Writing about the certainty of Lewis Hamilton winning the BBC Sports personality of the year award, I mentioned the small possibility of Ricky Hatton gaining headway over Lewis, but unfortunately I forgot to mention the very possible case of Joe Calzaghe winning, or at least coming very near the top.

Admittedly I am not a huge fan of Boxing, so while vaguely aware of Calzaghe rounding off a decade as world champion with victory in a unification bout against Mikkel Kessler, I must credit the Times; with the only paper I read who gave Calzaghe a look in. Let’s hope there were some good winnings at the bookies for folks at the Times’ offices this Monday morning!

No one else tipped for Calzaghe, although the bookies obviously did to some extent with shorter odds on Ricky Hatton and the Welsh boxer.

The nation obviously has been taking heed of the sporting argument for Calzaghe, helped in no small part by the BBC itself, probably in an attempt to generate interest in the programme. Piers Morgan argued for Calzaghe on The One Show, opining that the British are always supporting our losers and underdogs: Lewis had “lost” while Calzaghe had “won”, but more importantly that Lewis was in the infancy of his career, while Calzaghe had been world champion for ten years.

Lewis has won a good deal of awards this year, and in no way do I, or many of his fans believe he “lost” in any way. Gaining second place in the F1 championships on your first season is absolutely outstanding, and while detractors may say Lewis had the championship for the taking, he has many more championships to come and has already beaten world records. I doubt he has any reason to lose his ambitions.

As for the sports personality, it won’t be the last time Lewis is nominated, but let’s be honest – it’s next years F1 season we’re all waiting for!

The highs and lows of Formula one have never been so steeply set for one as Lewis Hamilton. On Thursday Hamilton got his wish of beating Michael Schumacher by 0.554 seconds in Jerez, and by Friday his McLaren team have found out they will not here about any penalties carried into the 2008 F1 Season until February 14th of next year.

From the 13th of September this year, the FIA has been carrying out a full and forensic inspection of the garages at the Woking based Mclaren, including a full technical inspection of Mclaren’s 2008 car. The report was finished today, and a decision was expected to be made on the outcome, but the FIA have given Mclaren and Ferrari a further 2 months to be afforded the chance to present their views on the report.

This is quite a rollercoaster ride for Hamilton and it looks bleak for the Mclaren team; if nothing had been found in the inspection, Mclaren would have been simply cleared.
Since the FIA has involved Ferrari, it may be the case that the FIA have found out that technical data has been used for the 2008 car.

If the FIA have discovered that McLaren have copied components, or used design ideas that can be traced back to the original Ferrari blueprints, further sanctions will most definatley be imposed such as minus points. The team could even be thrown out of the 2008 championship.

Mclaren denies any foreign intellectual property has gone into the new car and believes they have nothing to hide. Us Brits have no luck with our sportsmen, if it’s not a case of them losing out at the very last minute, its always some red tape that has us defeated on a technicality. Keep your chin up high Mr Hamilton!

While Lewis’ celebrity status in Britain continues to grow, his popularity in Spain, is not surprisingly quite low. We know this from comments from our Spanish readers! In Spanish magazine, Grand Prix, he got just 1.8% of the votes for driver of the year while Alonso, despite his petulant ways still got 75%. Lewis’ share of the vote probably came from our ex pats in Gibraltar and the Costa del Sol!

On the track, Formula one’s final testing session of 2007 started yesterday, with Nick Heidfield coming out the fastest. Controversially, Michael Schumacher had been set to join yesterday’s test, but Kimi Raikonnen replaced him at the last moment.

Schumacher was scheduled to test with the Ferrari team on Thursday and Friday, he has already showed he had lost none of his competitive edge during two days of testing at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya last month, posting the fastest lap times on both days. While 38-year-old Schumacher maintains that his decision to retire is “irrevocable”, the tests at Barcelona and Jerez had many F1 pundits hoping for Schumacher’s return, including a very excited Lewis Hamilton.

“Bring it on,” Says Hamilton “I was disappointed that he left [formula one] just as I got there, having watched him for so many years. There’s no doubt Michael is a phenomenal driver and I’d love to race against him.”

With the Spygate fiasco already looming over 2008’s grand prix for Lewis, Michael Schumacher’s return would be a fantastic boost to next years F1 season especially for Lewis Hamilton, and I’m sure would have the world glued to the edge of their collective seats.

OK this one is possibly a no-brainer right now, but at lewis-hamilton.org.uk, we’ve been sure of it since his first grand prix. The only real contender may be boxer Ricky Hatton if he manages to win the WBC welterweight title in Las Vegas on Sunday morning several hours before the show.

Lewis has been the darling of the media in the past few months after his first successful F1 Championship, and well; racing F1 is just a little more glamorous and upmarket than boxing really. The only public sin Lewis will have blotted his coffee book with is moving to Switzerland, and while it may stop him getting honours one day, it probably won’t sway the BBC.

Last night’s Top Gear saw Lewis attacking their test track in the “reasonably priced car”, coming 0.3 seconds shy of the track record set by the anonymous “stig”. Hamilton’s time was recorded in wet and oily weather, handicapping a possible record attempt but still putting him above current rivals Jenson Button and Mark Webber. He was as affable and charming as ever, I’m sure Clarkson will be a fan in any case. Lewis has already agreed to come back and race the track in dry conditions.

Lewis’ face is already all over TV ads, and lots of spots on the BBC including “Children in Need”. He has also won three honours at last nights Autosport awards; after a moving tribute from the late Ayrton Senna’s sister, Hamilton was honoured as British competition driver of the year, best international racing driver and rookie of the year.

He also picked up a gold star from the British Racing Drivers’ Club after four victories and a total of 12 podium finishes in his debut F1 season. He may not have won the F1 season, but Lewis has already secured his place in history.

