Just a couple more days until the 2008 F1 season, with its rollercoaster of extreme highs and lows, comes to an end in Brazil.
Will it be triumph for Lewis Hamilton or celebrations for Felipe Massa in the drivers’ championship? Will McLaren somehow beat the odds to overturn Ferrari’s constructors’ title lead?
Whichever it turns out to be, we’ll be there liveblogging the race, and then picking up the pieces afterwards, as we have all season. We’ve had a lot of fun reporting this year, and we hope you’ve enjoyed reading it all too.
But if you’ve missed a few races, or want a souvenir of a season that’s proved remarkable for a whole variety of reasons, some good and some not so good, we’re giving you the chance to catch up with the lot.
If you’ve enjoyed the live blogs, the race reports and the ‘six word’ summaries we’ve produced for each race, we’re collecting them all together in a downloadable e-book that will be available as soon as we’ve incorporated our Brazilian Grand Prix coverage into the work so far.
And we’ll also be including some of the opinion pieces and features we’ve written along the way.
It won’t be heavy with photos, but it should be a good meaty read to last you through the off season.
We’ve added a form in the sidebar of the site where you can leave your email address (it’s also at the bottom of this post). You’ll get a message with a link in it to click to confirm you really did mean to sign up, and when the book’s ready we’ll send you a link where you can download it. We absolutely hate spam, so we promise not to do anything with your email address that you wouldn’t do yourself.
And just to whet your appetites, here are snippets from each of the live blogs we’ve produced so far this season:
- Australia
- Podium: These bloody colonials have got the Union Flag the wrong way up…
- Malaysia
- Raikkonen is doubled up in pain after getting the podium fizz in his eyes. The price of greatness is a high one…
- Bahrain
- Davidson, Hamilton, Coulthard and Button are running 17th to 20th. We’re thinking about a redesign – how does ‘Backmarker Brits’ sound?
- Spain
- DC is trying to overtake Sato. Tin hats, everyone.
- Turkey
- Hamilton is threatening Massa, they’re wheel to wheel – and Lewis takes him to lead! A shot of the pit wall shows Ron Dennis’ back projecting considerable emotion.
- Monaco
- David Coulthard says that he hit some spray and lost the car. These, he says, are the hazards of Monaco. Bet it doesn’t happen when he pops out for a pint of milk, though.
- Canada
- And DC finally pits, leaving Trulli at the front. It’s veterans’ hour at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve this afternoon.
- France
- Massa also laps him and it appears that some kind of gesticulation occurs – mind you, it’s hard to take very seriously the fulminations of a man who seizes his neck by sneezing in a lift.
- Britain
- Fisi loses it in an identical manner to team-mate Sutil and beaches it in a series of lovely swoops that narrowly miss ending Hamilton’s race.
- Germany
- Whoops! Nakajima has spun, making way for Nelson Piquet and (oh, the indignity) a Force India. Brundle deploys his favourite “more ambition than adhesion” cliche.
- Hungary
- It transpires that Bourdais was actually set on fire twice during refuelling. We know he’s not put in a stellar performance, but that’s a bit much.
- Europe
- We are too sceptical, and must eat our unkind words about the stewards, their parentage and their possession or otherwise of spectacles. The stewards are investigating Massa.
- Belgium
- Hello – the stewards are investigating Hamilton and Raikkonen. Get your spotters’ guide out – here comes the Ferrari International Assistance rapid response vehicle, pulling out of the garage.
- Italy
- DC takes Fisi, who responds by shunting him. Fisi’s nose explodes in a cloud of carbon fibre and he goes straight on at a corner and into the barrier.
- Singapore
- Trulli is pictured in his garage looking like one of those little ornamental dogs being given a bath.
- Japan
- Piquet being told that he’s going a second faster than Raikkonen and should be trying to overtake him. Well, that should be fun.
- China
- Hamilton’s lead is 14.9 seconds as Raikkonen concentrates on going gently backwards. Massa’s only a second behind him, this really is comical.