A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited on a visit to the Williams F1 factory. It was all organised by Synergy on behalf of Philips, who wanted to promote their amazing competition for a chance to win five laps round a grand prix circuit in a Williams F1 car, which I previously wrote about here.

I had the pleasure of meeting a host of other F1 bloggers including the people behind Brits on Pole, F1 Badger, F1-Fans and F1 “Not Keith” Fanatics. Most of them have got round to covering the visit much more sooner than I did. Brits on Pole have been particularly thorough.

• Brits on Pole: Behind the scenes at Williams F1
• F1-Fans visits the Williams F1 factory!
• The F1 Fanatics Blog: My Day At The Williams Factory – Thanks To Philips

It was a big trip for me. Believe it or not, it’s the first time I’ve done anything F1-related. I’ve never found the time or money to do anything in the past, but luckily this time round I happened to have some free time, so made the trip down from Kirkcaldy to Grove, where the Williams factory is based. I am mighty glad I did because I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, and in fact I wish I could go again so that I could immerse myself in it more.

When I arrived at the factory, the last of the Williams trucks was just leaving to make its way to the Hungaroring. It’s a very inconspicuous, even modest-looking, place. If you didn’t know better you might think you were in a plain old industrial estate.

It might be silly to expect a giant rotating ‘W’ symbol to be sprouting out of the roof of the factory, but the fact is that all signage is minimal, almost as though they want to avoid attracting attention. This is no super-slick McLaren Technology Centre. That is the Williams way though. They care more about the racing than whether the floor is clean.

That’s not to say the place totally lacks character. Walking up to the RBS Williams F1 Conference Centre, you are greeted with this jolly topiary. It is a very nice touch, suggesting that perhaps F1 does have a green side after all! I also note that the display is 2010-friendly as there is no refuelling.

The Conference Centre is relatively new, having opened in 2002. It used to be where BMW worked on their Le Mans project in the late 1990s when Williams were in partnership with them. But once BMW won Le Mans they vacated the building, and was left behind after their acrimonious split.

Many of the rooms at the Conference Centre are named after famous circuits. We were housed in Monaco and Silverstone! The morning kicked off with an excellent breakfast, which was just as well because the breakfast I paid five quid for at the Travelodge was a bloody insult. Nothing could be further from the case at Williams, who also provided a sublime buffet lunch that seemed to go down well with everyone.

After breakfast we were given a whistle-stop tour of the factory. Once again, it is striking just how normal the place feels. It looks, sounds and smells like a factory. There is little hint of pomposity about the place. They could be making widgets, but they just happen to make F1 cars. A radio sits in the corner, apparently tuned into the local radio station.

Our first stop was in the Pattern Shop where Brian Campbell gave us a great talk about seat fittings. I knew that each driver had to have his own seat specially made for him, but I did not realise quite how detailed the seats actually were. As Mr Campbell said, he can see which side a driver is dressed into. We were also told about the fact that new seats had to be made when Juan Pablo Montoya gained around 10 kilograms in weight in the course of a season, at the same time blowing away the myth about how fit Formula 1 drivers are.

We were given a seat to pass around, and I guess it is probably about as heavy as a similarly-sized cardboard box. Brits on Pole were in a different group to mine, so got a slightly different talk, but you can hear audio of their version on this page.

From there we moved onto composites, where our wonderful tour guide Millie looked for Paul who was due to give us our next talk, only to be told that there are eight Pauls! It was another entertaining talk. At one point he consulted a blueprint to answer a question, noting, “you’re not supposed to see that”. Minds flashed back to the McLaren–Ferrari “spygate” scandal, which we are later told Williams staff found very amusing all the way even when the rest of the world had got fed up with it. They can’t stand either team, of course.

From there we met Bernie (no, not that Bernie!) in the machine shop. He is the longest-serving member of staff besides Frank Williams and Patrick Head. He will have seen a lot of changes — Williams was set up in 1977 with just 17 staff. Today it employs 520 people.

The culture of Williams is noticeable. Frank Williams and Patrick Head are clearly very well-regarded by all staff members. They are not Mr Williams or Mr Head — it’s Frank and Patrick. In the later Q&A, Sam Michael said he liked working for the company because of Frank and Patrick.

Back on the factory floor, Bernie tells us that 95% of the car — more or less everything except for the engine and the wheels — is made in-house by Williams. We were given a variety of bits and bobs to feel. This ranged from a wheel nut which is as large as an ashtray but felt as light as a 50p piece, to a proprietary alloy which is used as ballast. Apparently this the most dense material in the world with the exception of depleted uranium.

All that was just the first part of the day! Visit later this week to read about the Williams simulator and their amazing museum.

