1. In fifteen of the last nineteen seasons - including each of the last three - the winner of the opening race of the season has gone on to win the Drivers Championship. Jenson Button is now the favourite and the best price available on him is 3/1 with Boylesports.
2. The winning team at the first Grand Prix of the season have won the Constructors Championship in seven of the last nine years. Brawn GP are still available at 11/5 with Boylesports but Ferrari, who broke this trend last season to triumph, are still favourites. The best price available on the Scuderia is 11/8 with Ladbrokes.
Nicole Scherzinger stars in the January issue of Maxim Germany, and Gridcrasher has tracked down the best photos from her cover shoot. Because we care about you in that way.
Lewis honoured by Europe’s premier sports newspaper
After missing out on the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, Lewis Hamilton can take comfort in the news that L’Equipe has voted him one of their top five sportsmen of the year.
Hamilton came fifth in the voting, behind sprinter Usain Bolt (who was voted the Champion of Champions), swimmer Michael Phelps, tennis star Rafael Nadal and MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi.
Does this mean the French love Lewis more than us Brits? Shurely shome mishtake.
Lewis Hamilton is the latest star to be turned into a waxwork by Madame Tussauds. This week, the F1 world champion underwent 300 measurements in view of becoming part of the famous museum’s “Sports Zone” in 2009.
Many digital photos of Lewis wearing his McLaren racing overalls were also taken for reference, and other details, such as the colour of his eyes, were noted.
Hamilton’s wax double will reportedly cost £150,000, although it’s too early to say if the new model will be injected with as much personality as the original.
The FIA carried out random anti-doping tests during testing at Jerez last week (In 2005, F1 improved its drugs testing programme to meet World Anti-Doping Agency standards).
On Thursday at the Spanish circuit, Ferrari’s two race drivers, McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen and Toro Rosso new boy Sebastien Buemi had to report to the FIA transporter to supply urine samples, the Swiss newspaper Blick reported.
Buemi revealed that he was also tested at the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix, when he was a test driver for Red Bull.
“Some weeks later two physicians arrived at my parents’ house in Augle (Switzerland) at six in the morning and asked me for another sample.”
As far as we know, no F1 driver has ever failed a doping test. In 2002, F3000 driver Tomas Enge tested postitive for cannabis (yeah, that helps you drive faster); the points he was stripped of cost him the F3000 title that year.
In which Lewis admires Chris Hoy’s cartoon muscles, and they pair don’t have a race-off, no doubt because Hoy’s insurers didn’t like the look of the slippery Wembley tarmac.
Er, why didn’t they just close the roof before the event?
Nicole Scherzinger has got her brood on. The Pussycat Doll admitted recently that she wants to have kids with boyfriend Lewis Hamilton:
“I am the happiest I have ever been right now. Lewis is such an amazing, humble and chivalrous guy. We would love to have beautiful angel babies together one day.
“We would sing Don’t Cha to them in my belly. Lewis knows all the words.”
Did I say kids? Excuse me. I meant ‘beautiful angel babies’, of course - celebrities don’t have ordinary kids like the rest of us.
Lewis finishes runner-up in BBC Sports Personality… again
Nigel Mansell first won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1986 - and he didn’t even win the F1 title that year. Damon Hill first won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1994 - and he lost out to Michael Schumacher that season. Just two examples of gallant losers winning the hearts of the British public.
Incidentally, both Mansell and Hill went on to win second Sports Personality awards, in years when they did win their sole championships (1992 and 1996, respectively).
It’s fairly clear that Lewis Hamilton is not as popular as Mansell and Hill were. In the light of Mansell and Hill’s successes, Lewis should have won two Sports Personality of the Year awards already.
Hamilton’s debut season was much more impressive than the respective seasons Mansell and Hill had in 1986 and 1992, yet he still didn’t earn enough votes to become 2007 Sports Personality - instead, he was beaten by Joe Calzaghe, a Welsh boxer with a relatively low profile; both Mansell and Hill would have beaten Calzaghe hands-down.
