in 1988, then over a deal Prost claim Senna reneged on at Imola in 1989. Culminated in Prost swiping into Senna’s car at Suzuka in 1989, winning the title in the process. Prost had already announced he would leave the team for Ferrari, and 12 months later Senna took his revenge at the same track.

Record: Senna won his first championship with McLaren at this time and Prost claimed his third. Senna went on to win two more with McLaren while partnering Gerhard Berger, while Prost took his fourth and last at Williams with Damon Hill as his team mate.

Mika Hakkinen and Nigel Mansell, 1995

Greatness: While together, not much.

Weakness: It’s easy to overlook this pair as they were only team mates for two races in 1995. Nigel Mansell was at the end of his career but Mika Hakkinen’s was just beginning to gather momentum.

However their car, the first Mercedes-engined McLaren, was a disaster. Mansell didn’t even fit in it to begin with and Mark Blundell took his place while the cockpit was enlarged. Mansell drove it twice, registering a tenth place and a withdrawal, and then never again.

Record: Mansell won one championship with Williams in 1992 after being runner-up on three occasions. Hakkinen stuck with McLaren and was rewarded with back-to-back titles in 1998 and 1999.

Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, 2007

Alonso and Hamilton's partnership quickly turned sour in 2007

Greatness: Either Lewis Hamilton or Fernando Alonso could have won the 2007 championship, but both fell short by a point, partly because neither emerged as the consistently better driver over the course of the year.

Weakness: The pair traded blows all year. Hamilton claimed Alonso was favoured by the team at Monte-Carlo, then refused to let his team mate by when instructed to at Hungary. That provoked a reaction from Alonso which earned the Spanish driver a penalty – and then all hell broke loose. Alonso revealed details of the McLaren’s use of confidential Ferrari information to the FIA, and the team were thrown out of the championship.

Hamilton had a comfortable lead in the championship with two races to go but lost it after a series of mistakes by team or driver including an unnecessary tactical gamble, a driving error and a car problem. Meanwhile Alonso was by now so unhappy with his treatment he demanded an independent FIA adjudicator be present in his garage to ensure fair play. Nothing was found, but he too was unable to keep Kimi Raikkonen from the crown.

Record: Alonso joined McLaren from Renault, where he had already won two championships. Hamilton bounced back in his second season to become the sport’s youngest ever world champion.

Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, 2010

It’s likely that even if Button hadn’t signed for McLaren we’d be looking at another all-champion line-up at McLaren, as they were also courting Raikkonen.

The first impression from readers of this site is that Button has made a major gamble by joining Hamilton’s team for 2010 – 83% believe he will get beaten next year.

History tells us these world champion pairings don’t tend to last long – two years, tops. So what sort of partnership will we see this time? Will it be one-sided but amicable, like Prost and Rosberg? Or a closely-matched fight between enemies, like Prost and Senna? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Button and Hamilton at McLaren

• McLaren confirm Jenson Button will join Lewis Hamilton for 2010
• McLaren F1 drivers
• 2010 F1 drivers and teams

Dacia Duster 4x4, Trophee Andros, 2009

The Dacia range of cars isn’t sold here in Britain and the brand is probably best known for Top Gear’s running joke about James May’s fixation with its Sandero model.

But Renault is to give its economy brand a boost by entering it in the annual Trophee Andros ice-racing tournament in France – with four-times champion Alain Prost at the wheel.

Prost, who has more Grand Prix wins to his name than anyone bar Michael Schumacher, will campaign the amusingly-named Duster 4×4. It will be his seventh year in the competition, having raced for Toyota since 2003.

He has always finished in the championship top three, winning outright in 2006/7 and 2007/8. His association with Renault is well-known: he drove for them from 1981-1983, narrowly missing the championship in his final season which contributed to an acrimonious split from the team. He won his final title in a Renault-engined Williams in 1993.

While F1 waits to see if Renault will continue to compete in F1 in 2010 it’s interesting to read how the company justifies entering the competition in financially austere times:

The discipline also places a cap on excessively complex and costly technical solutions, while the chassis, gearbox and tyres, for example, are all carefully governed by the regulations, forcing teams to explore simple, ingenious solutions, an approach which totally fits the Dacia spirit.

Raikkonen's absence means someone else will have to win the next Belgian GP

Kimi Raikkonen has scotched rumours that he could join Mercedes and now looks set to spend at least one year out of the F1 cockpit.

Reading comments here and on other sites I’ve been surprised by the outpourings of dismay over Raikkonen’s departure from F1 and sympathy towards him.

But when there’s at least 11 seats on the grid for 2010 he could have taken, this sympathy seems misplaced.

Raikkonen complains there is no top team able to take him on for next year. But plenty of former champions have served time in uncompetitive outfits before returning to the front of the grid. In F1 today where testing opportunities are scarce, it would have been the best way for him to stay ready for a ready to the sharp end of F1 in 2011.

For an example, look no further than the man who’s replacing him at Ferrari – Fernando Alonso. His battling drives for Renault these past two seasons are surely a large part of the reason why he’s been given Raikkonen’s job – a year earlier than Ferrari originally planned.

There’s also the small matter of whether Raikkonen still deserves a front-line ride. After winning the 2007 championship he was beaten by team mate Felipe Massa last year and over the first half of this season before Massa was injured.

He had a better end to the season but a lot easier to look good against Luca Badoer and Giancarlo Fisichella.

