In this week's column, Ann Bradshaw talks about the poor television coverage of the Japanese Grand Prix, the hype surrounding Takuma Sato, a simple solution to save the British Grand Prix, about Dubai's sweltering heat, and much more...

At the moment Formula One racing isn't producing the best show on earth, but it certainly was done no favours on Sunday by the atrocious coverage from Suzuka. I expect some local who is more used to sumo wrestling, when all the action can be covered by a couple of hand held cameras, was in charge of the direction of this. Whoever he may be I hope he has now fallen on his sacrificial sword and will never again be able to do our sport, that needs all the help it can get to provide a great show, such a disservice.

Okay, Takuma Sato is a national hero in Japan. Okay, Michael Schumacher was on his way to his 83rd career win. But with all due respect, there was much more happening during this race. We did have some fierce racing for position going on and he just seemed to ignore this. The ITV commentators knew that something was happening between David Coulthard and Rubens Barrichello as they could see what was happening from the windows of their commentary box.

However, the poor viewer had to wait until they both limped into the pits with right and left front suspension damage respectively to find out just how fierce the battle had become. Even then there was no replay of the incident. We just had to wait for ITV's excellent pitlane reporter, Louise Goodman, to run up and down the pitlane and find the drivers. Luckily these two good guys explained what happened and it was nice to hear no recriminations, but it would have been nice to see it for ourselves.

I was very happy to see Takuma do so well. Nigel Mansell used to say the home crowd were worth a tenth of a second a lap and certainly the likeable Japanese driver made the most of it. Each year he seems to save himself for this race and this year was his best ever with a fourth. Sadly he has still to make the podium, but I expect the Japanese, who can get very excited, would find him on this hallowed place a little bit too much to handle. I am sure it would have been difficult to find one person in the capacity 160,000 crowd who did not want him to do well and the excitement with a podium finish might just have set off a local earthquake.

I should not really complain about the local TV director, but be happy we had a race and that typhoon number 22 did not cause it to be cancelled. It would have been the first Grand Prix since the Belgium race in 1985 to be cancelled and this would have been a disaster for all concerned. As it turned out, the Japanese fans got the best value of the year for their money. They not only saw racing but also qualifying on the same day. Those people who believe that the racing should be spread over three days I am sure will not be that happy with the consensus of opinion that this was a great success for the people who matter, the spectators. Okay, it made the teams work hard, but then F1 is not an easy ride and if the sponsors get a better return then why not.

I am sure the person who is the most upset after the weekend's race is Flavio Briatore. His team need a miracle – a win and a third place – in Brazil to take second in the Constructors' Championship. Although Fernando Alonso is driving well I have to admit that Jacques Villeneuve has not been the revelation we all hoped he would be. Renault have been beaten fair and square by BAR, a team who finished the 2003 season with just 26 points and were fifth in the Championship.

Now BAR have 116 points against Renault's 100 and I am sure the likes of Williams and McLaren would rather not have their tallies discussed in public. David Richards has done an amazing job with his boys and again it has to focus us on the subject of Jenson Button and where he goes in 2005. I know what I would be thinking if I was Jenson, but I am sure now he is just waiting for the outcome of the Contracts Recognition Board on 16th October to see if his racing future will be sorted, or if Frank Williams and David Richards will make some lawyers a little richer.

One man who will not be worrying about what happens next year is Olivier Panis. He officially retired from F1 racing in Suzuka after a career that began in the Ligier Renault team in 1994. He has won just one race – Monaco in 1996 – but has gained so much experience that Toyota will keep him on as their test driver, a role he held with great success at McLaren in 2000. He will be missed from the paddock as he is a good guy, but his departure from full time racing will also mean Michael Schumacher now has yet another title to his name. However, this is perhaps one he is not that keen on, as from now on he will officially be the oldest driver in F1. Michael was born on 3rd January, 1969, so is currently 35. Those observers who think it is a young man's sport should think again!

Shortly before the teams headed to Japan there was the not unexpected blow to British Motorsport – the omission of the British Grand Prix from the provisional calendar for 2005. As those of you who do not live in the UK can perhaps imagine, the papers here went mad. They devoted pages of type to the way the poor BRDC had been treated by Bernie, who was made out to be the bad man in all this. He even rang the BBC radio to put his side of the matter and explained that he had more than met the BRDC halfway and that the sticking point was a mere 1.5 million pounds.

