A thank you from thejudge13 to you all: It has been a hectic week with flag-gate and great one for thejudge13 as we have had record reads, just over 2,200 on the busiest day. It appears I have sorted out my meta tag issues as that day over 750 people came from finding the site on page 1 of a google search for F1 related news.

It takes time to learn these things and thejudge13 is primarily a site for us to enjoy F1 together, but it does have a secondary purpose – that of a social media experiment. I was debating with a well know F1 individual over the power of social media earlier this year and they poo poo’d my views. Maybe more of that in time.

So without throwing any money at it this site will demonstrate that good content, a few contacts and effort will deliver amazing results. We just had our 60,000 read in 11 weeks since thejudge13 was launched – which I find incredible. I don’t really have anything to compare this with but it seems pretty good anyway. I can tell there are a core of around 6-700 regulars readers from those registered for email and who follow on twitter.

I was having a conversation in the comments section of yesterdays article, and it suddenly struck me that the tone and attitude of thejudge13 readers and contributors is in the words of Lewis, ‘so cool’. We had a high quality and at times intense debate over the use of flags and lights a couple of days ago. Had that occurred on other sites I’ve visited, I know it would have been dominated by people trying to demonstrate superiority of views and sarcastic comment.

So thank you massively for all your contributions – they really do contribute greatly to the site. I’ve had offers to help with the site development and any legal/contractual matters and marketing too, again I’ve found your generosity is overwhelming. Many of the links you post in the comments section I could never have the time to find and they do add to the discussion and create the basis of another story for me to write.

If you read ‘the project’ page, you’ll see an old Chinese story about how everyone doing a bit eventually consumes the world. If we can do well at the Silverstone Media Awards it will help the site greatly. I know over 60 of you have clicked through already, but we probably need to employ the Chinese story philosophy. If everyone gets 3 or 4 friends to vote, it will probably do the trick.

I know a friend who did this recently and even though they didn’t think they knew many people scored around 5-600 votes in a competition. In true Ferrari style, if the rules allow it… Anyway enough of this self promotion malarkey. Here are the links and thanks again for everything.

Facebook www.facebook.com/SilverstoneCircuits. Voting closes 12:00 hrs on 11 December, 2012. To vote from a mobile visit (Link)

Jenson and lights: just in case we’re getting withdrawl from studying videos and pictures of lights, Jenson has spotted some of his own (pic)

HRT: Having heard nothing, we must assume HRT did not pay its $500,000 (or euros I can’t remember which) entrance fee for 2013 and will not be competing. Motorsport says the team has huge debts besides those to Thesan Capital who own HRT. 8 major suppliers are allegedly owed 6 figure sums each which has further deterred interested buyers.

 2005

Despite rumours that he would be dropped, Jaques Villeneuve was confirmed as a driver for the BMW Sauber team for the 2006 season. “After an extremely tough first half of the year, which showed that even a former world champion cannot come back after a period away and be totally competitive from day one, he got closer and closer to his team-mate over the second half of the season,” said team boss Mario Theissen. “We are in no doubt that having Jacques in 2006 will make the BMW-Sauber team stronger.” It was not to be. After a string of disappointing performances Villeneuve was axed, in favour of Robert Kubica, by the time of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

2001 
Bernie Ecclestone hit out at rumours of a rival F1 championship being launched, warning it would drive sponsors away from the sport. Paolo Cantarella, chief executive of Fiat, had met F1 teams to propose a rival competition offering them a bigger income. “The manufacturers came in because it was a shop window for them, so why do they want to destroy it?” said Ecclestone. “I have told them to wait and see what happens. They became involved because they liked the stability of F1 and knew that things were done properly. Once these companies leave it is hard to get them back.”

1894
The first issue of Locomotion Automobile hit the newsstands in France. It only survived a year but it was the world’s first specialist motoring magazine, covering everything from bicycles to trollies to automobiles.

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