The year that Jacques Villeneuve’s F1 career ground to an ignomious halt (though there’s always that singing career, eh Jacques?), Juan Pablo Montoya went to NASCAR, Fernando Alonso’s second F1 championship seemed to be little more than a sideshow to the Michael Schumacher show, and Lewis Hamilton beat Nelson Piquet Jr (who, to paraphrase Giorgio Pantano, had finally learnt how to drive a GP2 car) to the GP2 title.

Of the 22 drivers who started the 2006 F1 championship, four were out of a drive by Brazil. JV was a foregone conclusion, Montoya perhaps also given the situation at McLaren. The only mystery surrounding Yuji Ide’s departure was how he’d managed to get a superlicence in the first place while the luckless Christian Klien succumbed to Red Bull politicking. Klien at least gets a lifeline in a Honda test drive.

GP2 I’ve discussed before so won’t so again. 2006/07 A1GP, while looking a bit shaky, is at least throwing up some interesting race results sans the 2005/06 French steamroller. If they would only rethink the format of the increasingly irrelevant sprint race…

On the travel front, the year went by quickly in a whirl of Autosport International, F1 testing, the British Grand Prix, Goodwood Festival of Speed, Hockenheim, more F1 testing, A1GP at Zandvoort and the Race of Champions.

It’s hard to pick out the highlights because it was all so much fun, but the things that stick in my mind (apart from the appalling toilets at Hockenheim) are: watching Adam Carroll get a well-deserved GP2 pole at Silverstone, followed by Lewis Hamilton’s superb race wins, and getting both of them to autograph my flag; nearly being run over by a very cool Mika Hakkinen at Goodwood; nearly being trampled in the stampede to get to Nico Rosberg; nosying round the Spyker garage during F1 testing; the whole of RoC. Despite sunburn, injuries, a distinct lack of sleep, and those toilets, I’ve met some amazing fellow racing fans, seen some fantastic racing, and had a hell of a lot of fun.

2007 kicks off in two weeks with Autosport International. Can’t wait. Happy New Year!