Among the final cars to launch was the Red Bull Racing RB5, which was launched yesterday. We can safely assume that the Toro Rosso will be very similar, while we are led to believe that the Force India will be in large part a McLaren customer car. Everything has gone all quiet on the Honda front in recent days, so who knows if that car will ever break cover.

So this is it then. And good things come to those who wait. The RB5 is a real beauty, though you wouldn’t expect anything else from the pencil of Adrian Newey.

Of course, we are now used to the strange new wings so the RB5 doesn’t have that shock factor to it. But the RB5 has all the sleek style you would expect from a Newey design. The pointy, narrow front nose has become something of a Newey trademark over the past five years or so. It’s very interesting to see that he has stuck to this principle, while other teams appear to be adopting wider, chunkier nose designs.

F1 Technical describes the front wing as “the most advanced out there”. You can’t fail to be struck by the detail in the front wing which doesn’t seem present in most of the other teams’ designs.

History shows that Adrian Newey adapts well to radical regulation changes, as James Allen recently noted. The 1996 Williams was about as dominant as a car gets. I have strong memories of that season. It was my first full year of watching F1, and the Williams car was awesome. I still remember to this day that they had the Constructors’ Championship wrapped up in Hungary. Amazing when you consider that their two drivers were hardly the greatest ever to grace a race track.

By the time the regulations radically changed again in 1998, Newey had moved to McLaren and he nailed it right away again. The McLarens were utterly dominant in Australia, and they clinched both Championships that season, ending a seven year long drought.

But beware Adrian Newey’s Achilles’ heel. The RB5 is among the last cars to be unveiled because Red Bull have made the decision to forego track time in order to give Newey more time to perfect his design. This may result in the RB5 being a fast car with possibly the best aerodynamics. But you have to hope that it works.

It’s the opposite approach to Ferrari’s. Ferrari launched their car a month ago, deciding that they would like plenty of time to “debug” the car. But if something is wrong with the RB5, they won’t have long to debug it. That is even more of a worry this year when in-season testing is banned.

You get the sense that Adrian Newey likes things to be “just right” from his perspective, even if that is at the expense of other things — even things as basic as fitting the driver into the car (hello, Alex Wurz and Juan Pablo Montoya!). It is not a pragmatic approach. Newey’s cars look the best on paper, but he has developed a reputation for being involved with unreliable cars.

In 2008 Red Bull had a fairly solid year reliability-wise. But the fact that the RB5 had to be stopped with gearbox issues just 14 laps into its first run does not bode well. Red Bull’s 2007 season was notorious for gearbox problems. Let us hope for Red Bull’s sake that they will not make a return.

One of the stories that emerged during the recent Olympic Games was the extraordinary diet of Michael Phelps who won eight Olympic gold medals this year. The swimmer takes in an incredible 12,000 calories per day. Here is his intake for the day:

• Breakfast
  • Three fried egg sandwiches topped with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise
  • Two cups of coffee
  • Omelette made out of five eggs
  • Bowl of grits
  • Three slices of french toast sprinkled with sugar
  • Three chocolate chip cookies
• Lunch
  • Half a kilogram of enriched pasta
  • Two large ham and cheese sandwiches of white bread with mayonnaise
  • 1,000 calories of energy drink
• Dinner
  • Half a kilogram of enriched pasta (again)
  • A whole pizza
  • 1,000 calories more of energy drink

All I can say is, with a breakfast that big I hope he doesn’t have to commute!

This extreme diet reminded me of another extreme diet I read about earlier this year. It is not uncommon to hear about drivers stacking up on the pasta — the carbohydrates do them good over long distances.

But pasta is a big no-no for Robert Kubica nowadays. The pole is among the tallest drivers in F1 at 184 cm. That can be a major disadvantage in a sport where teams are always looking to trim unnecessary weight so that they can put ballast in the best position for the performance of the car.

There is also the fact that the cockpit of an F1 can be quite a confined space. Alexander Wurz was unable to deputise when Juan Pablo Montoya had his “tennis injury” a couple of years back because the Austrian still couldn’t fit into the McLaren car! In 1995 Nigel Mansell also struggled to fit into his McLaren, though that was probably more because he had grown outwards!

Over the winter, Robert Kubica went on an extraordinary crash diet which allowed him to lose an incredible five kilos in just five weeks. That is amazing for someone who looked so gaunt in the first place. This weight loss is said to be a major factor in his competitiveness this season. Here is a typical day in Kubica’s regime according to an article by Peter Windsor in the June 2008 issue of F1 Racing.

