Well Pastor Maldonado held on to his pole position, holding back a strong challenge from Fernando Alonso to win the race giving Williams its first victory in eight years, however the celebrations quickly turned into concern when a fire started in the teams garage which left 31 people injured but thankfully no injuries.

Some injuries were serious burn wounds and the most serious were air lifted to local hospitals in Barcelona while others were treated by track medics

Williams, who will be celebrating his 70th birthday this weekend had to be led out of the garage while making a speech due to the fire.

It has been confirmed that a fuel leak caused the fire and goes to show what a dangerous place a F1 track can be if not treated with caution and respect.

SupaSwap wishes all those injured a speedy recovery.

Oh and Hamilton, he came 8th

This is the first of two races that take place in Spain with a later fixture of the European Grand Prix being held in Spain’s third city of Valencia, but we will talk about that one in a later blog.

There is a little bit of controversy with this years race. Luis Hamilton will start the race at the back of the grid even though he qualified in pole position. The reason for his disqualification was a mistake in his fuel. Not the wrong type just not enough and he was unable to make his way back to the pits under his own power, from which a fuel sample would be taken to fulfill the regulations. This has given Pastor Maldonado, who races for Williams-Renault, his first pole position.

So Hamilton seems to have an almost impossible task in this race, but people have written him off too quickly in the past. SupaSwap advice for this race, Do not count your chickens to early.

There was the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Olympics led by the USA and followed by 65 other countries because of Russia´s invasion of Afghanistan. (rather ironic). However, the most famous one must be the sports boycott of South Africa during the years of apartheid in the country.

Now when you look at some of the people involved with F1 today they probably do not even remember these incidents, Lewis Hamilton for example is only 27. It is interesting to see what the reaction has been in recent months to the Grand Prix in Bahrain. many believed that the grad Prix should have been cancelled as it was last year. Some because of the way the authorities are seen to be treating their population and others purely as a security issue to look after the safety of the people taking part, and this is where the whole politics and sport gets turned on its head. Now the people protesting are looking to make a news story about something they can do to a big sporting event in their country. So we go from being withdrawn as a support to being targeted to make a statement.

In my view, for what it is worth, and I should say that this is personal and not an official Supa Swap view, Sport is Sport and not politics. It is there to be enjoyed as an entertainment not to make any grand statements. Keep the participants safe, don´t ask them to make political comment its not their job. What do you think? I would really like to hear your comments.

Along with the spoils of victory, the 17-year-old Hillspeed racer has also won a coveted prize test drive in a Pirtek Racing Vauxhall Vectra – as driven in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship this year by Andrew Jordan.

Tom said “There are so many people to thank this year, all of my sponsors have been tremendous and the guys at Hillspeed have been incredible – it’s been such a team effort all season”, said the new champion, “They’re the best bunch of lads I know, they work so hard for every extra millisecond.

“In the race, I just had to wait in third and see what happened. I knew if I stayed there and kept out of trouble I could win the championship today. It’s amazing to have achieved it and the prize of the touring car test drive really is a dream come true, it’s going to be absolutely unbelievable! It’s hard for Jake (Hill) for it to end the way it did but he’s been a great rival and we’ve had some great races.”

Richardson qualified her TJ Motorsport-run Ginetta G40 on pole position with a great effort during qualifying this morning to edge out Hill – with whom she is now embroiled in a very tight scrap for the Vice-Champion’s position in the driver standings – by just 0.097 seconds.

Ingram was a further 10th of a second adrift with the third best time ahead of TJ’s Jody Fannin, Eurotech Racing’s Sarah Moore, Tockwith’s Maverick Domene, Hillspeed’s Seb Morris and David Moore rounding out the top eight qualifiers.

At the start of round 19, Richardson and Hill made relatively even getaways with the pole-sitter holding on to her advantage through Paddock Hill Bend and Hill maintaining second ahead of title rival Ingram. Behind, Alex Austin rocketed up the order from ninth on the grid to move into the top five just behind Sarah Moore – the opposite true for Fannin who slipped down to eighth.

On lap two, Morris dropped back from sixth to eighth after running slightly wide out of Paddock Hill Bend but, other than that, the order at the front remained relatively static. The most entertaining battle involved Morris, Domene and William Foster who ran nose to tail battling over seventh place.

