If you don’t no already FxPro is all about the Foreign Exchange (hence Fx) markets which in layman’s terms means buying and selling currencies.  The game involves you choosing a currency pair and your car’s performance is in relation to real-time market performance of your currencies.  It’s free to play, so there’s no excuse to have a go and learn something new at the same time.

You can play the game here: www.f1.fxpro.com – let us know how you get on in the comments below, Badger’s performance is somewhat dismal, languishing in 140th place at Silverstone…

Virgin out in front © Virgin Racing Media

Official details:

The Virgin Racing F1 Team and FxPro Financial Services Ltd (FxPro), a leading global retail broker in FX and CFDs, has launched an exciting new racing game that pits online players against each other for the chance to win VIP tickets to F1 races, football matches and other great sporting experiences.

The FxPro Currency Race is an online game and combines the thrill of F1 Racing with the high-pressure currency trading market.  Online racers will be asked to choose a currency pair at the start of the race and their speed around the track will depend on its performance on global financial markets during that lap. The race will take place in real time.

Each race winner will earn points towards winning tickets to F1 races, Premier League football matches and other great sporting prizes as part of a campaign to promote “The World of FxPro Sports”. FxPro, as well as sponsoring Virgin Racing, recently announced shirt sponsorship of Aston Villa and Fulham football clubs, as well as an existing partnership with the WRC. The aim of “The World of FxPro Sports” is to offer consumers the chance, through FxPro, to experience top class sporting events.

Timo Glock and team mate Lucas di Grassi, the Virgin F1 drivers, worked with FxPro to test the game, displaying their healthy rivalry, even during its test phase!

Virgin Racing driver Timo Glock says:

“Nothing beats the thrill of F1 racing and this is a fun way to compete against people around the world to win a great prize!’’ he says.

The launch coincides with high volatility in the markets around the confidence in Euro, which has played havoc with the currency markets. Players will be able to choose certain currency pairs that are depicted as F1 cars and race around the track in record time based on real time currency data received from FxPro.

So what are you waiting for start playing now and let us know how you get on! Best of luck!

“Be the driver, live the life” – it sounds cheesey, but what Codemasters are telling us is that F1 2010 is a ‘departure’ from the typical F1 games we have seen before. The game gives the driver (i.e. you) the chance to live the life rather than just drive the car, you attend press conferences and have meetings with your agent as well as trying to be the fastest on the track. Sounds mad, but also quite intriguing.

As for the game, they are most proud of their weather and track systems – and so they should be, the grip of the track is measured at every 30cm and just as in real life the nature of the track changes, i.e. goes from being ‘green’ (not literally) to being rubbered in as the race weekend progresses. Marbles also build up off the racing line, again, just as in real life. Speaking of rubber and tyres, as seen in previous games the cars tyres will wear down, but in F1 2010 they not only wear down but you can flat spot them, they can accumulate blisters or get a puncture – and as you would expect the handling changes, just as in real life.

As for damage, that looks pretty good too, it’s all true to life and it seems that as well as breaking your front wing during a first corner battle your suspension can also become damaged which will effect your handling – that’s just an example of how realistic this game is, what’s more – some things, as in real life, can be fixed in a pit stop, and when we say pit stops, they’re pretty damn spot on too. You’ll need to hit the speed-limiter at the right time and make sure you stop on your marks – miss them and you could harm your pit crew, which are fully motion captured and move around the garage and pit stop routine in a very much life like manner.

Here’s some screengrabs and example footage. Do note the videos here are known as ‘pre-alpha’ – i.e. code at it’s very earliest and the content is 2009 season, whereas the game will be 2010. Despite it being very early on in development, it does look superb.

Screenshots:

 

Video:

Badger was live tweeting from the event and you can see our comments on twitter or read the highlights below (tweets are max 140 characters, hence the short, snappy comments)

There’s qualifying strategy too – ie when to go out if it’s raining. Beating your team mate. Get the team around you.

Career mode features season upgrades and car developments of your car and your rivals..You can hang out in the garage too. Weird/brilliant.

Features teammate rivalry too. This career mode is insane – a lot more than just racing.

