Typical, our great hope for the Australian Grand Prix zooms in to win, and then the whole day becomes a massive downer, thanks to a load of middle-aged clowns spoiling everyone’s head-rush.

Gene Simmons - he who has reportedly made the world’s most limp and monotonous sex tape - and his grown-up mates are still putting on face paints and doing that horrible tongue thing in front of crowds of (presumably) weeping children - even though they have over a thousand years between them!

It’s Spain’s number one F1 WAG!

If you thought Fernando Alonso’s relationship with ex-teammate Lewis Hamilton was tumultuous, then spare a thought for his on/off girlfriend Raquel del Rosario. The pair met at a Spanish radio station a few years back, and were rumoured to have cemented their love with marriage in 2006. This, however, was never confirmed and they have spent time apart on a few occasions since. At present, their relationship is less stable than Newcastle’s Premiership status, so maybe the stroppy Spaniard will be a little distracted come Sunday?

[click image to enlarge]

The Formula One starts up again this weekend, and we can look forward to many more erotic celebrations from reigning champ Kimi Räikkönen.

See the full sporno gallery here

Australian Grand Prix, 3.30am, March 16, ITV1, bet here 

The new Formula One season starts this weekend, with the ancient gentlemen of the committee still fretting away about how to make their sport more interesting. Years of “safety first”, technical dickering and comic inequality between teams have made F1 less of an enthralling contest and more of an easter parade. Until suddenly last season, that is, when suddenly something interesting happened. So why, given last year’s drama, have the people in charge allowed the friction generated by the enmity between tax-dodging Lewis Hamilton and big baby Fernando Alonso to vanish? Alonso shouldn’t have been allowed to switch teams and hide at Renault, he should have been handcuffed to Hamilton breakfast, dinner and tea, until their rivalry developed into something even more frenzied than last year. It’s amazing that the assembled boffinry of F1 is capable of building a car that can fly to the moon, yet still hasn’t got the faintest idea of how to engineer the human drama that makes racing compelling. More downward thrust and tax avoidance strategy is not going to do it for the youngsters.

The statistics

* Good news for Kimi Raikkonen - no driver has won the Championship for the first time and then not retained it the following season for over a decade.