Domene’s race started to come unstuck though on the fifth tour when a trip through the gravel on the outside of Hailwood Hill forced him to slip back to 13th position, enabling Morris to take seventh and allowing Foster to move into the top eight.

At the front, Richardson continued to hold off Hill and Ingram with Hill posting the fastest lap and new lap record on the sixth circuit with a lap of 56.864 seconds (75.88mph) to gain a bonus point.

On lap nine the Safety Car was deployed due to a tangle involving Domene and Ryan Ratcliffe at the exit of Paddock Hill Bend on the previous tour. With the Ginetta G40 pace car circulating for four laps, round 19 came down to a two lap dash with Hill knowing he had to gain points on Ingram by getting ahead of Richardson.

At the re-start the Tollbar driver got a good slingshot into Paddock around the outside of Richardson but as the leader held her ground on the inside line, Hill just didn’t have the grip needed and slid wide into the gravel and an instant retirement – the end of his title bid.

With Ingram moving up into second place, assured of the championship whatever happened over the last couple of miles, Richardson cruised to her second victory of the season and, coupled with Hill’s failure to finish, she heads into tomorrow’s 20th round within two points of the local Kent racer.

Sarah Moore bagged her second podium of the year in the SupaSwap car with a fine third place, Austin held a deserved fourth to mark an overdue return to the sharp-end and Fannin took his best result in eight races with fifth position ahead of Morris. Foster equalled his season’s best finish of seventh with Tom Howard eighth, Jake Giddings ninth and Max Coates 10th.

Ginetta Junior Championship newcomers George Salter – who hails just a stone’s throw from Brands Hatch in nearby Swanley – and Michael Day each finished their maiden outing, the HHC team-mates taking 16th and 17th positions respectively.

Third placed Sarah Moore – girlfriend of fellow competitor Jake Hill – added: “It was a good race for me but I’m really disappointed for Jake, I’m gutted for him so that’s who my bottle of champagne is going to this weekend. We needed to get on the podium to help try and get a deal lined up for next year – maybe in Ginetta G50. I’ll be pushing hard for another podium tomorrow.”

So what’s the answer, well maybe you could do away with the drivers altogether they get paid a fortune to follow each other around, slots could be built into a track and kids could drive them round by remote control much more exciting and no threat of injury apart from a strained thumb, or limit the race to qualifying then we can all go home early, as it is apparent that barring mechanical failure the result of the race would be the same! But seriously there has to be some changes and soon F1 can’t survive on spectacle alone.

Technology is ruining the sport the race cars need to be rawer more dependant on driver ablity.the race teams spend tens of millions just to gain a few tenths it is becoming ridiculous. Give us your thoughts on this post and your suggestions lets come up with some solutions.

No sooner had this new new attraction opened than other towns and cities have started to jostle for pole position to be the next venue for this unique theme park. One of these towns is Valencia in Spain and the mayor of the city has already traveled to Italy to meet with Ferrari chiefs to make his case. valencia already hosts the Ferrari World Finals this month and it believes this makes it a strong contender to become the European base for a new park.

Valencia has been tipped as a front runner, especially as it already hosts a Grand Prix.

The new theme park in Abu Dhabi boasts the fastest roller coaster, traveling at 149mph in 4.9 seconds and riders have to wear safety google as the G-force crated is the same as is felt in a F1 car. The park is expected to attract a massive 10,000 tourists a day.

Thousands visited the opening of this indoor park which covers over 80,000 square meters.

I feel a SupaSwap outing coming on.

Now I am not sure what you were doing at 23 but I certainly was not contemplating leading the world in my chosen profession.

Vettel clinched the title in a surprise turn of events at this weekends Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi. Before the race it was seen as fairly much a certainty that this years winner would be Fernando Alonso. In fact so much of a certainty that he was heard proclaiming it himself and Ferrari had already planned the party.

Another reason for it being a surprise result was that not only was Vettel not the second in the championship before the race, but he had also not lead the Championship race at any time during the season. To win he had to win the race the Alonso had to be no higher than 5th.

Alonso did not have a good race and after a poorly planned pit stop got stuck behind the Renault cars which he was unable to pass for the rest of the race, only being able to finish 7th. I  am sure it is only a coincidence that Renault make the engines for the Red Bull cars!

Well we at SupaSwap were glued to our TV. Congratulations from us Sebastian.