Sam Bird at Sakhir Circuit, Bahrain. Credit: Bridgestone

Onlineability, the Hertfordshire-based communications agency that powers the highly-regarded Brits on Pole motorsport site, will be working in 2010 to keep Sam’s website updated as he takes to tracks around Europe as part of the prestigious GP2 series. Visit the website here.

Sam’s early career saw him race in a number of well-regarded junior open-wheel series including Formula Renault UK and British F3 International with top team Carlin, as well as qualifying on the front row for the Macau Grand Prix, Formula Three’s all-star race.

In 2008-09 he graduated to Formula 3 Euro Series as well as testing with the Williams F1 team. He is now driving for reigning GP2 Series champions ART Grand Prix alongside Jules Bianchi, recently signed to Ferrari’s driver development programme.

One of a clutch of young Brits driving in GP2 after a spell during which little home-grown talent featured in the series, he is currently a bright prospect to follow drivers like Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton, Timo Glock and Nico Hulkenberg into Formula One.

The GP2 series was set up in 2005 to provide an affordable training ground for talented young drivers wanting to make a career in Formula One. So far four of its five champions and numerous runners-up have made the step up.

The series races at all the European grands prix giving its drivers a chance to show off their abilities in front of the sport’s movers and shakers on classic tracks such as Monaco, Silverstone, the Nurburgring and Spa-Francorchamps.

Onlineability director Andy Darley said: “After two years of writing about motorsport and the careers of British drivers at BritsOnPole.com, it’s a trememdous thrill to be able to announce this partnership with Sam Bird.

“Talent is only half the battle for young drivers. To be able to market themselves to fans and potential sponsors is crucial, and this is where having an engaging and up-to-date website comes in.

“Sam already has one of the best-looking websites on the grid. Our aim, now we are responsible for its maintenance, is to ensure it’s similiarly on pole position for quality of content, speed of updating and ease of use.”

• For more information about how we can help you make the most of your web presence, contact us.

Brits on Pole reports mostly on the fortunes of British drivers competing in open-wheel racing around the globe. When we heard the YRC story we knew it was one we wanted to cover even though the team races touring cars and is therefore a little off our usual beat.

We were impressed by the story of team principal Hannah James, who decided just over a year ago to try funding a racing team through fan power. This means that, rather than relying on the fickle marketing budget of a large company, she sought many small contributions from fans instead.

Read Brits on Pole’s full interview with Hannah here, and our YRC news story here.

Hannah also runs sponsorship plans for small and medium-to-larger businesses that include a concrete return on their investment with services like networking and hospitality.

As a result the team was able to field an entry in the 2009 Ginetta G50 Cup, a support race to the ever-popular British Touring Car Championship (BTCC). Driver Fulvio Mussi came fourth overall. In 2010 Fulvio and YRC will be tackling Renault’s Clio Cup, again as a support race for the BTCC.

Onlineability director Lisa Hutchins said: “Having interviewed Hannah, and been impressed with her creativity and professionalism, we realised that YRC would be the ideal way for Brits on Pole and Onlineability to take their first steps in motorsport sponsorship.

“We believe this is an incredibly worthwhile thing to do because of the importance of performance engineering to the British economy and because innovations developed for the racetrack so often mean your road car is both safer and greener.

“Hannah makes it easy for small businesses like ours and, as supporters of YRC’s Rockingham round to be held at the Northamptonshire racetrack on April 24-25, we’re very much looking forward to going along, meeting the team and enjoying the racing.”

YRC's Fulvio Mussi is interviewed by motorsports broadcaster Louise Goodman

Hannah said of the partnership: “Brits on Pole is another media portal that epitomises the very passion that drives (excuse the pun) people in motorsport. In an age where there are infinite motorsport resources to draw on to find out who’s doing what with whom, it’s incredibly refreshing to come across a site dedicated to the exploits of British racers and teams across the globe.

“It’s no surprise to discover that behind BritsonPole is a very accomplished web outfit. It’s no good just having a news portal, you’ve got to get people to it, keep it current and write stories that people want to read.

“So what is it that sets Brits on Pole apart from the others? These people actually write stories! They join an esteemed group which includes Crash.net and BTCCCrazy in this respect. They don’t regurgitate stylized press releases, opting instead to talk directly to the subject and find a unique angle.

“It’s for this and many other reasons that we’re proud to carry the branding of Brits on Pole and their mothership, Onlineability this season. They have embraced our story, reported it brilliantly and joined our Deals on Racing Wheels scheme.” Read her full take on the tie-in here.

• For more information on YourRacingCar.com and the packages available for individuals and companies, visit its website here.

