The smell of crisp green grass, the feel of tension rising, the sound of thousands gathering to watch a match. Yes, it is the world cup Wimbledon. With the queen in attendance, the higher-ranked males did not dare to disappoint, and marked yesterday as the first day when all seeded players in the gentlemen's singles won their matches. The ladies failed to rise to the challenge however, as Daniela Hantuchova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Aravane Rezai and Jie Zheng failed to make it to the next round.

But enough name dropping. Let us instead recap the matches that did matter - like that epic record-breaking spectator-consuming robot zombie Court 18 match. Yes, that match.

It's only a matter of time...

But what a difference it makes. Years after this batch of tennis players has passed on, and Federer and Nadal have become heroes of aged great-great-great-grandmothers, and Germany has won it's 10th world cup, still the legend that is John Isner will live on. Well Nicholas Mahut too, but it is always the victor who gets the front page. So let's get back to the legendary giant robot zombie John Isner.

John Isner is a typical American tennis player (save for his gigantic height) and has a typical American way of playing tennis. A huge serve, lots of aces, and good at persevering no matter what others say. With Andy Roddick and the Williams sisters representing his country, it is not often that the quiet and unassuming giant gets the headlines.

The journalists won't have a choice now, as Isner has thread where no one else dared and conquered what no one else can even hope to approach. He has made history and will forever be remembered as the man who stood tall (and I do mean tall) by beating a random French qualifier 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7-9), 7-6 (7-3), 70-68. For over eleven hours, he had held firm on serve to come out the victor, and for that Isner will be exalted as the savior of US tennis. In fact, he may become the savior of the whole Earth once they decide that his consistent pounding serve (traveling at 143 miles per hour) is a better weapon than a machine gun. Cutting down on arms production will lead to world peace as everyone tries to replicate the robotic accuracy of Isner's aces.

Let's put that in perspective

11 hours. Almost half a day. You could get a million things done in that time. You could have won the 5 and a half F1 races required to clinch a F1 WDC (523 minutes) and do a full run around the Monaco Street Circuit. You could have won Wimbledon with time to spare for hugging mystery Caucasian men. You could have won the world cup (630 minutes) with the finals going into extra time and just maybe the dreaded penalties.

But what did the match really mean to Isner? Quite simply - entry into the 2nd round of Wimbledon. And all the hero has to say about his day job as a tennis player (as opposed to the unorthodox work of a record-breaker) is this:

I've got to come back tomorrow and try to get (my match) done.

It wasn't the final, just a 1st round match. But that is the beauty of tennis isn't it?

In other news...

Brit's-only-hope Andy Murray and number-1-slayer Robin Soderling won their matches in straight sets, while Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Rafael Nadal joined in the 5-set action by dragging out their victories for as long as possible before finishing their opponents off. Denmark can rejoice Caroline Wozniacki's entry into the ladies' 3rd round while trying to forget their world cup misery, and Maria Sharapova yells her way through together with hug-loving Serena Williams.

What you can look forward to today is more tasty match ups like:

Centre Court
Justine Henin vs. Nadia Petrova
Gael Monfils vs. Lleyton Hewitt
Roger Federer vs. Arnaud Clement

Court 1
Novak Djokovic vs. Albert Montanes
Alisa Kleybanova vs. Venus Williams
Philipp Kohlschreiber vs. Andy Roddick

Court 2
Kim Clijsters vs. Maria Kirilenko
Alona Bondarenko vs. Jelena Jankovic
Feliciano Lopez vs. Jurgen Melzer
Serena Williams/Venus Williams vs. Timea Bacsinszky/Tathiana Garbin

Other courts
Thiemo De Bakker vs. John Isner (Court 5)
John Isner/Sam Querrey vs. Michal Przysiezny/Dudi Sela (Court 19)
Andre Sa/Vera Zvonareva vs. Jamie Murray/Laura Robson (to be assigned)

Players with support have been italicized so those who are new to tennis can come join in the action by cheering them on! I promise Amy and the others here won't bite (much) if you choose to support the underdogs too. ;)

Hello. Amy here. As the self elected official unofficial bringer of Sidepodcast tennis news, I bring you Wimbledon: Day 1.

Wimbledon is the third slam of the year and the only one played on tennis' original surface of grass. They don't call it Lawn Tennis for nothing. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have one slam a piece in 2010, and they are once again the two favourites to lift this title. Some say 2010 could bring an upset though, as in the all too short grass season coming into this tournament Roger lost to Hewitt for the first time in 16 matches in the final at Halle and Rafa was taken out early in Queens. My friend Kait has written a blog about the five men outside the top five who are most likely to cause havoc this year, and I would recommend giving it a read. I am going to put my money on Roger this year though, because I always do.

