At only thirty two years of age, Raikkonen already has eighteen grand prix wins under his belt, as well as two years spent competing in the World Rally Championship and Nascar.

He is now set to return to Formula One, however, following his announcement last November that he has signed a two year contract with Lotus-Renault.

At the moment, he is test driving the R30 2010 Lotus-Renault model in Valencia in preparation for his return to grand prix competitions in the company of his Lotus-Renault team mates.

He has been quoted as saying that it will take time to get used to the new car and his team mates, but that the principles of F1 driving come back pretty quickly.

Formula 1 is coming to England this weekend at Silverstone and a crowd of over 300,000 is expected over the 3 day period.

The Specifications of the venue are:

Circuit length: 3.660 miles
Laps in race: 52
Race Distance: 190.603 miles
Lap Record: 1 minute 30.874 seconds
Lap Record Held By: Fernando Alonso, 2010
2010 winner: Mark Webber
Bumpiness: Medium to soft
Overtaking chance: Low
Brake Severity: Very Low
Average Speed: 143.5 MPH
Gear Changes Per Lap: 43
Number of corners: 18 (8 left / 10 right)

I am hoping one of the British racing drivers will clinch the number 1 position this week but preferably Lewis Hamilton.

The current world champion Lewis Hamilton is fighting to repeat last seasons form but has failed to do that in the first two races of the season. How ever things may be on the up as Hamilton set the fastest time in today’s first practice session for this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix.

After McLaren’s Australian Grand Prix disqualification, and their CEO Ron Dennis leaving the team after 28 years the team look like it was falling but further evidence shows that things might be moving forward for McLaren on the track came after Heikki Kovalainen set the fourth quickest time.

Pacesetters Brawn GP, with Jenson Button second quickest, 0.116s behind Hamilton, while his team-mate Rubens Barrichello was third fastest at 1:37.566s.

Sunday seen the start of the Formula 1 Season start in Australia and what a great spectacle it was with the Brawn team capping their first win and Hamilton coming from 18^th to finish 4^th and then be promoted to 3^rd as the current 3^rd place holder was disqualified for his actions during the race.

However Reports have come today that Lewis Hamilton and his McLaren team have been disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix for giving “deliberately misleading” evidence to investigating race stewards.

The sport’s world governing body FIA reopened an investigation on Thursday into the circumstances which saw Toyota’s Jarno Trulli pass Hamilton during a safety car period in Melbourne.

A post-race stewards’ probe in Australia adjudged Trulli at fault and handed the Italian a 25 second penalty, dropping him from third to 12th.

But after hearing team radio transmissions from the Australian GP, the decision has been reversed with Hamilton and McLaren now punished for providing intentionally disingenuous information to the Melbourne hearing.

Unlucky Hamilton after working so hard in the race I think he would have been happy the original 4^th place he’s going to have to win the Malaysian Grand Prix this week to catch up on the points he has missed

Ahead of the this weeks opener to the F1 season the teams have been practicing on the Australian Grand Prix ahead of Saturdays Qualifiers how ever the practices have left most teams in a new pecking order and its not the current the champion leading the pack.

On Melbourne’s Albert Park circuit, Hamilton finished 16th in the first 90-minute session, Hamilton then ended the second 1.5 seconds faster - but down in 18th.

He at least had his McLaren team-mate Heikki Kovalainen for company as the Finn was 17th, perhaps underlining the fact their car really is as bad as feared.

The only two drivers behind Hamilton were Renault’s Nelson Piquet and this year’s lone rookie Sebastien Buemi in his Toro Rosso.

It has been reported that there has been a number of formula one casualties ahead of 2009 calendar.
This has said to be due to the problems with economic finance structure with many of the Grand Prix just not being able to afford to host.

Casualties include:

Hockenheim would not be able to host the German Grand Prix in the future unless the state could help finance the race.

The French Grand Prix will also be absent from next year’s calendar after running into similar financial difficulties.

The Canadian Grand Prix was dropped from the 2009 calendar after it was revealed that race organisers did not have the money to pay F1 commercial rights controller Bernie Ecclestone for the right to host the race.

Yes British Fans its all over and Lewis has done we waited two weeks for this race and with all the hype surrounding the final race of the season we all knew that we was going to be in for a good race.

I mid-weeks there was more controversy aimed at Hamilton with claims that a Spanish website had been posting racist comments about the British number one which I’m sure was a plot to try and add to the pressure that surrounded him ahead of this big race.

In qualifiers Lewis only managed fourth on the grid with his number one rival taking pole spot the start of the race started lively with an out burst of rain minutes before the car were due to line up causing mass panic amongst the teams.

In dramatic scenes, the 23-year-old McLaren driver had fallen to sixth place with just two laps to go, and needing that fifth place finish or less to claim the title, Hamilton overtook Toyota’s Timo Glock with metres to go on the last lap to claim the title.

This weekend will see an action packed drive from the F1 drivers with the Brazilian grand prix being the last of the season.

The current leader of the table Hamilton with 94 points believes that Felipe Massa lying in second place with 87 points could be feeling the pressure more than him with the last race of the season being in his home country of Brazil.

McLaren star Hamilton travels to Sao Paulo’s circuit holding the seven-point advantage in the Drivers’ Championship after a prevailing show at Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix.

Sundays Chinese Grand Prix means that a fifth-place or lower finish for Hamilton in Brazil will guarantee him a place in the record books as Formula One’s youngest ever World Champion.

This will cause second place Massa fighting against the odds as he aims to be the first Brazilian World Champion since 1991.

Both teams McLaren and Ferrari have some huge decisions to make this weekend as only of the teams can win.

Things they will be considering includes choice of tyres the right tyre choice always helps a driver even in modern day driving.

The grip is essential and the speeds and corners the F1 drivers take only the best tyres will do.

Who seen this weekends grand prix? Well I did andwhat a load of excitement that brought. It had everything from crashes, retirements, spins and loads of overtaking.

Well for Lewis Hamilton it was a weekend for him to for get having gained pole position in the qualifying laps with a great run.

But all this great work was undone when the McLaren driver was battling for fifth place with Ferrari driver Massa when he attempted an overtaking manoeuvre at turn 11 on the second lap of the race.

Massa went over the left-hand kerbing of the chicane exit before rejoining the track in which he collided with Hamilton. This collision spun Hamilton who then fell to the back of the field.

The Englishman eventually finished 12th scoring no points were as Massa finished 7th picking up 1 point and cutting Hamilton’s Championship lead to five points.

Its all to play for know!!!

A heavy down pouring of rain at Monza has seen the first practice ahead of the Italian Grand Prix rained off.

The downpour was believed to have been so heavy that the water began to bubble up through the drains in front of the F1 team garages.

In the end the practice was then called off with five minutes remaining, as the rain showed no signs of stopping.

With in the 35-minute session, Adrian Sutil of the 10th-ranked Force India team was topping the timesheet, who put in a time of one minute 32.842 seconds.

Team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella of Force India and Honda’s Rubens Barrichello managed to finish the practice run within a second of the leader but many of the top-ranking drivers failed to position at all.

McLaren’s team Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton were just two of six drivers that did not post a time, due to the torrential rain

The qualifying session could also see problems with torrential rain expected and could face postponement.