If Michael Schumacher isn't retiring, neither am I

After the utterly dismal performance by my Fantasy Formula One Team last year, you might have expected that I'd have given up in disgust and retired from the cut and thrust of motor sport.

I suppose it could have been worse...

Well actually it couldn't.

Yes, I came last.

The early season misfortunes were not, as I had hoped, "a blip".
The failure of my racing drivers to achieve anything better than mediocrity sent the team slithering remorselessly down the leaderboard, like a car on slick tyres aquaplaning in a rainstorm.
OK, I picked the team, so I'm not entirely blameless, but my failure is mostly one of misplaced confidence in the abilities of my drivers.
Buemi was next to useless, whilst Nakajima and Bourdais were so lack-lustre that they failed to impress anybody enough to get re-hired for the new season. The only consistently good performance came from Barrichello, but as I had underestimated the quality of the Brawn car that he was to drive, I'd picked him as a reserve driver, so I rarely benefitted from the points he scored. 

This year will be different.

This year I'm pinning my F1 hopes on Hamilton, Trulli, Sutil, Kobayashi, Kubica and Glock.
I reckon that with these guys I can reasonably to expect to do better than last year, but more importantly, I hope to do better than Blight-of-my-life.
Our Fantasy League is run by one of the guys at work, so it is supposed to be for Jodrell Bank staff only, but Blight has once again negotiated a deal with one of my work colleagues who has no interest in motor racing, where he is fronting a team of drivers that she has selected.
Last year she finished around halfway down the rankings, so she is hoping to do better this year and rather keen to finish well ahead of me again.

The first race of the season is on Sunday, in Bahrain.

"Gentlemen...! Start your engines!"

Stirling Moss