The crack Manthey team delivered Porsche a 10^th victory in the Nürburgring 24 Hours after a hard-fought race that featured a complete checklist of serious entries from the great German car giants.

Marc Lieb, Lucas Luhr, Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas led the race in their lime green GT3 RSR (below) from 11.30pm on Saturday night until the 4pm finish on Sunday afternoon. But the victory, which gives Porsche valuable bragging rights over BMW, Audi and Mercedes for the rest of the year, was never a foregone conclusion in a race featuring 202 starters – of which 135 survived the round-the-clock classic on the fabulous 14-mile Nordschleife.

BMW, which won this race last year, finished just under four and a half minutes behind the Manthey Porsche – which equates to about half a lap. The Schnitzer team will rue a mistake by Portuguese Pedro Lamy who crashed into a slower car at the Karussell on Saturday evening. The accident was bad enough, but Lamy then compounded his error by driving the wrong way round the top of the famous hairpin in his attempt to recover.

The M3 GT (below) lost three minutes in the pits for repairs – and a further three minutes for a stop-go penalty incurred for Lamy’s error. “I was in a position from which it was very difficult to come out from,” he argued. “It was the only way.” The mistake made all the difference to the result for the car he shared with Augusto Farfus, Jörg Müller and Nordschleife specialist Uwe Alzen.

For the winning drivers in the Manthey Porsche, the result added to their formidable records on the greatest race track in the world. Luhr completed his Nürburgring 24 Hours hat-trick, while both Lieb and Dumas have now won here four times. But perhaps most significantly, Bernard now shares the record of five wins with Lamy and Marcel Tiemann.

Audi scored a 3-4-5 two weeks after its victory at Le Mans. The Team Phoenix-run R8 LMS of Marc Basseng, Marcel Fässler, Andrea Piccini and Frank Stippler (below) finished ahead of its sister car and the lead Team Abt Sportsline entry after a race in which the R8s proved fast in a straight line, but just short of the overall pace required to win.

The first of the rumbling Mercedes-Benz SLS AMGs, entered by Black Falcon, was sixth. But there was late heartbreak for the three-pointed star which should have kept Audi off the podium. With just 40 minutes left the Heico Motorsport entry, which had shadowed the Manthey Porsche and lead BMW through the night, was forced into the garage for repairs to its left-rear corner. The car returned to the track to claim a disconsolate seventh for Alex Margaritis, Lance Arnold, Christopher Brück and Christiaan Frankenhout.

The pole-winning Ferrari 458 Italia, which also proved to be the fastest car during long periods of the race, came home eighth carrying with it another story of what might have been. The Hankook Team Farnbacher-run car looked in a strong position to cause an upset and beat the mighty German hoards, only for a wishbone change to scupper its hopes. The team, previously a long-time Porsche entrant, was frustrated to discover the problem was caused by material fatigue. The Ferrari lost 45 minutes during its 8pm stop, dropping it to 68^th place. It ran without serious drama during a remarkable recovery by drivers Dominik Farnbacher, Allan Simonsen, Marco Seefried and Jaime Melo.

Aston Martin’s pair of brand new Zagatos (above) made it to the flag after eventful races. Collisions and a gearbox change ruined the chances of a class-winning result, but the team logged useful race mileage on the stubby-looking cars.

Final word must go to Hans-Joachim Stuck. At the age of 60, the legend has decided the time has finally come to hang up his helmet. That he chose to end his career racing with his sons in a Reiter Engineering Lamborghini Gallardo hardly seemed fitting for a man who became a national hero in Porsches, BMWs and Audis, but the supercar proved competitive at the ’Ring, allowing Stuck and his lads to make it to 4pm in 15^th place. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place.

Pictures courtesy of Aston Martin, Audi, BMW and Porsche AG

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Another installment of the ‘week in motor sport’ series. In this episode, I talk to editor Damien Smith about the staff changes at Williams F1, the Le Mans test and also cover the latest news from the DTM, MotoGP and IndyCar series.

The week in motor sport

As always, let us know what you think about all the news and don’t worry… my neck brace is explained at the end!

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Le Mans 24 Hours

Andy Wallace and James Weaver were special guests at a media dinner hosted by Audi in the splendid surroundings of Goodwood House during April. Fine British sports car aces both, but I wondered to myself: what’s their link to Vorsprung durch Technik?

Then it dawned on me. Ah yes, they were on the driving strength when Audi first took the Le Mans plunge 12 long years ago.

