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I have now put 2 RSS feeds at the bottom of the right hand bar for those of you who know how to use them for updates.

TJ13 News: As announced we have 4 new members of the inner sanctum. TJ13 would still like to give an opportunity for F1 fans interested learning more of the history of the sport to write for ‘On this day’. Since delivering this my F1 knowledge of history has deepened greatly and I have enjoyed researching and writing the pieces.

Time makes this difficult for me now, so we will have ‘On this day’ on days when the writers are available. For now they will be Friday/Saturday additional features only.

TJ13 planned features:Not wishing to just repeat what other sites do, and our end of year poll demonstrated most of you visit between 2-4 other sites for you F1 ‘fixes’. TJ13 is considering running a poll (and subsequent discussion – which is the real point) on ‘the event of the F1 race weekend’. Any thoughts?

Bernie banned from twitter: Just as certain TJ13 readers are hurling themselves into the fires of destruction that lurk within the twittershpere, we read in Sport RMC that Michael Payne, a special advisor to Ecclestone, has had a quiet word with his boss. “I suggested to him that he should be on Twitter,” chuckled Payne.

When this tale first caught my eye, I assumed Mr. E was in combat with the Overloads of all that tweets over his application to be a twit. This could cause the twittersphere to suffer unbearable strain due to the outpouring of response to @BCE – that his application would be declined.

However, for those doubting the mental agility of our great leader, Bernie was indeed ahead of the game and matters were already under legal lock and key. Payne continues, “But he told me that his lawyers have forbidden him, fearing a catastrophe.”

Sometimes in life one sits back and ponders something almost unimaginable and truly wonderous. Oh the possibilities….

Lotus reveal: The latest 2013 #spyshot type teaser comes from Lotus today (it’s on their website – I know). As I commented last week, Lotus are the ‘cool cats’ on the F1 block right now. Tonight see’s the launch of the E21. Here is the link to the teams YouTube channel where you can watch it live http://www.youtube.com/lotusf1team.

Update 15:05 GMT: Little reveal, apparently the nose is still stepped on the E21 and it has Red Bull style sidepods – suspension system remains pushrod. 1 down and nobody copying Ferrari yet

F1 2013 Calendar: My keyboard now knows, as I begin to type, what’s coming next. Whether it was perceptive, or plain obvious, one of my first articles was about the 2013 calendar and I may have suggested 18 races only back in September. Of course at that time the FOM media machine was spewing out its tales of a mass stampede by every President, Prime Minister and Royal dictat from around the globe to cough up lots of cash for the privilege of hosting Mr. E et al a few days per year.

Over the weekend, news emanating from the Fatherland suggests the music has stopped during the game of hokey-cokey and at present Nurburgring is definitely out. Der Spiel quotes Ecclestone as saying, “Following a detailed examination of the (Nurburgring’s) proposal, we do not accept it as financially feasible and therefore end the negotiations.”

Now, this is top secret (irony), but I know the way Bernie has covertly operated over the years. He expects now the wailing and gnashing of teeth to begin, and out of a desperate fear of being recorded in Mr.Big’s black book cast into eternal F1 darkness – the price is paid and the deal done.

Humour aside, the CEO of FOM finds himself in unusual circumstances. A circuit with a contract for x years may normatively request a reduction in the hosting fee and receive some letter from FOM to the effect, “No, pay up or we’ll sue you and win. The you’ll have costs too”.

In my article, “Korea, Ecclestone, and the Emperor’s New Clothes” we discovered how a failed Korean bid in the 90’s meant that Ecclestone pursued them under contract and won $11m from those who had never even organised a race.

Yet Nurburgring’s circumstances are not normative. The operators of the circuit had a contract to host F1 beyond 2013 bust earlier this year – incidentally the historic venue will be up for sale in the Autumn. So the present operators have some lead in their pencils when negotiating with F1’s toughest deal maker.

Ecclestone cannot enforce the previous contract, because the company that held it is no longer in existence. The state of regional government has a newly elected head who unlike his predecessor is not particularly pro F1. The race organisers rely heavily on state support to pay the hosting fee – logjam.

As I suggested earlier, Mr. E usually has options. However as was apparent with the lack of enthusiasm from Turkey, Austria or France to host race 20, these are strange times. Germany of course rotates its GP, but Hockenheim have made it abundantly clear that they

Hockenheim has said stated repeatedly and catagorically that their state backers will pay to host the German GP this year. Surely we cannot see the calendar slide to 18 races, so a deal has to be done. Interestingly, if we look at the calendar, no German GP would have quite an impact on us viewers.

Once the teams returned to Europe from the early ‘flyaways’, it felt as though we pretty much had a GP at least every other week until the August break. Losing the German GP would mean almost 3 months – with just 3 races. On average 1 race every 4 weeks. How will that feel?