You can seek out puddles to cool your tyres if they are over heating on a wet/dry track!

Engine management, wing management and complete control in pit stops – limiter and managing revs etc too

The AI (artificial intelligence) is to have ‘racing instinct’ and character

in 2009, Kimi Raikkonen was reported as being worth an estimated £29,670.33 per lap, and whilst that salary is not entirely reflective, incorporating as it does the contract buy-out fee that Ferrari used to secure the services of one Fernando Alonso, it does leave us at the Sett wondering just what Ferrari could have better spent their money on in 2010.

Well for one thing, they could have secured the services of 2010 World Champion Jenson Button.  But why, when discussing such ostentatious sums, should we confine ourselves to reality?  For 26.4 million, the Scuderia could have purchased precisely eight Jensons, which would have left a few fresh versions for when he got a bit tired towards the end of the year.

Of course, if the Prancing Horse didn’t want to go down the world champion route they could have bought say Rubens Barrichello and Coulthard’s RB3, raced at Silverstone in 2007 for just £765,000 combined, with more than enough change left over to purchase the picturesque village of Linkenholt in Hampshire.  We’re not saying that they’d use the car/driver pairing to run interference at Grands Prix, but well, it would have been darned more interesting than watching Luca Badoer’s efforts.  On the other hand, just what Ferrari would have used Linkenholt for, is beyond the imagination of this writer.  Completely beyond.

All that being said, Ferrari could have formed its own breakaway series as it had threatened to do and purchased 80, yes 80 A1GP-spec, Scuderia-powered cars for a cool 22 million British pounds.  But why bother with that, when you can quite literally reach for the stars.  For a mere £15 million we could have had a Ferrari satellite, opening up new realms of inter-team spying accusations.

Regardless, and as they say in Scorsese films, “What’s done is done”.  Ferrari did spend that $27million on Kimi, and in the end, no one made them.  What Badger has done, somewhat retrospectively is highlight some of the… better investments Scuderia Ferrari Malboro could have made…

Any other ideas out there on what Ferrari could have spent the cash on?

Button impressed his (then new) girlfriend with victory in Melbourne 2009

Let’s start with the current world champion, Mr Jenson Button who’s with the lingerie model Jessica Mitchibata. Rumours were spread after the Australian grand prix last year when Button was late attending the post-race press conference, people saying his new girlfriend delayed him.  True or not, it’s very rock’n'roll.  It’s not all lust though, the couple have been together for ages now and it seems Jessica may finally be able to make Jenson hers – many other girls have failed, but this couple are still smokin’ hot.  There are plenty of more revealing pictures if you type her name into the famous search engine, but here at Badger we like this picture of the happy couple and prefer not to force gratuitous ‘lingerie’ shots of Jenson’s girl.

Felipe's now wife - Rafaela Bassi

Felipe has gone one further than Jenson and actually married the quite beautiful Rafaela Bassi – also after marrying her, he’s also now a father.

Fernando and his lady Raquel Rosario

Here’s Fernando with his sweetheart and wife, Raquel Rosario.  Raquel is far from being just a pretty face – she started playing guitar at age 14 and was pretty good, so good in fact that she is now a professional – the vocalist for Spanish group El Sueño de Morfeo – you can read more about them here.

That’s Badger’s top 3 – don’t worry we’ve spared you all from Flavio and his girlfriend, but if you really are intrigued, here a picture of the ex-Renault boss with his lady, courtesy of tabloid trash, the Daily Mail: Flavio goes for a Swim (warning, graphic content – Badger is not responsible for the content of external sites)

One driver (besides the recently single Lewis Hamilton) who won’t be celebrating Valentines Day with roses and chocolate is Kimi Raikkonen – not because he’s not into it, but because in Finland the day has been somewhat re-branded as ‘Friendship Day’ – where the clean-living Finnish celebrate the love of friendship.

Happy Valentines day to you all..

For more WAGS, past and present see Badger’s piece on Marriage in F1 Paddock

Frist up it’s the quite horrible looking Renault from this year.  Here’s the launch photo, my how a year can change things – Flavio’s gone, Piquet Jr has gone, ING have withdrawn, Alonso is off to the stables of the prancing horse and even the very name “Renault” is looking to be sold anytime soon.  Shame they had to end with some an ugly looking car..

