The site has stopped out on track with a loss of drive. One day, it may restart and come back into the race. But not for a while.

We have found that, as it has grown in recognition and the opportunities to extend our coverage have increased, the workload needed to do it justice has gone beyond what the two of us can manage without a proper commercial operation behind us.

We are tremendously proud of what we have achieved, and we are very disappointed that we have had to do this – but we simply cannot continue to operate what amounts to a full-scale newsroom while also keeping our business running.

So we’re going to step back from it. Maybe for a while or maybe for good – we don’t know ourselves yet.

There are a lot of people to thank – most of them will know who they are – but of course the readers are at the top of the list.

The site will remain in place, but will no longer be updated. The Facebook page will be deleted, the Twitter profile will fall dormant and the ‘Over the White Line’ newsletter will cease to be sent out.

In the meantime, we’ll be thinking about whether there’s a way of doing this that allows us to develop the site in all the directions we’d like to, but in a sustainable manner that doesn’t cost us everything else that we might otherwise be doing.

If we find that way, you’ll be the first to know… thanks for sticking with us this far. Maybe we’ll see you down the road.

Andy and LJH

Sam Bird will sample F1's past and present at the Festival of Speed

The ART driver will first take the wheel of the Marlboro McLaren M23 that Emerson Fittipaldi drove to the Formula One drivers’ title in 1974 in a season that saw take three victories, reach the podium four more times and narrowly beat Clay Regazzoni to take his second championship.

Then Bird will switch to modern times with a drive in this year’s bang-up-to-date Cosworth-powered Williams FW32.

The festival is, to many motorsport fans, the highlight of the racing season, beating even the British Grand Prix, and featuring an unmatched level of access to historic and contemporary cars from all racing disciplines, their drivers and owners as well as legends of the sport.

It takes place at the Goodwood country estate on July 2-4 and this year will feature an extra event, The Moving Motor Show on the Thursday preceding the weekend.

Bird said of the festival: “I’m quite passionate about the history of Formula One so to drive the ’74 title-winning McLaren will be a real honour. I am grateful to [owner] Richard Meins for the opportunity.

“I am also really pleased to get behind the wheel of this year’s Williams and I would like to thank Sir Frank, Patrick Head and everyone at Williams for calling upon me again this year.

“I am not under contract with Williams, or with any other F1 team at this stage, so for them to ask me to drive one of their cars at Goodwood for the second year is a real compliment.”

To find out more about this year’s Festival of Speed, visit the Goodwood website here.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t Snetterton and the Classic Team Lotus Festival. This was the two-hour traffic jam on the A11 leading to the event.

The Lotus racing heritage

Take Norfolk’s major motorsports venue and use it to stage a gathering of the county’s own sportscar marque’s owners and fans. Mix in a dusting of Formula One glamour in the shape of the local team’s current car and drivers, plus all its historic race machines. What do you get?

A far bigger turnout than the organisers imagined, if the traffic controller on the main gate was to be believed when he said “it’s mad – this is the busiest we’ve ever been”.

Inside, British Racing Green was definitely the colour to be seen in. One fan in a white, black and acid yellow Brawn GP cap looked as out-of-place as an invader from outer space.

The traditional shade of green was on clothing, on posters, on banners over marquees and tents and – of course – on cars, from the Type 12 that contested the team’s first Grand Prix at Monaco in 1958 to the Type 127 running in this year’s F1 campaign.

What had begun as an attempt to gather three Jim Clark classics together mushroomed until it became a show featuring examples of just about everything raceworthy the team had ever produced, with the current Formula One team finding a loophole in the stringent testing regulations that allowed it to perform shakedown laps for the fans.

F1 drivers Jarno Trulli, Heikki Kovalainen and Fairuz Fauzy also drove laps in the classic cars, signed autographs, answered questions and met competition-winning youngsters.

Old-time classics at Snetterton

The historic race cars were gathered on the track for a photocall, then wheeled into position for a parade as a tribute to Clark. Classic Team Lotus director Clive Chapman, the son of Lotus founder Colin, told local paper the Eastern Daily Press that it was fantastic to see old and new cars together.