These are not unusual circumstances for an F1 driver to lose his seat. It’s a bit much for Raikkonen to expect the likes of McLaren and Mercedes to be salivating at the prospect of putting him in their cars when he’s only delivering the goods once a year at Spa.

Army of fans

Where I do have some pity for Raikkonen is that his love of motor racing and his great talent have put him in a position where he finds himself having to cope with public appearances and PR events – something he clearly abhors.

I saw him at the opening of the new Ferrari Store in London earlier this year and, as I wrote at the time, I felt sorry for him as he plainly did not want to be there. Prised from his private life to do his PR duty, he grimaced at his surroundings when the cameras weren’t on him (which was rare).

But you have to keep things in context. Is a bit of glad-handing really that much of a hardship when you’ve got an eight-figure salary and the best job in the world?

Last year I saw him at the Silverstone test, ducking out of the side of the Ferrari tent to avoid the fans waiting outside. Other drivers lingered, signing caps and photographs.

It made me reflect on how despite Raikkonen’s aversion to appearing in public he’s inspired a passionate allegiance from an army of fans.

Their loss is rallying’s gain, but I’m sure he’ll be happier in a much lower-profile championship where his PR responsibilities will no doubt be insignificant – at most.

I am disappointed it’s come to this. I suspect this sabbatical may turn out to be like the one Mika Hakkinen took at the end of 2001 and still hasn’t returned from. Some people think Raikkonen will be back in 2011 to drive for Red Bull. But surely that’s the last place he’ll find a safe haven from the horrors of having to shake hands with people?

It’s always sad to see a world champion quit the sport. But it’s especially sad to see one leave in this fashion, when he could still have achieved much more. I might not understand his fans’ point of view, but I think they deserved more from their man.

What do you think about Raikkonen’s retirement? Is F1 poorer without him? Did he deserve a drive with a top team? Have your say in the comments.

Read more: Kimi Raikkonen to take sabbatical in 2010 as McLaren talks end

F1 2009 for Nintendo Wii has an up-to-date roster of teams and tracks

Codemasters picked two formats for their new official Formula 1 game “F1 2009″.

Yesterday we looked at the handheld Sony PSP version – but what’s the game like played in full screen on a Nintendo Wii? Read on to find out.

It’s not hard to see why the Wii is the first major console to get the latest official Formula 1 game. Despite being technically inferior to the Sony PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 it has out-stripped both for sales. According to Nintendo at the end of last month over 56 million had been sold worldwide (see PDF).

Its motion-sensitive controller has broadened the appeal of gaming to people who wouldn’t usually pick up a joypad. And “F1 2009″ aims to play to that by coming boxed with a special adaptor which allows you to hold it like a steering wheel.

This makes for a much more enjoyable driving experience than you get playing the game on the PSP. I found it worked best when I switched to the in-car camera view so I could see exactly how turning my wheel affected the one on-screen.

It’s nothing like as accurate as using a proper steering wheel set-up. It has a large ‘dead zone’ in the centre of the turning motion, meaning you have to turn it quite a lot for the car to change direction. But it works perfectly well for the simplistic demands of “F1 2009’s” arcade-style racing.

The other major difference between “F1 2009″ on the Wii and PSP is that you are playing the game in full screen which show the graphics in all their glory. Or not, as the case might be.

Trying to render 20 cars on-screen at once taxes the Wii even with the comparatively simple graphics of “F1 2009″. Whenever you catch up with a clutch of cars at a tight corner there is a noticeable drop-off in frame rate. And if you execute a particularly stunning pass and want to watch a replay of it, you’ll be in for a disappointment as there’s no replay facility.

Much of the reaction to the early images and video of the game published here focused on the simplicity of the graphics. But Nintendo’s gamble that the Wii would ship more units by sacrificing graphical quality for a more tactile gaming experience proved accurate, so I suspect F1-loving Wii-owners will get exactly what they want out of this game. Xbox 360 and PS3 owners will get a 2010-spec game next year.

Apart from the control system and graphics, and some subtle differences in the menus, “F1 2009″ for the Wii is much the same as the PSP version, so do refer back to that review for more on the cars, tracks, teams, technology and other 2009 season details.

And if you’ve played either version of the game, please tell us what you thought of them in the comments.

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F1 2009 for Nintendo Wii video

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Jenson Button has left Ross Brawn's team to join McLaren

After days of intense speculation Jenson Button has finally been confirmed as a McLaren driver for 2010.

He will team up with Lewis Hamilton in a move that will see McLaren retain the number one on their car.

Ross Brawn earlier told The Independent he was “amazed” about Button’s talks with McLaren, adding:

His best future is with our team, where he has a good group around him, and there’s a lot to be said for that. The logical thing would be for him to stay with us, but of course logic doesn’t always prevail.
Ross Brawn

The surprising move, first reported by Alan Henry in The Guardian, will not only mean Britain’s two best F1 drivers today facing each other in the same team.

It will also be the first time two previous world champions have paired up since the infamous Ayrton Senna-Alain Prost partnership of 1988-1989, also at McLaren.

Button’s win-less second half of 2009 – after a dominant start to the season – led some to question whether he ‘deserved’ his championship. By taking on Hamilton he has an opportunity to prove the doubters wrong.

With Button joining McLaren, Heikki Kovalainen is left to find a new team. There is a vacancy at former team Renault, assuming they remain in F1 next year.

The news also means Brawn – now Mercedes Grand Prix – will not retain either of its drivers for 2010. Rumours place Nico Rosberg at the team for 2010, potentially partnering Nick Heidfeld.