Now, let’s go back a little bit – one of the biggest disasters in modern day F1 has to be British American Racing (BAR) and their ‘half and half’ livery.  They couldn’t decide whether promote the Lucky Strike or 555 cigarette brand – solution?  Let’s do them both – a fine example of a bad marketing decision – the car looked awful, so much so, that the team were forced to drop it and go with a far more aesthetically pleasing ‘Lucky Strike’ livery…. oh except for some of the far away races where they switched to a dodgy looking ‘555′ livery.

Ever thought you’d see a pink F1 car?  you probably never will after Brabham tried it in 1992 when Damon Hill was getting his foot in the F1 door.  Nice idea, but it just doesn’t fit.

Next up is the awful “Earth Dreams” livery adopted by Honda.  Some say it was to cover the fact that they didn’t have any sponsorship, but whatever the reason, it was yet another PR disaster for the BAR-come-Honda team.

Another modern F1 livery disaster was the Benson and Hedges sponsored Jordan.  Sure, it may have ended up as being one the best when they made it yellow, but in the first instance it was a garish gold colour and my did it look bad on the track…

There are loads more iffy looking F1 cars out there – share yours in the comments below and we’ll compile the ultimate list of great and awful F1 cars…

In the meantime… if this article and the “favourite F1 car” article have got you remeniscing over the past 50+ yrs of F1 cars then look no further than this quite wonderful (and massive) image of every single F1 car from 1950 through to 2004.  The Badger found it on a blog and was mightly impressed with it.  Be warned, the original file is nearly 20mb in size and will take a while to download!  A small version is shown below:

Download the full version here – Every F1 Car 1950 – 2004

It’s a tricky question – there have been hundreds of different shapes, colour schemes and radical designs over the years of grand prix racing, but everyone has their favourite F1 cars.  Here are some of our favourites, followed by reasons as to why.  Let us know your favourites in the comments below and we’ll compile a list of Badger’s Top 10 F1 cars…  So, in no particular order:

Nigel Mansell’s Williams from championship success year of 1992.  It’s an eye-catching colour scheme with the Camel cigarettes yellow contrasting with the deep blue, with the distinctive “Canon” emblazoned rear wing.  Mansell’s red ‘5′ just completes the look of the car.  As for the shape and design, this, in many ways is the classic F1 car shape – large rear wheels, smaller front wheels, a low, swooping nose and front and rear wings that are in proportion to the rest of the car.  It’s a clean looking car and of course, a winning car, which always helps when recalling your favourite F1 machines.

Riccardo Monza – the Badger’s resident F1 anaorak, brought this to the table – Gilles Villeneuve’s 1982 Ferrari (aka the 126C2) – Just an absolutely superb looking car (especially without front wings) complete with turbo power, driven by Gilles Villeneuve, Didier Pirroni, Mario Andretti and Patrick Tambay, in a season mixed with tragedy and success, going on to win the 1982 Constructor’s Championship.

Another popular favourite is the Lotus79 – beautiful shape, classic JPS colour scheme, and cleverly designed ground-effect “wing-cars” by Colin Chapman, that won the 1978 Driver’s and Constructor’s Championship with Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson at the controls – quite brilliant!

Going back in time a bit, here’s the Ferrari 156C – fondly remembered as the “Sharknose” with it’s icon front air intake creating a striking presence on the track.  Combined with the “blood red” Ferrari paint scheme, it was a car to to be feared.

Possibly the greatest machine in the classic British Racing Green ever – back in the day, F1 cars had very little, if any sponsorship and so, instead looked clean and almost understated with just a large number on the front and side so the spectators could keep track of who was who.  The Vanwall is a particular favouite due to it’s impressive clean flowing lines, and like all great F1 cars, it looked to be doing a hundred miles an hour when parked in the pits.