• Click here for more information on this year’s BTCC schedule. To buy tickets to any round, and catch YRC in action, visit the website of the circuit hosting it – all accessible from the above page.

Two of the biggest, McLaren and Ferrari, held old-style press launches with accredited media assembling at a venue – the former at a sponsor’s headquarters in the UK, the latter in its base in Italy. The whole thing was streamed live over the internet for fans to see which was progress of a sort. But, frankly, it did remind us a bit of those newspapers that, in the earliest days of the web, scanned in their pages and made them available wholesale as giant images.

A third, new entrant Virgin F1, tried and failed to hold what it called a digital launch to celebrate its digital car. That meant designed entirely by computer rather than employing the more traditional (and expensive) method of using a wind tunnel. But a technical hitch meant no pictures appeared on the computer screens of expectant fans, journalists or (doubtless) competitors.

Which brings us to Williams F1. The Oxfordshire-based team is F1 aristocracy in that it has won numerous championships and enjoyed the services of drivers such as Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and Alain Prost. But in the past few years it has been gravely disadvantaged financially – the price of retaining its independent status in the face of a manufacturer-dominated sport.

Williams chose to unveil its new car through what looks very much like a viral marketing campaign featuring a “spy video” promoted on YouTube. On our motor racing site Brits on Pole we’ve taken a look at the nuts and bolts of the campaign and tried to assess how well it worked. Read the article below:

F1: Did Williams’ “viral car launch” pay off or backfire?

Has the Williams F1 team just staged the first-ever viral launch of an F1 car? And, perhaps more importantly, did it work?

The team, famous for concentrating its resources squarely in engineering and finding innovative solutions to fill in the areas around the edges, was one of several that opted to avoid a high-profile car launch this year, after plans for a joint event between the teams fell through.

Some teams opted to launch their cars online – including an unsuccessful event by Virgin F1 that was scuppered by technical problems – and some simply opted to turn up for the first or second scheduled test.

McLaren and Ferrari staged conventional press launches but added a new twist by making the proceedings available for fans to watch live via streaming video. Other teams, including Sauber and Renault, chose to unveil their machines during the first test session of the year at Valencia.

The top line from Williams was that it too would be taking that approach. But then a piece appeared in Autosport directly after the car’s pre-test shakedown at Silverstone on Thursday January 28 entitled “Exclusive: First image of new Williams.” Read the rest of the article here…

Already operating the highly successful open-wheel racing site Brits on Pole and the cricketing blog The Nurdler, our latest project aims to try to capture the wider experience of being a sports fan rather than concentrating solely on an individual discipline.

“It’s not the despair, Laura. I can stand the despair. It’s the hope” – These iconic words, spoken in the 1986 film Clockwise by hapless headmaster Brian Stimpson (played by John Cleese) to a pupil as his life disintegrates, sum up perfectly what it means to be a sports fan.

It’s the hope we can’t stand is a relatively new project that is still finding its feet. This blog is about the experience of getting swept up in the drama of the latest big tournament until you can talk about nothing else, or of taking an insane punt on a little-known outsider at silly odds.

It’s about the little spark of hope you can never quite extinguish – even when you know from endless experience that it’s all about to go horribly wrong. Again. No matter what your sport, you know that feeling, which is why we hope we can tempt you to join us and read along as we build this site into one as strong as Brits on Pole and The Nurdler.

Comments, suggestions and feedback are all welcome.

Founder Gabrielle Riel explained on the station’s blog: “I strongly believe that making Radio Riel a Non-Profit gives us our best chance to ‘make it in the real world’. Internet Radio is such a wild frontier. There are a few very successful commercial Internet Radio stations, such as Radio Paradise, SOMA FM and others.

“They have made businesses work on a model that bases their budget on listener donations, donations that are NOT tax deductible for the listeners. I want to give our listeners (albeit it will only be the American listeners) the ability to deduct the donations they give us from their taxes. And to do that, we need to be a Non-Profit.”

You can read her full post on the station blog here. Needless to say, we wish Gabi and crew all the very best in the next stage of their endeavour and will continue to be proud supporters of Radio Riel.

The Brits on Pole All-Star League compares the performances of 43 British drivers in 12 different championships world-wide by factoring in length of season, strength of opposition and finishing position.

This year’s standings included drivers from all around the UK, from fresh-faced rookies to grizzled veterans – of whom, all but five broke their All-Star duck by recording a point-scoring top-eight race finish.

The top positions were decided a few weeks ago with Scot Dario Franchitti’s victorious IndyCar season for Target Chip Ganassi Racing providing the highest-scoring 2009 performance.

F1 World Champion Jenson Button’s safety-first approach to the second half of the F1 season meant he kept a tight grip on the world championship for his Brawn GP team – but only scored enough top-eight finishes for the All-Star League runner-up spot.