Now I may be a bit naive in my next comment, but if this is true and the race is so important to all those UK based teams and all the other people who had shouted how we have been robbed, why not all put your hands in your pockets and come up with the dosh. This would work out as a few hundred thousand quid each and I am sure these people could afford it. Strange that I have not heard someone like Sir Jackie Stewart offer to underwrite it. If it is so important and lucrative surely he would eventually get his money back.

I want to make a point here. In the past, the number of UK sponsors who have supported F1 were minimal. Take for instance one of F1's most British teams, Williams. Currently Sir Frank Williams has a German engine, an American main sponsor, a French tyre supplier, and a variety of smaller sponsors from places such as Brazil and Germany.

I remember Frank's argument when people have said he was unpatriotic for not taking British drivers. He would point out that even when he had done the British sponsors had not flooded onto the car. He had to rely on the likes of the Saudi Arabians and Japanese. While the UK may be the centre for motorsport excellence it is certainly not the centre for sponsors.

While the F1 teams were sitting waiting for a typhoon to hit them, I was in Dubai sweltering in temperatures in the mid thirties. This was the first race meeting at the brand new Dubai Autodrome and so another landmark in the story of motorsport in the Middle East. I can't say it was the most comfortable temperature for a race meeting. I have never seen so many sweating drivers and even His Highness Sheikh Maktoum Hasher Maktoum Al Maktoum, a member of the Dubai royal family, was feeling the heat.

Sheikh Maktoum, who is the founder of the A1 Grand Prix series, was taking part in the FIA GT race and had his Chrysler Viper covered with A1 Grand Prix livery. When he explained that after his first stint in the car he felt his eyeballs burning I knew that it was hot. If a person who was born there was suffering then how were the pale skinned Europeans getting on. In many cases not well.

However, one man who did cope with the heat on and off the track was Andy Priaulx, who won the FIA ETCC title. His story is definitely one of against the odds. Although he drives for a BMW team, it is a one car team run by a team called RBM out of Belgium, who had to be considered the underdogs for the title. Andy is one of the most determined and nicest drivers I have ever come across and when he went to Dubai he was 12 points behind fellow BMW driver Dirk Muller.

This by most was considered as an impossible gap. However, Andy just got on with his training for this and even prepared for it by spending hours in a sauna in Guernsey. Well it worked, as the heat never got to him and, although he finished on equal points with Dirk, he got the title on the greatest number of wins. He thus became the first Brit since Tom Walkinshaw in 1984 to win the coveted European title for touring cars.

Back to the subject of Sheikh Maktoum, as on the 30th September he held a launch in London for the first six seat holders of the A1 Grand Prix series. Back in March when we had the official Dubai launch of the series there were a lot of doubters. He has proved them wrong and now the UK, South Africa, China, the Lebanon, Pakistan and Portugal have all signed up and, more importantly, paid their money! The next batch of names are due to be announced soon. A measure of how important these countries view this series can be ascertained by the man leading the South African group.

His name is Tokyo Sexwale. He is a former freedom fighter and spent 15 years in jail on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela. He was a man with magnetism and once he started talking he held the audience. He came out with some lovely anecdotes and my favourite was about what they did while in prison. They were only allowed to watch non political programmes on television. In those days, Formula One was one of these and so he used to sit with Mr Mandela watching the sport. He said they were both big fans but he blames watching the sport on television for the way Nelson Mandela moves his head from side to side when talking. This is what he did when watching the racing cars.

So now the end is in sight for the F1 teams. Brazil will be a good place to celebrate the end of a long, hard season and I hope the track will produce a good race. I have a feeling it could be good and I hope Rubens will give Michael a run for his money on home ground.

About the author:
Ann Bradshaw - Annie - began her motor racing career as a teenager, helping out her brother in local rally races in England, where she grew up. In the 1970s she organised motor racing events in England, and was later the press officer for the RAC MSA - the motorsport governing body in Britain. In mid 1980s, she became press officer to team Lotus, where she worked with Ayrton Senna. Shortly after, she moved to the Williams team and was working there for several years, when once again she found herself working with Senna. She worked with Damon Hill after the Brazilian's death, and moved with the British Champion to Arrows. She also worked with the Panoz team in the United States, before becoming a freelance press officer, now working with BMW among others. Annie joined Atlas F1 as a regular columnist in April 2002.

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