Their chapter at the very beginning of the manufacturer’s remarkable endurance racing story was short and unsuccessful, but Audi is at pains to stress that they haven’t been forgotten. They are still ‘part of the family’ apparently, despite their one and only appearances as four-ringed factory drivers back in 1999.

The link to today, of course, is that Wallace and Weaver – great mates who enjoyed many years of sports car success together in the US – drove the only closed-cockpit Le Mans prototype built by Audi until this year’s all-new R18 which will take on La Sarthe on June 11/12.

How things have changed. In ’99 Audi was so raw at this enduro game that it built two different cars to hedge its bets. The R8R open car would ultimately set the agenda that led directly to the all-conquering R8. But the neat R8C coupé, financed by Audi UK and run by the British-based Richard Lloyd Racing, lacked “about six months of development” according to Wallace. It was produced so late, it’s potential was never close to being tapped at Le Mans, and as the R8R scored a surprise podium as more fancied rivals fell by the wayside, so the closed-concept racer became a development cul-de-sac in Ingolstadt.

Until now. After nine victories, three of which were achieved with groundbreaking turbodiesel power, dramatic rule revisions have forced Audi back down the coupé route. As we discuss in the June issue of Motor Sport, the exciting and striking R18 has been tasked with blasting the company into a new era, in the race Audi counts before all others.

In our preview we tell the inside story behind the stealth-like car, and also delve into the theory behind its two manufacturer rivals in the top prototype class.

Peugeot also has a brand new car, even if it carries the same name as its predecessor and to the untrained eye looks very similar. As for Aston Martin, well, it has chosen a very different path to achieve its aim of winning the race overall for the first time since 1959. Open cockpit, dramatic aerodynamics, a 2-litre straight-six petrol engine… Once again, Le Mans rules have thrown up technical variety and innovation like no other major race on earth – in the modern era.

Since we closed for press on our Le Mans preview issue, the cars have shown their hands at the Le Mans test day, and it’s with some relief that I can say our analysis of where they should stand has so far been borne out!

The R18 set the pace, but lap time has indeed been increased as intended by the new rules, closer to the ACO’s magic mark of 3m 30sec (Tom Kristensen’s benchmark during the test was 3m 27.867sec); the fastest 908 was only two tenths shy of the fastest time, indicating our hopes for a ‘classic’ come June are not in vain; and as we feared, Aston Martin has a mountain to climb. The British cars managed only 12 laps all day.

I guess we must remember that this is only the beginning of what is intended to be a multi-year campaign for the Prodrive-run squad. We have to be patient.

As ever, we’re pumped up about Le Mans, as you’ll gather when you read the issue. But also as ever, our new issue is far from one-dimensional.

Highlights include a lovely story by Nigel Roebuck, who turns the clock back 40 years to recount how he first became a Formula 1 journalist. No Castle Combe clubbies for our editor-in-chief. Oh no. His first race as a working reporter was the 1971 Spanish GP at Montjuich Park!

Nigel also gets his teeth into the current state of Grand Prix racing, explaining in Reflections why his enthusiasm for what was undoubtedly an exciting Chinese GP is well under control. As we’ve seen from the comments on our website, many of you – but not all – will carry some sympathy with his sentiments about the ‘gimmicky’ nature of the entertainment on offer in F1 2011.

Other highlights of the June issue include a wonderful profile of Elio de Angelis, the cultured Italian who died in a senseless testing accident 25 years ago. Mike Doodson, who knew Elio well, has done a fine job of revisiting his career – with the help of his loyal mechanic, one Nigel Stepney. Remember him?

I cannot sign off this month without looking ahead to the July issue and an exciting reader evening that I’m sure many of you won’t want to miss. Next month we’ll be reviewing a new cinematic documentary that is released in the UK on June 3. Senna is probably the most anticipated big-screen motor racing film since Steve McQueen’s Le Mans (no, I haven’t forgotten about Bobby Deerfield…). Having already seen Senna, I’d say for good reason.

To mark the release, we have organised an evening in London during which you can see the film, in company with the writer and producer Mannish Pandey, our own Nigel Roebuck and Rob Widdows – and Senna’s close friend from his McLaren days, the incomparable Jo Ramirez. After the film, Rob will host a forum in which you will have a chance to question Mannish and Jo about the making of the movie, and of course the great man himself.

For any Senna fan, it will be a night not to be missed. To find out more about the evening click here or contact us on readersevents@motorsportmagazine.co.uk. Alternatively you can call +44 (0)20 7349 8472.

