The Observer

This is my final Observer column. In fact, it could well be the last thing I ever write for Autosport.

On Monday, I begin my new job. Or perhaps that should be my old job. You see, I'm returning to my former role as editor of 'the magazine that gave its name to the sport'. Yes, the green one: Motor Sport.

So I've been thinking long and hard about what I should write about in my final column. For a while, I wondered whether I should swap my usual, sensible, diplomatic head for the one that I wear after I've had a few beers - and vent some spleen! But that's not my style.

The chequered flag © LAT

So instead I thought you might like to read about an insider's view of Autosport and the wonderful challenge it presents. But first, here's an outsider's view. Let me explain...

You see, the parent company, in its wisdom, decided to put me on 'gardening leave' for the past two months. How very Formula One.

Please understand, I'm not complaining. Plenty of quality time with the family, exorcising all the stresses and frustrations of office life, has been an unexpected tonic. But for the first time in 11 years I have found myself cut off from the day-to-day routine of motor racing magazine life - and although I've missed this, it's given me an interesting perspective on the working world of Autosport.

Martin Brundle once told me he sometimes checks out autosport.com up to half a dozen times a day to scour the latest news. I can see why. Even at this relatively quiet time of the year, I log on at least a couple of times a day. It's the best, most reliable place to find out what's happening - and it's a pleasing experience to sample the site 'from the other side'.

Then on Thursday my copy of the magazine drops through the letter box and I make some time between the school runs and whatever else I've got to do to sit down and read it. Just like I used to.

Again, I've enjoyed the novelty and it has confirmed my thoughts that formed the basis of how I approached the role of editor-in-chief. The key point is, there is plenty of room for the website and the magazine to co-exist. They complement each other very well.

When I was given the job of running Autosport just over two years ago, a key point of my brief was to bring the two formats together, to make Autosport a united force online and in print. On the whole, I've had some success in this area - but only some. I won't go into the reasons why I haven't been able to do more, because that would upset a few people (and I'd like to leave on good terms with most of them!), but I can console myself that Autosport is not the only publication to grapple with the problems, as well as the opportunities, of new media. Not by a long shot.

Every major magazine, no matter what the subject, has faced the question of what to do online. And so have newspapers all over the globe. Surely, breaking all your stories on websites dilutes the power of the printed form. It's going to be out of date before it hits the shelves.

Well, yes, there is an element of that, which is unavoidable. But there's no turning back now. In a matter of a few short years the Internet has become central to our lives, and that's great for so many reasons. But what it means is change. The printed media is going through a process of evolution, of learning how to remain relevant within the world of information overload and 24-hour TV news channels.

Autosport's Damien Smith and autosport.com's Johnny Noble © LAT

That process is well under way at Autosport - and I guess that is what I'm most proud of from my time in charge. The magazine can no longer expect to break big stories every week because the competition online around the world has grown tremendously. But it can be the best at telling its readers why and how developments have taken place, giving the story behind the headlines. And that's what it does very well.

But there is still so much more to be done. The two formats could complement each other more than they do, and I'm frustrated that progress hasn't developed faster. Still, I'm sure it will get there in time.

When I sit back and think about, I find it incredible how much the world has changed in the decade I've been working as a professional journalist.

I grew up with Autosport in the 1980s and early 1990s, and vividly remember the brisk walks to the newsagent on Thursday mornings to buy my dad's reserved copy of the mag. On the way back I'd try to resist the urge to read as I walked and wait until I got home to savour the buzz of opening the issue. But I'd usually have flicked through Pit & Paddock long before getting home.

In those days you really didn't know who'd won the major races around the world, other than the Grands Prix. Everything in Autosport was new on a Thursday. It was the only source.

When I got my longed-for break into the magazine in 1996, that was still pretty much the case. As a wet-behind-the-ears editorial assistant I was dropped head-first into office life - and I just had to get on with it. Sitting at somebody else's desk (I didn't get my own for six months), I was given a list of contact numbers and told to get on the phone. There was no email, no internet to browse. I just had that list of TVR Tuscan, National Saloon Car and club championship contacts to go on. I'd ring them up and ask if they had any news. When they said no, I'd say 'ok, I'll phone you again next week'. And I did.