That would leave the reigning champion team without a race winner in its 2010 line-up. It has prompted speculation that Michael Schumacher, who was backed by Mercedes before he entered f1, could end his association with Ferrari to join their new F1 team in 2010. But so far there is nothing to back up that rumour, which would outdo even the Button move for sensation if true.

Has Button bitten off more than he can chew by taking on Hamilton at McLaren? How will Hamilton react to having a team mate with the number one on his car? Have your say in the comments.

Jenson Button joins McLaren

• Mercedes or McLaren? Button’s decision
• Mercedes Grand Prix take over Brawn for 2010 – but what about Jenson Button?
• Kimi Raikkonen to take sabbatical in 2010 as McLaren talks end (Updated)
• 2010 F1 drivers and teams

Press release

“We’re ambitious, we’re motivated and we’re hungrier than ever. We make no secret of our ambition for next year: Vodafone McLaren Mercedes wants to win both World Championships – and, with Jenson and Lewis, we believe we’re better equipped than any other team in the pitlane to do exactly that.”

The Sony PSP and Nintendo Wii are the first consoles to get the new F1 game

After a three-year wait, F1 fans finally have an official Formula 1 game.

New licence-holders Codemasters have produced a game based on the 2009 season for the Sony PSP and Nintendo Wii, while a 2010 game is under development for the more sophisticated PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms.

It’s fair to say most F1 Fanatic readers have been clamouring for a simulator in the Geoff Crammond mould. But the PSP and Wii offering is clearly aimed at more casual gamers – it’s an arcade-style title which owes a lot to its Sony-produced predecessors.

2009 season data

As you’d expect from an officially-licensed title, all ten teams are present and correct with the 20 drivers they started the season with. Romain Grosjean, Luca Badoer, Jaime Alguersuari, Vitantonio Liuzzi and Kamui Kobayashi aren’t available to select.

You get all 17 tracks as well and I took the first opportunity to dive into the acid test of any F1 game – Monaco. It’s the most recognisable F1 track in the world, and the large amount of street furniture can make it difficult to render properly.

Codemasters have done a decent job of it – they haven’t gone down the path of making the circuit far wider than it is, as a sop to challenge-averse gamers. But the lack of collision damage on the basic setting means you can ricochet around the principality and still win comfortably.

Another tricky challenge for the designers was simulating the new Yas Island circuit before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix had even happened. Here they’ve done less well – there’s a lot more grass in the game than there is in real life. Although they have put in the underground pit exit and the hotel straddling the circuit is there too, the mid-race sunset doesn’t happen – the entire race runs in daylight.

The representations of the tracks are generally good with most of the major track-side scenery in place. The circuits are all up-to-date but some of them feel a bit flat – particularly Spa.

Of the two main technical innovations to appear in 2009 – KERS and adjustable wings – only one is present. Every car has a KERS (whereas only McLaren, Ferrari, BMW and Renault actually raced them) and you get a limited number of jabs per race. The adjustable front wing is not simulated, but given how little we heard about the technology in 2009 it hardly seems worth grumbling about.

On the whole it’s a largely faithful recreation of the 2009 championship. The teams and drivers perform broadly in line with their overall position in the championship standings, but without the kind of extreme fluctuations shown by Force India at Belgium, McLaren at Hungary, or Toyota at Monaco, for example.

Pick-up-and-play

As you’d expect practice sessions, knockout qualifying and full race distances available. As well as the usual career, championship and single race modes there’s also a ‘challenge’ option where you have to complete a certain task. This can be setting a fast lap, winning a particular race or overtaking a driver without making contact. As you complete challenges and win races you unlock new parts of the game.

For an arcade game the set-up options have a surprising amount of detail – you can tweak wing angles, gear ratios, suspension and tyre settings and much more, and you can usually suss the difference it’s made to the car’s handling.

But the handling model is very basic, which it has to be given the limitations of the PSP’s all-button control system. Getting the car around the track quickly requires a delicate and rapid touch on the buttons. As you’d expect, the onus is on pick-up-and-play simplicity, not realism. It does make for a fine multi-player experience, with up to four players able to race at the same time.

Racing the computer-controlled opponents is much more formulaic, They cling to the racing line and barge you out of the way without mercy if you dare occupy the square of tarmac they’re heading for (make your Michael Schumacher jokes in the comments). You can happily charge past ten of them at a hairpin while they queue up to go around it, and it’s hard to get overtaken if you don’t crash.

“F1 2009″ offers little in the way of killer new features that make it stand out from the game it replaced, other than that it’s more up-to-date. It’s hard to escape the feeling it’s something of a stopgap product for the ‘popular’ end of the market and we’ll only see what Codemasters can really do with the F1 franchise when F1 2010 comes out for the PS3 and Xbox 360 next year.

But while hardcore gamers wait for the more mature title to come along, less demanding players will find a lot of fun to be had from “F1 2009″.

If you’ve ordered “F1 2009″, or are planning to, tell us what you think of the new F1 game in the comments. “F1 2009″ is also available for Nintendo Wii, and I’ll be trying that version of the game soon.

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F1 2009 by Codemasters – pictures

F1 2009 by Codemasters – videos

F1 2009 by Codemasters

• No F1 game from Codemasters until 2010 – unless you’ve got a Wii or PSP
• Whodunnit? Codemasters barred from creating blog about their F1 game
• Codemasters 2009 F1 game wish list

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Kimi Raikkonen is running out of options for 2010

Kimi Raikkonen will not drive for McLaren in 2010.