• Breakfast: fruit
• Lunch: A 50p-sized piece of chicken with some carrots and a sprig of broccoli
• Dinner: “A forkful of protein”

(A 50 pence piece is 27.3 mm in diameter.)

“No carbs. No dairy. Nothing artificially sweet.”

The prospect of eating so little throughout the day would be bad enough for me, never mind being banned from carbohydrates! Like Michael Phelps, Robert Kubica has had to display tremendous self-discipline and commitment. It is just another reason why Robert Kubica is surely a future world champion.

This is the second part of my two-part series looking at other motor racing series. Read the first part here.

Entry-level series (yellow boxes)

These series are — as the heading suggests — ideal for those drivers who have just finished karting and are racing cars for the first time.

Formula Renault 2.0

The most popular entry-level series at the moment is Formula Renault. There are a number of major Formula Renault championships.

Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 is the most major of the Formula Renault 2.0 competitions, racing at a number of circuits around Europe. Robert Kubica, Kimi Räikkönen and Felipe Massa (who won the series) all competed in this championship. Other winners of the series include Scott Speed and Pedro de la Rosa. 2005 victor Kamui Kobayashi is currently on the up in GP2.

Formula Renault 2.0 UK is another high-profile competition. Kimi Räikkönen was at the centre of a controversy when he — uniquely — made the leap from this competition directly to an F1 race seat! There was a debate as to whether or not he should have been awarded an FIA Super License. In the end the F1 Commission was convinced by his form, and it turned out to be the right decision.

A few years later Lewis Hamilton won this series, though he took a more conventional route to F1. Other notable names to have graduated from Formula Renault UK include Heikki Kovalainen and Pedro de la Rosa. British viewers can catch Formula Renault UK races on ITV4 as part of the channel’s BTCC coverage.

Formula Renault 2.0 Italia was a breeding ground for Robert Kubica and Felipe Massa. Other recent winners include Finnish promise Mika Mäki (currently doing well in F3 Euroseries), Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado and Kamui Kobayashi (who both currently compete in GP2).

Formula Renault 2.0 West European Cup is brand new for this season, but replaces the well-established Championnat de France Formula Renault 2.0, the history of which stretches back to 1971. The French series was graced by the presence of then-future French F1 drivers Alain Prost, Jacques Laffite, René Arnoux, Didier Pironi, Sébastien Bourdais, Olivier Panis and Franck Montagny.

However, the championship was highly France-centric. It is replaced by a more internationally-flavoured series encompassing Spain, Portugal and Belgium.

Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup replaced the old German and Dutch championships. Recent F1 drivers to have competed in German Formula Renault include Vitantonio Liuzzi, Chrisitan Klien, Scott Speed and Markus Winkelhock.

Formul’Academy Euro Series is a Formula Renault 1.6 championship, unlike the championships listed above which are all Formula Renault 2.0. Formerly known as Formule Campus Renault, this is, unsurprisingly, an entry-level series for those not quite ready to make the leap to 2.0. Sébastien Bourdais and Franck Montagny are among this competition’s former drivers.

Formula Ford

Formula Ford used to be a highly popular entry-level category but has been usurped somewhat in recent years. Formula Renault, Formula BMW and the relatively cost-effective Formula First / Formula Vee (no relation) are now more attractive for today’s entry-level drivers. However, many of today’s F1 drivers competed in Formula Ford in the past.

The Formula Ford Festival is an annual event where entrants from Formula Ford competitions around the world compete together. Among them were Kimi Räikkönen, Mark Webber and David Coulthard. But entry levels have declined sharply in recent years.

British Formula Ford is a good entry-level series for Brits. F1 drivers including David Coulthard, Anthony Davidson and Jenson Button (who was British Formula Ford champion in 1998) all took part. Non-Brits Mark Webber and Pedro de la Rosa also competed in this series.

Formula BMW

Formula BMW is a relatively recent invention, having been created by BMW in 2001. But it has quickly become a popular entry-level series. The German series, Formula BMW ADAC, has been particularly successful in cultivating German talent — Nico Rosberg, Timo Glock, Sebastian Vettel, Adrian Sutil and Christian Klien all raced in the series. Hopefuls Nico Hülkenberg and Christian Vietoris (who subsequently helped the German A1GP team to Championship victory) are also notable graduates.

However, the German series is no more as it has now merged with Formula BMW UK. The new series is called Formula BMW Europe. Most of these races are F1 support races this season.

Sports cars and touring cars (green boxes)

Drivers taking a detour from the established route to F1 are often to be found racing sports cars of some form or another. In fact, almost half of the F1 drivers of the past five years have raced sports cars at some point during their careers.

Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (merged from Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft and the International Touring Car Championship) is a popular touring car championship centred around Germany. Giancarlo Fisichella, Michael Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya all competed in DTM in its former guise prior to competing in F1.

Nowadays DTM is more commonly a destination for former F1 drivers such as Ralf Schumacher, Jean Alesi and Mika Häkkinen. However, the odd youngster has been known still to use DTM as a stepping stone towards a higher category — most notably Christijan Albers (who has since returned to DTM).

The World Touring Car Championship is another common patch for former F1 drivers. A notable driver to recently take this path is Tiago Montiero. Felipe Massa competed in the WTCC’s predecessor, the European Touring Car Championship, on his way to F1.

The British Touring Car Championship is hugely popular among viewers in the UK, but is far removed from the flow of talent to and from F1.

The annual 24 Hours of Le Mans event is considered to be one of motor racing’s crown jewels along with the Indianapolis 500 and the Monaco Grand Prix. Many future and former F1 drivers compete in the event. The competition has inspired the successful American Le Mans Series which in turn inspired the European-based Le Mans Series.

The FIA GT Championship was a stepping stone in Mark Webber’s career towards F1, but is more likely to be inhabited by former F1 drivers. Super GT is a GT series based in Japan. Kazuki Nakajima and Adrian Sutil both raced in this championship prior to F1. Porsche Supercup races are often F1 support races. Timo Glock and Nelsinho Piquet have competed in this series in the past.

Nascar (purple box)

Although F1 may be considered to be the highest level of motor racing in the world, this may not be the case in the USA. There, the most popular form of motor sport is Nascar, a stock car series. Some ex-F1 drivers and former hopefuls currently race there.

There are three major levels of Nascar: the Sprint Cup, the Nationwide Series and the Craftsman Truck Series. Former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya currently races in the Sprint Cup. But thanks to the wide differences between Nascar and F1, and the sniffy attitude the F1 community takes towards Nascar, the chances of any Nascar drivers making the leap to F1 are very slim.

IndyCar (cyan box)

Closer to F1 is IndyCar (which this year merged with the troubled Champ Car). Like F1, this is an open-wheel, open-cockpit series that to the untrained eye may look very similar to Formula 1. Many drivers have made the transition from IndyCar / Champ Car to F1 over the years (as you can see in Keith’s comprehensive series).

However, in recent years the American open-wheel scene became less competitive due to the IRL / Cart split (hence the two names for the sport) and drivers making the leap from there to F1 has become less common. However, current Toro Rosso driver Sébastien Bourdais used to race in Champ Car. An IndyCar grid can often contain many former F1 drivers.

Other major motor racing series (not on the diagram)

The series mentioned so far in this article cover all of the major series that are closely related to F1. Of course, there are other major disciplines that have only the most tangential of relationships to F1.

Motorcycles

MotoGP is the premier motorcycle racing championship. It is the motorcycle equivalent of F1. Superbikes are more like the two-wheeled equivalent of touring cars, as the bikes are tuned versions of road-legal bikes.

It goes without saying that the skills needed for success on two wheels are vastly different to those needed on four. However, this doesn’t stop the more excitable journalists from imagining MotoGP riders making the switch to F1. From time to time MotoGP riders test Formula 1 cars, but this is for publicity reasons more than anything else.

Rallying

Rally cars are modified road-legal vehicles that typically run on point-to-point stages rather than circuits. The biggest rally series is the World Rally Championship. Due to the variety and difficulty of the conditions that rally drivers have to face, they can arguably claim to be the best drivers in the world. WRC is currently dominated by Sébastien Loeb who has won the WRC championship for four years running.

Again, the skills required are vastly different to F1. I can think of only one F1–WRC crossover in recent years. Stéphane Sarrazin competed in one F1 race in 1999 and has entered some WRC events as a tarmac specialist.

Yesterday David Coulthard announced that he will retire from Formula 1 at the end of this season.

Craig has expressed his disappointment. And as a Scot, I feel a bit of sadness that a nation which has produced two of the greatest grand prix drivers of all time — Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark — will almost certainly not be represented in F1 next year.

Coulthard is one of just two drivers whose début I did not see (the other being Rubens Barrichello). So not only does his departure signal the end of an era for Scottish motorsport, it also signals the fact that F1’s last remaining links to the mid-1990s will soon be gone. That will be further underlined when Barrichello retires, as I expect he will do at the end of this season as well.

Despite the sadness though, I feel that it is now the right time for David Coulthard to retire. He has rarely looked like a potential World Champion, but looking back through the records it is clear that DC has had some amazing high points to his career. He was a runner-up in the World Drivers Championship in 2001 and came third in the championship four times. He has a final tally of 13 race wins to his name. Not bad going at all!

