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.

The FIA (or Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile to give it its full, inexplicably french, name) is an ominous association formed to represent motorists and motoring organisations. Its headquarters are at 8 Place de la Concorde, Paris (ring top bell), coincidentally just up the rue from one of the city's best bordellos.

The federation acts as the governing body for a number of motorsport series and championships, mostly in a venal or, if we're feeling charitable, incompetent manner. It should not be confused with the Fédération Internationale de l'Alcosport, which governs Drink-A-Long-A-Grand-Prix almost as badly.

Comprising 222 member organisations, the FIA can also boast a Senate, a Court of Appeal and a General Assembly and it wouldn't take a stretch of the imagination to see its activities as part of a sinister plan to get itself recognised as a sovereign state in its own right. It's not a million miles from how Hitler started, that's all we're saying.

Its decisions have at times left the FIA open to accusations of favouritism and manipulation and its credibility wasn't helped any by revelations that its married president, Max Mosley, was partial to sado-masochistic orgies involving more tarts than you can fit on one hand. Mosley, seeing no incompatibility between his behaviour and his position, failed to tender the resignation that many were keenly anticipating.

They claim to do a lot of work on road safety but we've never knowingly seen any of their campaigns.

Sebastien Bourdais is a stroppy french racing driver who's dabbled in a number of motorsport disciplines with varying levels of success, although he will always be remembered at dotdotdotcomma for entertaining the crowd at the 2007 Race of Champions with a sizeable hissy fit after crashing with what he claimed was a stuck throttle and then stomping off in a huff of which any teenager would have been proud. It's all just for fun, Sebastien mon ami.

Bourdais won the International F3000 Championship at the third attempt, beating career GP2 racer Giorgio Pantano by a couple of points but only claiming the title following a failed drugs test by points leader Tomas Enge, who had alerted officials to the possibility that he was indulging in substance abuse by claiming that he could drive his car upside-down across a ceiling.

For the 2003 season, Bourdais signed a deal to race in F1 for Arrows, who promptly went bust, so the surly frenchman jetted across to America to have a crack at Champ Car racing. He started his very first race from pole and went on to win four consecutive titles from 2004 to 2007, becoming the first person since Ted Hat in 1948 to do the horn trick, or possibly the first person since Ted Horn in 1948 to do the hat trick.

His second go at getting into F1 led to a race seat with Toro Rosso for the 2008 season, during which he was consistently blown away by promising rookie Sebastian Vettel and his humour improved not one jot.

He somehow managed to keep his seat into 2009, this time partnering promising rookie Sebastien Buemi, until Toro Rosso finally lost patience with (a) his bad form and (ii) his bad temper, and sacked him after the German Grand Prix, even going so far in their desperation to get rid him as to replace him with someone not called Sebastien.