Moving on to the barmy, but highly memorable Brabham “fan” car.  (Otherwise known as the BT46B) – A great triangular body shape designed by Gordon Murray, with a ridiculous suction fan fitted on the back for extra massive downforce, then taken to victory at its first outing in Sweden in 1978 by Niki Lauda, then promptly banned, but a version without the fan was allowed to race thereafter, but wasn’t as interesting.

And finally, another classic is the ‘red’ and white McLaren, powered by a Honda engine and sponsored by Marlboro – a classic colour scheme that ran for years, aside from the Ferrari red, this has to be one of the most recognisable colour schemes in the sport.  It was the livery during the epic Prost vs Senna battles and saw many a world championship.

So what do you think – do you agree with our choices here at the Sett?  There are bound to be some classics that we’ve missed, let us know in the comments below and let us know what your favourite car is and why…

What is your favourite colour?

1. Yellow
2. Blue
3. Red
4. Silver
5. I have no favourite colour
   

Which of these companies or products would you endorse?

1. The Sunday Times
2. A bank
   
3. Bacardi rum
   
4. Bloody everything… I love money!
5. Haagen Dazs

You’re 1 point away from winning the World Championship, but some pesky driver is in your way… what do you do?

1. Try and try to get past, but sadly to no avail, and give up.
2. Drive the sucker off the road… that’s my damn world title!
3. Try to copy No 2, but get disqualified in the process.  Instead, have your engineer call his engineer to get the annoying driver to move politely out of the way on the final straight.
4. Leave it to the last bloody bend to get ahead… the last bend!!!
5. Coolly overtake everyone to be the surprise winner of the championship.

What are your hobbies and interests?

1. Following your children around and helping them achieve their dreams too. Aww.
   
2. Keeping super-fit in order to be the best driver of them all.
3. Being the Stig on Top Gear.
4. Endorsing stuff, and avoiding tax.  Did I mention how much I like money?
5. Rallying.  And ice-cream.  Never forget the ice-cream.

What do you look for in a partner?

1. Just someone normal really.
2. Good looks, preferably a model.
3. Somebody quiet and not too showy.
4. Damn!  Someone smoking hot, famous and with lots of cash, just like me.
5. Anyone who isn’t a former ‘Miss Scandinavia’ or similar need not apply.

What is your favourite song or music?

1. ‘The Chain’ by Fleetwood Mac
2. ‘Rio’ by Duran Duran
3. German folk music
   
4. ‘No Woman No Cry’ by Bob Marley
   
5. ‘My Name is’ by Eminem

Where in the world would you ideally like to live?

1. Norfolk.  I just love the Broads and all that expanse of beautiful English countryside.
2. Somewhere in Latin America.  They know how to party!
3. Probably Germany.  I mean, the Germans are just so damn efficient, and I’m very busy and important so things need to be perfectly on time.
4. Either Monaco or Switzerland.  Nothing to do with tax of course.
5. Switzerland all the way!

Finished!  Now add up how many of each number you got, and scroll down to find out which Formula 1 driver you are most like…

Mostly 1s – Congratulations!  You are most like the much-loved BBC F1 commentator, and former Jordan driver, Martin Brundle!  Bit average, but we love him anyway.

Mostly 2s – Nice one!  You’re just like the legendary Ayrton Senna.  A true champion.

Mostly 3s – Lucky you!  You and Michael Schumacher are practically twins!  But don’t think that makes you cool.  It doesn’t.

Mostly 4s - Ouch!  You’re like Lewis Hamilton.  Sorry mate.

Mostly 5s - You are like ice-man Kimi Raikkonen.  Frugal with words, but not when it comes to his favourite frozen treat.

