With no races on the horizon in the final month of the year, Sidepodcast took a bit of time to breathe, relax, and then get busy with behind-the-scenes stuff. The off-season is our moment in the sun, despite being the winter, and the run-up to Christmas saw us very encouraged about the site, the universe and everything!

Shows in December

There were two catch up posts this past month, with Joe finding some time in his hectic schedule to review the recent news, and our very own Feet Up Friday returning... on the wrong day.

• An Aside with Joe - That's what Formula One people do
• Feet Up, er... Tuesday - Even in my wildest of nightmares

Sidepodcast in December

As mentioned, it was all about admin in the off-season, as we had some time to review the site as it stands and how it should look in the future. A milestone was reached, when I finally managed to check off something that's been hanging around on a to-do list for too long: All the events are now under one roof! We introduced the new events page a while back now, but still had the older posts lingering in the old format.

Now, with everything in one place, it's much cleaner and easier to find posts than ever before. There are more than 1,000 live events with over 540,000 comments, which is just a mind-boggling number. Here's to adding heaps to that tally in 2014!

When not up to my neck in admin tasks or studying, I managed to find an hour or two to write a new book. As part of the Pocket F1 Handbook series, the Grand Prix Almanac rounds up everything that happened in the year. It was a bit of an undertaking and I'm proud of the result, even if it wasn't exactly a classic F1 season to write about!

Mr C also got hard at it with the coding, and although you can't always see the results of his hard work instantly, he did manage to put something rather delightful on the Features page. Under the features themselves, each author is now given pride of place in a wall of awesomeness, with names listed by the most recent article. I love how it looks!

Meanwhile, it wasn't all about work at Sidepodcast HQ. We aired our plans for lots of off-season fun, and whilst we've crossed off some of those items (Sidepodfilmclub and re-instating Friday Fun), there's still an awful lot more to come.

Posts in December

A bumper crop of posts as the off-season gave us all a bit of space to clear our heads and get writing. From breaking news to changing regulations, to plenty of statistical analysis of the season just gone.

• 19 race calendar confirmed for 2014 Formula One season
• 2013 Christine's Rankings Champion - Lewis Hamilton
• 2013 Predictions Megamix revisited
• Allan McNish - World Champion
• Catching up with Formula E
• FIA set to introduce permanent F1 driver numbers
• Friday Fun - Hitting the switch
• Friday Fun - The digital Christmas card
• Got your number
• Lewis Hamilton, oh yeah! - Christine's Rankings, Week 42
• More timeless Grand Prix from the F1 archives
• Off the charts
• Rate the season - F1 2013
• Sauber confirm Esteban Gutiérrez to return for another season
• Sky Sports and BBC name their 2014 Formula 1 schedules
• Statistically speaking
• There is method in the madness
• Who goes where - 2014 edition

Hidden gems in December

The end of a year is a good time for a bit of perspective, and we managed to round up three collections worth of content - firstly a look at the best of F1 Big Picture in its new home. We also celebrated the audio side of things with a collection of Joe shows and Feet Up chatter.

It's been a brilliant year on Sidepodcast, I can't wait to see what the next twelve months will bring!