One of them is Raikkonen’s manager Steve Robertson, who told Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat negotiations between the two parties had ended. An undisclosed source confirmed the story.

There are still many places available for 2010 but few of them in teams that are likely to be competitive enough to attract the 2007 champion.

His best bet for a drive could be the new Mercedes Grand Prix team – if it is indeed not looking for two German drivers next year.

And there’s no room at championship runners-up Red Bull unless contracts are broken.

With Raikkonen no longer in line for a McLaren drive it adds more credence to the rumours that Jenson Button is about to be announced as Lewis Hamilton’s team mate.

Is this the end of the road for Raikkonen in F1? Might he take a seat with a lesser team to guarantee he’ll stay in the sport? Or will he just go rallying instead?

Update: According to Autosport Raikkonen will take a sabbatical in 2010. But will he return in 2011? We’re still waiting for Mika Hakkinen to return from his 2002 ’sabbatical’…

Read more: 2010 F1 drivers and teams

Either Mercedes or McLaren will have the coveted number one next year

Depending on who you believe, Jenson Button may already have signed for McLaren.

But many people thought the same about Kimi Raikkonen a few weeks ago. And it’s hard to believe Button would voluntarily leave the team that made him champion after sticking by them for so long. Which team will he pick for 2010?

Mercedes Grand Prix

Button voluntarily took a substantial pay cut earlier this year when Brawn had to lay off some staff to save money.

He believes his new world champion status means his salary should go up again. And with the long-term future of the team formerly known as Brawn secured, they should be able to afford it.

But Mercedes know that if they are to stick to the cost reduction proposal agreed with the FIA they need to keep their spending down. And driver salaries is one of the biggest expenses to cut.

So, while some have pointed to Mercedes’ apparent desire to have a German driver in the team, that isn’t necessarily the only reason why a deal with Button hasn’t been done yet.

Nor is it certain they are after two German drivers. After all, apart from Adrian Sutil (who drove for a Mercedes customer team this year) they haven’t been associated with a German racing driver in F1 since 1994.

McLaren

However if Button does choose McLaren – who are apparently offering more money – no-one could accuse him of taking the soft option. Going up against Lewis Hamilton in the team he has made his own will be ferociously difficult.

Talk of the Hamilton situation at McLaren always provokes fierce debate as we all remember how Fernando Alonso stormed out of the team after a single season.

And Heikki Kovalainen, who looks likely to leave the team whether or not Button comes in, complained Hamilton got preference on new parts put on the car. That may simply be because Hamilton’s proved himself the better driver. But McLaren would have a hard time justifying a similar situation if it had Britain’s two most recent world champions as its drivers.

Differences between Button and Hamilton’s driving styles will be another problem. Hamilton is known to prefer an oversteering car; Button thrives on an understeer-biased set-up. Work on the MP4/25 has already begun and decisions that affect the fundamental balance of the car will already have been taken. Such as weight distribution, which will be especially crucial with larger fuel tanks and narrower front tyres next year.

None of this is to say McLaren is an unattractive option – the team have brilliant facilities and a track record of building great cars and quickly rectifying poor ones. But it’s not an easy option.

The decision

To say Button’s choice is a diffiicult one is a serious understatement. And it’s an unusual one for a newly-crowned champion to face. Yes, Alonso left Renault after winning the 2006 title for them, but that decision had been made the previous winter.

Appropriately, it’s a pair of British drivers that have the most recent experience of this dilemma: Damon Hill in 1996, leaving Williams for Arrows, and Nigel Mansell in 1992, who also left Williams – and F1 entirely – to race in CART.

Champions usually prefer stability, and that’s what many of Britain’s elder F1 statesmen have urged Button to pick. If he does go to McLaren to take on Hamilton, many will conclude he only did so because the Mercedes option was unworkable.

Where do you think Button should go in 2010? And where do you think he will end up? Have your say below.

Read more: Mercedes Grand Prix take over Brawn for 2010 – but what about Jenson Button?

Timo Glock will drive for new F1 team Manor in 2010

The 2010 F1 driver line-up took another step closer to completion today – but not with the widely predicted move by Jenson Button to McLaren.

It was another of the new F1 outfits, Manor Grand Prix, who announced ex-Toyota racer Timo Glock had joined them for 2010.

Glock told his official website he wanted a team where he would have greater opportunity to play a role in car development.

He also said he wanted to return to a small British team similar to that he enjoyed at iSport in 2006 to 2007, which culminated in his GP2 championship victory.

Coming after Toyota’s decision to quit F1 it was especially telling that Glock praised Manor as “a real racing team run by true racers.”

The move to a new team for a driver entering his third full season of F1 will inevitably be seen as something of a gamble. But it gives him the opportunity to push the team in his direct particularly if, as some believe, Manor choose to partner him with a rookie. Glock’s former GP2 driver Lucas di Grassi has been tipped for the seat.

The team are also believed to be on the verge of renaming itself as Virgin F1.

Glock ended 2009 on the sidelines after being injured in a crash in qualifying a Suzuka.

That came just a week after he equalled his career-best finish of second in the Singapore Grand Prix. How long will it take him to achieve similar results with Manor?

Read more: 2010 F1 drivers and teams

Mika Salo tests Toyota's first F1 car at Paul Ricard in 2001

Toyota: they arrived, they spent staggering amounts of money without winning anything, and then they gave up.

It’s not the kind of inspiring story that’s likely to get made into a film any time soon. But it wasn’t without its high points and interesting moments. Have a look at some of Toyota’s better memories in this 90-picture gallery.

