Chris was an established sports writer, albeit specialising in tennis, for the Daily Express when he was pitched into F1 at the beginning of the eventful 1982 season. He later turned those experiences into a book, one of many on F1 and other sporting subjects.

As a book writer his work rate put the rest of us to shame. He put this down to a regular routine in which he would rise early, write until lunchtime or thereabouts in his dressing gown, and then go out (properly dressed by now) for the papers, which he would digest over a pint in his local. Following this convivial repast he would return home to carry on writing until early evening, whereupon he would call time on the day’s work and take a long, hot bath.

Occasionally he would interrupt this routine to visit the LAT Archive for picture research, and this would usually involve lunch, during which he would provide delightful company. Thankfully he would give at least 48hrs notice of his impending arrival so that you could make alternative transport arrangements and mollify loved ones. Lunches with Chris almost inevitably occupied rather longer than the statutory hour, and would often involve you stumbling from the establishment rather later than expected and somewhat the worse for wear.

Most F1 fans will have at least one of his books. His prodigious output led to the inevitable accusations of hackery, and certainly many of his biographies relied heavily on secondary sources, but he always took the matter of accuracy and fairness very seriously, and he would never abuse the legal tenet that the dead can’t sue for libel. The majority of the previous sentence contains nothing that can be said about the author of a recent high-profile biography of a major F1 figure…

Hugo was not a full time Formula 1 photographer – his usual subjects were rock stars, of whom he could recount many a scurrilous tale. But he loved motor racing and would happily discount his usual fee so as to fit into the budget of our publishing niche.

Photographers can be a precious and temperamental breed. Hugo was very easy going, perhaps because he had been inconvenienced by people far more famous than those we were asking him to photograph. After all, when you’ve had to delay a shoot for 24 hours while Kurt Cobain has his blood changed after an overdose, having Jarno Trulli flounce off mid-shoot because it’s “a bit cold” pales in comparison.

He was an ebullient soul – always great company – and an adventurous one, too: he and a similarly intrepid journo once slept in a communal dorm in Sao Paulo while completing a fan story about the Brazilian GP. No armed raiders arrived to part them with his photographic equipment…

Hugo and his marvellous work will be greatly missed.

Under the headline The Italian’s job: Abu Dhabi steward’s link to Ferrari… and Fernando Alonso it engages in a thoroughly muddleheaded attempt at a syllogism. I’ll save you reading the Daily Mail’s guff by summing up the proposition here:

- Emmanuele Pirro, the third steward at this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, is Italian

- Italians all love Ferraris and are therefore, as well as being institutionally corrupt, all instinctively biased towards the cause of the Ferrari F1 team

- The FIA appointed Pirro even though they’re not supposed to have driver stewards who are linked by nationality to the cause of a championship contender

- Pirro is therefore biased in favour of Fernando Alonso and the FIA smell of elderberries

- Is he a dole scrounger and a single mum as well? Probably – pass the matches, Tristan…

You don’t even have to know much about F1, or motorsport in general, to see this for the codswallop it is. Emmanuele Pirro was a test driver for McLaren and a multiple Le Mans winner (and touring car winner) for Audi. I know him well from my days in sportscar racing and can testify that not only is he a true gent, he doesn’t take orders from anybody.

During his time at Benetton in Formula 1 he was royally shafted by Flavio Briatore. About nine years ago, when Benetton became Renault, I was helping to write an ensemble feature for a magazine in which we contacted all the team’s ex-drivers and invited them to sum up their memories of their time there. When I rang Emmanuele he simply wasn’t interested in doing an on-the-record denouncement of someone who had harmed his career. “It’s a long time ago now,” he said. “In many ways it was a good opportunity for me. I have only good memories.”

Unfortunately the next person I phoned was Roberto Moreno, who spent the next 75 minutes heating my ear up with a full and frank expression of his feelings on the subject. Shame I only had space for 50 words…

Anyway, needless to say, the Daily Mail’s story has been taken up and promulgated by another F1 ‘news’ source with little connection to the real world: GMM. What a surprise!

F1 fans are a passionate bunch, and as a journalist it’s very hard to write anything about anyone without being accused of bias; especially when we indulge our penchant for hyperbole, as we do. I found during my time on customer magazines that sometimes a client will focus on something that catches their attention – something they don’t like – and it plays merry hell with their ability to judge the rest of the product. In this case, it’s James’s second line that has caused many readers to chafe:

Jenson Button won the race with a performance of measured perfection and instinctive tactical brilliance, while Lewis Hamilton lit up Albert Park with his audacious passing, but ended up looking diminished in comparison with Button, less in control of his destiny, less mature.

It’s part of the folly of sportswriters that we occasionally overcook our opening paragraphs. While we’re in confessional mode, I’ll admit to describing Jenson’s early pit call as “inspired” in my post-race wrap on Formula Santander. But was it inspired or merely an act of desperation?

