Formula One Features — October 2008

How much of a boost does a driver get from his home crowd when he's racing at his home circuit? Nigel Mansell used to insist it was worth a second a lap to be performing in front of the Silverstone fans, and although I am sure his engineers had sufficient data to pooh-pooh such an extravagant claim, there is undoubtedly a useful psychological advantage to have ten or twenty thousand people urging you on.

As the F1 circus sets up its show this weekend at the foot of an extinct volcano in Japan's wettest prefecture, you might be tempted to imagine that Britain's own rain-master, the web-toed Lewis Hamilton, has a fine chance of repeating last year's five-star performance in torrential conditions and wading home to an easy win for McLaren-Mercedes.

The Singapore Grand Prix was a disaster for Ferrari because despite being fast, the red cars could not overtake anyone. Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo blamed Formula 1 for holding races "on tracks where staging a circus or something else would be better" and said that the only spectacle "is supplied by the Safety Car".