I was a disaster with the computers. We used the Quark Express publishing tool at that time, which had just been introduced (I just missed out on the days of scalpels and cut-and-paste). Quark was pretty easy to use - when you knew how. But at university I'd hand-written all my essays like most of my friends, and when I'd had to type up from longhand a 5,000-word essay on Middle-English dream poetry for my finals it had taken me three days. Great memory, that one.

But within a few short years at Autosport email had become an essential tool for my job, and we ran an early AOL website that I had some responsibility for. Unfortunately. The code needed to upload anything was terrifying. One backslash instead of a forwardslash meant nothing happened - as I found out on many occasions. The horror. The horror.

But a few years later I found myself as the editor of autosport.com. We were ahead of the game in those days and even though it was still relatively primitive, I could see how things were going. Making money out of websites remains a problem to this day, but there was no stopping progress.

Gilles Villeneuve reading Autosport © LAT

Now, life at Autosport is dramatically different to how it was when I started 11 short years ago. In some ways the technology has made it so much easier.

The days of photographers sending rolls of film by Red Star to the office on Sunday nights, then sending off those rolls for processing in time for Monday morning (if we were lucky), before finally pictures being scanned and sent off to the colour house and printers are thankfully long gone.

But the technology has also made other things more complicated. Now Autosport has to work harder to be the best.

One of the nicest things about the Internet is the improved relationship and understanding of our readers. Communication has never been easier and thanks to chat rooms and forums, readers now have somewhere to go to meet like-minded people. When I was growing up I didn't know anyone who shared my passion for racing. My friends considered my obsession with vague bemusement.

There's no excuse for that now. Feedback and judgment on our work is almost instantaneous, and that's got to be good. Although, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, that has its downside too!

There are those who enjoy knocking Autosport, even on our own forum. It's not as good as it used to be, they say. We revert to base 'tabloid' tactics too often, they accuse. Unsurprisingly, I don't agree with these people, and some of the barbed comments are hard to take - particularly those that descend into abuse.

I wonder whether some of these people don't actually like modern motor racing. Perhaps they miss racing as it used to be and thus find Autosport, which has to change with the sport, dissatisfying. All the magazine is doing is reflecting its times.

I must admit, so many times I have wished that we didn't have to create garish covers that give the hard sell. They didn't have to do that in the 1980s, and it didn't seem to matter if you put a single image of an F3 car on the cover.

But the growth of F1 has outpaced the rest of the sport, and it has taken racing away form the ranks of the minorities. Now Autosport courts a wider audience, part of which is interested in F1 and little else. Inside, I believe Autosport still represents the interests of every area of the sport, and if you believe it only covers F1 and has scant regard for anything else, you clearly haven't actually read it recently. But it does have to walk a thin line between the die-hards and the casual readers. Not easy.

There is no denying there is more emphasis on F1 than there used to be - because that's what the majority want. When we chose to put anything other than an F1 car on the cover - as Autosport quite rightly did with Andy Priaulx last week - sales generally drop. That's frustrating and sad for everyone who works at the magazine.

But this is a business. They have to sell as many magazines as possible. That's a reality of life.

Damien Smith interviews Jacques Villeneuve for Autosport © LAT

Perhaps you might argue Autosport should abandon any notion of being populist, to cater solely for the enthusiast. I would argue that it does that most of the time anyway, certainly beyond the cover. Even casual readers have to know something about the sport to take anything from it. But to make it inaccessible to newcomers would be pointless and stupid. As I said, it's a thin line.

But overall, I think Autosport offers more today than it has ever done. If nothing else, it certainly offers more words across both print and online editions.

So I wish Autosport, magazine and website, the very best for the future. Racing fans are lucky to have it, and I will continue to enjoy Autosport as I have always done.

My personal highlights? Travelling to so many wonderful places, meeting so many great racing people and working with a group of like-minded people, some of whom will be friends for life.

And my personal lowlights? There aren't many, but dealing with the FIA springs to mind. Say no more.

So, final paragraph. Bira, thanks for giving me the opportunity to write my own column. And to those of you who have read it, thanks for sticking with me. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.