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Another installment of our ‘week in motor sport’ series. We talk about the MotoGP round at Jerez, that overtaking manoeuvre by Rossi, Le Castellet 6 Hours, Aston Martin’s Le Mans effort, the current state of the British Touring Car Championship and we also look ahead to the Malaysian Grand Prix this weekend.

I apologise for the sound now – that was my fault (you should never let a journalist loose with a mixer…), but we have lapel microphones on their way.

Do let us know what you think.

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Before Allan went to Le Mans we caught up with him at West London Audi to get his thoughts on this year’s race, the races leading up to it and what his plans for the future are.

Can the Audi R15 Plus beat the Peugeots on pace alone at Le Mans?

We’ve definitely improved from last year. We’ve improved on those areas where we weren’t so quick, so I think we’ll be able to fight a wee bit better. We also understand the car a lot better than we did. This year we’ve been very focused on the type of testing we’ve done. I’ve never run the car in anything but Le Mans aero, so if you think of all the kilometres we’ve done in that set-up, then we do understand it pretty well, the good and the bad. We know the areas we have to work on and we know the parts of the circuit that we’ve got to focus on to keep the speed up. I think we’ll be able to take the fight to Peugeot and give them something to think about, which wasn’t the case last year.

How much did the Le Mans aerodynamic set-up hamper your chances of fighting for a win at the Spa 1000Kms?

It was hard to do Spa in Le Mans aero because it’s a compromise for that place where you need a load of downforce. For us to be so close to Peugeot – we were only one second off in terms of ultimate pace – meant I came away more encouraged than anything else, even though we finished third. It does give me a bit of confidence that we’re better prepared. We’ve also been… quite Audi in a way, making sure that we understand the detail this year. That was maybe born out of the fact that we got our backsides kicked last year.

Where did it go wrong last year?

It started going wrong the previous December with the testing and we just never recovered from it. The race result was a pretty good indicator, really. But the thing that was good about Le Mans last year was the resolve the Volkswagen Group showed in terms of, ‘we were not good enough on that occasion, but we’ll come back stronger’. Getting that from the advisory board of the Volkswagen Group, never mind the Audi management, was a nice bit of support. There was an element of pressure, no question, because you’ve got to perform, but it certainly meant a lot.

You’re well known for doing triple stints at Le Mans, whereas others drivers don’t do such long periods in the car…

They’re weaklings, just weaklings! Jessies! But really, physically I don’t find Le Mans that difficult. Focus-wise for three hours, yeah… I mean if you were to think about driving round the M25 flat out at a 140mph average, then three hours of doing that is quite hard. That’s a few loops of the M25 – OK maybe you’ll be queued at the Dartford Tunnel for a while, but… If you look at it that way, then yes, it is a long time.

Is Le Mans as physically demanding as other tracks?

Not as much as some – we run double stints at Petit Le Mans, which physically is so much harder than Le Mans. There’s no comfort zone at all, it’s all flat out, maximum attack. That’s what it requires to win. If you take Le Mans in 2008, 15 minutes from the end the gap from our car (the Audi R10 of McNish, Kristensen and Capello) back to the second-placed car (the Peugeot 908 of Minassian, Gené and Villeneuve) was 1min 40sec. If you take Petit Le Mans in 2008, we had a six-second advantage after 10 hours. You just need to look at one second per pitstop and we’d have lost Petit. The difference is that small.

Is this where you want to be for the future? At Le Mans with Audi?

Yes, certainly as far as my eyes can see. What else would I want to do? Would I want to be a test driver in Formula 1 again? I’m not going to be sitting in a Ferrari, McLaren or a Red Bull, so why would I want to be there? I’ve been with Audi now… Well, the first time I drove with them was 2000. I like the way they work, they’re very clean-cut: you either win or you lose, and if you lose you fix it, you go back and try and win again. I enjoy it, I enjoy Le Mans, I enjoy the people I work with and I enjoy the competition, which I think is going to get much harder in the next couple of years.

Will Audi stick with a diesel next year?