More F1 pictures

Images (C) Toyota F1 World

Mercedes' illustration of its likely 2010 F1 car livery

Mercedes has announced it is taking over Brawn GP and rebranding it Mercedes Grand Prix for 2010.

But it remains to be seen whether they will keep world champion Jenson Button in the team.

They are expected to bring in Nico Rosberg and may partner him with a second German driver – possibly Nick Heidfeld.

Button is tipped to move to McLaren – who he visited on Friday – to join Lewis Hamilton in an all-British line-up.

Mercedes will take a 75% share in Brawn. In May I wrote how appealing the idea of a Brawn deal was for Mercedes. Two months ago reports emerged that a deal was on the cards for 2011. That now seems to have been brought forward.

The deal, which sees Mercedes shifting their stake from McLaren to Brawn, should guarantee the future of the team which was sold by Honda almost 12 months ago.

McLaren and Mercedes worked closely together on and off the track after Mercedes became an engine supplier to the F1 team in 1995. The two developed the Mercedes SLR McLaren which was built at the McLaren Technology Centre.

But now Mercedes has used in-house tuners AMG to build its replacement – the SLS – and McLaren has developed a supercar of its own – the MP4-12C.

Expect the 2010 Mercedes F1 car to take on the silver colouring that’s been associated with McLaren since 1997 (see illustration above). It will be the first time Mercedes has run its own F1 team since 1955 when it had a British driver in its line-up – Stirling Moss.

McLaren could return to their historic orange colour scheme. Mercedes’ press release, reproduced in full below, says:

The change to the form of co-operation is taking place by mutual agreement. Mercedes-Benz and McLaren will continue to co-operate with each other and the supply of engines could continue until 2015.

Is this the sad loss of a giant-killing independent team, or a welcome vote of confidence from a major manufacturer? And how would Hamilton and Button fare as team mates? Have your say in the comments.

Mercedes take over Brawn

• 2010 F1 drivers and teams
• McLaren MP4-12C road car revealed
• Mercedes should put a sticker on this car
• Mercedes to take 75% stake in Brawn – but what does that mean for McLaren?

Press release

In a year of remarkable reliability Heidfeld set a new record for finishing races

The final part of our look at the 2009 F1 season in numbers will shed some more light on which were the best-performing drivers, and looks at how 2009 compared to other F1 seasons.

Plus there’s a recap of all the major records broken in 2009 – from the youngest ever F1 driver to the first-time champions.

Season records

Drivers ranked by results

Jenson Button won the world championship and he also scored more wins than anyone else. But what happens if we rank the entire grid in order of who got the best results? The table below shows the rankings.

Mark Webber moves up a pace to third at Rubens Barrichello’s expense. Fisichella moves up from 15th to 11th thanks to his second place at Spa.

Rosberg suffers the most, falling from seventh to 14th, having failed to land a big score when the opportunity presented itself at races such as Singapore. But curiously the gulf in performance between him and team mate Kazuki Nakajima is even more apparent: we can see Rosberg beat Nakajima’s best finishing position on no fewer than 13 occasions. The same goes for Alonso compared to his two team mates.

Have a look at the 2009 F1 championship standings to make comparisons of your own:

2009 season in context

F1 2009: Retirements (click to enlarge)

For the third year in a row we saw a new record for race completion. Out of every start made by every driver, 82.06% resulted in a classified finished. In a decade F1 has gone from only having half the field finish each race to more than four out of five cars finishing.

Reliability stayed close to its record level of last year, with just 9.12% of race starts ending due to a car failure.

F1 2009: Drivers (click to enlarge)

Last year’s record for every driver starting every race was not matched due to two sackings (Sebastien Bourdais and Nelson Piquet Jnr) and two injuries (Felipe Massa and Timo Glock).

F1 2009: Pole positions (click to enlarge)

Pole positions were shared among eight drivers in 2009. That was partly because the field was generally quite evenly matched, with some teams that were not regular contenders for victory enjoying strong form at particular venues – such as Force India at Spa and McLaren at anything slow and twisty.

It was also partly because of the artificial nature of race-fuel qualifying, allowing drivers to cut their fuel load to qualify well (Toyota at Bahrian, Alonso at Spa). This will be gone next year.

F1 2009: Different winners (click to enlarge)

Strange that Button won as many races as the two champions before him, yet there are so many discussions about him being an ‘unworthy’ champion.

2009 stats and facts highlights

• Jenson Button’s first world championship
• Brawn’s first world championship
• Brawn are the first team to win their maiden Grand Prix since Wolf in 1977
• Mark Webber and Red Bull’s first F1 wins
• Red Bull’s first pole position
• Force India’s first pole position
• Force India’s first F1 points and podium
• The Malaysian Grand Prix was the third shortest ever F1 race by time at 55 minutes, 30.6 seconds. It was the first time half points had been awarded since the 1991 Australian Grand Prix.
• Jaime Alguersuari became the youngest driver to start an F1 race
• Nick Heidfeld’s record streak of race completion ends after 41 consecutive classified results and 33 races finished in a row
• Sebastien Buemi became the 69th driver to score a point on their debut
• Ferrari failed to score in the first three races for the first time since 1981
• McLaren failed to score a point in four consecutive races for the first time since 1981
• Button became the first driver to win four consecutive races since Fernando Alonso in 2006
• Britain became the first country to score 200 wins in F1 and Brazil became the third country to reach 100 wins
• For the second year in a row the world championship was won by a British driver in car number 22 with a Mercedes engine, by finishing fifth in the Brazilian Grand Prix, beating a Brazilian driver to the title