A surprise third came in the form of 20-year-old Adam Christodoulou, the victor in this year’s Star Mazda junior formula in the US as well as a BRDC young driver finalist for the second year.

Christodoulou’s storming season put him ahead of outgoing F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton who nevertheless, with the much-improved second half to his year with McLaren, came fourth after a very rapid climb through the standings.

The final order was hanging on Superleague Formula’s Craig Dolby, in action last weekend in his final races of the season in the Tottenham Hotspur car, and in with a mathematical chance of grabbing fourth off Hamilton.

Craig put in a storming drive to post the best two-race performance of any Superleague driver that weekend – but he fell just short of the double podium he needed to overhaul the 2008 Formula One world champion.

Rounding out the top 10 were Alexander Sims, Richard Kent, Max Chilton, Oliver Turvey and Sam Bird. At the other end of the table Greg Mansell competed 16 times without a top eight finish and so propped up the standings.

Of the other US-based Britons, Star Mazda’s Kent took seventh place, IndyCar rivals Justin Wilson and Dan Wheldon were 13th and 14th, the Atlantic Championship’s James Winslow was 17th and IRL driver Mike Conway was 19th. The best finisher from Indy Lights was Martin Plowman in 20th.

* You can view the All-Star League here. For more information contact Brits on Pole at admin@britsonpole.com

NOTES TO EDITORS

Brits on Pole is a news site covering British drivers in all major forms of open-wheel motor racing worldwide. We’re here to remember the legends and cheer on the Brits in F1, GP2, A1GP, IndyCar and many more series. Brits on Pole is powered by Onlineability and you can visit it here or on Twitter.

Comparing drivers in different series is difficult for a number of reasons – factors such as length of season, strength of opposition and how many points to award all had to be taken into account. Here’s what we did:

• Championships: We decided to include as many open-wheel, international championships as possible, so long as they were broadly summer-based, and pitted driver against driver. This excluded A1GP, since it was a winter team series.
• Points: These had to be equalised, as different series have different policies. One points system produces much the same outcome as any other over a full season, so we chose to apply the F1 system of 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 for top-eight finishes then nothing for 9th place and below.
• Season length: Season lengths vary wildly. And this means that some drivers have many more opportunities to pile up points than others. To address this we used a 17-race season as a base, since this is what both F1 and the IRL ran in 2009, and worked out a coefficient by which to multiply the points in other series so that, across a full season, everyone had the opportunity to earn the same number of points if they won every race.
• Competition: We grouped the series into three bands: the two senior championships of F1 and the IRL, the feeder series of GP2, Indy Lights, F2 and the Atlantics, and the development series. Senior points counted full, feeder series points counted at two-thirds value, and development championships counted half.
• Tiebreaks: We used the number of races competed in, working on the basis that it is a sign of a stronger performance to take fewer races than a rival to reach the same points score. Conversely, the more races run without scoring a point the worse the overall performance. Where this also results in a tie, we use dthe strength of the series in which the driver was competing.

We’re delighted to announce the launch of the new Onlineability website. As we’ve grown, and started to tackle bigger projects, it’s become clear that we need to make sure our own web presence is working hard for us.

As well as giving clear, straightforward information on our services and pricing, you can learn more about us, see some examples of our previous work and find out what our clients say about us.

You can keep up with us through social media like the microblogging site Twitter and the link-sharing service Delicious. And you can learn about some causes we support and our genuine links with the town of Hitchin.

We’ve designed the new site around the WordPress content management system, which we think is the best way to run the majority of websites. One of its great advantages is keeping the content and design completely separate, and we’ve recreated our popular red-and-white design as a WordPress theme.

So, if you’re thinking of commissioning an Onlineability website you can be sure that we use exactly the same web tools for our business as the ones we’ll deploy for you.

We hope that it’s easy to use and has all the information that prospective clients will need – and we’d love to hear your feedback. So drop us a line – using these contact details – and let us know what you think.

Following our recent project to create a new website for Cornish conservation centre The Screech Owl Sanctuary we are now working on a report into how the third sector is using the web to communicate its message.

We would like to hear from any organisations interested in working with us. We will analyse your web and social media presence, using only information that is already publicly available, and provide you with a report listing what works well and what could work better.

We will then use the findings in our report, which we intend to make freely available to all interested parties on our website, as a resource for voluntary organisations. They will be anonymised – for instance, we might refer to “an east London social care group” or “a Hampshire wildlife charity” rather than giving specific names or locations.

If this sounds interesting, and you’d like to take advantage of it to boost your organisation’s web presence, drop us a line with a contact name and email address (for returning the finished audit) and your website address. Details of any social media networks such as Twitter or Facebook would also be helpful.

