Twenty-six years ago today, Formula One lost the talented Italian driver Elio de Angelis in a testing crash at the Paul Ricard circuit in France. The Ear takes a solemn look back at the Italian's F1 career, and that fateful day itself.

With UK Formula One fans preparing for the scandal and the shame of having to pay to see their sport live in 2012 on Sky Sports's new F1 channel, Patronise F1 looks back at the last time somebody tried to get them to pay for the privilege.

F1's pre-season testing schedule is notorious for teams playing chicken with each other, refusing to give away their car's true pace. But few recent incidents have been more famous than Ferrari's 2004 masterclass in misdirection.

It was, all things considered, one of the most hapless Formula One careers in living memory. But as disastrous as Japanese driver Yuji Ide's brief and bungling time on the F1 grid was, his failure wasn't all his own fault.

Depending on a few legal issues between now and the start of the season, Colin Chapman's old Team Lotus name will be back on the grid in 2011. And Tony Fernandes will be hoping this year goes better than the name's last F1 campaign.

This weekend marks the seventh running of the German GP at nu-Hockenheim, since the track was redesigned by that most renowned of F1 track tinkerers Hermann Tilke. But is all the whining really fair? Was the old track actually any good?

With a brand new American Tilkedrome likely to be on the calendar for the 2012 season, and with the track design likely to be almost instantly forgettable, Patronise F1 pays tribute to Watkins Glen, Formula One's spiritual American home.

Throughout Michael Schumacher's years in the sport, he has had plenty of "debatable" moments. And now, with him returning for 2010, perhaps it is time to revisit his most dubious hours and see whether they really were as bad as we all said they were.

The new Ferrari livery is awful, there is little doubt about that. But then, in a sense, all Ferrari liveries are awful these days. Because they're the wrong colour. PatroniseF1 reminisces about when Ferrari red was Ferrari red.