With the festive period now upon us, and F1's newswires closing down for a few days, PatroniseF1 can exclusively reveal the news stories that will be making the headlines in 2011, thanks to the use of a DeLorean and 1.21 gigawatts of power.
January
- The Lotus vs Lotus fight takes a dramatic new turn when Team Lotus announces a shock change to their 2011 driver line-up. Instead of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen, the team will run clones of Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov in the 2011 championship, after extracting DNA from one of Kubica's three remaining hairs on his head and from skin particles skimmed off the top of Petrov's wallet. The team also reverts to their original plan of running a black and gold livery in 2011 after the bloke who won their 'design our livery' competition threatens to sue the team for lost revenue after he lost his job when he was found to be spending all of his time in the office mucking around on Photoshop redesigning F1 liveries, leaving fans and pundits confused as to who is who.
- The FIA aim to improve on 2010's four-way title decider in 2011 by announcing new sweeping changes to the points system employed by Formula One. For the 2011 season, the governing body has announced that every driver who takes part in a race will score an equal amount of points as the others, ensuring that even before the start of the season, Formula One is virtually guaranteed to enjoy a 24-way title decider in this year's season finale in Brazil.
February
- The launch of the brand new Red Bull RB7 is plunged into chaos, when McLaren immediately lodges 35 separate protests about the car with the FIA, before it has even turned a wheel on the track. McLaren team principal defends the move, saying that: "This is part of our new strategy for 2011 to react quicker to our rivals. We decided it was necessary to try and get some bits of it banned before the start of the season so we've got at least half a chance of beating them this time." When asked what specifically the McLaren team had protested, he replied: "Everything. The front wing, the rear wing, the sidepods, that button on their steering wheel, even the RBR-badged sheet they pulled off the car at the launch. But we're not desperate, and I'm still confident of our chances for the 2011 season."
- Hispania Racing shock the whole F1 paddock when they turn up at the start of pre-season testing and immediately begin to set the pace with their final 2011 driver line-up of Jean Denis Deletraz and that bloke who played the lead character in Driven alongside Sylvester Stallone. The team hotly deny that they are running their cars underweight in order to attract their first-ever sponsor, even though an investigation from the German media reveals that the team had saved weight by building their 2011 car out of papier-mâché and sticky tape.
March
- On the eve of the new season, Red Bull's Mark Webber releases a new revised edition of his controversial account of his 2010 season. Titled: "Mark Webber's 2010 Story: How I was quite good for a race or two and nearly won the title because my team mate kept crashing", the new 700-page tome details precisely which injuries he was suffering from at each and every race weekend when he was outperformed by Vettel last year, all of which he kept from the team. Christian Horner expresses his anger that he wasn't told about his twisted ankle in Bahrain, his mild case of dengue fever in Malaysia, his bit of a sniffle in Valencia and what Webber described as "I don't know what it was, but I woke up and my eye was sort of a bit red and swollen" in Singapore.
- Pirelli proclaim their efforts to induce entertainment into Formula One to have been a complete success following a chaotic Bahrain Grand Prix. The race that was termed 'Boregate' in 2010 thrilled watching fans as the drivers suffered 37 punctures, severe issues with the soft compound tyre which degraded to the rim after three corners, pit lane dramas after a Pirelli representative hid all their wheel guns overnight and a final dramatic punch-up in the pit lane when the Italian company announced that there was only one set of tyres left for the final stops, and the first set of mechanics to get to their motorhome got to keep them. Only three cars finished the race, with Timo Glock leading home a 1-2 for Virgin Racing.
April
- In an attempt to further spice up the racing and increase the amount of overtaking in the sport, the FIA confirm that from the start of the European season in 2011, team orders will not only be legal, but mandatory. According to leaked documents from the governing body, from the Turkish Grand Prix each team will be obligated to order their two cars to swap places at least twice per race, in order to ensure that fans have something to watch. While most teams are believed to be generally in favour of the proposal, Renault boss Eric Boullier is believed to be trying to orchestrate a plan to block the rule from going through, suggesting that the crippling impact that the rule will have on his team in requiring Robert Kubica to drop far back enough down the order as to allow Vitaly Petrov to catch up and pass him would ruin their chances in the constructors championship.
- After a disappointing series of performances in the opening races, new Sauber recruit Sergio Perez denies that he is in the sport simply for the Mexican sponsorship that came with him to the Swiss team. "As I was saying on my Telmex mobile just yesterday, while taking advantage of their market-leading network coverage," Perez explained in an interview with Mexican television, "The suggestion that I am here simply to covet Mexican companies is ludicrous. I was so angry that I had to calm down with a cooling drink of José Cuervo Tequila, easily the best tequila for taste and style, which I had just recently purchased from my local Oxxo store, whom I use for their top-quality customer service and low low prices."
May
- The BBC deny that their F1 broadcasting contract is under threat, despite unprecedented numbers of complaints from viewers over their controversial new commentary pairing of Martin Brundle and David Coulthard. The former driver-and-manager combo have been under fire after spending the whole Chinese Grand Prix broadcast engaged in what one irate viewer called "rampant flirting". An angered fan who called the BBC's Points of View programme added: "It was disgraceful. There I was trying to watch the race, and it's just those two going 'Hey David, I think you were the best ever', 'No Martin, I think YOU were the best ever'. Then there was silence, followed by what sounded like kissing. I will not be watching Formula One until this is sorted." The Beeb, meanwhile, denied rumours that they plan to solve the issue by drafting in a clone of Murray Walker from circa 1987 to take over from the pair, after Jake Humphrey was spotted carrying a vial of blood and walking into Team Lotus's cloning facility in Hingham.
- Following the Monaco Grand Prix, Bernie Ecclestone suggests for the second year in a row that the sport of Formula One could "do without" the iconic Monte Carlo race, suggesting that the he would be happy to do away with the race for 2012. "Yeah, sod it," Bernie grinned, "It's not the be-all and end-all of the sport. After all, nothing ever happens here anyway. Let's find somewhere else to race. While we're at it, we could do without the cars, and the teams. Basically, so long as I'm still here, we're ok." Meanwhile, rumours persist that an unnamed rich Middle Eastern country is planning to buy the entire of Monte Carlo and transport it piece-by-piece to the Arabian Gulf, before bidding for their own F1 race at the track in the near future.
June
- Confusion reigns in the constructors championship, as the identical Lotus teams bicker over who precisely should have scored the points that they have been credited with so far. Tony Fernandes kicked off the row by suggesting that the Robert Kubica who finished third in the Canadian GP had in fact been his Lotus Renault team's Robert Kubica, but this accusation is swiftly denied by Lotus Renault, who say that not only was it their Kubica in third, but the Vitaly Petrov in 8th was also theirs, and not the Lotus Renault one as the final results suggested. The FIA refers the whole mess to the World Motor Sport Council for a confused bout of arbitration.
- Despite having been beaten at every race weekend so far by a resurgent Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg has denied claims that he is the new 'Boobens' in Schumacher's Mercedes regime. Rosberg was forced to defend himself after he was seen driving dutifully behind Schumacher for the second half of the European Grand Prix in Valencia, despite the fact that the seven-time champion's front wheel had fallen off. "I was not ordered to stay behind him," Rosberg insists after the race, "The team simply explained to be that Michael was faster than me. That is all." His comments came after reports that Rosberg had been forced to yield his parking space and company car to the older German in secret earlier this year.
Part two coming tomorrow...
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