This is also the last slam I'll be able to give proper attention since someone who doesn't know my travel plans went and scheduled the US Open in the two weeks between Spa and Monza. Many tennis fans, including me think SW19 (as it is affectionaly known) is the best slam of all. What's not to like? Strawberries and cream, Queen Liz shows up, and thanks to the all-white clothing rule we get a break from some of the fluro colour schemes we see the rest of the year. Seriously though, this is the slam that everybody wants the most. As an example of how much they want this one, seven time slam winner Justine Henin came out of retirement solely so she could add it to her collection. We will be in for some fantastic matches over the next two weeks.

Wimbledon is all about tradition and one tradition that is very good to me is that the defending gentlemans champion always kicks off proceedings on Centre Court. This is great because as we've established already, I love Roger, and now I get to watch him take on Alejandro Falla at the socially acceptable hour of 10pm. If you live in the UK this match and the first match on Court 1 will start at 1pm. Play on all the other courts starts at 12. The first matches I will be keeping an eye on are my favourite lady Kim Clijsters taking on Maria Elena Camerin on Court 2 and Judy Murray's favourite "Deliciano" Lopez vs Jessie Levine on Court 14.

Brit Watch
There are no English men in the draw this year for the first time in forever so local hopes fall on the shoulders of world number four Andy Murray and er, world number 253 Jamie Baker from Scotland. There are plenty of local ladies to see you through though, with 16 year old Laura Robson making her Centre Court debut against French Open semi finalist Jelena Jankovic after the Federer match. After seeing Laura at the Australian Open I'm not really a fan but that makes me feel mean because she's just a kid so go Laura!

There are plenty of other local women in action today with Melanie South third on Court 5, and Britain's number one ranked woman Elena Baltacha first up on Court 12. Katie O'Brien will be playing not before 5pm but her court has not yet been chosen.

Other matches I hope to watch today are Novak Djokovic v Olivier Rochus (Centre Court), Rajeev Ram v Andy Roddick (Court 1), Mardy Fish v Bernard Tomic (Court 2), Maximo Gonzalez v Lleyton Hewitt (Court 2), Marin Cilic v Florian Mayer (Court 12), Justine Henin v Anastasija Sevastova (Court 12) and Shahar Peer v Ana Ivanovic (yet to be scheduled). So that is my day one, have a look at the full Order of Play here and let me know who you'll be watching.

Will we see any major first round upsets? Will Mirka spend all of Roger's match on her Blackberry? Will any seeds fall today? How many times will Robson yell at the ball boys and girls? Stay tuned to find out and I'll see you in the comments!

Hello and welcome to Saturday. Today is World Environment Day which is an international day to raise awareness of... well, the environment, I'm guessing. That being the case, I think it's only fair to mention the panda, don't you? The panda does it's bit for the environment by generally keeping out of the way, and being pretty darn cute. Now, on to the bullet points.

• After several long years of arguing that F1 is the only sport that matters, we are suddenly starting to awaken to the beauty of other sporting endeavours. I have long since been a fan of the tennis, but have been paying special attention over the last few months. Today and tomorrow we have the finals of the French Open, and soon it will be Wimbledon. We'll have plenty to say along the way, I'm sure.
• We're beginning to plan our mission to cover all things Le Mans as the 24 Hour race slowly creeps up on us. All I know is that the fabulous Franck will be present, barring any more of his ribs suffering injuries, but Mr C has in mind multiple live threads and 24 hours worth of commenting as well. Sounds like fun!
• Finally, it even looks like we might be making space on the site for football! With the World Cup rapidly approaching, we're planning how to cover the event - both for those who want to enjoy it, and for those who would rather steer clear of anything involving twenty-two players and a ball. We're hoping to please everyone, as if that is even possible.

That should do it for now. Don't forget to check out Nathan's great guest post, and visit this page if you're inspired to submit your own words for publishing. I will see you in the comments.

The after effects of the Bahrain Grand Prix continue to reverberate around the F1 world, and Steven Roy has gathered his thoughts to discuss how he thinks F1 should be.

Due to the ban on re-fuelling there has been a great deal of discussion on the rules of F1 and what constitutes an F1 race. I had never intended to write such a long piece on the subject but I have found myself writing many long comments and still not getting my point across well enough. There are so many aspects that are inter-related that it is impossible to cover them in any comment however long. So I decided I had to write this to explain my thoughts and to encourage people to think more about what they want from the sport. Don't just decide if you agree or disagree with individual aspects of the sport but make sure you know what you want the whole package to be. It's easy to say I like one bit and don't like another bit but the whole thing has to work as a package. In all the surveys people say they want more overtaking and they think F1 should be a high tech formula. Well you can't have both. History shows the higher tech the car the more difficult overtaking is.