He said: “We cannot expect everyone to remember them, but it is important to remember that so many of these cars changed F1. Whenever they were unveiled, it was a landmark. More than half of the Team Lotus cars turned F1 on its head.”

But the day was not just about demonstrations as seven races were scheduled for the Sunday, along with eight the day before, in series such as the Lotus Cup Europe, the Elise Trophy and the Heritage Grand Touring Car Challenge.

Photo gallery

Martin Plowman (left), Sebastian Saavedra and JK Vernay celebrate

The 22-year-old from Staffordshire missed qualifying on pole by 0.003sec, starting second beside Bryan Herta Autosports driver Sebastian Saavedra, and spent the race dogging the Colombian’s footsteps as he led from lights to flag.

The pair opened up a lead on the chasing pack in the early stages of the race, which finished under floodlights and was billed as the AvoidTheStork.com 100 after its sponsor.

But after 67 of the planned 115 laps debris on the track forced a safety car and the pursuers, led by championship front-runner JK Vernay, were able to close up again. Saavedra and Plowman retained their advantage on the restart, the gap between them increasing as the Englishman faded slightly.

With 15 laps left the advantage was 2.29secs but Plowman’s tyres were in better condition and he fought back strongly, closing to less than a quarter of a second with two laps remaining – until lapped traffic prevented a final push for the win, and he finished 0.482sec behind Saavedra.

He said: “It was one of the most intense races I have had in my life. For the first 30 or 40 laps it was just between me and Sebastian. We were pulling away from the field.

Plowman holds a brief advantage over Saavedra, early in the race

“Then the yellow flag came out and that was a very unfortunate time because that was when I was going to start putting the pressure on him to get the lead.

“Sebastian got in traffic and I thought it may be my day, but at the end I just couldn’t catch him. It was a great day for us and great for the points.”

Saavedra, a 20-year-old who competed in this year’s Indianapolis 500 for his Bryan Herta Autosports team, said: “Those last 10 laps were crazy. I wanted to make the right decisions and not risk crashing. I saw the guys were coming fast, but we pulled through and I’m very happy – this victory tastes even sweeter after those last 10 laps.”

Saavedra’s team-mate Stefan Wilson finished seventh, leading home fellow Brits Pippa Mann in eighth and the lapped Dan Clarke in ninth.

Vernay now holds a 23-point championship lead over Plowman’s Andretti Autosports team-mate Charlie Kimball, who started at the back of the field and hit the wall on the first lap. James Hinchcliffe is five points behind Kimball, with Plowman and Saavedra tied four points further back.

Titled ‘Lewis and Jenson, one car, no team’, it shows the world championship leaders assembling one of their cars after their crew potters off mid-photocall for a cup of tea, leaving Lewis scratching his nose and Jense looking puzzled.

Head mechanic (walking off): See you later lads, good luck.

Lewis: Huh?

Jense: Eh?

Lewis: They’re supposed to help us, no?

Jense: So we’ve got to do this on our own?

Lewis: Where’s the manual?

Anyone who remembers the spoof Martin Whitmarsh video the team released for the first Singapore night race, in which a team car was fitted with a bank of giant headlights, will recognise the low-key understated humour at work as the two drivers bolt bits onto the car, fit tyres, spill oil on the pristine floor of the McLaren Technology Centre and make each other tea.

Lewis: This is going quite well.

Jense: There is, er, something on the floor here.

Lewis: How do you take this out -- oooh, crap.

Jense: Put it back in, put it back in.

While the video is obviously staged, it’s done with absolute conviction. McLaren staff and executives wander past and look on with entirely believable bemusement, both drivers are clearly having a lot of fun and Button, in particular, delivers a natural and unforced performance.

Jense: Shall we just not bother tightening that up?

Lewis: How does this go on?

Jense: Do you know where the little thingies are for it?

Finally, after giving various shout-outs to the crew that do this sort of thing full time -- setting up sponsor Vodafone’s intended message of “Jenson and Lewis depend on their team -- their team depends on our network” -- they roll an alarmingly-creaking car back and deliver their own punchline at the expense of long-serving test driver Gary Paffett.

