Duncan, who hails from West Ewell in Surrey, got a last-minute call-up to the football-themed series in which he has raced several times before. He was asked to take charge of its Japan-branded car and to jump into the cockpit at the Assen circuit in the Netherlands without even having the benefit of a full practice session – the ability to do this is an essential skill for drivers these days.

This led him to qualify close to the back of the grid, however he was able to get the car up to seventh in the first race and then, starting race two in seventh on new tyres, to reach the top step of the podium.

It was a well-deserved victory for Duncan, who has had a wide-ranging career in open-wheel racing, taking in Formula Renault UK, World Series by Renault, Indy Lights and Superleague Formula, as well as being a finalist in the prestigious McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver award.

You can read the full story of the weekend on Duncan’s website here.

And it’s not only Duncan – Onlineability client Sam Bird is also at the top of his championship, the prestigious GP2 formula, where he shares the lead with the highly-rated Romain Grosjean after six races.

Sam is holding is own among a group of five or six drivers with a real prospect of winning the title, and he also took part in the Formula One young driver test with Mercedes during the off-season.

With 12 more races taking place on six more race weekends between now and the final event, to be held at Italy’s Monza circuit in September, we’re on the edge of our seats!

Find out more about Sam on his website here, or learn about GP2 here.

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…

This year the site, which follows the fates of British drivers in all forms of open-wheel racing including Formula One and its feeder series GP2, the World Cup of Motorsport (A1GP) and the American IRL series, has been experimenting with lap-by-lap updates during grands prix – a process known as live blogging.

This has won it plenty of new readers and has greatly expanded the range of coverage that it has to offer. And, as a result of the increased interest, these posts will now be on offer as a free ebook at the season’s end.

Onlineability director Lisa Hutchins said: “Brits on Pole has been a great opportunity for us to try out all kinds of tools such as contextual advertising, optimisation techniques and traffic-building strategies – as well as being enormous fun to do.

“We hope that, while offering readers an entertaining and well-written motorsport blog that we enjoy working on, we can also develop and hone our skills in a key area of our business.”

* The Brits on Pole ebook will be issued at the conclusion of this year’s Formula One season after the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos on November 2. If you want to receive it, drop us a line via our contact form.