My over-riding principle is that the sport does not exist as like a film, a play or a TV program put on purely for our entertainment. It exists as a sporting contest between drivers and teams and the most important thing for me is that the rules should be framed to make the result of the contest representative of the performance of the participants and should not include fake components to spice up the show to the detriment of the sporting contest.

The other important point to start with is that F1 didn't not arrive at its current form as a result of divine pre-destination or logical or evolutionary path. F1 is as it is today as the result of numerous decisions made over countless years by people who had no idea where it would end up and none of them would ever have anticipated it being as it is. The status quo therefore is not some sacred cow that should not be interfered with. People have a natural dislike of change and the normal response to any major change is that if such a change is made F1 will not be F1 any more. If you ban wings F1 will not be F1 any more. Of course had some long forgotten scrutineer at the end of the 60s declared wings to be illegal and had banned them the same people who instantly react against the idea of their removal today would be equally outraged if someone threatened to introduce them or worse still to mandate them. The same applies to every other aspect of the sport.

F1 isn't F1 any more and has not been for a very long time

If F1 had remained F1 and nothing had been restricted since the world championship started in 1950 the sport would look very different today. Firstly we would not have 2.4 litre V8 engines. We would have the choice of 4.5 litre normally aspirated or 1.5 litre supercharged / turbocharged in any layout you like. When turbo-charged engines reached their peak they were producing 1500 bhp in qualifying so now they could have 2000bhp(?) in the race and 2500bhp(?) in qualifying. Of course they could have turbochargers, superchargers or both. The cars would not be fed the current fuel but a vastly developed version of the 1980s jungle juice fuel that caused the eyes of following drivers to water such was its composition.

That power would not go through a gearbox that is anything like we have today. It would go through a constantly variable transmission (CVT). When David Coulthard was the Williams test driver he spent days pounding round Silverstone in a car with CVT but before they could race it the FIA decided to ban it.

The power would be delivered to 4 or more wheels, as cars having more than 4 wheels were not banned until the 1980s. March had a car with 4 driven rear wheels while Tyrrell won a race in a car with 4 front wheels so for F1 still to be F1 the cars could have up to 8 wheels (even more) with power delivered to all of them..

The cars would be twin chassis and have fan assisted full ground effect with sliding skirts and active suspension and ride height control. That could produce 8 or 9G of downforce and coupled with the engine specification cars would be lapping tens of seconds faster than they are now.

So when you examine how far removed we are from where we would have been you can see that F1 has been massively restricted in the past so adding further restrictions is not in anyway against the spirit or the history of the sport.

One of the big problems with the love of the status quo is that when the people in power make changes to F1 they start from where we are now and modify the regulations rather than writing a specification for what they want to achieve and design a formula to meet those requirements. Recently we had the Overtaking Working Group (OWG) including the technical directors of some of the top teams draw up a set of technical regulations to improve overtaking. As everyone knows they failed and one of the reasons they failed was they were trying to modify what we have now while trying to satisfy the brief of the OWG and their team bosses. It has long been known that the biggest contributor to the lack of overtaking is the front wing of the cars. Imagine the OWG ran their tests and decided that they had to remove the front wing. Now imagine Paddy Lowe telling Martin Whitmarsh that they had decided to remove one of the prime sponsor sites from the car. As a result of their multiple responsibilities the OWG was guaranteed to fail from the day it was first suggested. The FIA has to write the rules and if there is no-one there capable of doing it they should hire someone like Gary Anderson to do it.

Specification

So what do I want my formula to do? To me F1 is about drivers first and foremost. I want races that are decided on the track and not in the pits or by teams of statisticians on a different continent from the race. The very essence of motor racing is two drivers competing for the same piece of tarmac not two tacticians trying to find the piece of tarmac that is going to be unoccupied long enough for their driver to make up time against a driver on another piece of tarmac.

I want the skill of the driver to be the over-riding factor that decides who wins and who loses. The car and the team that runs it will always have a major influence but we have to have a situation where it can be clearly seen that driving ability is the most important factor.

Description

I think the easiest way for me to frame this is to describe my formula taking the major components one at a time and explain my thinking. All the components have to be considered together to make sense.