Onlineability directors Andy Darley and Lisa Hutchins responded to a fundraising appeal in the Screech Owl Sanctuary’s regular newsletter by offering to give its website a complete makeover at no charge.

The job required a site that was attractively-designed, informative for visitors and painless for busy staff to use and update – as well as making sure the sanctuary appeared high on any visitor’s potential list of places to visit in Cornwall.

The redesigned site is now live and the company is working to help staff make the most of it and consider future directions for expansion. Visit it here.

Onlineability director Andy Darley said: “We have followed the work of the Screech Owl Sanctuary closely for years now, sponsoring an owl and visiting whenever we are in range. We’ve got some great memories of time spent there, especially taking part in its falconry experience, and we definitely recommend a visit.

“When we got the newsletter containing the fundraising appeal we were very keen to help, and offering our professional skills simply seemed the most effective way to do it.

“We hope we have set them up with a site that works well for staff and visitors – but which, crucially, can also grow to meet their future needs. We look forward to working with the sanctuary in the future to continue to make sure the site does a really good job for them.”

Screech Owl Sanctuary deputy manager Sarah Clement added: “We would like to thank Andy and Lisa for an absolutely fantastic new website. The work they have done is incredible and their service was second to none.

“They have been very patient and understanding with us when we’ve had difficulties understanding web jargon and always explained things thoroughly. They’ve been just on the end of phone, answered any queries we’ve had along the way and been full of helpful advice and tips.”

For more information: Onlineability can be contacted by telephone on 01462 437503, by email or on the web.

The Screech Owl Sanctuary can be contacted by telephone on 01726 860182, by email or on the web.

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The Screech Owl Sanctuary, located near Indian Queens in mid-Cornwall, is home to a large collection of owl species from around the world and offers visitors of all ages an excellent opportunity to learn about owl conservation.
2. It offers a wide range of experiences including guided tours with qualified staff, close encounters with the hand-tame owls under staff supervision, falconry displays with owls and birds of prey, owl husbandry and falconry courses and rescue work with sick and injured owls.
3. The Screech Owl Sanctuary is also involved with internationally-important projects to safeguard rare species. These include its Siberian Eagle Owl breeding programme and a pioneering cataract operation to save one bird’s sight. More information here.
4. Onlineability is the Hitchin-based web and copywriting agency run by Andy Darley and Lisa Hutchins. We love the power and beauty of good, simple, uncomplicated writing and web design – and we want to share it. We’re passionate about using the internet to communicate our clients’ messages and we are experts at making each word hit its target, whether it’s part of a snappy headline, a friendly newsletter or a long and detailed report that needs to hold its readers’ interest to the end.
5. Andy and Lisa are regular visitors to the sanctuary and sponsor a Western Screech Owl named Montana – Monty for short.

ENDS

The tournament, which is the regular Test meeting between England and Australia, dates back to 1882 and is one of the world’s most fiercely-contested sporting rivalries.

During this year’s event, Onlineability’s cricket blog The Nurdler has provided a case-study in the effective use of social media, building a Twitter following of more than 200 at its peak, and initiating dozens of conversations with fellow fans. (The blog is named after a cautious batting technique deployed primarily in Test cricket.)

This built an audience for the blog itself, which offers a daily dose of cricketing news and humour, and helped position it as an opinion-leader in a forum that includes a good many professional and ex-professional cricketers, England team members, commentators and professional sports journalists.

Lisa said: “One time when Twitter really comes into its own is during sporting events of this kind, where fans can use it to share information, express their feelings and share the suspense of their team’s ups and downs.

“We feel privileged to have gained so many readers for The Nurdler during that time and to have shared such an exciting tournament with them.

“It shows how, far from being an elitist or minority sport, passion for Test cricket is alive and well – and the game is becoming more accessible than ever.”

The series was the first home Ashes since England won a closely-fought contest in 2005 – our first victory for 18 years – and the team celebrated with an open-top bus parade through London’s Trafalgar Square, a visit to 10 Downing Street and a strong showing in that year’s New Year’s Honours list.

But things rapidly came down to earth in 2007 when England travelled to Australia in order to be comprehensively thrashed 5-0. Thus the 2009 tournament was viewed with some trepidation – but also with the knowledge that many stalwarts of the Australian side were no longer playing and the visiting team was – whisper it – beatable.

Pitch conditions, the poor summer weather and vulnerabilities in England’s batting and bowling meant the team’s prospects of winning were a very long way from being a foregone conclusion. In fact, many fans did not dare to hope for a win until late in the fifth and final match, after Australia had set a particularly poor first-innings total with the bat.