These last few days, I have often taken a look at my website and must confess to being truly staggered and surprised by the response to my design-a-crash-helmet competition. Within a week, we have received more than 5500 design ideas from all over the world, and some of them are really brilliant and well executed. Your ideas have been simply fabulous. Amongst them I have found wonderful patterns and some unusual ideas, such as the coat-of-arms of the city of Mönchengladbach, the logo of the telethon and a panoramic view of the Nürburgring. Choosing a winner is not going to be easy, but don't stop! Please carry on sending in new designs or reworking your existing ones.

Because of the bumper number of entries, I've decided to award more than just one prize. We'll put together our Top Ten of the best and coolest designs, which will then go online here as a slideshow. The people who have sent in these ten entries will receive a rucksack plus an original autographed baseball cap from me. So you're all in with a chance of being a winner.

Next weekend, we will be heading to Silverstone – possibly for the last time as things stand at the moment. I'll really miss Silverstone if it disappears from the calendar for good. I never thought that the course was outdated. Highly traditional maybe, but not obsolete. Apart from a couple of exquisite corners, the special atmosphere generated by the fans will be missed most of all. I've often driven there and have always enjoyed it. It's where we competed in the Formula 3000 series, and I also did my first F1 testing at the 'Home of British Motor Racing'.

I finished second last year at Silverstone. In the chaotic weather conditions at the time, we made the right tyre choice, and I pulled off a couple of good overtaking manoeuvres. The chances of rain next weekend look slim. In the dry, you need a lot of downforce and a really well-balanced car. The track has a mix of fast to medium-fast turns, where it's important to keep up momentum. Tyre wear can be high because of the rough-textured track surface. Bridgestone will have the same tyre compounds that we used in Istanbul.

After the second major update in Turkey, including double diffuser, we will also be fitting new parts at Silverstone, one of which will be a newly developed front wing to improve the car's balance. We want to improve the car bit by bit for the races to come. We haven't yet written off the 2009 season.

Yours





 

For more informations about the British GP and all the results, check out the trackside menu.