Honestly, I don’t know whether it’ll be a diesel or not. I know they’ve got a commitment towards programmes, but we’ll have to wait and see. The regulation changes have been pretty substantial over the past couple of years, and at Paul Ricard [earlier this year] we saw how quick the Aston was on the straight, especially on acceleration. It was, well, a bit disappointing to come out of the corner and lose 50 metres on it. I’m quite happy with the diesel because we’ve worked for four years trying to optimise it with the traction control systems, the driveability and with all the other aspects to it. But if they turn up with something else, then that’s what we’ll race. The good thing is that it’s a new technical challenge. In 2011 there’ll be a big push in the hybrid regulations and that’s another new challenge and something which, 10 years ago, no one would ever have thought of. Diesels and hybrids at Le Mans? No way! It’s quite positive for the long-term future of Le Mans.

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The pair of factory Peugeots ran away with Saturday’s 58th Sebring 12 Hours, completing a 1-2 sweep three laps ahead of the lone Gulf/Aston Martin. The winning Peugeot 908HDI was driven by Alex Wurz/Marc Gené/Anthony Davidson, who beat team-mates Sébastien Bourdais/Nicolas Minassian/Pedro Lamy across the line by 13.8 seconds. It was Peugeot’s first win at Sebring and its second in America following the team’s victory in last September’s Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.

Without any competition from Audi this year the Peugeots set the pace all week. The two 908HDIs were the fastest cars in every practice session and were challenged in the race only by Lord Paul Drayson’s Lola-Judd, driven by Emanuele Pirro. But Drayson’s car ran into various problems and finally finished 12th, more than 30 laps behind. “It was a very tough race because we were fighting all the way to the line,” said Wurz, who drove the final three hours in the winning car. “But it was an awesome race with a good team and good preparation.”

Gené congratulated Wurz on his final stint. “Alex did a mega job at the end,” he said. “He drove for three hours and there were no team strategies. So he was racing with Bourdais, and Bourdais is really fast here. He really knows this place but Alex was spot-on. So I think he’s the hero in our car.”

Davidson was delighted to win on his debut with Peugeot: “It’s fantastic to be with the Peugeot team. Until a couple of weeks ago I didn’t even have any contact with these guys. It was quite a late call for the season. I’ve always wanted to come here and win at Sebring. I was second in 2003, and to join the likes of Alex and Marc – Le Mans winners – there was big pressure today. I knew I had big shoes to fill after [David] Brabham but I think we did a good job. We got the car into the lead when I was driving and just stuck it out, and like Marc said Alex did a great job at the end.”

The Gulf/Lola-Aston Martin driven by Adrian Fernández/Stefan Mücke/Harold Primat enjoyed a flawless race, running the entire distance without trouble to finish third. “It was fantastic,” Fernández enthused. “I’m happy for Aston Martin and my team-mates. They’re fantastic drivers and great friends, and we managed to do a great job.”

Fourth overall and winner of the P2 class was Greg Pickett’s Porsche RS Spyder driven by Pickett/Klaus Graf/Sascha Maassen. The car ran perfectly and beat the Highcroft HPD ARX-01c driven by Simon Pagenaud/Marino Franchitti/David Brabham by four laps. The Highcroft car led the P2 class for most of the race, building a six-lap lead at one stage, before an electrical fault lost the team 24 minutes in the pits.

The Audi team will join the Peugeots and Highcroft’s P2 car in more testing at Sebring today (Monday) and tomorrow. All three plan to run 12 hours each day in further preparation for Le Mans. Audi also tested at Homestead last week with its latest R15+ and racing boss Dr Wolfgang Ulrich spent last weekend at Sebring observing his competitors.

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Touring cars are great to watch for a number of reasons. Mostly notably the racing is extremely close and you’ll see cars passing each other in places that you never thought possible. Another draw, for me anyway, has always been that you can clearly see that they carry some DNA from their road-car equivalents.

Let’s ignore the silhouette racers in Germany’s DTM for the moment, and the fact that underneath the shells of WTCC and BTCC cars very few have anything resembling what you’d find on your mother’s SEAT. What’s important is that these cars look like something you could go and buy in a showroom the next day. ‘Race on Sunday, sell on Monday’, as they say.

You can imagine my excitement then at the fast-approaching new FIA GT1 World Championship. Ford GT40s, Lamborghini Murciélagos, Corvettes, DBR9s, MC12s and GT-Rs on tracks such as Spa, Interlagos, Silverstone and the Nürburgring. Oh, how the mouth waters… As the promoter of GT racing Stephane Ratel points out, “they are truly inspirational cars – the ones everyone dreams of owning”.

