I haven’t written much here for a while. I don’t really know why but I haven’t gone away – perhaps I am just spending all my time moving my Windows Media library across to iTunes. Yes, I gave up and switched to an iPod Nano. And, after all those trials and tribulations with other music players, I am very happy. I even bought the Nike+ kit so that I can track how far I have run at the gym. Seriously, I’ve tried many of the music players and they just don’t have the ease of use and integration that the iTunes has. It’s the seamless interaction that makes it all work so well.

Still, that’s not why I picked up the keyboard today. Earlier I watched the European Formula One Grand Prix; and boy what a race that was. But I don’t really want to talk about the race itself (I am sure you can read all about it here) but I did want to talk about one of the best pieces of advertising that I have seen a long while.

Even if you are not a petrolhead follower of Formula One – and especially if you are British – you can’t have failed to have read some piece about the Championship scrap between Lewis Hamilton and his McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso.

The latest advertisement from Mercedes (which is of course the team they both drive for) plays on this rivalry beautifully. Anything you can do, I can do better:

I just think the whole thing is really well pitched and they seem to have had some fun making it.

After a fantatsic race in Italy, Michael Schumacher announced his retirement. The seven-time world champion will retire from Formula One at the end of the season. Ferrari also announced that Kimi Raikkonen has signed a three-year deal and Felipe Massa’s contract has been extended to the end of 2008. More at BBC Sport.

A couple of years ago I made a csv file that allowed you to easily import the Formula One calendar for that year into your Outlook file. I didn’t get round to making one for the 2005 or 2006 seasons despite the fact that I got the occasional email from people aboasking about it. Yesterday, the official 2007 Formula 1 calendar was announced and I knocked together a quick .csv file that will import the dates into Outlook. Trust me, the data will need updating. I suspect the times, distances and (possibly) some of the tracks are not accurate. I was doing it in a rush so please keep an eye on the Formula One section to see if I update it at all.

Again I have provided the file as a .zip that you must first extract the .csv from. Then, in Outlook, you will need to go to the File menu and Import the data (import from another program or file) and place it in the calendar. The file is provided as is and you use it at your own risk. I don’t know anyway you can remove it without deleting each entry individually. Once again, I have included a category name ‘Formula One’ so you can easily find all the entries this file creates. It should be easier to find them in Outlook and remove them if you need to. If you already have a Formula One category in your Outlook calendar you may want to edit the file before importing so you can change the category name. The file is fairly simple and you should be able to read it in any spreadsheet program (and even some text file readers will read it).

I know the previous files were downloaded a number of times. If you download this one then why leave a comment and let me know that you’re using it.

PS: Google did a great one for this year’s races so I hope they’re going to do the same for next year.

Anthony Davidson

There have already been two posts about F1 this week, here and here. Well, time for a third. I thought it worth noting that Anthony Davidson stood in for Martin Brundle as one of the ITV commentators last Sunday. Not only was it fantastic to have Honda’s third driver there for Jenson’s win but I thought he did a mighty fine job. Here’s hoping we get to hear (and see) a lot more of him in the next few years.

UPDATE: Just look at what I said last year. Amusing coincidences?

Well, what can I say? Jenson went and did it in superb style yesterday. After six years and 113 races Jenson made it from 14th on the grid to take the podium at the winner in a thrilling race that saw both Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher fail to make it to the rain-soaked finish line. “We made a great choice on the tyres and also on the last pit-stop,” Button told the BBC’s website. If there was pressure to get that first win then it’s surely off now but I imagine the pressure will be even greater to win a few more and then a championship. Better get my flag ready for next year’s Silverstone race, huh?

Read more >> Button pays tribute to Honda team
The World reacts to Jenson Button’s first win
Button ‘can be F1 world champion
Dad believes first win is just the start for Jenson

Juan Pablo Montoya

Team McLaren Mercedes and Juan Pablo Montoya have mutually agreed for him to step down in the forthcoming races of this year’s Formula 1 World Championship. The team has decided that Pedro de la Rosa will join Kimi Raikkonen in the race driver line-up.

Ah, Monday morning and so little time to say anything. Nevertheless, Fernando Alonso’s Formula One Championship title (he’s the youngest ever Formula One champion) can’t go without note [Alonso clinches Formula One title] nor can Christian Klien’s superb qualifying performance [itv.com/f1 - Klien goes from zero to hero]. I preferred the later UK start time for the Grand Prix. 6pm seems like a much more sensible hour.