If the drivers are going to be the deciding factor and races are to be decided on the track, routine planned pit stops are not acceptable. So a grand prix will be 26 drivers leaving the start line and racing to the chequered flag with no-one else touching the car. The opportunity to make pit stops for repairs has to be included in the rules so as to prevent them being misused. Only one mechanic will be allowed to handle wheels or wheel guns in the pit lane and in the event someone has to stop for a minor repair that would allow a new set of tyres, only one wheel may be changed in a pit stop. Should it prove that it is a feasible strategy to make such a pit stop for a new tyre, a time penalty will be added to the regulations from the next race to stop this becoming common practice. This would take the form of a minimum time for a driver to be stopped in the pits. If a driver stops in his pits he will not be allowed to move for at least 60 seconds.

This illustrates something that will be different about the regulations for the formula although I will not do it for the rest of this article for reasons of brevity. Anywhere there is the obvious potential for a regulation to be abused a fix will be specified up front. This not only prevents any dispute after the event but should discourage teams from spending money trying to circumnavigate the rules when they know that the loophole would immediately be closed.

For a formula to allow races to be decided on the track there will need to be major changes to the circuits and the cars.

Circuits

It goes without saying that circuit design has been heading in the wrong direction for some time. For my formula there will be certain requirements for the circuits regardless of how much the circuit owner is prepared to pay. While some of the historic circuits will be retained there will be a clear specification for new circuits. Firstly circuits will be longer than has been the case. The best of the current circuits are Spa and Suzuka both of which are amongst the longest of the current circuits and don't have any more corners than the shorter circuits. So no circuit under 4.5 miles long will be added to the calendar.

Any track on flat land will have to be very special to get a race. It is no coincidence that the best circuits have a lot of elevation change. Imagine if Spa was on flat land. Eau Rouge would be nothing. Circuits like Silverstone and Monza have shown that flat tracks can work and the thing they have in common is that they have very few genuine corners. Valencia has 23 corners. Monza pre-chicanes, when the overtaking was of epic proportions, had Curva Grande, two Lesmos, Ascari and Parabolica. 5 corners in 3 miles and it produced some of the best and closest races in history. So, flat tracks with 3 or more corners per mile will not be accepted.

Unfortunately Monaco is a necessity but other than that there will be no street tracks or races in city centres. I look forward to 10 new tracks winding their way for 5 or 6 miles up and down through open hilly country.

Cars

The cars need to to be able to race because that is the whole point of this formula. It is generally acknowledged that the thing that stops cars passing each other is that the following car loses downforce from its front wing and therefore can't get close to the preceding car in a corner and therefore cannot overtake on the following straight. This has been a problem for many years and Gilles Villeneuve who is my yardstick for racing purity complained about this same problem. Needless to say the problem has become a lot worse since his time as these overtaking statistics show. By pure coincidence they start the year after Gilles died.

The design philosophy of the cars is simple. They will have minimum downforce. They will have more mechanical grip than aerodynamic grip and they will have more power than grip.

Wings will be banned. Of course the teams will protest on the grounds sponsors like to see their names on wings so should a team choose to do so they can add a March 711 tea tray wing which is nice and flat so the sponsors will like it more as their logo will be easier to see. Any change to the status quo is guaranteed to result in claims that the new version is not as safe. When commercial aeroplanes changed from propellers to jet engines many people said they felt unsafe because they couldn't see the propeller but anyone used to jets getting into a plane with propellers will think it is not as safe because the propellers are exposed and vulnerable. So when I introduce my new rules I expect people to tell me it is less safe. They will be wrong.

There will need to be some downforce generated by the car but that can be done by shaping the underbody. This will be done in a way that limits the downforce that can be achieved. Should the teams come up with some clever way to generate more than 1 G of downforce a standard underbody will be introduced. There is no reason for racing cars to generate 4G of downforce. My regulations will result in higher straight line speeds, slower cornering speeds and longer braking distances which should increase the chances for overtaking when considered along with the ability of cars to follow each other through corners. This will also mean the drivers will not need to live like monks and train like Olympic athletes in order to be able to sustain the loads of these forces on their bodies. Race driving should be about finesse not fitness.

The overall width of the cars will stay the same but significantly wider rear wheels and tyres will be mandated. This will not only serve to increase mechanical grip but it will also increase drag and screw up the aerodynamics of the car without creating a wake that will affect a following car. 54% of the drag of current F1 cars comes from the wheels so making wheels wider will add significant drag. Tyres will not be restricted as is currently the case. The object is to allow drivers to race on track so the tyre supplier - there is only going to be one - will supply 4 dry compounds to all races and the drivers may use these however they like. If they want to mix compounds that is their choice. There will be no restriction on the number of tyres they can run in practise as that is an artificial restriction and not in keeping with the spirit of the formula.

