As we approach the festive dullness of the Christmas period, and the gin that goes with it, Patronise F1 gazes into it's crystal balls to take a guess at what might possibly happen over the next 12 months of F1 fun. But probably won't.
January
- Michael Schumacher hosts a press conference at Mercedes HQ where he strenuously denies allegations that he has only been brought in by Mercedes on a pay driver basis. Schumacher sat at a lavish table during the press conference, with Nico Rosberg sat just behind him, after some last second furniture adjustment by Ross Brawn. The 41-year old German was forced to deny the rumours after his announcement as a Mercedes driver coincided with new sponsorship deals for the team with Stannah Stairlifts and Premier Bathrooms Walk-in Baths.
- Flavio Briatore sees his legal case over his lifetime ban from FIA-sanctioned motorsport thrown out of court, and immediately announces plans to set up his own, completely independent racing series in 2010. Briatore claims that the "Super GP Not Stupid F1 Motorsport Championship" will feature 20 identical cars, all run by him, piloted by drivers managed by him. He also announces an internet-only coverage package, which will be presented by him, with analysis from him, while he will front the commentary team for the racing itself. Sebastien Bourdais and Giorgio Pantano immediately announce that they will drive in the series for the debut season.
February
- F1 testing gets underway over in Valencia, with USF1 surprising everyone in the paddock by turning up with an actual car to test. The team, though, end up struggling for pace, prompting angry statements from the team that all other teams in the paddock have the capability of running illegal technology on their car, which has the ability to strike the USF1 garage within 45 minutes of launch. In a shock move at the next test session, the USF1 mechanics invade the Campos garage and nick all their fuel rigs, in a move referred to as "Operation Enduring Failure".
- The Sauber team grab some brief time in the headlines after topping the times at most of the pre-season tests, though F1 insiders point out that the car was clearly underweight as it was running without a driver at the wheel. Peter Sauber hits back at those allegations, pointing out that Nick Heidfeld had actually been driving all along, but nobody noticed him.
March
- The season kicks off in Bahrain with Schumacher waltzing to a crushing victory for Mercedes. Ferrari claim that they are "satisfied" after Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa finish 9th and 10th, but this doesn't stop rumours emerging of a rift between the drivers and mutterings from the Alonso camp of an imminent switch to Renault for 2011 unless the pace of the car improves.
- The Australian authorities announce their plans to regain the season opener on F1's calendar, with Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd stating his intent to preside over the construction of a dank, derivative and featureless track in the middle of the outback to replace the Albert Park circuit. Rudd added that the track would be designed by Hermann Tilke and would feature a "bloody massive hotel" with a "mad roof", while the track would include "some sort of gimmicky corner, like a Scalextric-style loop-the-loop or something". Bernie Ecclestone is rumoured to be interested in staging 13 of the races in 2011 at the track, including the season opener and finale.
April
- Mark Webber concedes that it will be "very difficult" to win the title this season, after posting three consecutive first lap retirements in the opening three grands prix. Webber, who was taken out by doe-eyed backmarkers in the first three races, precipitating all manner of Facebook-based death threats from Australian pressure groups, said that: "Obviously this is a big setback, but strewth mate, there's always next year." Webber also claimed to not feel under pressure despite new Australian sensation Daniel Ricciardo apparently launching a series of psychological attacks on him during the early part of the season, including leaving a personalised zimmer frame outside his motorhome at Albert Park, and spending all of the Malaysian weekend whispering inaudibly at him in the paddock to try and convince him that his hearing had gone.
- Bruno Senna announces his immediate retirement from all forms of motorsport after the unprecedented scale of media coverage that surrounds him scoring his first F1 point in the Chinese Grand Prix. Senna, who finished 10th out of the 10 finishers, was mobbed by journalists after the chequered flag, in scenes reminiscent of Nigel Mansell at Silverstone in 1992. Senna, who said that he had been frightened for his safety when cornered by one odd-looking English journalist who blabbed something about him being "the new Lewis Hamilton", announced his decision to leave the sport and pursue a new career as a hermit living in an unidentifiable cave somewhere in the Pacific.