When analysing any tactical move, many people fall into the trap of judging it in the context of data that has subsequently come to light. But you have to come to it as if it’s a fresh page: on that particular lap Jenson didn’t have access to the split times of his car and those surrounding him, or to video images or still pictures showing how much he was losing or gaining. He was merely a man with a decade of Formula 1 experience, sitting in an F1 car – a harsh, stressful and vibratory environment – feeling a lack of balance in his tyres, seeing his team-mate pass him and pull away, and probably feeling rather than seeing the car behind him closing up. What, then, to do?

The choice was to KBO (“Keep Buggering On,” as Winston Churchill put it) in the hope that the tyres would improve, or roll the dice there and then by fitting a new set. It was a snap decision made in the heat of the moment, not a considered analysis based on all the facts. Don’t forget that when he announced over the radio that he was coming in, his pit crew were still sitting around picking their noses.

Had the decision not paid off we would now be describing it as foolish and inept. But Jenson’s call worked out, so in the flowery phraseology of sports writers it becomes “inspired” rather than “potty”. That’s how history is written. We remember Alexander Fleming, who lucked into the discovery of penicillin because he couldn’t be bothered to do the washing up, but we forget what’s-his-name* who spent years slaving over a means of mass-producing it.

What was the exact proportion of luck involved in Jenson’s win? Impossible to say. People on F1 forums like everything to be neat, clearly defined, black and white; sorry, ladies and gents, but sometimes inspiration and desperation run into one another down a dark alley and end up doing something their mothers wouldn’t want to see. Journalistic bias doesn’t come into it…

*Howard Florey

 No doubt, though, there’ll be some forum noise to the tune of “another journo sells out…” Hardly!

 As well as being a positive move for him this is also good news for Renault. Bradley knows the value of reaching out to the fans and public, as evinced by his work on the team’s website during his previous sojourn at Renault. Now that the comms team is free from the need to carry Flavio Briatore’s luggage, things will only get better…

Having said that, the sight of Michael Schumacher on a hot lap cannot fail to stir the soul of any F1 fan with a pulse. I for one am looking forward to borrowing a tabard and standing as close as I can get during the final phase of qualifying.

But some of the reportage of today’s Mercedes Grand Prix launch provided a brutal reminder of what I’m not looking forward to this year: the bulldog that is the British media sinking its teeth into Michael’s leg and refusing to yield until he admits to his past crimes.

When the Fleet Street posse are on a mission it is often a marvellous thing to behold, like watching a pod of dolphins herd their prospective lunch into a conveniently tight ball. At Monaco in 2006 they dealt Schumacher a succession of wounding strikes as he tried to brazen his way through a post-qualifying inquest into his disgraceful professional foul. At Monza last year they set about bullying Fernando Alonso into divulging what he knew about ‘crash-gate’ (just as they were getting somewhere, though, some berk from Gazzetta dello Sport let him off the hook).

On a slow news weekend, though, when they’re desperately trying to grind out the story du jour, it’s enough to drive you to drink. They declared open season on Schumacher today and drew a tart riposte.

How much mileage is left in this clunker of a story? Michael Schumacher is a known quantity. We’ve got 19 grand prix weekends to get through in 2010 and some of them are bound to be a bit slow on the news front. If the default tactic in such circumstances is going to be Schumacher-goading, then unless he’s actually caught with his hand in the till I don’t want to know. There’s only so much ennui a man can take.

There’s been a lot to take in: hours of recorded speech which will take a few weeks to sift through. It’s been a fascinating couple of days – although when the lady from Porsche dropped the word “emotionalisation” into the mix, mid-way through a marathon session of death-by-powerpoint, I was briefly gripped by the urge to throw something. Apart from that, and a couple of changes to the line-up that had been circulated before the event, it was an overwhelmingly positive experience.

Part of the reason for coming was to take the pulse of the motorsport economy, and hopefully not reprise the Groucho Marx gag, “Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped.”

So how is the patient? Certainly not suffering hallucinations. There was little of the gaga optimism that was epitomised last year by Donington’s Simon Gillet, although the otherwise eminently sensible Tony Fernandes was a little premature in talking about getting to the front of the grid. You have to be a bit crazy to do what he’s attempting, but at least he has a solid and successful track record in business, and he doesn’t change the subject when you ask where the money’s coming from. He is one of those scruffy millionaire types that demonstrates their abilities with the cut of their jib rather than the cut of their suit.

There is a clear division on the subject of new media: the panellists on the first day took what I’d call a more progressive view, talking about how there was no point in trying to charge the public for content they can find for free, and challenging the notion that having a high number of unique visitors was a worthwhile metric. If I were to level a criticism at this view, it’s that the people who subscribe to it are still somewhat unclear as to how to ‘monetise’ it.

Ah, dread word! Rather like ‘decimate’, this uncomfortable-sounding verb is undergoing a transition through popular misuse. Technically it means to convert debt into currency; in the hands of internet proponents it describes the process by which they try to rifle your wallet while you browse.

I digress. On the second day we were firmly in the territory of the numbers merchants, as delegates from World Superbikes, World Touring Cars and MotoGP bludgeoned us with data, including how many millions of unique visitors they had on their websites. The bad mojo had clearly leaked into the computer system, which would sporadically refuse to change slides when they clicked the remote.