Cost is always an issue so I intend to take a lot of the cost out of entering my formula. Cars look the way they do now for one reason. Carbon composites can be shaped in ways that metals never could so designers can make far more complicated shapes than could their predecessors. Of course every variation in shape needs to be tested in a wind tunnel and/or CFD and the more complicated the possible shapes the more expensive the testing. So I am going to help the teams save money. No part of the car other than the monocoque and safety structures can be made from carbon materials. All bodywork etc will be made from a specified aluminium alloy. That will eliminate a lot of pointless research on new materials that gives no real benefit to the sporting contest but massively increases costs. It will also mean that tracks being covered in carbon shrapnel if there is a minor bump will be a thing of the past.

A lot of money is spent researching the aerodynamics of suspension. This is an utterly futile activity that serves no purpose so all suspension components will be made from a specified aluminium alloy and must be round in section. That not only eliminates a lot of research but adds a little more drag that will help overtaking. It will also allow the teams to change suspension geometry more easily. They will only have to worry about how the suspension is behaving as a suspension and not be concerned about what it is doing to the aerodynamics.

In order to stop anyone doing anything clever in the area of the car, the area where a diffuser would normally be situated a vertical plate will cover the full width of that part of the car - running from the top edge of the bodywork to not more than 2 inches from the ground at rest. That will create a nice big low pressure area behind it which will cause drag and increase the slipstream effect for a following car.

Naturally safety is an important consideration. I want drivers to be able to race wheel to wheel safely so to prevent wheels interlocking sidepods will run the full length of the gap between the rear of the front wheels and the front of the rear wheels. Aside from the safety implications this will mean the sidepods are fed turbulent air from behind the front wheel rather than some smoothed out air that has been sorted by any number of barge boards, flicks and flow conditioners. Nothing will be allowed on the car to make minor improvements to the aerodynamics.

Another guiding principle for my formula is that the driver will drive the car. There are certain factors that constitute the art of driving such as steering, accelerating, braking and changing gear that have to be done by the driver. I see no value in a drivers' championship when software is doing some of the driving. So these cars will have three pedals and a gearbox that does nothing unless the driver makes it do it. Equally there will be no clever software that prevents the engine stalling. That is the driver's job. If he is not capable of keeping the engine running after he has spun he deserves to lose places and not have his butt saved by electronics. One advantage of a three pedal car is a wider pedal box which increases the frontal area and therefore the drag. While we are in that area of the car I see nothing being gained by the current seating position where the driver's feet are significantly higher than his seat. It is a most unnatural and uncomfortable position so in my formula the drivers heels will be at floor level so that it is more comfortable and natural and helps increase aerodynamic drag.

For me drivers spend way too much time making minor adjustments to car set up to the point that they are changing the car every corner. None of this adds anything to the contest and it beats me how drivers are supposed to make overtaking moves while they are changing their throttle map and differential setting every corner so most of the adjustments will be eliminated. There is something fundamentally wrong about a driver having to take a steering wheel home with him so that he can learn to find and adjust any control without looking at it or a reigning world champion driver needing a race engineer on his radio telling him to press the blue button. For drivers to be a bigger factor, the cars have to be lower tech.

A lot of people will say F1 is about technology and if you remove any technology it is not F1 any more. I wrote a piece called "The Dumbing Down of F1" for a site that no longer exists. This was written about the first race after traction control was banned. I had spent years arguing that technology was ruining F1 and was constantly shot down for it so I wrote a sarcastic piece about how dumbing down was good and how shocked I had been that the race had been universally acclaimed as a success despite F1 not being F1 any more.

That sums up exactly how many people will react to this and also what their reaction would be if my formula ever happened. Nothing has as much inertia as the status quo. I am surprised Einstein didn't say that. We have all heard the saying that if it ain't broke don't fix it. Well, the F1 version is that it is badly broken but whatever you do don't change it or it is not F1 any more.

Max Mosley became fond of saying that technology was what defined F1. He became fond of saying it part way through his presidency when he had repeatedly failed to make the racing better so he used technology as a diversionary tactic and unfortunately a lot of people bought it. Technology does not and never should define F1. F1 should be defined as the best teams and the best drivers in the world racing as hard as they can. If the technology was so important Leo Laporte would be doing This Week In F1 and he is not.