Jense: Mate, how cool is that?

Lewis: As you just demonstrated, it works.

Jense: It works!

Lewis: So, er…

Jense: Do you want to take it out first?

Lewis: Nah, I think we’ll leave Gary to do it.

Jense: Yeah.

Lewis: Yeah.

Jense: That’s what test drivers are for, isn’t it?

Lewis: Yeah, exactly.

All good fun, and definitely in the tradition of other great ads featuring Hamilton such as the Airfix one and the joint effort with former team-mate Fernando Alonso for Mercedes.

That ad, relaxed though it seemed, turned out not to be any sort of accurate indication of how the two drivers were getting on as team-mates.

This one, on the other hand, suggests a relationship so laid back and matey that it can’t possibly be faked.

Can it?

He was one of 30 drivers from 10 teams taking part in the test at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo, near Madrid, in advance of next weekend’s race at the European Grand Prix in Valencia.

The morning saw dry and sunny conditions with rising temperatures that caused the track to slow rapidly and the drivers to make the most of their early laps.

Gutiérrez was the first to break the 1:26 barrier after posting a time of 1:26.773. Tech 1′s Jean Eric Vergne was second on 1:26.985, followed closely by Status’ Robert Wickens on 1:27.011.

Eight different cars filled the top 10 spots with Jenzer’s Nico Muller taking fourth, ART’s Alexander Rossi fifth and Muller’s team-mate Trummer sixth. RSC Mucke’s Nigel Melker was seventh with Manor’s James Jakes eighth, Addax’ Felipe Guimaraes ninth and series newcomer Roberto Merhi, who is driving for Atech, in 10th place.

Manor’s Adrian Quaife-Hobbs was 11th on the timesheet with Carlin’s Dean Smith in 12th and Atech’s Oliver Oakes in 15th. Organisers reported that a total of 1,102 laps were completed during the morning session.

During the slower afternoon session Gutierrez posted a time of 1:28.057, just four thousandths of a second ahead of Wickens. Smith was third on 1:28.147.

Muller was fourth with Oakes providing Atech’s best test result to date in fifth and his team-mate Roberto Mehri sixth.

Trummer was seventh, Rossi eighth, Addax’ Pablo Sanchez Lopez in ninth spot, and Tech 1′s Doru rounded out the top ten. Jakes finished 17th while Quaife-Hobbs was 18th.

The morning’s good conditions lasted until the final 20 minutes of the session when the skies opened for a huge downpour. Only Addax Team were brave enough to take to the track, but soon returned to the pits before they fell foul of the slippery conditions.

Third-placed Smith said of the session: “The test has been going really well for us, although I got scuppered by the rain at the end. We managed to do a lot of testing and figure out which way to go for the next race.

“It’s frustrating when you know you can top the times, but as a driver you need to make the car your own which is what we are working on. I’m going in a simulator next week to learn the Valencia Street Circuit and then hopefully everything will come together and we can get P1.”

Apart from a couple of red flags the session ran smoothly, and all ten teams were able to use the track time to continue fine-tuning their cars and testing new settings ahead of the Valencia Street Circuit race.

The series organisers pointed out that that the teams covered 887 laps in total with few significant car problems, demonstrating what they describe as “impressive reliability.” Today’s running brought the lap total for two days to mre than 4,000.

For full standings from the Valencia test, as well as the latest news on GP3, visit the series website here.

Christodoulou, who hails from Lichfield and who is currently racing in the GT class of the tintop Grand-Am Rolex Series, was in action at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course last week on the day before his 21st birthday.

He was there to cash in part of his prize for winning the open-wheel 2009 Star Mazda Championship – a test in Andersen Racing’s Firestone Indy Lights car.

Christodoulou completed 89 laps on Mid-Ohio’s 2.3-mile road course in the #4 Firestone Indy Lights car normally driven by Carmen Jorda.

Team co-owner John Andersen said: “I was very pleased with Adam’s test. He showed that with a little bit of seat time he was able to run with the best Firestone Indy Lights drivers.”