Race facts and stats

If a double-post on F1 stats still isn’t enough, here’s all the post-race stats analysis from every race this year:

Australian Grand Prix facts and stats
Malaysian Grand Prix facts and stats
Chinese Grand Prix facts and stats
Bahrain Grand Prix facts and stats
Spanish Grand Prix facts and stats
Monaco Grand Prix facts and stats
Turkish Grand Prix facts and stats
British Grand Prix facts and stats
German Grand Prix stats and facts
Hungarian Grand Prix facts and stats
European Grand Prix facts and stats
Belgian Grand Prix facts and stats
Italian Grand Prix facts and stats
Singapore Grand Prix facts and stats
Japanese Grand Prix facts and stats
Brazilian Grand Prix facts and stats Abu Dhabi Grand Prix facts and stats

The first public appearance at Ferrari for Fernando Alonso didn’t go entirely according to plan.

The Spanish champion got stuck in a gravel trap while he and future team mate Felipe Massa were being driven around the Valencia circuit in a Ferrari California by Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo.

They’d been trying to get as close as possible to the 17,000 Spanish fans who turned out to see Alonso’s first appearance for Ferrari. Unsurprisingly Ferrari did not publish photographs of the incident but there’s plenty of pictures from the event below.

Alonso was only able to attend the event after getting permission from Renault at the last minute, as he is still contracted to them until the new year. He told the crowd:

This is a very important day for me, because here I can understand what the world of Ferrari is really like. In 2010 I hope to fight for the world title together with Felipe and that all the fans can be proud of us and our professionalism.
Fernando Alonso

Massa and Alonso were at the Ricardo Tormo circuit near Valencia in Spain for the final day of the Ferrari Finali Mondiali (Ferrari world finals).

They joined Giancarlo Fisichella, Marc Gene and Luca Badoer – Ferrari’s three official test drivers for 2010.

Here’s a collection of pictures of the celebrations which featured many Ferrari F1 cars including the gorgeous ex-Jean Alesi 1995 car number 27 – the last V12-engined Ferrari.

2009 Ferrari Finali Mondiali in pictures

Update: Thanks to Nano Rock for the video!

Update: Ferrari media release

Today was the first day when the whole 2010 Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro came together: next to Alonso there were Felipe Massa, Giancarlo Fisichella, Marc Gené and Luca Badoer. Fernando’s public debut as a Ferrarista started with an entertaining episode. When the Spanish driver, on board of a Ferrari California with his future teammate Felipe and driven by Chairman Luca di Montezemolo, tried to get as close to the grandstands in turn 1 as possible, the car got stuck in the gravel of the run-off area. Therefore the spectators got a good view and enough time to greet their local hero. The trio was “rescued” by the second California on the track, driven by the President of the Comunità Valenciana, Fernando Camps, with Valencia’s mayor Rita Barberà on board. Once the three guests had been collected the light blue car drove back to the box and the passengers went for a walk onto the track along the main straight. “This is a very important day for me, because here I can understand what the world of Ferrari is really like,” Fernando told the spectators. “In 2010 I hope to fight for the World Title together with Felipe and that all the fans can be proud of us and our professionalism.”

More F1 pictures

Images (C) Ferrari spa

2011 Indian F1 track design

India is set to host its first F1 Grand Prix in 2011 – and here’s the first glimpse of the track where the race will take place.

The circuit in the Jaypee Greens Sports City bears the usual hallmarks of a Hermann Tilke-designed track. But from this first impression it seems to have some of the open, flowing corners that many modern tracks often lack.

It looks like a circuit in two halves, with several slow corners before and after the main start/finish straight. These are surely intended to increase opportunities for overtaking, something F1 car designers have been demanding recently.

But the other half of the track includes several longer-radius corners and some quick-looking bends. It’s impossible to get any sense of gradient from this flat map, however.

It is an unusually short track – slightly under 5km (3.1 miles). That would make it shorter than any track on this year’s calendar bar the Circuit de Catalunya, Hungaroring, Interlagos and Monte-Carlo.

The circuit is being built by JP Associates which is part of a large industrial conglomerate called the Jaypee Group. The circuit is being built alongside the Yamuna Expressway, a new road being built to connect India’s capital New Delhi with the country’s biggest tourist destination, the Taj Mahal, in the city of Agra.

The road to the Indian Grand Prix has not been completely smooth. The race was originally slated for the 2010 F1 calendar but Bernie Ecclestone confirmed it had been moved back to 2011.

In August this year the government’s sports minister Manohar Singh Gill refused to support race promoter JPSK’s request for money to hold the race, claiming F1 is not a sport. Ecclestone dismissed the minister’s comments saying: “That’s his view. The rest of the world thinks it is a sport.”

What do you think of the 2011 Indian Grand Prix track?

Update: Someone posted an image with the likely location of the Jaypee circuit in the F1 Fanatic drop.io – I’m not sure who it was but thank you! There’s not much to see at the site right now, but here it is anyway:

View Larger Map

Thanks to Prisoner Monkeys for posting the link to the official site in the forum.

2011 Indian F1 track design (click to enlarge)

Sebastian Vettel was the best qualifier of 2009

Next week’s installment of the F1 Fanatic post-season review will include the driver rankings, which I’m writing at the moment (and keeping a close eye on your suggestions in the forum).

