Formula 1 supremo™ Bernie EcclescakeECCLESTONE, BERNIE
 Bernie and Slavica Ecclestone: it's hard to say who looks more uncomfortable. F1 supremo Bernard Charles Ecclestone owns various bits of Formula One and has done since the 1970s, all of which has made him a very rich man. He also co-owns QPR Football Club, which does at least demonstrate that not all his decisions are spot-on. In his time, Ecclestone has managed drivers, owned teams, sold TV rights he probably didn't have in the first place and married someone 28 years younger and 28cm taller than him. He has also developed a slightly bewildering antipathy towards Silverstone.
 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.
As do we all.
"I would rather he had stopped as a seven-time world champion than stopping now," Ecclescake told the official Formula 1 website, which is a little too much like talking to yourself, in our opinion. "People new to the sport will remember Michael now, not as he was.
"They won't see the machine that won world championships almost every other year for sixteen years on average, even if most of the time he did it by subterfuge, cheating or downright ramming his opponents off the track," he went on. "No, they'll remember the perpetual midfielder who failed to even win a race for the team that, let's face it, took Bunsen Jet-OnBUTTON, JENSON
 Jenson looking a bit scary, quite frankly, after his first win, at Hungary in 2006. Jenson Button came into the world in Somerset in 1980. He has two slightly silly middle names - Alexander Lyons - and three slightly older sisters, born at regular internals in 1967, 1970 and 1973, although far be it from us to suggest that little Jenson was slightly less planned than his sisters. Success in karting and Formula Ford led to Formula 3 and then almost immediately on to Formula One, where he made a few rookie mistakes but also qualified third in a Williams at Spa, which went a long way towards shutting everyone the hell up. Still under contract to Williams, Jenson drove the 2001 season for Benetton, which became Renault in 2002 and BAR the year after. This was clearly all a bit confusing for Button, who announced in mid-2004 that he would be driving for Williams the following season, having signed contracts for both teams. Once that legal Gordian knot had been cut, Jenson went and did it all again in reverse in 2005, as he tried to wriggle out of his contract with Williams to stay with BAR. Throughout all this vacillating, Jenson was linked with a succession of beauties, perhaps indicating that what women really want is a rich man in touch with his feminine side or, to put it another way, a Formula One driver who can never make his f**king mind up. Button is often joined at races by his father John who, ever since Jenson won the first race of the 2009 season, has taken to wearing his "lucky pink shirt", conveniently forgetting - in the way that superstitious people do - all the times he wore the same shirt and Jenson finished three laps down. Jenson has homes in Monaco, the UK and Bahrain, where he pursues his hobbies of mountain biking, almost growing a beard and browsing through lingerie catalogues to find his next girlfriend.
After Lotus, there was Caterham; as it was in the 1960s with road cars, so it was in 2011 in F1. Lotus Racing team owner Tony Fernandes, keen to avoid further legal action from Group Lotus, opted to change his squad's name to Caterham, a car manufacturer that he did own. The cars would keep their iconic green and yellow livery but could no longer claim any link with the original Team Lotus. And, we have to say, quite right too. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper of all things."
Honestly, we think he did say that.
What Ecclescake definitely did say later on was "I think the important thing is - and this is probably difficult - to know when you can't do what you used to do anymore and then hand it over to somebody else."
Yes, Bernie, it is difficult to know that, isn't it? And, far be it from us to give credence to anything he might say, but we recall Loser di Montecarlo saying something similar to that only the other day.
But, while we're talking of FerrarsiFERRARI
 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.
Mercedes-Benz is a German motor vehicle manufacturer improbably named after Buffy the Vampire Slayer stars Mercedes McNab and Julie Benz, who played dumpy failed vampirette Harmony and fiendlishly sexy uber-vamp Darla respectively. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper meant that Formula One Management have been unable to offer him a role to stay involved in the sport.
"Well, we wouldn't and we couldn't keep him in another role because he is too close to MoreHades," he insinuated. "It would have been easier when he was still close to Ferrarsi, I guess."
Yes, thanks, Bernie. That about confirms everything we've ever thought about Ferrarsi and your even more shady organisation. The prosecution rests, m'lud.
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