On the other hand, for much of his career he was in race-winning cars and I always got the feeling that Coulthard failed to realise the full potential of these opportunities. In the 1995 season his Williams was a front-running car. His team mate, Damon Hill — by no means the greatest of racing drivers — won four races while Coulthard could manage only one.

His career at McLaren began well. Middling results in 1996 could be blamed on the mediocrity of his car, but the 1997 season began with a win in Australia. This was later followed up by a second in Italy.

But when McLaren became proper championship contenders in 1998, Coulthard went off the boil. The season began with a disastrous Australian Grand Prix in which he let team mate Mika Häkkinen pass on the basis of a gentleman’s agreement. Not only was it a PR disaster, but it was symbolic of the way the two drivers’ seasons would pan out.

His Finnish team mate was entering the high point of his career. Häkkinen comprehensively outclassed Coulthard, taking eight race wins to Coulthard’s one, and 100 points to Coulthard’s 56.

1999 was not much better for Coulthard. Although the McLaren was no longer as dominant, Mika Häkkinen nonetheless took an amazing 11 pole positions during the season while Coulthard — never the strongest of qualifiers — took none. Coulthard finished that season in a distant fourth place, even behind the Jordan of Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

It was not until 2001 that Coulthard was able to assert his authority over Häkkinen. But by that time the Finn was losing motivation and retired at the end of the season. Coulthard finished a highly creditable 2nd in the championship, but took just two race wins and scored barely more than half of the points that 2001 Champion Michael Schumacher took. It was a pyrrhic victory that wasn’t even a victory.

That season also contained the infamous incident when David Coulthard was unable to pass Enrique Bernoldi’s Arrows for several laps at the Monaco Grand Prix. The Scot complained, seemingly forgetting that it was his job to pass the slower Brazilian.

With Häkkinen having retired, 2002 may have been Coulthard’s chance to return to the top. But the McLaren was rather uncompetitive, firmly behind Williams in the championship. And another Finnish hot shot — Kimi Räikkönen — was now threatening to make his life a misery.

A promising start to the 2003 season — with another race win in Australia — quickly fizzled out. Kimi Räikkönen came within two points of the championship. Coulthard was way back in 7th by the end of the season.

2004 was even worse when he finished 10th. Admittedly he was in a highly uncompetitive car in what must count as one of McLaren’s worst-ever seasons. But at least Räikkönen managed to wring a spectacular win out of it in Belgium. By this stage Coulthard was looking distinctly jaded and with Juan Pablo Montoya having long since been announced for the 2005 season, it didn’t take a genius to work out which McLaren driver would get the boot.

2005, however, gave David Coulthard a new lease of life. Given the role of experienced team leader in the fledgling Red Bull team, DC impressed with some mature performances that breathed new life into his career. He was helped by Red Bull’s odd policy of switching the second race seat between Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi (who was not given as many races as originally announced), but even so he always had the upper hand over his rookie team mates. Now he was entering his period as F1’s elder statesman.

Since then his career has mostly consisted of solid performances backed up with the occasional sparkling highlight. There was an excellent podium at Monaco in 2006, with another following at Canada in 2008. In the races where experience counted — such as the treacherous conditions of Fuji in 2007 — DC excelled.

But the solid performances have dried up. No longer paired with inexperienced team-mates, DC has looked more rusty alongside the trusty Mark Webber. A disastrous start to the 2008 season which saw crash after crash after crash effectively put paid to David Coulthard’s career.

With Red Bull protégé Sebastian Vettel widely tipped to move up to the Red Bull A-team next season, the writing was on the wall for David Coulthard’s career. He had the maturity to realise that, which is why I am glad to see him throwing in the towel now rather than waiting for his performances to become more and more embarrassing.

David Coulthard is one of the most experienced drivers in the history of the sport. In fact, if he sees out the season he will be second only to Rubens Barrichello. That is a testament to his clear ability. But Coulthard’s star shone brightest in mediocre equipment. When he was driving World Championship-winning cars he failed to step up to the plate. And that is what makes him a good driver rather than a great one.

At least we can be sure we haven’t seen the last of David Coulthard. The decision to carry on at Red Bull in a development role is a smart one for Red Bull to take though. While Coulthard is quite rusty during races these days, he obviously still has a talent in terms of car set-up and development.

As for his future career, I have a feeling he could make a decent name for himself in a series like DTM. But the smart money is on him joining the BBC to take the role of post-race analyst. Coulthard is always great at interviews and has been pretty decent whenever he has attempted post-race analysis (as he has done on ITV once or twice). So I am sure he will be the right man for the job at the BBC.