As an F1 Badger reader, you’ll see that our tagline is “Formula 1 isn’t boring” – a slogan we stand by and so, with your help we’ve come up with the follow arguments, reasoning for why you we watch F1. For a bit of background – as the editor of F1 Badger, I’ll share that at the wee age of 9 or 10, I saw Nigel Mansell racing and in contention of winning the world championship, and as a young lad who had more matchbox cars than hot dinners, seeing these radical looking cars driving at high speeds, racing each other was enough to capture my attention for more than 5 minutes. Like a drug, the more I watched, the more I loved and wanted to watch more of it.  Fortunately I had family members who also followed F1 so I had people to talk to and learn from when it came to motorsport, because, let’s face it – to your average Joe it’s not the easiest sport to get into… which is the sole foundation for creating F1 Badger – to make the sport more accessible and give us an open forum to learn about and enjoy the wonderful sport of F1 Grand Prix.  Sure, the recent championship success and rags to riches story of Lewis Hamilton has helped catapult F1 into the general media, followed by yet another British success and the fairytale story of the Brawn team and Jenson Button have helped open up the sport to a whole new spectrum of fans, but as any F1 fan will agree, there’s still folk out there who just can’t get a handle on the sport or profess to it being boring…

From talking to others in the Sett, here’s a list of reasons why we watch F1:

Magic – F1 cars are quite magical machines; these quite barmy looking cars are created from a blank sheet of paper, from the ground up with the single objective of being the fastest object on a race track. Sure, the fabulous years of crazy looking cars are confined to the history books – i.e. the six wheels idea, the turbo era, the skirts (more on that in a later article this month), some crazy looking wings and loads more. Still though, even in the modern era of confined rules and regulations, some of the finest engineers on the planet are coming up with news ideas – remember the Great Diffuser Confusion from earlier this year for example – a court case brought about because some engineers found a loophole to gain more downforce (aka grip) with minimal side effects, whereas others didn’t. The fact that all these cars are built by different teams and end up being within hundredths of a second of each other is astonishing, magic.

Speed – F1 cars regularly top 200mph, a fairly impressive speed, but maybe not that insane in this modern age where every new super car could also probably do 200mph too. What is more impressive is the speed at which these machines turn corners and change direction. The slowest these machines go throughout a season of grands prix is around 50mph, and that’s on the twisty streets of Monte Carlo. Don’t try this at home, but imagine doing 50mph or more around a corner in your Vauxhall Corsa – it wouldn’t be quite so straight-forward and you’d probably end up in a hedge with a broken Corsa, whereas in F1, these cars drive round bends at over 100mph, continuosly – a feat of engineering and of the sheer balls of the blokes behind the steering wheel.

Personality – we may be going a bit far here, but F1 drivers are, in there own way, known for their personalities and more often than not become household names. Finding someone who doesn’t know who “Schumacher” is would be tricky – try asking your gran, we’d bet that even she would know (they wouldn’t know who Ralf is… but who cares). Seriously, there have been loads of F1 drivers who have made the top spot, not only in races but also in “Sports Personality of the Year” awards – Jenson’s tipped for it this year as the bookies favourite we’ll find out if he’s successful in that too next week.

Untouchable – sure, we all may complain at the corporate-ness of modern F1, but it’s Bernie’s efforts to get the sport to this level that make the sport exactly what it is, i.e a global spectacle that is followed by hundreds of millions of people across the planet.  It’s glamourous, it’s complicated – there’s so much more to it than just the first car across the line wins – there’s the controversy, the politics, the business/money side of things and loads more other than the sheer speed and actual racing that makes it appealing.  This is the reason F1 is a registered trademark, a trademark that is now extremely lucrative because it’s not just about fast cars going fast, but everything else that goes with it – it’s what makes F1 the pinnacle of the motorsport world.

So why do you watch Formula One? Contribute using the comments below so we can compile the ultimate guide to facts, stats and reasons to convince those non-believers that our sport really is just this brilliant.

From using the Badger’s Twitter and Facebook presence we’ve received the following:

• “Pretty boys driving dangerous machines – what more do you want?”
• “wheel to wheel, speed, crash, big personalities, scandals, moments like trulli sutil fighting ,first lap choas, tracks=spa, brundles grid walk”
• “Because there’s nothing else to do on a Sunday afternoon.”
• “To watch the best drivers in the world racing the most impressive cars in the world.”
  “the thrill of speed & kick ass drivers & the technology of the cars!”
• “Something to do with the speed of the cars competing and the precision/danger involved.“
• “The excitement of watching fast cars being driven by incredible drivers. in the most amazing settings!“
• or simply, “Lewis Hamilton” or “Jenson Button” or “<insert fav driver here>”

and a special thanks to “The Runoff Area” who simply replied to our question “Because the Badger said so” – we couldn’t have said it better ourselves!

