Formula One Features

While Michael Schumacher has been struggling in his comeback to F1, many pundits have given their views on his return after more than three years away. Only two men stopped racing and returned to win another title: Alain Prost and Niki Lauda.

The Hispania Racing Team made a last minute arrival to the F1 paddock in Bahrain. Technical chief Geoff Willis talks about life for one of Grand Prix racing's new teams.

Williams came away empty-handed for the third successive race in Canada after Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg made seven pit stops between them. Technical director Sam Michael talks about the state of play.

Valencia will be the 500th Grand Prix for Lotus. In its latest guise, Lotus Racing is well set to take the honours as "the best of the new teams" in 2010. Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne took time out to talk about how things have gone so far.

Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher's return to Formula One has not been as smooth as many have expected - how does the German driver see things leading into the fifth race of the season, and the first back on European soil?

The newly-renamed HRT Formula One Team may have yet to threaten the establishment, but the simple fact Colin Kolles got his team to Bahrain and both cars out for qualifying showed there's enough grit in the Spanish outfit to earn a place in Formula One as a permanent fixture.

The F1 travelling circus briefly makes its home this weekend at Suzuka, a rather weird mini-Disneyland out in the sticks but unquestionably one of the three most important temples of international motor racing, whether on two wheels or four.

The blame for the Renault race-fixing affair has been laid firmly upon the doorsteps of Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds. The former's refusal to accept any wrongdoing has seen him effectively banned from all FIA motor racing series and there will now follow a series of investigations into his dealings in other areas, most notably his ownership of Queens Park Rangers Football Club which he owns in part with Bernie Ecclestone.

On Saturday morning at the British GP, possibly because I happen to have the cutest tush in the press room (or possibly not, the process being entirely random), I was selected by the charming PR lady from the Williams F1 team to join Nico Rosberg and a small group of fellow journalists for breakfast.

Last year, I received a phone call out of the blue. At the other end of the line, speaking from Colombia, was Ricardo Londono, a racing driver with whom I had made friends in the early Eighties at a time when he was trying to get a foothold in F1 racing.

Whenever I go to the Nurburgring, the first person I think of is always Mike Hailwood. For those few of you who have not instantly recognised the hallowed name of motorcycle racing's greatest treasure,

As has been the way for the last 16 years, the highlight of this particular petrolhead's summer is not the British Grand Prix, but the annual pilgrimage from the pub to the Goodwood estate in Chichester for the superb Festival of Speed.

The worst case scenario which I suggested would happen a while ago has come to pass. At least today.

Unlike The Editor of this site, I haven't yet had the privilege of being charmed out of my socks by the cock-eyed optimist who's promising to run the British GP at Donington Park next year and for 16 years thereafter.

A couple of weeks ago my mate Dan Knutson and I were reflecting on the delights of the Monaco GP. It is an utterly ridiculous race usually involving processions and no racing at all, but it is also the only circuit in the world where everyone can get close enough to an angry single-seater to remind ourselves why motor racing is such a viscerally wonderful sport.

These are momentous, historic times. No, I am not talking about Jenson Button, coming from the hell of earth car obscurity to world champion elect, BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

Looking back over the 40 years that I've been writing about F1 racing, I have discovered that many of the really terrifying moments happened at Spanish GPs.

Here I am in the Peoples' Republic of China, en route to the Grand Prix That None Of The People Will Pay To See, and the more eagle-eyed readers among you may well recall some hackery from this column not too long ago in which your correspondent said he would never set foot in this particular socialist paradise.

As a regular reader of this column (as well as an occasional contributor to it), I have become thoroughly jealous of The Mole. My labours in Formula 1 would have been much lighter had there been a bevy of Penelopes to do my research for me, and it would have been so agreeable to have had a Mrs Batty around to ensure that my breakfast kidneys were properly devilled and the kedgeree correctly spiced.

Now it may not quite have the attractions of a Jerez or a Portimao, but Kemble Airfield in Gloucestershire is currently the UK's F1 test venue of choice (showing what little choice there actually is) and that's a good enough excuse for us to leave the haven of the pub now and then.

Kimi Raikkonen is not a man who gives away much in his interviews. It is, by all accounts, a calculated decision. His friends will tell you that he is not at all like his public persona. That he is a funny and interesting guy, when he is not in the spotlight. But put him in front of a journalist or in a press conference and he clams up. It is a means of defence.

Felipe Massa came so close last year to winning the Formula 1 World Championship. His victory and defeat in Brazil last year was one of the most extraordinary stories in the history of the sport, and the way Massa handled it defined him not only as a great sportsman, but also as a remarkable human being.

The decision to ban all circuit testing in the Formula 1 season was designed to save the teams money. For the big teams, however, the battle has simply moved from the race tracks to the factories where advanced simulation technology will take over from actual running.

Simon Gillett, the chief executive of Donington Park, has not said a great deal about his plans for the British Grand Prix in 2010, arguing that it is best to let his actions speak for him. He understands that there is much cynicism in F1 circles and scepticism that the idea will ever come to fruition.