Engines

This is the one area where I don't have a crystal clear view of what I want. Part of me wants small turbo-charged engines with insane power output but another part of me wants to follow Gilles Villeneuve's choice and have big normally aspirated engines. Of course Gilles died before turbos reached their zenith, when we had 1.5 litre, 4 cylinder BMW engines producing 1500bhp in qualifying spec. I am sure he would have loved those.

Part of me wants to give the teams a fuel allocation for the race distance and let them do whatever they like with it. I certainly think that would be the kind of thing where F1 could improve road relevant technology even if I don't think that is its job.

At this stage I will leave the engine spec open and decide on it later. No doubt others will have clear opinions on the subject.

Sporting regulations

The whole point of F1 is the race result and that will no longer be affected by fake means. Cars will not have to start a race on the tyres they used in qualifying and teams will be allowed to change the basics of the car set up between qualifying and the race. This will give us back proper low fuel, ultimate set up qualifying and allow the cars to race uncompromised. Equally the artificial 3 round shoot out system will be dropped, which will return some tension to qualifying. Now there is so much happening so fast it is impossible to take in what is happening and there is never a build up of tension. That was the best part of the 12 lap qualifying system. Watching Senna stalking the McLaren garage trying to decide the best time to go out and watching him make the decision, get in the car, put his helmet on and then head out with a purpose... that no longer exists. He knew as we did that he had one lap to do a time and that he had to do it. Because the fast laps were more spread out, we saw more of them. The director knew when Senna or any other driver had completed his out lap he was going for it so the cameras were focused on him. Now we have slash cutting all over the place when someone looks like going faster or making the cut and even with a live timing screen you have no idea who you want the director to follow most of the time.

So we are going to have one hour 12 lap qualifying back and the teams will have sufficient tyres to go for it on every lap. I know people will complain nothing will happen for the first 15 minutes occasionally but remember my original principle. This is a sporting contest not an entertainment and the sporting aspect is more important than the entertainment. Besides in the current system there is a guaranteed dead time between each session and you get a lot fewer laps. Qualifying should be about one flat out fast lap, not two laps fast enough to get through to the important session then one kind of flat out but making sure that no damage is done to the the tyres as they have to be used to start the race. In my formula qualifying will be qualifying and the race will be the race and the only connection between them is that the finishing order of one will dictate the starting position of the other. You have to ask what you want from qualifying before you decide what the format should be. I want cars totally maxed out for ultimate lap time and drivers hanging it out as far as they can. I don't want someone doing a 95% lap to get through one stage and a 96% lap to get through the next then maybe 98% final lap while making sure they don't damage tyres as they have to start the race with them. Let them have soft race tyres for qualifying. There is no need with a single tyre supplier for qualifying tyres that only last a lap and if, at the end of the session, a few drivers feel like doing some donuts for the fans, let them. The tyres are unlikely to be used again and the teams will be allowed to work on the cars so when the competitive element is completed the fans should have a little additional entertainment.

In order for there to be consistency in decision making there will be one steward who will be at every race. He will have a deputy who will also be at every race and will take over should the steward be ill. Similarly there will be one scrutineer who will be responsible for all technical inspections and disputes.

There will be one set of rules that apply equally to everyone. There will never be a situation in my formula where different cars race to different rules. Why should a driver who qualifies tenth be at a disadvantage to a driver he out-qualified because that driver has a free tyre choice or fuel load choice or any other advantage?

There will be no restriction to entry other than it being compulsory to attend all events in a season. Anyone with a car and a driver can enter and the best will survive. No-one, for any reason will be guaranteed a grid spot in perpetuity. If there are enough cars there will be pre-qualifying and qualifying with the top 26 cars starting the race.

The ten-ish commandments of my formula

1 - F1 is a sport not an entertainment
2 - F1 exists for wheel to wheel motor racing
3 - There will be no fake additions to spice up the show
4 - The status quo only matters if they are playing after the race
5 - There shall be overtaking
6 - F1 circuits will be proper race tracks not Tilkedromes
7 - There will be one set of rules
8 - The driver will drive the car
9 - The cars will be a lot less expensive so there is no reason for a testing ban
10 - One steward will make decisions at all races
11 - F1 will not be a closed shop
12 - More mechanical than aero grip
14 - More power than grip
15 - Finesse not fitness

There is no 13 in F1.

Our guest post spot today is filled by RG, who wants to talk to you about his Sidepodradio show - The Nostradamus Effect. Let me make my own prediction for you - you're going to want to listen to this show.