When I was a kid, Scalextric was the only way to race, and the friend with the biggest track was always popular. As I got older, computer games got better and better and Scalextric sets were collecting dust in the attic while I played on computer racing games that got better as the years passed.

But there is something kitsch and old school about scalextric and it has always remained somewhat popular enough to keep from being discontinued.

Since the success of Lewis Hamilton, Hornby Plc the British toymaker has had an upsurge in demand for the toy helping it almost double first half pre tax profit.
Hornby has a licensing deal with Mclaren and makes up to date replicas of the cars, one which is a replica of the car Hamilton drove to second place in his fantastic debut on the F1 scene.

“Everyone likes to have one of their own countrymen doing well and that’s given it (F1) a much sharper profile,” Finance Director John Stansfield said in an interview on Friday.

You can buy Hamilton’s Scalextric car here.

It has just been announced that Lewis Hamilton will be one of the presenters on the MTV Europe Music Awards tonight which start in just a few hours.

This years awards are to be hosted in Munich and anticipation is already building as crowds gather around the red carpet awaiting the multitude of stars attending.

In a last minute addition Lewis will be at the one of the biggest nights of this years music calendar presenting the award for “Most addictive track” on the German Stage.

Lewis is already becoming quite the celebrity, with his polite and charming manner, his youthfull exuberance and his somewhat dodgy DJ’ing skills.

You can catch Lewis alongside the host Snoop Doggy Dog tonight on the MTV Europe Music Awards 2007 at 9 o’clock on MTV One.

I wonder if Snoop will make a joke about hiring Lewis as his getaway driver?

After a month of rumours and hearsay, the Mclaren team has recently confirmed that Spanish driver Fernando Alonso has agreed to leave Mclaren.

A statement has been released by the team has made it clear that Alonso has quit his contract with two years left to run:
“Following a meeting between Fernando Alonso and McLaren, it was agreed that it would be in the best interests of both parties to bring the relationship to an end,” the statement said.

It was noted that although Alonso eluded to the ups and downs that came in this F1 season, Alonso himself bears no grudges or ill will towards Lewis hamilton of the Mclaren Team.

Of course from all the maelstrom of controversy this year, I think there were a lot of wounds that could not be healed so simply, such as Alonso’s near betrayal of Mclaren at the Paris spygate hearing, and of course the believe that Hamilton was now the favoured one in the team.

While Alonso now is a free agent, there is a big possibility he will move back to Renault for next season, where he was always treat as their champion. This leaves Mclaren open for new possibilities nest year too, and it will be interesting to see who replaces Alonso in the coming months.

However the best bit will be watching Alonso battle Hamilton next year in different cars, and it may shed light to how much difference the cars really make as opposed to the driving.

In the middle of the F1 season Lewis Hamilton had already been looking at houses in Switzerland, so his move there comes as no surprise, and while he declares the hassle and lack of privacy in Britain the reason why he is moving there – we all know it’s the tax breaks. Poor Stevenage council, just after they named a street after him!

Lewis still has a chance of winning the F1 season, when the appeals are over the F1 winner will be announced on November the 15th. I seriously doubt the championship will be given to him though, and I really believe it would be more embarrassing than anything else. It’s true that there have been many mysterious or plain pedantic occurrences over this season, none mores so that Mclarens reluctance to change Lewis’ tyres in the Chinese Grand Prix when they were clearly worn out – or the need for three pit stops in Brazil, when two pitstops would have certainly gave extra Lewis points.

It seems there were hands other than the hands of fate were making decisions on the outcome. No doubt there is already conspiracy theories bouncing around on the net – maybe they could explain Henman in tennis and our

Rugby defeat against South Africa too! Winning on technicalities has never been a glamorous or dignified way for a sportsman or team to win, and Hamilton will surely have even more hope and support next season.

While I’m not a fan of tax, it’s mainly because of the way the government spend it, so I view

Hamilton’s move with neutrality: It’s not a good example for a role model to be showing our kids, its not “Hip Hop” so to speak; not sticking to one’s roots. But in a day and age where everyone is out for themselves, including our government; then I really can’t blame him. At least the trains are on time over there.

Drivers final positions

Pos	Driver	Constructor(s)	Starts	Wins	Podiums	Poles	F.Laps	Points
1	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	17	6	12	3	6	110
2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	17	4	12	6	2	109
3	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Mercedes	17	4	12	2	3	109
4	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	17	3	10	6	6	94
5	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	17	0	2	0	0	61
6	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	16	0	0	0	0	39
7	Heikki Kovalainen	Renault	17	0	1	0	0	30
8	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	17	0	0	0	0	21
9	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	17	0	0	0	0	20
10	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	17	0	0	0	0	14
11	Alexander Wurz	Williams-Toyota	16	0	1	0	0	13
12	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	17	0	1	0	0	10
13	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	17	0	0	0	0	8
14	Sebastian Vettel	BMW Sauber Toro Rosso-Ferrari	8	0	0	0	0	6
15	Jenson Button	Honda	17	0	0	0	0	6
16	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	17	0	0	0	0	5
17	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	17	0	0	0	0	4
18	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	17	0	0	0	0	3
19	Adrian Sutil	Spyker-Ferrari	17	0	0	0	0	1
20	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	17	0	0	0	0	0
21	Scott Speed	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	10	0	0	0	0	0
22	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	1	0	0	0	0	0
23	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	16	0	0	0	0	0
24	Sakon Yamamoto	Spyker-Ferrari	7	0	0	0	0	0
25	Christijan Albers	Spyker-Ferrari	9	0	0	0	0	0
—	Markus Winkelhock	Spyker-Ferrari	1	0	0	0	0	0

From Wikipedia