The common ground between these camps is that they are still scratching around for a way of establishing a revenue stream. Most websites still don’t make money, and even the ones that do are not generating enough. Expect to see, over the coming year, more ‘free’ widgets and games that are driven by data capture. Once they know your email address, how old you are, and what you’re interested in, that data becomes a saleable commodity. When entrepreneurs talk about ‘personalisation’, this is what they mean.

It’s becoming clear to the business community that having high traffic volumes doesn’t equate to profit. That may not come as news to many of you, but don’t forget that the internet is still like the Wild West to many people in business. For many of them, their only interaction with the industry is when they decide to revamp their website(s) and invite tenders from web design companies, only to be deluged by flim-flam. They must feel like the bemused punter in that Not The Nine O’Clock News hi-fi shop sketch.

My colleague and patron Ian Burrows nailed this during the media panel yesterday:

YouTube and Twitter have millions of users but they don’t make any money – although some people are using Twitter to create revenue, Twitter itself isn’t bringing anything in.

This may change over the coming months. The much-derided new retweet system is clearly designed as an enabler for e-commerce (or, to put it another way, a means of enabling people you’ve never met to pop up and try to sell you something).

The WRC is embarking upon a big project to engage viewers over the internet. This is laudable and I hope it demonstrates the virtues of openness, but we’ve got to face facts: as a championship it has nothing to lose by giving its offering away, because that offering is worth a fraction of F1’s value. As an example of the relative magnitude of the F1 audience, around 90 per cent of the monthly page impressions on Autosport.com are for F1 news; the next largest sector is MotoGP… at five per cent.

We are told that there are web developments afoot in Princes Gate, but don’t expect to see the wholesale liberalisation of TV footage – or a plethora of interactive feeds – just yet. Bernie is wary of investing huge sums in new technology after the debacle of his interactive TV service, which cost megabucks to set up and run (the digital TV compound and the equipment in it took up most of a 747). The only way to justify it was to put it on a pay TV platform and charge a premium. It was a flop then and it will flop if they try it again – unless the premium is a sensible one.

Uh oh. An elderly American couple has sat at the next table and are giving a running commentary on the people coming through the security gate. This is hell. Must dash.

Alan summed up the changes he’s seen:

When I joined Reuters the culture was that you didn’t have your name on a story. Now my email address is at the bottom of every one. People can contact me through that, and I Twitter as well. The fence that surrounds the paddock isn’t a barrier any more. The media doesn’t have a monopoly on the flow of information.

But within the paddock there’s still too much emphasis on old media, of magazines and newspapers. The teams have a very old-fashioned view of servicing the media and tend to concentrate on the newspapers first.

This has to change. Paper sales are in decline. Are the revenues from digital media going to be sufficient to send reporters to events when the content they produce is so easily appropriated by people who are just sitting at home with their trousers around their ankles? In the future, perhaps. AUTOSPORT moved to a ‘freemium’ model on its site in 2006 because it realised that there was no point in trying to guard the news. Ian explained the reasoning:

News is a devalued asset. Man wins race. Anybody can write that. You have to provide extra value. When we made news free we only lost about five per cent of our subscribers. We’re now delivering over 20 million pages a month to subscribers, and 70 per cent of our audience is outside the UK.

Jonny Noble acknowledged that while it’s impossible to police the bedroom clippers, journalists working for reputable sites have to guard their own brand:

We made a policy decision to not respond to rumours, because otherwise we’d be spending all day every day chasing up rebuttals – whether Massa is going to Williams, or whatever. We aim to get it right rather than being first. It takes months to mend a reputation. You have to do your job and maintain the quality – maintain the trust.

I had a bit of a swipe the other day at the ‘editor’ of a minor F1 news site, who opined on his own forum that he didn’t have to go to an event to write a story about it. Alan Baldwin had a similar take:

You really do have to be there. A lot of the outsiders convince themselves that they don’t. But if you’re in the paddock you get a sense of when people are starting a rumour just to see how far it goes, or if there is an agenda behind it. If you’re not there you can’t nail it. I don’t see how you can write truthfully about what you haven’t seen.

Yesterday’s story about media rights, and Bernie’s “out of my cold, dead hands” approach to them, generated a lot of responses. I still believe that there should be greater access for the people who want it (and that there are people out there who will find what they want, somehow or other). But Ian Burrows summed up the problem with rushing to liberalise the TV rights:

Broadcasting fees make up 40 per cent of Formula 1’s income, and abandoning that model in search of advertisers who may or may not be out there is bloody dangerous.

Perhaps we shouldn’t rush to fix something that hasn’t broken yet…

Mercedes GP CEO Nick Fry (Drew Gibson/LAT)

Nick Fry is always good for a soundbite, so it was no surprise that after his eagerly awaited appearance at the Motor Sport Business Forum in Monaco he was beseiged by the hunter-gatherers of the fourth estate.

From where I was sitting it was an alarming scene. One second he was there, the next he’d disappeared in the ruck. So here’s the evidence that he’s still alive – although if Dieter Rencken (top left) was about to tell one of his jokes, maybe not for long…