To help me work out who’s done the best job this year I’ve compiled some statistics on the drivers’ performances in 2009. Who was the best qualifier? Who made the best starts and overtook the most people during races? Find out below.

Making up places

Drivers total position changes on lap one (excluding retirements)

One of the regular features of races in 2009 was how the KERS-equipped cars were able to make terrific progress at the start of races.

So it’s something of a surprise that the best starters of 2009 were not necessarily those who had KERS cars all year: Giancarlo Fisichella only had one for six races and Nico Rosberg was KERS-less all year long. And though Fisichella’s position improvement can partly be explained by him usually having a poor grid position, Rosberg was the sixth-best qualifier of the year on average.

The best individual start of the year was made by Heikki Kovalainen, who picked up seven places from 18th on the grid at Spain, largely thanks to a multi-car crash which happened in front of him.

Kovalainen’s team mate Lewis Hamilton made the worst start of year (aside from drivers who retired on lap one) when he lost 15 places at the Nürburgring after puncturing his tyre on the first lap.

As the second-best qualifier of the year it would be unreasonable to expect Rubens Barrichello to gain many places on the first lap, but his poor starts at several races means he made a net loss of 14 places on the first lap of Grands Prix in 2009.

Drivers average position change in races and total participations

Looking at entire races, which drivers did the best job of finishing higher than where they started? Again this is partly influenced by how good their qualifying position was in the first place (worse qualifiers have more places to gain) and how many races they did.

The driver who stands out here is Timo Glock, who gained an average of 3.7 positions per race (fifth best) while having an average qualifying position that would place him in the middle of the grid.

Only three drivers finished lower on average than they started during 2009: Kazuki Nakajima, Kimi Raikkonen an Romain Grosjean.

Finishing and not finishing

Percentage of race starts completed and total participations

The old adage “to finish first, first you must finish” rings true here. Both Brawn drivers finished all but one race, while their Red Bull rivals had inferior finishing records.

Drivers DNFs

The incident-prone drivers stick out in this graph, including Adrian Sutil and Jarno Trulli who ended the year in a war of words following their first-lap collisions at Spain and Brazil. Nakajima and Kovalainen were the other two drivers who had three accident-related retirements in 2009 (though by no means were they necessarily to blame for them).

The least reliable car was the Toro Rosso, with Jaime Alguersuari, Sebastien Buemi and Sebastien Bourdais suffering seven car-related DNFs between them.

Robert Kubica was the only other driver to suffer three mechanical DNFs, and no driver finished every single race.

Starting and scoring

Drivers' average starting positions

This chart shows best average starting positions after penalties, which Sebastian Vettel leads despite his ten-place grid penalty at Malaysia. He and Jenson Button had the same number of pole positions, with four each.

Points per race and points per finish

This chart shows how badly Vettel’s difficulty in finishing races (for both mechanical and driver-related reasons) affected his season. He actually scored a greater number of points per finish than Button – but because Button finished more races, he out-scored Vettel. Button’s 11-point margin meant had there been another round of the season to go he would still have been guaranteed the title.

2009 Drivers’ championship

2009 World Drivers' Championship - battle for the title

Two drivers regularly scored points without their team mates ever getting in the top eight. They were Rosberg, with 34.5, and Fernando Alonso, with 26. Kazuki Nakajima was the only driver to start every race without scoring.

2009 World Drivers' Championship - final scores

2009 Constructors’ championship

2009 World Constructors' Championship - battle for the title

Taking the season as a whole, Red Bull went through two distinct phases of whittling away Brawn’s championship lead: between Turkey and Hungary, and again over the final three races of the season. They clearly ended the year as the team to beat.

As ever in Formula 1 it’s easy to pick out the winners but working out which of the drivers in less competitive cars has done well is much trickier.

Share your thoughts on which drivers impressed you in the comments, join in the debate in the forum, and stay tuned for the 2009 F1 driver rankings this week on F1 Fanatic.

2009 World Constructors' Championship - final scores

It's essential for F1's continued popularity that it remains on free TV

F1’s return to the BBC in 2009 was a success story to rival that of Brawn GP. Formula 1 coveage in Britain has at long last emerged from the dark days of ad-ridden and suffocatingly populist ITV.

What a shame, then, that the British government is about to pass up on its first opportunity in a decade to guarantee the continued coverage of F1 on free-to-air television in a country which excels at the sport.

Why F1 should be a protected sporting event

Inevitably there is much discussion to be had about which sport events deserve protected status. The EU criteria is as follows:

Each Member State may take measures in accordance with Community law to ensure that broadcasters under its jurisdiction do not broadcast on an exclusive basis events which are regarded by that Member State as being of national importance for society in such a way as to deprive a sustantial proportion of the public in that Member State of the possibility of following such events by live coverage or deferred coverage on free television.
EU Audio Visual Media Services Directive

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport interprets this as follows:

• It is a pre-eminent national or international event in the sport
• It involves the national team or national representatives in the sport concerned
• It is likely to command a large television audience
• It has a history of being broadcast live of free-to-air services

“Review of Free-to-Air Listed Events” by the Independent Advisory Board to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

F1 satisfies all of these criteria: to begin with, it is the most eminent event in motor racing and has been broadcast free-to air for the last three decades.

Britain not only has two national representative drivers – Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton – but they are also the two most recent drivers’ champions. The new constructors’ champions, Brawn, are also British, and the majority of F1 teams are based in Britain.

