An idea, I shamelessly stole from Tez, please forgive me. Except without the pictures, because I don't know how.

2008 marks a whole new chapter in the history of British drivers in international motorsport.

British drivers continue to be very well represented in F1 in 2008. The most experienced active driver in the field continues to be Scot, David Coulthard, as he enters his fourth year with the Red Bull team. There is no question that David deserves a place in F1, but the Red Bull cars have never been the most reliable. On a more positive note the input from F1 designing god Adrian Newey may start to truly show through. However, the car's reliability desperately needs improving if Coulthard and his team-mate Mark Webber are to improve on the teams finishes of last year. Coulthard may also be one to benefit from the out-lawing of Traction Control, he's driven TC less F1 cars before, which is more than some of the less experienced runners have.

Jenson Button continues to be the more over-rated driver on the face of planet earth, with '07's Pram-like Honda adding to his woes. The 2008 Honda looks less like it was painted by a 7 year old, instead looking like it's sponsored by a chewing-gum company, but whether it is any less pram-like is still up for debate. In the most recent test in Barcalona, Spain the two Hondas, including one driven by Button, were never out of the slowest 3 times set each day. However, F1 testing, especially this early is notoriously fickle, with different teams testing different things with different spec cars in different stages of development, but surely they can't make the car any slower.

Anthony Davidson is currently caught up in the mess that is Super Aguri. Despite their great showing last year, I don't think the sight of Takuma Sato passing World Champion whiner Fernando Alonso will ever start being less funny, their title sponsor SS United has pulled out and they are currently struggling to find a replacement. Should the worse happen Davidson would no-doubt be out of a drive, and probably forced to push a Honda round in testing again.

Oh, yea, some guy named Lewis is British as well. Like him of loath him, his debut season was very, very good, and only some bad luck, shocking calls by the team and a few rookie mistakes stole a title away from him in the final races. The spy-gate fiasco continues to haunt McLaren, how much this has effected their 2008 car will probably never be known. The loss of Alonso from the team may also hurt the team, they no longer have his experience and know-how of the workings of F1 cars. I think given all this to expect a repeat is too much, he may well win a few more races next season, but I don't expect him to be able to hold a candle to the Ferraris.

We know enter what we may call the 'Chip Ganassi section', if this man is not an Anglophile he has some explaining to do.

Firstly he gave NASCAR Dario. Why I don't know, Dario could well have stayed in IRL and had a whirl at defending his title, but he came to NASCAR. His Busch and ARCA results in the few races he ran last season were quite a bit less than impressive and the Dodges appear to be slowest of the 4 makers in testing. That he's well accustomed to going round ovals is sure, you don't win Indy and the title by accident, but perhaps the jump from IRL to NASCAR this quickly is just too much.

The IRL looks set to be the centre for British drivers in America, with 4 drivers currently confirmed. Dan Wheldon stays on at Ganassi alongside Scott Dixon, and may well be Dixon's biggest rival for the title with the exit of Dario and Hornish to NASCAR. He's pedigree is clear, winning the Indy and the title a few years back. The third car in the team is being driven by another Brit, this time, Alex Lloyd. He is the current champion of the IRL's developmental series, and to immediately move into a big name team says alot for his talent. Out of Ganassi-land Darren Manning continues to bother US motorsport like a moth round a lightbulb. In three years of IRL his best race finish is 4th and he's never been very consistent. The last British driver really needed looking up on Wikipedia, Jay Howard. The all-knowing source shows him as Lloyd's predecessor as Indy Pro series champion, and from the same English county as me. He joins Roth Racing as a second driver.

Champ Car, like IRL, loses it's top star, with Bourdais moving to F1. One of the drivers most likely to benefit is Justin Wilson, who finished second in 2007 to the beforementioned Frenchmen, and win a move from long term team R-sports to Newman/Haas/Lanigan, Justin may well be the favourite for the title. He is currently the only confirmed British driver in the series as 2007 driver, Dan Clarke, Ryan Daziel and Catherine Legge look set to move on, all three with nothing confirmed although rumours persist Legge may move to the DTM (where there are lots of other British drivers (but that's a whole other blog entry).