According to various websites I have stated that Massa will not be racing for Ferrari next season. Incorrect ­ well the part that has me stating that as a fact anyway, I can't possibly know what any team driver contractual position is unless I have seen it with my own eyes (which I haven't). The reason to bring this to your attention is the seemingly endless list of websites all claiming to have their finger on the pulse of motorsports. Where they got this particular inaccurate statement was from an interview I recently did for Austrian-based Servus TV where I was asked the question, "is it true that Massa will not be racing for Ferrari next season?" My response was that what I have learned during my almost two decades being involve in Formula one is that anything is possible, I even joked that if you told me Bernie was going to race at the next GP I would keep an open mind until I watched first practice! So the headline on the website to draw you all in is, "Coulthard says Massa out of Ferrari for 2012" ­ you get the picture? My advice would be stick to reading the quality websites, where professional journalists research stories properly, rather than reading some other inaccurate webpage and upping the ante with a stronger headline.

So moving on to the next thrilling instalment of grand prix racing with a quick review of the incident between Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton in India. I never experienced any true on-track feuds in my grand prix career, other than a couple of run-ins with Michael Schumacher. The difficulty there was, one) he was very strong and successful in that period and, two) there was no talking to him! When I suggested to him that he must've been wrong at least once in his life, he famously replied 'not that I can remember'. That's part of what made him so successful, I guess.
 
MASSA V HAMILTON
I think that the on-going spat between Felipe and Lewis is a consequence of Lewis being off-form and finding himself on the back foot, and that's why he's found himself racing Massa instead of being right at the front. It's hardly Prost v Senna or Piquet v Mansell. They are both too fundamentally nice for that sort of thing! There's no hatred between them as far as I know. Felipe has very much spent the season in the shadow of Fernando Alonso, irrespective of the fact that he's shown some good pace in qualifying recently. In the same vein, you have to say Lewis has not been at his best this season. What he appears to have lost, as well as his form, is that pure instinctive ability to race wheel-to-wheel that he's always shown in Formula 1 since he burst onto the scene in 2007, almost winning the championship in his first year. Lewis has never been beaten by his team-mate in his F1 career, but all things being equal that will be the case this year. This downturn in his incredibly high quality performance has coincided with him acknowledging that's he's not very happy and he's apologising to the team. It's almost like that Harry Enfield sketch of the German guy always apologising for his nation's behaviour in the war ­ we're getting that used to hearing Lewis saying 'sorry' that much. It seems he can't wait until the end of the season, recharge and come ready to deliver that big result once more. Whatever has changed in his life this year has not put him in that position. There's a straightforward solution: put yourself in a happy place, and the rest just follows. Just ask Jenson Button.
 
STEWARDS DECISIONS
I thought the decision of the stewards, to penalise Massa, in India was unusual. There is such a thing as a racing accident, you know. There doesn't always have to be blame game attached to a collision in a motor race. Did Massa turn-in on Lewis with the deliberate intent of colliding? I absolutely don't believe that is the case. Or do you think Lewis decided: 'I'm not coming past you, I'm coming into you.' Ditto. I think he went for a move, believing it was going to come off, but it didn't quite align with the way he'd planned it. He tried to bail out, but by the time he'd made that decision, it was already a collision. I think that was a racing incident, regardless of whether Massa had looked
in his mirrors or not. You can't not turn-in to a corner because you think someone might be there ­ they've either completed the pass or they haven't, and Lewis hadn't, so he was within his rights to turn-in. If Felipe had left
the door open, got onto the marbles and driven off the circuit, we'd be saying: 'Well there you go, another average performance from Massa .' If the leading car isn't in control of that decision-making process, then who the hell should be?
 
ABU DHABI ONE YEAR ON
Sebastian Vettel will get that extra boost as he steps back onto the ground where he was crowned champion 12 months ago. In the same way, Mark Webber and Fernando will have a small reflection on what might have been ­ as well as Stefano Domenicalli and the rest of the Ferrari boys. One bad strategy decision, pitting to cover Mark without taking Sebastian and track position into account, cost them so dearly. That wasn't fate, it was a strategic error which must've been so hard to swallow. And walking through those paddock gates this weekend will be a harsh reminder.

