And Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Buemi turns out to be the pass master, the driver who has done the most overtakes.

With a deliberate focus on increased overtaking 2011 was set to be, at the very least, a very interesting experiment aimed at producing a better spectacle for fans.

The overtakes can be split down according to certain criteria. They are classed as follows: Normal/DRS/Slower cars (HRT, Team Lotus or Virgin)/Team-mates (team orders may occur)/Damage/Lap one.

The season has already consisted of almost 1500 maneuvers, however excluding lap one and passes due to damage this number decreases to 1180. This takes out any anomalies such as the first corner incident at Monza.

There have been 804 Normal/DRS moves (441 normal and 363 DRS) which accounts to 55% and 45% respectively. In addition to this there have been 300 moves on slower cars and 76 between team-mates.

On average we have seen 45 overtakes per race (25 normal, 20 DRS) with the most occurring at Turkey (85), Canada (79) and China (67).

If we are to look at the ratio between DRS and normal overtakes during the season then it is no surprise to see that Abu Dhabi (89%), Europe (81%) and India (78%) have the most DRS-assisted passes in relation to normal passes. These tracks each had two DRS zones.

The overall top overtaker during the season (adjusted to account for retirements) is Buemi (112) who is shadowed by Schumacher (111) and Kobayashi (95). However, looking at passes between the start-line and the end of sector-one on the first lap then we have Schumacher (34), Buemi (29) and Kovalainen (28). Unsurprisingly Vettel has the least overtakes in the first sector due to his dominant qualifying pace.

When the race is underway Perez and Buemi have shown very good ability at moving through the field, each with 82 overtakes between the end of lap one and the chequered flag.

It was drizzling and quite greasy when we were out there, but you still get a feel for the flow of the track and the exciting new sequence of corners, starting with the astonishing new Abbey curve.

This video is the first onboard lap showing the new corners at racing speeds, with a live commentary for JA on F1 users by Martin himself.

Early next week you will be able to see a full in-depth track guide with Martin and I talking you through the new corners here on JA on F1.

Enjoy!

The book is the story of the 2009 season told through the eyes of the James Allen on F1 blog, with updates and extra editorial from me.

It has the behind the scenes insights into all the big stories of the year from the F1 breakaway threat and the Renault crash scandal to Ferrari’s swoop for Fernando Alonso. There is plenty of my personal perspective here too; from the colour and drama of the race weekends themselves, to travelling Easyjet to a Grand Prix with Ross Brawn and sitting opposite Max Mosley as he calmly said that “F1 can survive without Ferrari”.

I’ve called it “F1′s revolutionary year” because it was the year when the established order was turned on its head as top teams lost their grip on success and backmarkers came through to beat them. Off track it was the year when the teams united in revolt against the governing body and established a new structure for the F1 of the future.

It’s been a breathtaking year and I think this book sums it up well.

It’s a large format paperback with 250 pages of stories and it features photography by my favourite F1 snapper Darren Heath.

I’m delighted that world champion team owner Ross Brawn has agreed to write the foreword.

I’ve loved blogging this season and building up a large and thriving community of people passionate about F1, who offer intelligent observation in their comments. We will be sending out a free copy to the ten readers who have left the most comments during the course of the season (we already know who those 10 people are, by the way)

It’s a limited print run so, for those of you who have been with me the whole way through the year, I hope you will find this a cool collectable. We will produce one every year and you can build the series.

For those who have only discovered the blog recently, I hope you will want to find out what you missed earlier in the year. It will be a good book to dip into over Christmas.

The book will be priced at £9-99 and should be available in many bookshops and through Amazon from 27 November. We have our own fulfilment here on the site and our distribution partner, CPI, are taking pre-orders. I will personally sign any book ordered through the JA on F1 website.

Just click through the advert on the right side of the homepage to pre-order your copy.

Hope you find it a good read and please be sure to give me your feedback!

Here’s some footage from the same two seater F1 event, which I have edited up to give an idea of what the spectacle will look like on TV next weekend.

The event is set to be the first F1 race to start in daylight and go into the night.

I’ve also got some data on the track, from one of the teams. This gives you a bit of an idea what kind of track it is in terms of fuel consumption and race strategy.

It looks like the fuel consumption will be around 2.59 kg/lap, which is not that high. Although it’s a long lap, the high temperature brings the number down a bit.

The fuel effect is also just above average at 0.32s per 10 Kilos of fuel – in other words every extra 10 kilos you carry will slow you down by 0.32s. The numbers are quite similar to Malaysia but with a slightly lower fuel effect. They also compare to Bahrain, but with a lower engine power effect.

It looks like the pit lane exit will be the decider when teams come to choose their strategies and you will see a lot of action on Friday as drivers try to work out how long it takes to negotiate the pit lane exit tunnel. The end of the pit lane speed limit is before the cars enter of the tunnel, so the drivers will be chancing their arms to find out how fast you can go through there. It will be dusty to start with..

There is no crane in the tunnel, by the way, but there is a trapdoor in the wall through which marshals can quickly recover any crashed cars.

If the loss time from coming into the pits is anything more than about 12 seconds then it looks like this will be a two stop race.

Stefano Domenicali, Robert Kubica and Vijay Mallya

Check out all the new features uploaded this week, which include an in-depth profile of Ferrari’s new boss, Stefano Domenicali, I get to see what’s cooking with Robert Kubica and we test our mathematics skills with the paddock’s top strategists.