May
- Nico Rosberg defends his start to the season, despite trailing Schumacher home in every race so far. "Bahrain was tough for me because of the, erm, brake issues," Rosberg explained, "Then we had the pit radio problems in Australia and a, erm, slow puncture in Malaysia. On top of that, erm, there was an, um, thing wrong on the, erm, gearbox, at, um, China. It's all perfectly innocent, to be honest." Rosberg also denies reports that he is close to contracting some sort of wasting disease after being forced to queue up behind Schumacher at the team's breakfast buffet every weekend.
- The organisers of the Turkish Grand Prix claim that they are confident of remaining on the F1 calendar for 2011, despite their latest race weekend attracting a total of 271 spectators, 150 of which were a busload of Galatasaray fans that had got lost. "This is all good," a Turkish official claimed, "The fans are happy, there are no queues at the food stalls, and Bernie loves us. I mean, what is he going to do? Go and build a circuit in Rome and race there instead? That's crazy talk!"
June
- TV coverage of the Canadian Grand Prix falls to shambolic new lows, with commentators the world over running out of things to say after the 26 cars go the whole race without one of them crashing into the "Wall of Champions" at the final corner. BBC man Jonathan Legard defends the farce, saying that: "The Wall of Champions there, we all had our notes ready, there's Hill, there's Schumacher, there's Villeneuve, we would have said. They all crashed there, you know. But although a lot of drivers were pushing on a charge down the back straight, nobody managed to crash there, there. So what else were we left to talk about, there?"
- Timo Glock is forced to deny suggestions that he is becoming another Schumacher after the Virgin Racing team order Lucas di Grassi to move over on the last lap of the European GP to gift Glock a morale-boosting 15th place. Glock insists that there are no team orders at work in the Virgin team that he promised to help build around him, and claimed that di Grassi was actually suffering from brake problems over the last few laps that forced him to unexpectedly slow down on the straights.
July
- Bernie Ecclestone denies press speculation that he is losing his mind in his old age after going the entire length of the British Grand Prix weekend without criticising something. He retaliates against the media reaction to his lack of anger by immediately suggesting that the British GP is seriously under threat at the end of its current 17 year contract, and warns that he has already started negotiating with the Snetterton circuit to host the race in 2028.
- Meanwhile, despite sales of gaudy McLaren merchandise from dodgy tat stalls at Silverstone rising over 6,000% on 2009 levels, the home crowd are left disappointed after Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button take each other out at the first corner, prompting a hasty press release from McLaren that everything is fine between the two drivers, despite rumours that Button has stopped following Hamilton on Twitter. A mere 27 people are left in the stands by the end of the race to see Schumacher take his tenth GP win of the season, though it still takes four hours for the lot of them to get out of the campsite at the end of the day.
August
- The Hungarian GP at the Hungaroring descends into farce after everyone watching fell asleep and forgot to tell the drivers when the race was over. The race, which broke all existing records for sporting dreariness, was eventually won by Michael Schumacher, who wrapped up his 12th win of the year, after the German completed 267 laps of the track. "I only stopped because it got dark," the German bemusedly said in the post-race press conference, which took place in the early hours of Monday morning. Meanwhile, Lotus's Tony Fernandes confirmed that they have sent out search parties to look for Heikki Kovalainen. "We think he's still on the track somewhere," Fernandes admitted, "We've tried to tell him to stop on the radio, but he keeps saying that 'I don't need to do that this year, Tony' and carries on."
- FIA president Jean Todt defends the new-for-2010 F1 points system, despite the altered rules allowing Michael Schumacher to wrap up the title earlier than ever before as he secures win number 13 at the Belgian Grand Prix. Todt vehemently denies any wrong-doing by the FIA, despite reports in the British media of the discovery of a faxed document ratifying the new points system signed by Todt, Ross Brawn and Schumacher. Todt announces measures to avoid this sort of thing happening again, saying that in 2011, German drivers will receive double points, but only if their name begins with "Schum" and ends in "acher".
