There’s a proud tradition in all sections of the specialist media of reporting on not news – stories purporting to be news, but which tell no-one anything new. With a quiet weekend ahead, not news has had a particularly prominent role to play on Autosport this week.

There’s the shock news that NASCAR driver Tony Stewart is aiming to win a race that he’s won four times before. Equally surprising is the news that Chris Vermeulen is targeting another MotoGP podium finish, after finishing on the podium at the last two races. Were it not for these important articles, I would have assumed that both men were intending to do really badly.

We have two revelations from the Ferrari camp. Kimi Raikkonen – who has qualified down in sixth for the last two races – says he needs to qualify better to keep his Formula 1 championship chances alive. Meanwhile, Felipe Massa – who retired from the lead of the last race three laps from home – says that Ferrari need to improve reliability to keep him in the championship fight. This sort of deep insight from drivers into how teams operate is simply invaluable.

Elsewhere, we have word from the A1GP technical director that the new Ferrari chassis the series will be using – which has been designed to encourage overtaking – will allow plenty of overtaking. I would have thought that he would be pessimistic about the new car, and tell us to expect really rubbish racing.