The series, the fourth FIA-sanctioned World Championship after Formula 1, WTCC, WRC and Formula 2, has 10 events on four continents with 24 cars expected to grace each grid. Twelve teams will run two cars each with the same livery and each race will be a one-hour affair or, as the video below suggests, a one-hour long cacophony of engine noise. The European-based FIA GT2 and GT3 championships will also support the events with their own races.

“We have shaped the new championship with the aim of making GT racing more fan and media friendly,” Ratel continues. “Before, the racing consisted of long-distance racing, a mix of GT-spec cars in the same race, teams competing with a number of different cars – it was all very confusing to follow. It takes time for any sports series to become well established but GT racing will take a major step forward in becoming one of the major World Championships in 2010.”

Ratel (above) is certainly the right man for the job when it comes to making a success of a GT1 championship. Let’s hope it is exactly that, as these cars will be great to watch. The season kicks off on April 17 in Abu Dhabi – a date for the diary, I would have thought…

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The next installment in the ‘Motor Sport podcast series’ is here! Almost ten staff descended on the French circuit last weekend – of course some were doing a little more work than others – and here is the result… The ACO are understandably a little protective over race footage unless you pay for it, but thankfully a car manufacturer came to our rescue.

Our next podcast is in fact one of our new audio recordings with Nigel Roebuck, Rob Widdows, Damien Smith and Ed Foster. Feel free to ask them all a question on the homepage and they’ll try and answer during the session on Tuesday. Watch this space as they say…

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After the success of last year’s Jim Clark Film Festival, Legends Film Festivals is returning this year with ‘Legends of Le Mans’.

The festival, dedicated to the history of the Le Mans 24 Hour race, will take place in Oxfordshire on March 7/8 and will feature three hours of archive footage focusing on the period between 1955-75. As well as celebrating 50 years since Aston Martin’s historic 1-2 finish, 40 years since the JW-Gulf Ford GT40’s 1-2-3 finish and 50 years since the Lotus Elite scored the first of six consecutive class victories the day will be filled with guest speakers.

This year Jackie Oliver, Richard Attwood, David Piper, John Wagstaff and Peter Riley will all be on hand both days. There will also be a dinner on the Saturday night where all the guest speakers will be present. For more information and to book tickets, go to www.legendsfilmfestivals.com.

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It’s official: Aston Martin is heading back to Le Mans in an audacious attempt to take an overall win, exactly 50 years after its one and only victory in the 24-hour classic. In a low-key unveiling of the project in London on Monday night, Aston’s chief executive officer Dr Ulrich Bez and chairman David Richards revealed details of the LMP1 prototype which will carry the livery of arguably the most famous sponsor in motor racing history, Gulf Oil.

An ebullient Dr Bez did not shy away from the ambition to “win Le Mans” this year. “We are brave, we know our skills, we are a great team,” he said. “We have at least a chance to come out with something special.”

Richards was equally enthusiastic, but tempered his ambitions by admitting to the challenge they face. “How can we be so audacious to go to Le Mans and take on the benchmark teams with their turbo-diesels?” he asked. “Well, 50th anniversaries don’t come around very often, and we didn’t want to sit here after the event and say ‘why didn’t we have a go?’.”

Richards made it clear that the bid typifies the “British spirit”, but with only five months until the race he admitted the project is a “leap of faith”, that this is a “David versus Goliath” exercise. “We’re not being presumptuous about what we can achieve,” he added. “But we’ve got to give it a go.”

The team has lodged entries for three cars, although so far only the budget for two has been confirmed. The car will be an evolution of the Lola chassis that made its debut under the Charouz Racing banner at Le Mans last year, and will be powered once again by Aston’s emotive V12. Styling work has been key to the development of the prototype to ensure the coupe hints at Aston Martin’s road car range, while taking nothing away from the speed of the car.

Team manager George Howard-Chappell admitted that the 2008 race, in which the Aston-powered Charouz Lola proved the fastest petrol car at Le Mans, had been a “toe-in-the-water exercise”. He explained that successful lobbying of the ACO to adjust the technical regulations had pegged back the advantage of the turbo diesels.

“The diesels have been given a 10 per cent restriction on power output,” he said. “We have also been handicapped three per cent because of our speed last year, but that means we are seven per cent better off than last year in terms of our disadvantage. How that will pan out we don’t know.”

Along with Le Mans, Aston Martin will also run a full programme in the Le Mans Series, starting at Barcelona on April 5, and will have further opportunities to race at the Le Mans Bugatti circuit and Spa before the 24 Hours itself. But with the car only scheduled to run for the first time in early March at the pre-season Paul Ricard test, and with the traditional Le Mans test weekend being cancelled this year, the team is facing a tough challenge to be race-fit for the big enduro.

