Fernando AlonsulkALONSO, FERNANDO
 Fernando always keeps abreast of the latest technical developments. Alonso's full name is Fernando Alonso Diaz and few people realise that he is the half-brother of Cameron Diaz, the well-known jizz-haired actress. His success in Formula One has led to a huge growth of interest in the sport in his home country of Spain, where not so long ago you could easily pick up cheap tickets to the Grand Prix and pretty much have your pick of seats, so thanks for that, Fernando. Like many of the sport's stars, Alonso began his F1 career with Minardi and he made a splash at his first race, where he out-qualified his team-mate by over two and a half seconds. That margin is rendered slightly less impressive when you learn that his team-mate was Tarso Marques who, as racing drivers go, has a lovely personality. Fernando was soon snapped up by Renault, where he spent a year testing before being promoted to a race seat. He became the then youngest world champion in 2005 and the youngest double champion in 2006. There followed an abbreviated tenure at McLaren which failed to yield a third title, largely because he proved unable to beat a rookie, after which he was welcomed back to the Renault team, where he is expected to wait grumpily until a Ferrari seat becomes available. Alonso is an exceptionally talented and complete racing driver but he also has a reckless - often self-destructive - streak and an eccentrically unique take on what it means to be a team-player, traits which have doubtless closed a number of F1 doors to him. In 2005 he was appointed one of UNICEF's Goodwill Ambassadors, which may explain why he never has any left for anyone else.
 Gilles Villeneuve as nature intended, back when Ferrari were crap but almost lovable. No team polarises fans quite like Ferrari: some believe that they can do no wrong, despite a vast and growing body of evidence to the contrary; other, sounder minds put them in roughly the same category as Lucius Malfoy, Jabba the Hutt and Sandi Toksvig. Until fairly recently, the team had a reputation for passionate disorganisation, which occasionally somehow produced a decent car, and there was no end of very good drivers queuing up to put their mark on a contract for the scuderia, only to be disappointed by the tractor they were given to race. The Brawn/Todt/Schumacher/Byrne axis changed all that. Suddenly the cars were quick, driveable and bullet-proof, while behind the scenes this highly political team fostered its "special relationship" with the FIA, leading to all manner of dubious rule interpretations in favour of the red cars. That the team inspires such extreme reactions is partly a product of its own success (many people love to hate the ultra-successful - just ask Man Utd, Bill Gates or Patrick Kielty) but also because of the strutting arrogance and faux innocence with which it has been achieved. The lesson, which seems to be repeatedly lost on Ferrari, is to win, lose and get caught breaking the rules with equal good grace. Some of our readers doubtless question the extent of dotdotdotcomma's continued antipathy towards the scuderia but when repeatedly faced with the team's insufferable arrogance in victory, sanctimonious posturing at perceived wrongs and instinctive refusal to accept blame, it's the only sane response. There. We got all the way through that without once calling them a bunch of cheating c*nts.
dotdotdotcomma agrees that if the performance in question is about their ability to flout race rules on, for example, passing by cutting a chicane, then, yes, he might just win the title in the same way that Ferrarsi managed to engineer on so many occasions for Michael ShitparkerSCHUMACHER, MICHAEL
 Michael expresses his remorse at having dangerously forced a rival off the track. Again. When he wasn't driving people off the road, ramming other cars, parking in the middle of the track or trying to punch David Coulthard, Michael Schumacher displayed a dazzling talent for finding new ways to disadvatage his team-mate. We're being slightly churlish, of course, but Schumacher's reputation as a driver will forever be coloured by the unsporting manner in which he raced. His first break in F1 came with Jordan at Spa in 1991 and his second with Ferrari at Silverstone in 1999, when he fractured a leg crashing at Stowe. His final F1 drive through the field at Interlagos was a reminder of what his legacy could have been if he hadn't been quite so ready to tarnish it quite so frequently. The wanker.
But that aside, the Spaniard's belief that he will triumph at the end of the season really demonstrates his total disconnection with the real world - what psychologists call a grand delusion.
We asked our private braincare specialist, Professor Pharyngeal-Reflex Demishrimp of the University of Liff.
"Vell look," he said, "Fernando's just zis guy, you know?"
The Prof went on to suggest that Alonsulk's use of the plural personal pronoun to describe his poor performances at both Valencia and Silverstone in his post-race analysis - in other words putting half the blame onto the team - may, at first glance, have appeared to conflict with his assertion that it is Ferrarsi's performance that will lead to his supposed championship victory. In fact, psychologically speaking, there is no conflict at all: by placing the credit for his potential title win with Ferrarsi's performance, assuming it keeps to the high* standards it set at Silverstone, he is setting himself up to be able to blame the team for his failure to win the title when that eventuality eventually, um, happens, just as he appeared to blame them for Valencia and Silverstone.
Leading motorsport commentators are adamant that the only title Fernando Alonsulk is likely to win this year is "Odious tosser in the history of motorsport: most", an award that has had Michael Shitparker's name engraved on it for the past thirty-seven years.
* Shome mishtake shurely? Ed.
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