His brother and co-owner Dan added: “We were the first team in North America to test Adam in a Star Mazda car back in early 2009, and we knew then what a talent he is.

“It was a real delight to be able to provide our Firestone Indy Lights team and race car and see him perform so well once again. We would welcome an opportunity to have him on our Firestone Indy Lights team sometime in the future.”

That is good news for Christodoulou who was scheduled to race in the Atlantic Championship as part of his Star Mazda prize – only to see the entire series fall through. Instead he partnered Atlantic champion and fellow Star Mazda graduate John Edwards in a Mazda RX-8 in Grand-Am in what has been a promising season so far for the pair.

But he was happy to return to his single-seater roots, saying: “The test definitely put a huge smile on my face… it was a pleasure to be back in a single-seater.

“At first it was quite strange, as I hadn’t been in a single-seater for at least eight months, and I had only been in a Firestone Indy Lights car once last year. The first thing I noticed was how quiet it seemed compared to the scream of the three-rotor Mazda RX-8 I have been racing all season.

“I was also braking far too early for all the corners. The brakes felt unbelievably good, and I was over-slowing the car and wasn’t getting the best out the brakes until my second or third run. Then I was carrying a lot more speed and was a lot more efficient on the brakes.”

He said that he clicked well with the crew and enjoyed a smooth and problem-free run.

“I had plenty of time in the car even though we were restricted on miles. I completed roughly 80 laps, with my third-from-last lap being my quickest all day, even with worn tyres.

“We made some very minor changes but I think the biggest time difference was just me adjusting to the car. I felt that each time I got in the car I picked up fractions of a second here and there.

“It would have been nice to have put on a new set of tyres at the end of the day just to see how I compared to the other seasoned Firestone Indy Lights drivers, but overall it was a fun day and it was nice to be able to test against the 2010 Firestone Indy Lights drivers.”

He has thanked everyone involved in putting the test together, including Performance Friction brakes, MAZDASPEED Development and Andersen Racing.

He concluded: “I look forward to hopping into a Firestone Indy Lights car again if the opportunity arises.” As seems almost certain to happen if the necessary funding can be secured.

Proving that F1 drivers are world-class athletes in terms of their physical fitness as well as their driving skill, Button is a regular and successful competitior in triathlon events, which combine running, cycling and swimming into one gruelling physical challenge.

Button told fans via his website: “It’s that time of year again! I can’t quite believe how much has happened over the last 12 months and a large part of that was the fantastic sum of money that we managed to raise last year.

“As you probably know I’ve been taking part in triathlons over the past couple of years as a way of keeping fit for my racing. I’m back again this year to compete in the London Triathlon and to raise money for a charity that is very close to my heart.

“I’m a Patron of the Make A Wish Foundation and have had the pleasure of meeting lots of kids who are supported by the charity at our tests and races. Make A Wish grants magical wishes to children and young people fighting life-threatening illnesses and it is a real privilege to be involved with them.

“The kids are so inspirational and hopefully we can raise enough money to fulfil as many of their dreams as possible.” Learn more about the charity here.

This year’s London Triathlon takes place on the weekend of August 7-8 and around 11,000 competitors are expected to take part – making it the world’s largest event of its kind. Learn more about it here.

It includes a 1,500m swim, a 40km bike ride and a 10km run – making it the perfect workout for a Formula One world champion who needs to keep in shape. In fact, Button’s times in the 2009 event compared favourably with the elite entrants.

He was certainly pleased with the outcome of the 2009 event, saying: “Last year I managed to finish second in my age category which I was very happy with. I guess that kind of means I need to finish first this year? Nothing like putting pressure on myself!”

Last year, with a little help from his fans, he managed to raise nearly £20,000. This year he has persuaded DJ and television presenter Vernon Kay to take part alongside him: “Having said he was just going to run around with a bucket next to me, he is now taking it very seriously.”

He’s also promising “a couple of other team members you might all recognise” and asking fans to dig deep to sponsor him and help beat “the very high benchmark we set ourselves last time.”

You can do that by visiting his JustGiving page here where he reassures fans that donating will be quick, easy and totally secure.

