Formula One Features

Pascal Vasselon is the man in charge of chassis design at Toyota. A tyre man with Michelin for many years, Vasselon took over the management of the team when Mike Gascoyne departed.

It's back to the warmth of the pub after a trip out for the lads to nearby Kemble Airfield, an old World War II bomber base and once the home of the Red Arrows aerobatic display team.

So, after 16 of the best races I can remember in one season, we won't know until Sunday whether it's going to be Hamilton, Alonso or Raikkonen who will wear the crown. For only the ninth time in the 38-year history of the FIA's World Driving Championship, three drivers will be in contention for the title in the final round.

There can be little doubt that the Fuji circuit, helped along with many millions of Toyota investment, will make a good fist of staging this weekend's 15th round of the world championship out in the countryside overlooked by that venerated snow-draped volcano. Nevertheless, I'm a little uneasy about the change of venue for the Japanese GP. After 20 years at Suzuka, the race had found its home at one of the world's greatest tracks, in front of huge, appreciative crowds.

Depending on which newspaper, magazine or website you read, as far as Formula 1 is concerned, the world came to an end at around 6pm on Thursday, September 13. Unless you have been on the Moon, or in Guantanamo Bay, you™ll know this was, of course, the day when McLaren lost all of its Constructors™ points for 2007 and for good measure, $100m.

It's great to be going back to Spa this weekend. Because I'm writing this before Thursday's manure/ventilator interface scenario in Paris, I'm assuming the race itself won't be affected. There has been a lot of political argy-bargy in recent years about the Belgian GP, too, so much in fact that when it was agreed that the 2006 race should be suspended, many of the old hands in the press centre suspected it was doomed.

History hangs heavy over Monza, much as it does over ancient cathedrals or battlefields. Here in the Royal Park, the Kings of Lombardy once hunted deer and wild boar, in between fighting bloody local turf wars. The road circuit was first used for racing in 1922, and it has been the scene of every world championship Italian GP since 1950, except for just one edition held at Imola in 1989.

My mate PeeWee in Australia has brought my attention to a website on which you can see details of the speed at which our planet is being destroyed. Log on to poodwaddle.com and you'll find lots of whirring dials which track alarming shifts like the increase in the world's population, the depletion of the rain forest, the rate at which we're burning up the oil and other depressing facts.

I suspect that a fairly high proportion of the fans who read this website are old enough, like me, to have been weaned on the writings of Denis Jenkinson. In the bad old days when motor racing only ever got on to the front pages of the daily press if someone was dead, finding out what had really happened in the last couple of GPs involved buying Motor Sport magazine on the first Wednesday of every month (one shilling and sixpence when I was at school) and devouring whatever 'Jenks' had written.

Coming away from Magny-Cours on the train last week, I picked up a copy of L'Equipe, the national sporting daily which has somehow survived the looming menace of the worldwide web. Like so many of the publications which we used to enjoy, it's now only a pale shadow of its former robust self, with the F1 coverage lacking any of the informed analysis that you'll find here.

This weekend's French Grand Prix will be the last to take place at the Magny-Cours circuit, famously located in a remote part of the country to which it has always been difficult to attract spectators in sufficient numbers to pay the increasingly onerous costs of staging a major international event.

Our sport's annual swing through North America kicks off this weekend in Canada, with the US race to follow just one week later. It's a confoundedly inconvenient pair of races for teams whose cars aren't performing up to scratch and which desperately need the time at home to get them sorted out. But as Mike Doodson relates, these two races provide an opportunity for team bosses, drivers (and even an occasional journalist) to let their hair down in a convivial atmosphere conveniently far from home.

With a certain young British driver openly stating that he believes he can win this year's race at his first attempt, anticipation about the Monaco GP is more intense than ever.

It was at the Jarama circuit on the outskirts of Madrid that Mike Doodson first 'worked' officially at a Formula 1 race. As he recounts here, it wasn't actually an F1 car that he tended, and the race was a non-championship event. But for him it was the start of something that has obsessed him ever since. And, as he prepares to travel to Barcelona for this year's race, he realises it all happened nearly 40 years ago ...

In a retrospective examination of his visits to a race which only dates back to 1999, Mike Doodson has some pleasant and amusing memories. But he's still not persuaded that Malaysia is ever likely to become a hotbed of enthusiasm for the subtleties of modern F1 competition.

And with those words, ITV's anchorman Steve Rider welcomed us to the season opening Australian Grand Prix. Yours truly, in time honoured fashion, duly shouted back: "No, they flippin' well aren't!".

With the F1 World Championship about to start all over again in Australia, Mike Doodson is already packed for his trip to Melbourne. He looks back on some of his past adventures in the lucky country

One of my favourite pastimes in life, is my Sunday lunchtime visit to a rather fine old Cotswold pub, called "The Old Lodge".

The extraordinary untold story of the Grand Prix drivers who became British secret agents in World War II

There's an ancient cliche, bandied about by those who love flying, that there are old pilots and bold pilots - but no old, bold pilots. The same strictures may safely be applied to racing drivers, but Gianclaudio "Clay" Regazzoni - who was killed yesterday in a traffic accident - was the exception who proved the rule.

Another book to consider as Christmas approaches

It is time to go looking for Christmas presents and perhaps one these books will be what you need.

Formula 1 is the biggest annual worldwide sporting competition. NewsCorp is the biggest worldwide sports broadcaster. Currently NewsCorp subsidiaries, (of which BSkyB is one), own the Formula 1 broadcast rights in a variety of different markets worldwide.

Lewis Hamilton says he is not frightened of anything - except spiders! "When I was young I was shy to a certain extent," he says, "but I have never been scared of doing anything exciting. I haven't jumped out of aeroplanes and stuff like that but I will do that at some point.