Due to other commitments, our regular columnist Emma E Rouge is unable to complete her Badgerometer F1 Top 5 for a few weeks.  Rather than attempt to emulate her work, Badger is bringing you a slightly different, more off-tangent Top 5, we hope you like it…

What’s in a name?  Formula One has had some fabulous names over it’s history, and we’re not talking World Championships and grand prix victories – no, we’re talking about the actual names of F1 drivers.

“Michael Schumacher” for instance is just beautiful sounding collection of syllables, along with “Juan Manuel Fangio” and “Jean Alesi” or “Ayrton Senna” – sure there have been a few duds – “Alan Jones” is hardly stand out, but largely it seems that to make it as an F1 driver you need to have a good name, one that rolls of the tongue and “works” when commentators exclaim it as you win a race or pull off a fantastic manoeuvre.  “Gilles Villeneuve”, “René Arnoux” or “Juan Pablo Montoya” are all magnificent names that ooze class and stature.  It’s not just the fact that they’re foreign to the massive British audience either – “John Surtees”, “Bruce McLaren” and “Jackie Stewart” all have a certain sophisticated ring to them.

A classic Jensen

More of our favourites include “Giancarlo Fisichella” the name wins on the syllable count – a whole seven in just two words.  It’s almost as though his parents decided he was destined for motorsport before leaving the delivery room.  Then there’s “Jenson Button” – one of the finer English driver names that is unusual and has a certain charm to it, as well as the obvious car reference (albeit with an alternative spelling – Jensen is old car manufacturer).  Another great name is “Zsolt Baumgartner” – never much of a driver in terms of race results, but he had the name of a champion.

Essentially, the great classic driver names inspire visions of grandeur, sophistication, elegance, extraordinaire and almost super hero status.  The best names really do drill home the idea of fantasy, some being almost fairy tale or up there with some of the Greek Gods – imagine a driver called “Costas Aphrodite” for example – sounds like a champion already.

Anyway, enough of this – we hope you get the idea, here’s Badger’s Top driver names, share your favourites in the comments below, or even better – come up with your own fantasy driver names (there may be a prize for the best original name, with some bonkers justification of course…)

So, here’s our top 5 F1 driver names:

In at five has to be “Fernando Alonso” – it creates a wonderful mental image and, ignoring any reference to Abba’s hit single of the 70s the name is pretty unusual and as a complete phrase it just flows perfectly.

Even his image matches the name, with his large proud mane and distinct facial features.

At four is “Juan Manuel Fangio” – when two parts just won’t do, why not have three words to make up your racing driver name.  Like with Alonso, the name does just flow and can easily have a tone of enthusiasm applied to it.

The name sounds completely untouchable and you can imagine him having an aura of invincibility.

“Didier Pironi” comes in at three – sounds exotic yet strangely familiar and again rolls off the tongue with ease, complete with a massive six syllables.

Almost cartoon character like – it creates an image of a man fighting with all his might against the odds, when only victory will do.

In second place is the quite ridiculously brilliant “Emerson Fittipaldi” – again, plenty of syllables and it flows well.

It’s a solid sounding name that again brings to life the idea of stamping authority and nothing would stand in his way.

At number one we’re going with “René Arnoux” – it’s our clear favourite, having a certain joie de vivre, je na sais quoi (insert commonly used French phrase here)

It’s the complete antithesis of something boring like “Damon Hill” or “Alan Jones” and again inspires a certain  exotic, untouchable image akin to some fantasy super hero.

And here is the man:

A great man with an even greater name, this is René Arnoux!

So there you have it – that’s our top five f1 driver names, after discussion here at the Sett – what’s your favourite, and why.  Can you come up with a great fantasy driver name yourself – if so, share it below and justify it!

It is a period of relative uncertainty. The Grand Prix Driver’s Association is in dispute with the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile over the cost of the Super License, and the evil Darth Mosley has made sweeping changes ahead of the new season.

