Those of you who follow the tech of F1 closely will be well aware of Craig Scarborough. Craig blogs a lot regarding modern F1 tech, and was the first to publish details about Mercedes’ 2012 DRS-activated blown front wing.

Craig’s writing is always clear and informative, with excellent accompanying technical drawings (sample below).

If you’re not so up on these terms or the ins and outs of modern F1 aero and systems, Craig has started authoring a series on gocar.gr with an excellent introduction into the world of F1 tech.

The first post is about the main components of F1 cars, and the second uncovers what happens inside the car under the covers. Well worth checking out.

Illustration by Scarbs

I was in Austin for SXSW a week or so ago, and coming up in November is the first US Grand Prix for a number of years hosted at a circuit that is being built just down the road.

Hamilton in Australia

Austin is by no means a stranger city to huge events arriving in town – between the hundreds of thousands of people at the three SXSW events and the motorcycle convention one local told me would rock up every year, it’s used to having huge volumes of people descending on the town. Meanwhile Downtown hotels have already sold out for the Grand Prix weekend, and by the looks of it prices were up 3 or 4 times over their usual rates.

I spoke to some Austinites while I was there, and there was general apathy towards the event. They didn’t seem to understand why the race was going there in particular. One resident I spoke to – who had let out their room on AirBnB for SXSW – said they were going to do the same for the GP weekend to cash in.

We’ll have to see what the Americans make of it when they get there.

As everyone knows the BBC have made a royal faux pas with F1 and have given up basically all the live coverage to Sky. They have also scheduled odd highlights times and so forth for the rest of the season.

So, in order to keep myself on top of what I should be watching and when (paying Sky is, of course, not an option), I made a calendar with all the scheduling in it. This calendar is meant to be in compliment to the F1 calendar (you can get it in a super nice format here, thanks Ian for the reminder) as all sessions will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 5 Live (5 Live Sports Extra for the practice sessions) – so refer to the session calendar for when that will be on (it starts 5 minutes before and ends 5 minutes after the sessions usually).

Here are the links to the calendar: XML (for RSS readers and the like); ICal (Google Calendar, iOS, etc.) and HTML (for embedding in web pages).

Please send any errors or omissions to me using the Contact link above, e-mail usually gets to me fastest. So far the BBC have only published times for the first two races, so I will try and keep up with them as they publish (it would be handy if they published it all now really).

Here we go!

So the Bahrain Grand Prix is over, Alonso has really made his mark in the Ferrari by winning the race, and we’re looking forward to another 18 races taking us through to November.

Fernando Alonso at Ferrari

However, following the coverage, it will be the FIA that comes under scrutiny for some mystifying decisions that have hampered the enjoyability of the racing for TV viewers.

The 2009 F1 season had a lot to be remembered for.

The rise of Brawn and Jenson Button; the fall of Ferrari, McLaren, and Renault; the successes of Force India, and the staleness of Williams and Toro Rosso. Don’t forget Red Bull, contenders to the end, and Rubens Barichello.

Even before the season finale in Abu Dhabi, 2010 had a lot to live up to. But it looks like it may do that, and more.

Jenson Button in Abu Dhabi