On Friday, I mentioned that The Guardian was getting its new look tomorrow. You can follow the paper’s editors as they plan prepare tomorrow’s paper at The Editors’ Weblog that has launched on the site.

In tomorrow’s sport section I hope they cover Formula One in some detail. It’s been announced that Red Bull Racing will take over the Minardi team from November. Minardi’s boss, Paul Stoddart, told BBC News “Small privateer teams are probably phasing themselves out … it’s hard to imagine a truly privateer team can break into F1 again”. I think that’s sad for the sport really but the who really has got that much money?

According to BBC Sport, BAR-Honda Team manager, Nick Fry, is confident that the team will win a Formula One world championship in the near future. It’s not quite what Jenson said but we’re all hoping.

Jenson Button

Ah what a great day: At the front, Jenson began to close on Michael Schumacher during the second stint of the race and by lap 30 he was on the Ferrari’s gearbox. Over the next 15 laps he tried to force the seven-time world champion into a mistake and on lap 45 it happened: Jenson pulled a masterful overtaking manoeuvre into the hairpin. [larger image]

UPDATE 27 July: I wish I had time to write but for now I will just quote, ‘The Lucky Strike B.A.R Honda team heads east to Budapest for this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix hoping to repeat the podium finish achieved in Germany’ [source]

If you follow Formula One you’ll know the rules surrounding qualifying have been chopped and changed over recent years – I suspect mainly for television. When I was at Silverstone last weekend I was surprised how interesting the qualifying laps were to watch under the current one-lap format. The rules are set to change but this time fans are being asked for their input. You can vote on the official formula one site.

My Silverstone Countdown: I’ll be leaving in a couple of hours – tent packed with a car load of food – and I’m getting pretty excited by the prospect of the whole event. Silverstone is so much fun and now David Coulthard is defending it. He ‘has hit out at Silverstone’s critics ahead of his bid to secure Red Bull’s first-ever podium finish in Sunday’s British Grand Prix’ [Source] Who knows if I’ll get a chance to post but keep an eye on the Flickr feed to see any pictures I’ll be sending.

Silverstone countdown: get familiar with the tracks so you can work out where you would like to be on certain days. I think the people I am going with will know better than me but it’s still fun to watch the speeds. In the meantime, keep an eye on the weather at the Silverstone circuit although I have seen varying reports in different places. Sun? Showers? A year ago tomorrow we were watching them race around the streets of London. Somehow, that would have been much more convenient, don’t you think?

It’s only three days until I arrive at the British Grand Prix site and so I’m having a fantastic build up. Firstly, I can report that the tent has been purchased and I can – just about – get it up. This is, of course, a great start. Secondly – and don’t tell the bookmakers – but I can tell you Jensen Button isn’t going to win on Sunday. How do I know? He said so. “I have no chance of winning. It won’t happen, we are not capable of doing that”. [Source] The excitement builds …

One thing is certain: the crowds arrived. There were thousands of people lining Lower Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street. People were on the roof, balcony or hanging our of a window. People were climbing lamp posts and traffic lights. People perched on almost any structure that didn’t move and on top of many that were plainly unsafe. We waited until almost seven o’clock until the great roar of the F1 race cars was to be heard. Mansell, Button, Montoya, Coulthard and Brundle – to name but a few. The noise, the smell: it was fantastic F1. To be honest I eventually moved to the big screen on Piccadilly as they passed so quickly that you missed a great deal and I wasn’t at the front of a crowd. The atmosphere was pretty good humoured – apart from some lunatics climbing on top of a newspaper sellers wagon – and everybody seemed to enjoy it. After an hour it was, more-or-less, finished but the crowds seemed to hang around central London for a good while. Perhaps, one day, a race really will take place in London.

See also: Formula One Comes To Regent Street
BBC Sport: What price a London GP?
This is London:Eddie supports London Grand Prix

Michael Schumacher, driving his Ferrari, won the 2003 Formula One championship on the final race. This weekend it all starts again with the Australian Grand Prix. It’s about the only sport I follow with anything like an interest but I won’t be up at 2am for the start of ITV’s coverage. I may, however, be around at 1.30pm for the repeat showing.