He also points out that, if you are a UK taxpayer, Justgiving ensures 25 per cent in Gift Aid, plus a 3 per cent supplement, is added to your donation.

In his Canadian Grand Prix debrief, he told fans that he was delighted to be leading team-mate Jenson Button by three points after the pair scored a closely-fought one-two following an eventful race in Montreal.

But he went on to say: “I have to be honest, Formula One is so tough and so competitive at the moment that you can’t take anything for granted.

“While I might be on top right now, I know that I’ll need to fight for every lap of the next 11 races to remain up there. And, I think I’m like the fifth leader of the championship so far this year, so it’s pretty clear that it’s not so easy staying on top.”

He said that, with the eagerly-anticipated 2010 season working out to be the most competitive for some time, and with different teams showing their strengths in every race, the best strategy was as much about “playing the long game, minimising mistakes, scoring points at every race” – as it was about success at individual races.

He added: “Actually, I think that’s the first time you can probably say that about a Formula 1 championship.

“Whether it’s the changes to the points system, or just the fact that there are maybe as many as 10 drivers out there with the machinery capable of winning races, you can’t afford to just take the points.

“You’ve got to be on the limit all the time – and I love that, because that’s how I love to race.”

As well as his season, he discussed the Montreal race and the performance of the McLaren MP4-24 in the harsh conditions presented by the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, saying that braking performance was an area the team had concentrated on.

“The pitwall and the strategy team judged everything perfectly. Andy [Latham, race engineer] fed me lots of information throughout the race, and really acted like a second pair of eyes for me. The team and I worked well together for this result.”

You can read the full Canadian GP debrief on LewisHamilton.com here.

Alex Lloyd

Race day on Sunday will be barely a week after he underwent surgery to remove his appendix, but he told indycar.com that he didn’t expect it to prevent him competing: “I’m feeling a little sore, which is pretty normal. No doubt a week is a little tight timeframe to recover and be back in a race car, but no question I will be racing in Iowa.”

The pre-season departures of engineer Bill Pappas and driver Justin Wilson were expected to consign the #19 car to the back of the field, but after a slow start to the year Lloyd now finds himself in the middle of a purple patch as the leading rookie in the series.

He was classified fourth in the Indianapolis 500, although he actually crossed the line third and for a while celebrated a thoroughly unlikely podium until an appeal by Marco Andretti dropped him back a place. Then at Texas he qualified sixth and finished eighth, recovering strongly from a pitstop error that sent him to the back of the field.

Under the circumstances, missing Iowa with a sick note is the last thing he wants: “We have such a roll going on at Dale Coyne Racing right now that nothing would stop me trying to keep that going at Iowa. So far my recovery is right on track and although a setback I feel I will have no problems performing to my best.

“We’re all – the team – very, very happy. Things started off a little rough for us and I guess we started off a little behind the eight-ball in terms of preparation because everything came together last minute.

“We suffered the first few races, but after Kansas, everybody knuckled down and really worked hard knowing we had to step our game up. The momentum we have going now is fantastic – I can’t wait to get to Iowa because our oval package seems really good right now.”

This success comes despite the late deal struck with Lloyd to drive the car and despite the loss of several key people. He said: “One of the reasons why we had a slow start to the year is that the team changed a lot. It was really a new bunch of guys working together for the first time and trying to learn during the race weekends because we didn’t have any testing prior the season.

“It was tough. It takes a while for thing to start to gel, and we had a little reshuffling before Indianapolis on how we were going to engineer the car and changed our plan with that. That seems to have paid off and seems to be working for us.”

Lloyd, who won at Iowa in his Indy Lights championship season of 2007 then sat out the next two years on a Ganassi development contract apart from runs in the Indianapolis 500, is now targeting the Rookie of the Year award.

He said: “It would be a big thing. There’s a good crop of rookies this year and one of my goals was to get that Rookie of the Year. The last couple of races have put us in a good position as we start getting towards the end of the first half of the championship.

“Obviously, there’s a long way to go. We need to keep putting ourselves in good positions and keep working on what we’ve got and not let this momentum slip away.”