Now the rebellious Formula One Team’s Association is unhappy with the FIA’s proposals and have threatened to form a splinter series if Emperor Eccelstone and Darth Mosley do not cut it out. Meanwhile, the FIA have apparently taken revenge by kidnapping the car designers.

The paddock is in turmoil and we wait to see what will come of Ecclestone’s medal system, not to mention of the Donnington Park project and whether or not it will have the intended outcome of destroying the British Grand Prix…

He dresses up in black leather, wears an odd mask and his party trick is a submissive chokehold, but enough about Max. Darth Vader is the prince of darkness and the Emperor’s right-hand guy. When not suing newspapers he enjoys a good ol’ torture.

Ah wise Rubens, so knowledgeable, our most experienced driver and most likely set to disappear into the ether, much to the sadness of hardcore fans. We remember the good ol’ days when a sprightly young Barrichello would battle against the evil Darth Macher and other Sith scum.

What’s that Alonso? Chicken? Ok yeah sure, well this guy makes about as much sense as his movie counterpart. Alonso is from the planet Kashyyk, a densely forested world that was at some point colonised by the Empire and now contains scattered pockets of highly original and creative racists. Yes Alonso, don’t think we didn’t see you in The Empire Strikes Back with the dismembered body of Anthony Hamilton strapped to your back. It was the Imperials you say? Yeah pull the other one!

Ron couldn’t quite stretch to a city in the sky, so he had the Normanator build him one on a lake instead. Nevermind Ron, we still think you’d make a great Bond villain, well… except usually the villains are the ones who get spied on, but that’s just academic.

Yeah, Han frickin’ Indiana Jones Solo! The coolest space pirate in the galaxy, and with the help of his McLaren M23, he’ll do Copse Corner in just under 12 parsecs. A life of gambling and rich living, James never meant to race cars, he just happened to win his ride in a heated game of Sabaac from one Ron Calrissian.

(Geek disclaimer: we acknowledge that a “parsec” is a measure of distance and not time)

The Ice Man, a clone of all things! Created in Finland by a group of strange Kamino aliens, they let this fella mature naturally, instead of the premature aging experienced by other Finnish clones like Mika Hakkinen. Quiet and deadly, he’s following in the footsteps of James Han frickin’ Indiana Jones Solo Hunt, and is currently available for hire from the highest bidder, so that’s Ferrari then is it?

Kimi, Kamino anyone? Yeah you try and convince me that’s a coincedence!

A decorated member of the Senate, until he shot Samuel L Jackson out of the window with bolts of electric fire current. Now he’s horribly scarred by his dark side wealth and strikes fear into every F1 fan’s heart with talk of medal systems. Last seen taking an ill-fated strike at the Grand Prix Driver’s (Rebel) Alliance.

Some crazy ass Sith MOFO, we’d never heard of before just popped into Motor Sport and terrorised the galaxy for a decade all because George hath decreed it. Last seen crashing speeder bikes around Mos Eisley.

Seriously, FTW! Who let her gallop around the F1 galaxy creating all sorts of havoc? A TV show Bernie? No, we can’t have that; just let her do a spot for ITV once in a while. Hopefully the BBC will have more sense and we can try to pretend that this little debacle didn’t happen, much like the farce in which the Binkster became a senator… Jesus Tap Dancing Christ George, did the first three not net you enough cash?!

Fierce and loyal, he tailed off in his latter years; he was occasionally victorious over Darth Macher and an outspoken opponent of Darth Mosley and Emperor Ecclestone. His swansong in formula one was a fierce battle aboard the first Death Star formally known as Interlagos in which he inexplicably let his guard down and allowed some jumped up little sod to take him out. Silly David, now you’re just all transparent and stuff like Yoda.

Given his interesting relationship with R2D2 We’re not sure if C3PO has actually fathered prolific racing spawn, but his head is remarkably angular much like that of annoying paddock father figure Anthony “Lewis Lewis Lewis” Hamilton, oh and it’s really shiny too.

Fierce and unopposed by all but a few, the Royal Guard is the backbone of the Empire’s battle against democracy… Yes, that’s right, all we’ve got here is the colour red.