And once again this year I have trawled the net looking for a list of the year’s races in a format easily importable into Outlook. And once again I have been frustrated because I couldn’t find it anywhere. Many years ago, before I went Corporate and joined the merry band of worldwide Outlook users, I used Time and Chaos – an excellent organiser. They have a transportable record set ready for the 2004 Formula One season. Yahoo enables you to import the race list into your Yahoo calendar (although the race order on the Yahoo site is different from the official list on the FIA site). None of which is really any use to me.

So, once again, I have created a basic .csv file containing the data which can easily be imported into Outlook. After last year’s rant I said I would learn the vCal format but I didn’t so it’s a plain-old .csv file for you. If you want to import F1 races into your Outlook calendar, please feel free to use the file.

Once again I took the race order and timings from the Official FIA site. This year, hover, I have modified the times so that they reflect British Summer Time (GMT+1) where required. I can, therefore, use it. I have noted the time zone in the ‘description’ field in Outlook so you can change it locally if you wish. I couldn’t find any time zone field in the .csv format.

If you check different sources of the race calendar there are some slight variations in the timings. Don’t blame me if you miss it and, in my best continuity announcer’s voice, check local listings.

Also this year I have added information about the distance and laps in the location field.

I have provided the file as a .zip so you must first extract the .csv from that. Then, in Outlook, you will need to go to the File menu and Import the data (import from another program or file) and place it in the calendar. The file is provided as is and you use it at your own risk. I don’t know anyway you can remove it without deleting each entry individually. This year I have included a category name ‘Formula One’ so you can easily find all the entries this file creates. It should be easier to find them in Outlook and remove them if you need to. If you already have a Formula One category in your Outlook calendar you may want to edit the file before importing so you can change the category name. The file is fairly simple and you should be able to read it in any spreadsheet program (and even some text file readers will read it).

As always, your comments are welcome as are suggestions where an official version of this file can be found.

I have been searching for a downloadable version of the Formula One races this year. All I wanted to do was get the basic race dates into my calendar. Could I find it anywhere? No. It seems that nobody has made this available. If you use Yahoo calendar, you can insert the individual races into that from the Yahoo F1 site, but that’s not much good to me as I am using Outlook which synchronizes with my Palm. I would have thought that somebody would have done the vCal thing for all Formula One races but I couldn’t find it anywhere.

So, I have created a .csv file which nicely imports into Outlook (because I didn’t have time to learn the vCal format). I might update it at some point. If you want to import F1 races into your Outlook calendar, please feel free to use the file. I took the dates and times from the FIA site.

The times in the file are, according to the FIA version, GMT. I’m not sure if the times are correct because the summer races are listed with GMT times seem to be the BST times. So you may be an hour out.

In Outlook, you will need to go to the File menu and Import the data (import from another program or file) and place it in the calendar. The file is provided as is and you use it at your own risk. I don’t know anyway you can remove it without deleting each entry individually.

For those of you interested, here are the remaining races for the 2003 Formula One race season:

29 June – Nürburgring (Europe)
06 July – Magny-Cours (France)
20 July – Silverstone (England)
03 August – Hockenheim (Germany)
24 August – Hungaroring (Hungary)
14 September – Monza (Italy)
28 September – Indianapolis (USA)
12 October – Suzuka (Japan)

This morning, I get up and watch F1. This at least relaxes me and, although I am not a Michael Schumacher fan, I do enjoy the fact he’s made history today. Then I go for the first of my training runs [see yesterday's entry]. My body (in particular my legs – from the knees down) decide that exercise is evil and I hobble back to the house after the required time.

At this point in the day I am in pain but nonetheless head off to Wimbledon for a picnic and then to see Elkie Brooks in (open-air) concert. She walked on stage and looking bored, giving a lacklustre performance of Fool If You Think It’s Over. But then she warmed up and was fantastic; I never knew she sang the Blues. So, despite my sore legs and the cramped seating, a great night was head by all (even the picnic food was great).

I wish I’d been at the Formula One Grand Prix on Sunday. The year I went, the atmosphere at Silverstone was fantastic (it’s all smell and noise) and, if Bernie Ecclestone gets his way we might not have too many more of them ;-( Thank goodness for Jackie Stewart’s sensible comments. I’m going to try and get there next year, assuming any of the teams are still around. Even worse, I have to do it before 2050 because, according to The Observer, that’s when the world will expire.