September
- After the Renault team sack their second driver for persistent failure, Alain Prost announces a shock plan to come out of retirement to drive for the team until the end of the season. When asked about the validity of his return, Prost screams at journalists that: "For the amount of cash they're offering me, I'd be bloody mad not to!". Sadly, the dreams of a return are dashed when it is revealed that an old shoulder injury picked up from all the resigned Gallic shrugging Prost had to do on the pit wall during his days as a team owner has not healed sufficiently to allow him to race.
- The McLaren team officially falls into turmoil after the fractious relationship between Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button descends into civil war, with both sides of the garage taking arms against the other during the Singapore Grand Prix. One mechanic told reporters on the front line from Button's side of the battleground that: "They're launching anything pointy and dense enough to hurt us. My mate just got taken out by a flying Nicole Scherzinger." Pleas for other teams to intervene in what is rapidly becoming a humanitarian crisis fall on deaf ears, with USF1 releasing a statement claiming: "We could go and break it up, but they've got nothing we want, so we can't really be arsed."
October
- Sir Frank Williams shocks the F1 fraternity by announcing that a stake in his team is for sale to "any bugger with some money". Williams defends his move by stating that he was getting bored of finishing seventh in the constructors championship, and needed the cash in order to help develop next year's car and breed more blond drivers called Nico. He also clarified that the buy-in scheme was definitely not pyramid selling.
- Despite failing to score a point yet in F1, the new Lotus team insists that it has been turning up for race weekends. "We have been there," team boss Tony Fernandes claimed in an interview after Bernie Ecclestone accused the team of skipping races altogether, "Quite a long way back, admittedly, but we've been there. It's just a shame that the camera crew don't wait a few more seconds every lap to catch a glimpse of Jarno driving a bit slowly before they cut away to something more exciting."
November
- The season-ending Abu Dhabi GP is cancelled when all the F1 teams accidentally ship their cars to different Tilkedromes by mistake. Vijay Mallya, whose own cars ended up in Turkey, defended the farce, saying that: "It really is getting hard to follow the calendar, to be honest. In the Force India office, we just work off circuit maps pinned to the wall, and we were sure this one looked like Istanbul." Meanwhile, Christian Horner, whose Red Bull machines showed up in China, attempted to lighten the mood by saying "At least all our stuff is in the right place for the start of 2010, anyway. Um, we are starting in Shanghai, right? Or is it Bahrain? It's the one with the long straight and then the hairpin, you know the one. Malaysia? Erm, hang on, I'll get back to you on that."
- Michael Schumacher took the surprising move of announcing his next comeback before officially retiring again. The German driver, showing some signs of confusion despite dominating the sport again in 2010 by winning every single race, said that after his forthcoming retirement announcement, he would announce plans to return to F1 in 2012 with USF1, claiming that "I reckon I could beat this bunch of clowns in a knackered Vauxhall Nova to be honest. Seriously, they're bloody awful." Schumacher added that he would add a clause in his USF1 contract that would allow him to race with one hand tied behind his back, though critics pointed out that the same clause states that Schumacher's team mate would be forced to race with both hands tied behind their back. In an unrelated move, Rubens Barrichello announces his interest for the second seat with the American team.
December
- The FIA announces the shock move that teams will have to make their own tyres out of "stuff they find lying around their garages", after failing to find a new tyre supplier to replace Bridgestone. FIA president Jean Todt insisted that the move was not another F1 debacle, saying that "It's good for the environment, you know? We recycle. I know that Williams are planning to run on some tyres they make from party balloons next year, and Virgin have promised to sacrifice Alvaro Parente so they can inflate his skin to use. F1 has never been in such good shape."
- After losing his bet with Tony Fernandes and spending a day dolled up as an air stewardess on an Air Asia flight, Virgin Racing's Richard Branson announces that he will drive for his own team in 2011, while in drag. "We're been after a proper stunner to drive for us for ages," Branson dribbled lasciviously, "And I caught sight of myself in the mirror once I'd got the skirt on and, hell, I'd do me." Reports of the Virgin boss booking in for breast implant surgery are unverified as F1 heads into another new year.
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