And F1 is likely to command an audience at least as large as some of the other events which have been granted protected status, such as the Ashes cricket tournament. According to the report:

The average live TV audience per session of play during the 2005 Ashes series on Channel 4 was 2.4m.

This year at least ten of the 17 F1 races had audiences in excess of 4m, and the Brazilian Grand Prix was watched by 6.6m (source: BARB).

But the report makes scant mention of any form of motor racing. The only noteworthy reference to F1 is as follows:

The BBC defends the absence of a clear commitment to listed events by saying “it must assess the value of particular sports to licence fee payers taking into account the public service value to the BBC’s portfolio.” In practical terms, this has meant in recent times that the BBC has declined to bid for cricket Test Matches (Group B Listed) but paid a substantial sum of money for the rights to Formula 1 Motor Racing (not currently listed).

Far from being criticised for snubbing a listed event in favour of a non-listed one, the BBC should be applauded for having a better understanding of which sports the British public want to watch than the IAB does.

This is probably because the board’s consultation with the public was meagre at best. They polled just 148 people (a minimum sample size of 1,000 is usually acceptabe for such surveys). For what it’s worth, five wanted all F1 races protected, four asked for just the British Grand Prix, and one wanted all motor racing protected. But such a tiny sample can hardly be considered representative.

Will F1 stay free-to-air?

F1 may be on free-to-air television in Britain at the moment but we cannot take for granted that will always be the case. Bernie Ecclestone has moved F1 coverage in other countries to higher-paying pay TV companies. Pay TV is less widespread in Britain than in several other European countries – uptake is around 50% – so F1’s audience would be slashed if it moved, and F1 fans would have to pay to watch.

Car manufacturers had urged F1 to remain on free-to-air television in the interest of reaching the widest possible audience. But with Honda, BMW, Toyota and possibly Renault all leaving that may change. Ecclestone would surely love a more lucrative TV deal with Sky to help pay the CVC bill. Formula 1 Administration were among the sporting bodies who made a submission for the report but the content of it is not recorded.

Here in Britain we are lucky to have some of the best live F1 coverage in the world – perhaps the best. Britain plays a uniquely important role in Formula 1 and motor racing in general. Other countries have successful teams (Italy) or successful drivers (Brazil) but only Britain has had both in recent years.

The government’s refusal to put Formula 1 on the list of protected sporting events may jeopardise the continued popularity of a sport which Britain excels at, and an industry which employs thousands and generates millions of pounds.

Outside Britain

Among European countries Austria, Belgium, Finland, Frace, Germany, Ireland and Italy have protected sporting events. Outside the EU Australia’s equivalent – called the “anti-siphoning list” – has the largest roster of protected events with more than 25.

Do you live in any of these regions – and if so do you know if F1 or any motor racing events have protected status? Do you think F1 should have protected status in Britain or anywhere else? Have your say in the comments.

NB. The report proposed the list should contain the following events: the Olympics, World Cup and European football championship (including home nation qualifiers), Grand National (horse racing), FA Cup Final, Scottish FA Cup Final (Scotland only), Wimbledon (tennis), The Open (golf), The Ashes (cricket), Rugby Union World Cup and Welsh Six Nations Rugby matches (Wales only). The Winter Oympic Games, the Derby and the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final were all removed from the protected list. Read the report in full below.

Ralf Schumacher's Williams-BMW gets airborne in 2002

BMW entered F1 at the beginning of this decade and left at the end of it.

But as well as being an engine supplier to Williams for six years, then winning a race after taking over a team of their own, BMW also recognised the importance of doing something a bit special.

They put Alessandro Zanardi back behind the wheel of an F1 car, they took F1 back to the Nürburging, and they created the excellent Pit Lane Park.

It’s for that as much as their on-track performances that I’ll miss them. This gallery picks out a selection of highlights from their ten years in the sport.

Ten years of BMW in F1 in 100 pictures

BMW in pictures

• F1.06 BMW F1 car pictures
• F1.07 BMW F1 car pictures
• F1.08 BMW F1 car pictures
• More F1 pictures

Images (C) Williams/LAT, Bridgestone, BMW ag

One of my pictures from the British Grand Prix

Yesterday we looked back on another F1 season packed with live blogging fun.

But the one thing better than seeing F1 on TV is being there are the track. Tell us about the races you went to this year.

This year I went to the British Grand Prix having skipped it last year. My personal record of never seeing a home win in Britain – or any country, for that matter – is still intact.

I had a brilliant time at Silverstone and even got to meet a couple of F1 Fanatic readers!

Which races did you go to in 2009? Leave a comment below and remember to leave some tips for fans heading to races in 2010 on these pages:

• Albert Park, Mebourne – spectators’ experiences
• Sepang International Circuit – spectators’ experiences
• Shanghai International Circuit – spectators’ experiences
• Bahrain International Circuit – spectators’ experiences
• Circuit de Catalunya – spectators’ experiences
• Monte-Carlo – spectators’ experiences
• Istanbul Park – spectators’ experiences
• Silverstone – spectators’ experiences
• Nürburgring (new, 1984-present – spectators’ experiences)
• Hungaroring – spectators’ experiences
• Circuito Urbano Valencia – spectators’ experiences
• Spa-Francorchamps – spectators’ experiences
• Autodromo Nazionale Monza – spectators’ experiences
• Singapore street track – spectators’ experiences
• Suzuka – spectators’ experiences
• Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, Interlagos, Sao Paulo – spectators’ experiences
• Yas Island, Abu Dhabi – spectators’ experiences