Aston’s GT1-winning ace Darren Turner (below) heads the driver line-up, joined by Prodrive favourite Tomas Enge. Jan Charouz and Stefan Mucke, who raced the Charouz Lola last year, have also been signed up, along with team newcomer Harold Primat. A sixth driver has yet to be confirmed, and if the team is successful in raising the budget for a third car three more seats will be up for grabs.

So what chance a repeat of Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby’s 1959 victory in DBR1? Well, it’s a long shot to say the least. Audi’s new R15s and Peugeot’s 908s will have to hit trouble for the Astons to really stand a chance. As Richards said, “this is not something any sane group of people would do.” But you have to admire the ambition, and the ‘have a go’ spirit that surrounds Aston Martin in these difficult economic times. And it’s certainly given the 50,000 British Le Mans faithful something to cheer about come June 13-14 this year.

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Firstly, the news that the BBC has captured the TV contract for Grand Prix racing inspired the biggest response to any of my Motor Sport blogs so far this year. Thanks to everyone who contributed some intelligent and pertinent debate.

As I write this latest contribution to our platform for debate, I have half my mind on preparing to travel to Bahrain for the F1 Business Forum. The what? Do I hear some yawning out there? I hope not because it’s not as bad as it sounds. Yes, we all dread going to conferences, or ‘forums’, don’t we? Whatever job we may be doing. They are always held in some horrible hotel near Heathrow airport, or in some Holiday Inn in the middle of several unnavigable roundabouts, at least that’s the way it’s always been for me. Too much central heating, no air and piles of files and notepads, jugs of water and cheap ballpoint pens to take away and never use. And have you ever come away from a conference feeling a better person, better empowered to do your job? Probably not.

Anyway, in Bahrain next week – as the teams prepare for the third Grand Prix of the season – many of the F1 fat cats will be taking time to speak at the Motorsport Business Forum. I went to the last one in Monte Carlo at the end of last year and it was good, even very interesting. Max Mosley spoke about his master plan for Formula 1 and Jackie Stewart responded with some carefully worded criticism of the president of the FIA. All good stuff and nice to see someone, especially Stewart, putting the case for the opposition.

This time, in Bahrain, the FIA is not to the fore, except of course that it is running the Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit. This time the speakers will be, in the main, from the teams. The ‘keynote’ speech will be given by Ron Dennis (above), a man I have always much admired and whose life has been devoted to McLaren and the sport he loves. Ron is an enthusiast, a racer and – when he has to be – a politician. What he has to say will be worth hearing and – I hope – worth reporting in the next Motor Sport. Also on the panel of big cheeses will be Nick Fry from Honda, Christian Horner (below) from Red Bull Racing and David Richards (bottom) from Prodrive/Subaru/Aston Martin/You-name-it-he’s-involved-in-it. This man is a dynamo and let’s hope he succeeds in bringing his own team into Grand Prix racing despite the misgivings that others may have about customer cars. What about an Aston Martin F1 team? There is no doubt that Richards would make a terrific job of that – doing everything Jaguar should have done with its attempt.

The point of the forum in the desert is that the Gulf means business, the Gulf is awash with cash, and a consortium of Bahrain business folk already owns a big chunk of the McLaren Group. You may have seen the London taxis bearing the message: Bahrain – Making Financial Connections. What does this mean? I have no idea, but all will become clear next week in the course of the build-up to the Grand Prix. I will be talking to Messrs Dennis, Richards, Fry and Horner about the importance of this region, the significance of new finance in the sport and – oh, yes I nearly forgot – the racing itself, the season so far and all that stuff.

Many of you may be asleep by now, not caring much for the business of sport. Well, it is here to stay, it is how Manchester United can afford Ronaldo, it is how Tiger Woods earns squillions of dollars and it is how President Sarkozy gets to kick a football on the hallowed turf of the new Emirates stadium. Personally, I preferred Highbury, but that’s all irrelevant now. You can make your own judgement in next month’s magazine when I will attempt to penetrate the fog that so often seems to hang over the business of modern motor racing. You can be assured that one of the big men will say something of real interest. If not, there’s always the cars on the track in the sunshine outside.

I’ve got my pad, I’ve got my biros and I’m sure there will be some jugs of icy water. I just need to put my towel on a seat in the front row and make sure I’m close enough to hear between the lines.

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