7.29am: Man alive. I’ve just noticed that China is next weekend. Am going back to bed now.

7.24am: Well, that was fun. As Kimi Raikkonen answers questions in the press conference about what happened with the left front wheel insert in turn three, I can only reflect 1) on how tired I am, and 2) on what an exciting end to the year it’s going to be. Everyone will focus on Lewis and Felipe, an unlikely pairing, but Robert Kubica is still in the hunt twelve points behind.

7.03am: Fair play to Fernando Alonso - let’s face it, a bit of a psycho last year, but he’s done well this year and two wins in a row is more than the pig of a car he’s driving has deserved.

6.59am: This title could have been reasonably sewn up if Hamilton had kept it all together at the start - he lost a huge lead at this point last year, and completely unnecessarily so. At least we’re guaranteed a finale showdown in Brazil in a few weeks’ time.

6.55am: Quick update - been to the toilet, nipped downstairs during the last ad break. All finished in 7.45 seconds, didn’t need to change my tyres.

6.47am: Race getting a bit spicier towards the end, this is more like it. People start to drop off the track as their concentration goes. Still a bit topsy-turvy, hard to see who is going to win the race this morning…

6.26am: Advert for Channel 5 - ITV must be awffy hard up.

6.22am: James Allen likens the race’s events to the stock market difficulties over the past week. What a gimp. Is he kidding me? Lewis might lose the championship, but he still pockets several millions and a Pussycat Doll, hardly life-shattering. James can discuss it with a banker at a dole office quite soon I’m sure.

6.17am: Between-the-pit-stops lull. ITV go to an ad break, I’ve never understood how a complicated machine sewing a banana helps either Sony or ITV to peddle their wares. Fascinating upside down race at the moment, Robert Kubica at the front at the moment, it would be great if he won, he’s definitely one of my favourite drivers.

6.02am: Radio 5 have annoyingly given a news update, hurricanes, recessions - I don’t appreciate that sort of thing in the middle of a Grand Prix, it puts an unwelcome context on the morning’s events. I could almost feel silly for sitting here blogging at six in the morning with the radio on. In other news, I need the toilet.

5.54am: There’s all this jive talk about making as many of these overseas races as possible night races in order to maximise the Western audiences, etc, etc - the race in Singapore was good fun for sure, but these masochistic early mornings are part of the fun, I hope they don’t get rid of them completely.

5.49am: There’s an advert for Tesco to the right of the ITV screen with food floating along Generation Game-stylee, it’s making me very hungry.

5.45am: Case in point with the ITV lot - it took them most of the first two laps to realise that it wasn’t Lewis’s McLaren that was in third place, but the BBC coverage on Radio 5 to which I am also listening this morning as well as the ’simulcast’ on the ITV-F1 website which seems to be around a minute delayed caught onto it instantly. Napping, boys? End of term feeling, I suppose.

5.37am: There are many things to be said about Lewis Hamilton, but wow, when the boy wants to mess up his championship chances he does it in grand style.

5.00am: Gosh. What is this, this ridiculous hour of the morning? If it’s before 7am it must mean the end of the F1 season is drawing near. The Japanese GP starts in half an hour - I could take or leave Lewis Hamilton, frankly, but I do want McLaren to win their first championships since 1999. ITV coverage does my little noggin in, but me and every other F1 fan retains a quantum of solace (see what I did there?) in knowing that the Beeb gets it back next year. As long as Martin Brundle gets a job, the rest of the them can be left out with the recycling, to be honest.

Must. Stay. Awake.

Tags: this'n'that

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