Another race, another collision involving Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa. It is quite incredible the amount of times those two have come together this year.

In many respects it is a shame that their ongoing feud became the chief talking point of the inaugural Indian Grand Prix but what can you do?

I hope they can sort things out between themselves soon but in the meantime we can only analyse what happened on the track.

This won't be a fashionable view for British fans but, for me, their collision on lap 24 was a racing incident at best. At worst I felt Lewis was more to blame.

I simply can't understand how Felipe could have been deemed the guilty party. As drivers we are always taught that the car behind is responsible so to my mind the stewards misinterpreted what happened.

I don’t want to beat up on Lewis. Far from it. I supported him in similar circumstances after Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi clipped the back of him at Spa. And after everything that has gone on over the past weeks and months he deserves a break. But in this instance I feel he was definitely the guiltier party.

If Lewis had got that far up alongside Felipe into a tight hairpin, where the braking zone is maybe 100 metres and lasts for a few seconds, then I think Massa would have been right to give way. But heading into a fourth gear left-hander at maybe 150-160km/h? Where the braking zone lasts for one second? I don't think Massa can be held responsible.

But this isn’t really about Lewis and Felipe. It could have been any two drivers. What concerns me more is the inconsistency of stewarding decisions.

Making these types of calls is one of the real difficulties with a complex sport like Formula One, but it was almost as if they felt that - with Lewis receiving so many decisions against him this year - they were trying to redress the balance. A bit like in football when a referee sends someone off in controversial circumstances and the crowd is on his back, he is more disposed to send a player from the opposition off.

Sebastian Vettel's win was another dominant and hugely impressive display. A few people noted that he has now overtaken Nigel Mansell's record of most laps led in a single season.

Of course, Nigel set his mark when there were only 16 races and Seb broke it in the 17th race of this season, but perhaps what is more instructive is the fact that Seb has led more laps this year than Jenson Button has in his entire career. And that is not to put Jenson down, it is simply to illustrate the sort of dominance which Seb is currently enjoying.

But what I liked most about it was how much he appeared to savour it.

He treated it as if it was his last win. With what has happened recently in motorsport, with the deaths of Dan Wheldon and Marco Simoncelli, it is easy to empathise with that, although of course we would all expect him to go on and win many more races. But Seb knows this run he’s on is not going to last forever.

He is able to step back and put things in perspective. He is a 24 year-old, newly-crowned double world champion devoid of arrogance.

It was an interesting first experience in India, although I ended it under a bit of a cloud, succumbing to Delhi Belly at the 11th hour.

I actually had to miss the post-race show on the BBC because I was feeling so unwell, but generally speaking I think the race can be judged a success. India is a country of extremes.

Filming our feature in Delhi on Friday was pretty upsetting at times, witnessing the poverty on the streets where kids are lying in the dust beside open sewers.

And we’re complaining about the lack of windows in our commentary booths. I hope that we will be able to justify our presence in India; by stimulating the economy, by creating jobs and by contributing to greater road safety, which is possibly the scariest .

I think it will take time but I really believe that Formula One can have that effect.

A quick note on the rumours of Silverstone's potential lease to a Qatari consortium. I can understand that some fans consider the circuit as part of the British fabric but nobody can accuse the British Racing Drivers' Club of not having Silverstone’s best interests at heart.

For the past 60 years the club has run the circuit, with no government help and under continual pressure from new foreign government-backed circuits, and done a brilliant job of doing so.

Now the circuit needs extra investment and if the board decides that this is the right course of action then I, as a BRDC member, will be right behind it.

I take my hat off to those racing in IndyCar now, I could have moved my family over there and made a life for myself in the US. But the risk-ratio reward was simply too high for me.

Formula 1, I felt, was at an acceptable level but IndyCar was, and is, probably 20 years behind in terms of safety.