Sunday 20th September 2009 is coming way too quickly, and unless you couldn’t tell by now, it is Sidepodradio Day (if you couldn’t tell by now, then you obviously didn’t read the title, or even the little introduction given by Mrs C). And I, will be attempting to do what people have tried to do for centuries, predict the future, and I shall be given half an hour to do it in. (More or less determining how well Mr C does at cooking). I present to you, The Nostradamus Effect.

So what is the principle of the show? Well, simply, to predict. Use my gut instinct to predict things from the world of Formula 1, the world of sport and even simply the world. So far I have a few ideas jotted down in my notebook; those ideas will remain a top secret until the show is aired.

However, I do want to get the audience involved, hopefully after I have rabbited on for the first part of the show. How to get involved I hear you ask. Well, simply enough, e-mail the folks at Sidepodcast at christine@sidepodcast.com, or go to the wiki page where there have been suggestions from Jordan and Steven already,  or you can voicemail them at 0128 28 TRACK or search them on Skype. But please do pm me over the wiki as I do have an inability to predict on the spot. Time is short.

With contact details out of the way I can exclusively reveal I will be trying an ambitious prediction right at the end of the show. I believe ambitious may be pushing it, this is one thing I really don’t want to reveal until the show, so don’t try and get it out of me. You won’t get it out of me as easily as, well, you know what.

The show starts at 18:30 BST, or as I’m using it, whenever the dust settles from The Cooking Show which will air before mine. Thanks for letting me predict at you.

There's plenty of talk going round at the moment about the possibility of a London Grand Prix in 2012 to be included in the Olympics. I've been watching some of the Olympic coverage, alright, a lot of it, and there are a few incidents I've seen that show good reason for this not to happen.

Running For No Reason

In the gymnastics hall, a Russian girl was taking part in the vault. She ran up, did her stuff and executed a perfect landing. She jogged to her trainer and waited for the result. The wait was interminable, and the judges were clearly arguing about something. In the end, it turns out that she ran when the judges weren't ready and she was awarded a zero score. When the competition works on an average of your scores, a zero is pretty devastating.

What would happen if this occurred during a race? Perhaps there'd be complaints that a car jumped the start, and Charlie Whiting would have to say - "Sorry guys, I wasn't looking? Let's award him no points anyway."

A Different Kind of Pole Position

In the pole vault competition, a Brazilian entrant had to pass one of her attempts because she couldn't find her pole. The long bendy sticks are gathered together by officials and kept under lock and key, to be brought out only in time for the competition. Now, all the stories I have read on this fail to tell me what happened in the end, so I'm assuming the pole was found and life carried on normally. I'd imagine there would have been more of a fuss, otherwise.

This is a pretty serious error, though, on the part of organisers. Imagine if the drivers turned up on the morning of the London Grand Prix, only for Piquet to peek into the parc fermé garage and go "Where's my car?"

Age Ain't Nothing But A Number

Back at the gym, the women's uneven bar contest saw a very young Chinese girl take the win, beating out the slightly older USA competitor. They finished with the same score, but China got the gold based on a tie-break scoring situation. Now it turns out there is controversy about this girl's age. At several events, and in newspapers previously, she has been credited as being 13, which would make her 14 at the time of the games. However, her passport reads 16 - the age required to take part. Although this has been investigated, and no further action is being taken, it still remains suspicious.

Imagine, a controversy about who the actual winner is, and who the moral winner is, in F1 this would just... Actually, that sounds about right.

All in all, in my view, it's clear that the Olympics and Formula 1 are very different, and any Grand Prix that occurs specifically for the 2012 event would have to be treated as such. What do you think? Is racing for a gold medal a good idea?

In a bizarre mix of A Question of Sport and Mastermind, the BBC are running a series of sport-themed Mastermind shows, where the participants are quizzed on their favourite teams and players. The latest show involves student Ben Croucher tackling the subject of Formula 1 from 2000 to 2007. If you are in the UK and can access the BBC iPlayer, it can be viewed here until the 31st July.

But don't go there yet!

As a bit of Friday night fun, I have transcribed the questions for your viewing pleasure, and thought we could host ourselves our very own pub quiz. Except, this isn't a pub, there's no prizes, and I have stolen the questions.

But hush. It's just a bit of fun. If you Google the answers, you're only cheating yourselves, etc, etc. Let us know how you get on in the comments. The answers are hidden in grey at the end of each question. Enjoy.

1. Jenson Button drove for which team in 2000, his first season in Formula 1? Williams
2. How many races did Michael Schumacher win in 2000 when he became the first Ferrari champion since Jody Scheckter in 1979? 9
3. Which city did Lewis Hamilton celebrate the first of his four victories in his inaugural season? Montreal
4. Which driver gave the Super Aguri team it's sole four points in the constructors championship in the 2007 season? Takuma Sato
5. Which country did Michael Schumacher achieve the last of his 91 Formula 1 Grand Prix wins? China
6. Who finished sixth in the Australian Grand Prix of 2007, having started last on the grid? (FYI, Ben passed on this one) Felipe Massa
7. In March 2003, Fernando Alonso started on pole position for the first time. At which Grand Prix circuit did he achieve this landmark? Sepang International Circuit
8. Which driver retired at the end of 2001 after 202 Grands Prix, only one of which he won? Jean Alesi
9. When Ralf Schumacher sustained two fractures in his spinal column, which official test driver replaced him at the 2004 French Grand Prix? Marc Gene
10. Who won the British Grand Prix on St. George's Day becoming the first British winner of the new decade? David Coulthard
11. All but three teams withdrew from the 2005 US Grand Prix over a tyre safety issue. Ferrari and Jordan-Toyota were two that did compete, which team was the third? (Poor old Ben was allowing the pressure to get to him slightly here, saying Jordan. Damn it.) Minardi
12. In 2003, which driver failed to finish in 9 races but also had his first Formula 1 victory when he won the Brazilian Grand Prix? Giancarlo Fisichella
13. Lewis Hamilton's first Grand Prix win in 2007 came almost a year after fellow Briton Jenson Button won a Grand Prix on which circuit? Hungaroring
14. In 2004, Michael Schumacher won the first five races of the season. Which Renault driver stopped it being a run of six by winning at Monaco? Jarno Trulli
15. What is the name of the driver who made his debut in the 2007 US Grand Prix, aged 19? He finished in 8th place. Sebastian Vettel
16. The former World Champion Jacques Villeneuve drove for Renault in three Grand Prix in 2004 season. Two were in China and Brazil, in which country was the third? Japan

Ben got 14.
I only managed 5, but we have already established that I can't remember anything.
How did you do?

Update: Have just finished watching the rest of the show, and Ben came third out of four. Rubbish. I guess his general knowledge of other sports let him down. However, I'm even more annoyed that the only girl finished fourth. Gah. Letting the side down. Not that I could have done even remotely better, as I demonstrated above.

I don’t want any more sabotage accusations flying around Sidepodcast HQ this week, so here is your timely reminder to have a look at your Fantasy Racers teams.

Open Up Your Mind, Let Me Step Inside

Personally, I’m going into the French Grand Prix with an all German team. That’s right, I managed to snap up all the German individuals on the grid, with no one left behind, and no other nationalities involved.

Here’s my team, for your viewing pleasure but please don’t take this as advice, because we all know I’m not exactly top of the league right now:

Best team ever, I'm sure you'll agree.

It's a Free, Free World

Don’t forget to go and update your team. You’ve got until 5pm UK time tomorrow, so you might want to wait until at least one Free Practice session has taken place. Then you can base your picks on actual facts, rather than just on a whim, like I do.

If you haven't signed up yet, it's not too late. Just visit this link, set up your new team and start choosing your drivers. It's free to register, and there's just the usual email requirements, nothing sinister.

If you feel confident enough to share, please enlighten us as to your choices in the comments, and feel free to ridicule me as much as you like.

I managed to go four days without mentioning the Lewis Hamilton hype.

Transcript

Christine: Hi everyone, I've just been to the shop to pick up this, Autosport commemorative issue 14-page Lewis Hamilton special. So let's have a look at what we've got in here. Race report, Lewis' career in pictures, like we hadn't seen that already, what Ron Dennis thought, what Lewis thinks, what Lewis' dad thinks, what Jackie Stewart and Stirling Moss think about it. Oh, and by the way, Robert Kubica had a crash. [screenshot of magazine - small picture]

I don't know if it's just that I've been really good at avoiding the media, or if there hasn't been as much as we expected, but all I've seen is on Monday morning my neighbour's newspaper was lying against his front door, and it wasn't even the headline, it was on the front page. Lewis Hamilton, Britain's Greatest Hero, Newest Talent, all that stuff. And also they said it on Radio 1, which I was only listening to to hear if they said it because they usually are all about the football. But they talked about it on the News and Sport, so that was good.

Lewis is going to be at Goodwood, as we know. It's going to be absolutely manic. I can't believe how quickly Goodwood has come upon us, it seems like only 5 minutes ago that we were there last year and now it's almost time again. I'm so excited, we're gonna be there all three days. It's gonna be really good, although I have just realised that I wanna wear a Sidepodcast t-shirt for three days but I only have one. Yea.