The main reason is simple: speed. There is no need, in my opinion, to be racing at 225mph, wheel-to-wheel, around mostly oval circuits. You don't need to be doing that to entertain the crowds. We have street circuits in Formula 1 with close walls... but the speeds are much slower.

I hope Wheldon's accident and the subsequent media attention that has been put on the IndyCar Series would accelerate development in safety.

I always had a dream to go to race in the United States myself, I can remember as a young driver sitting in a shared flat in Milton Keynes with my mechanics watching practice for the Indy 500 and being blown away by it all.

Then Nelson Piquet crashed. My enduring memory is of my hero, visor open, mangled feet dangling out of the cockpit, skidding down the racetrack. My dream vanished in that instant.

Here's some video of a day I spent with Tom Cruise. He's the real deal. I was surprised that he picked it up so quickly and is such an accomplished driver. Thought you might like to check it out.

It's a great idea to mix the Nurburgring and Hockenheim each year. Whereas Hockenheim is a bit bland compared to the old t-in-the-forest track, the Nurburgring offers elevation change and some of the corners around the back of the circuit really make the drivers feel at one with the car because they are reasonably testing. In a sense, it's like a slightly less-challenging Silverstone. That said, you've also got the added element of the fickle Eifel mountain climate, where unpredictable local weather patterns can turn a race on its head.

FERRARI RESSURGENCE IS REAL
You have to assume that Red Bull still possesses the highest level of downforce, but we're heading to a less-aero-dependent circuit than Silverstone. My gut feeling is that we might have a genuine battle on our hands following Ferrari's step forward in pace. Fernando Alonso's victory at Silverstone has breathed new life into the championship, and theoretically he can win the title if he shows the same dominance in the second half of the season that Sebastian Vettel displayed in the first. It's extremely unlikely, but perhaps Seb will have a Jenson Button 2009-like end to the season, where he has to hang on towards the end of the year?

I suspect Alonso's win wasn't just down to the diffuser issue, although that certainly affected laptimes, and it shows that the rest of the car is really functioning now. Its upgrades obviously worked well, and now it will have to bring more to make it even quicker. If Ferrari is going to win more races, it will have to do that consistently, and if it has understood the differences it had before between windtunnel and track, then that will help a lot. Red Bull might be far more optimised, and is in the realm of diminishing returns, but Ferrari seems to have hit that development window sweet spot. And who knows how competitive McLaren will be? It appears a little at sea at the moment, but we were on the verge of writing them off pre-season, and it bounced straight back. It might well do the same thing at the Nurburgring ­ it certainly needs to, or risks losing the confidence of the drivers.
 
RED BULL TEAM ORDERS
Red Bull knows that Mark Webber is not shy of speaking his mind, and his apparent disobedience was all good media fodder ­ he gave us something to talk about and run with at Silverstone. I completely understand his plight, as I've been in that situation myself, but with the benefit of hindsight, his championship campaign will not be won and lost with what happened at Silverstone. He had seven races before that to outqualify (which he's done twice) and outrace Sebastian, which he hasn't
yet achieved. Mark has just got to focus on the task in front of him, and not be distracted by anything going on around him.
 
SCHUMACHER IN SPOTLIGHT
Michael has shown flashes of his old racing instinct; nobody can take that away from him. But, a year and half into his comeback plan, we've got used to Michael merely being a safe pair of hands to develop Mercedes's F1 project. And if it delivered a car capable of winning a world championship next year, it would be surprising if it wasn't Nico Rosberg Œdoing a Vettel' rather than Michael.

There have been enough instances now to realise that Michael's old magic ­ in his highest and most pure form ­ just isn't there anymore.There is also a frustration at Mercedes that the design philosophy hasn't paid off, and has left them with compromises in the car's design. I don't think they'll rectify that this year, so it's a case of the team telling the Mercedes board that they know what's wrong and they'll change it for next year. And, as things stand at the moment, that could be Michael's last season in F1.