Social media in 2013 plays a huge part in our lives thanks to the rise of websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Users consume more information than ever before, and that includes Formula 1 fans. Whilst Formula One Management do not do as much as they should, the personalities involved in the sport more than make up for it. But as always with these things, it depends who you follow – whether you follow those that only regurgitate the ‘PR happy’ lines, or those that go across all aspects of Formula 1 from the fun aspects to the sport to taking viewers behind the scenes and give people the insight they are looking for.

Here, I pick out five accounts that are worth following this season. I’ve picked out one account from each of these categories: Driver, Team, Website, Journalist and Team Member.

For me, in the Drivers category there is one account on the must follow list: Fernando Alonso. On the backdrop of Ferrari’s worst start to a Formula 1 campaign in a long time, Alonso joined Twitter in March 2012. Just over a year later and Alonso has amassed 1.57 million followers, becoming the most followed Formula 1 driver on the site – ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, despite not having tweeted for as long. The good thing about Alonso’s account is that he tweets in both English and Spanish, and also tweets outside of the race weekend, giving fans an insight into his daily life. Just this week, Alonso began preparing a Q&A with his fans, showing the engagement between him and his followers. The Formula 1 drivers that do tweet tend to tweet regularly, only Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen are without a Twitter account.

Over on the Teams side of things, and Lotus are the easy winners here, thanks to their behind the scenes access and regular features on their Twitter page to insight debate. A slight annoyance of mine was their regular use of #ImSexyAndIKnowIt, which was frequent throughout testing – although it probably won’t be long before #ImWinningAndIKnowIt is used. On the opposite end of the spectrum, and Toro Rosso‘s Twitter activity is fairly lousy – their Twitter page just being used to pull links straight from their Facebook page.

Things before a bit more sparce moving onto the personnel, as you would expect not many personnel have time to tweet during the race weekend, and the major team personnel members would probably not tweet anything revealing on their Twitter! One member who breaks the mould though is veteran Williams team manager Dickie Stanford. Stanford began tweeting at the start of the season, posting images in the build-up to the new season and during race weekends. If you are into that kind of thing, Stanford is a must follow for great access. It’s good to see that you can get a good balance between great access and not revealing anything too confidential – the best of both worlds.

Moving onto websites, and a clear winner here is F1 Fanatic.co.uk. Partially thanks to not being behind a pay-wall unlike some other F1 websites, the website has grown considerably in the past eight years and offers a variety of pieces such as historical articles. I am probably a bit biased here having written an article for the site last month, but even so, in my opinion it is an emerging F1 site and will only continue to grow.

Finally, in terms of journalists, BBC’s Andrew Benson is a good follow for reliable F1 news scoops as well as opinion pieces. Who are your five to follow in 2013? Have your say in the comments below.

2012 has come and gone, and this is the last update with the 2012 drivers and teams from the Formula One season. As thus, after this update expect a few names to disappear from the drivers table whilst HRT will disappear from the teams table.

Drivers
01 – 1,404,622 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
02 – 1,293,003 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
03 – 1,291,438 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
04 – 535,248 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 518,232 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 368,158 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 316,819 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 242,686 – Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
09 – 228,719 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
10 – 210,763 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)
11 – 204,992 – Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)
12 – 182,159 – Paul di Resta (Force India)
13 – 165,604 – Narain Karthikeyan (HRT)
14 – 116,800 – Vitaly Petrov (Caterham)
15 – 104,001 – Nico Hulkenberg (Force India)
16 – 102,037 – Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber)
17 – 101,265 – Romain Grosjean (Lotus)
18 – 93,918 – Timo Glock (Marussia)
19 – 58,193 – Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso)
20 – 41,512 – Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso)
21 – 26,172 – Charles Pic (Marussia)

In two milestones, Mark Webber has moved above 500,000 followers whilst in potentially the last check, Heikki Kovalainen has moved above 200,000 followers.

One change I forgot to make in the November end of month update was that Timo Glock should have been behind Romain Grosjean and Kamui Kobayashi, so apologies for that. For December, Kobayashi got in front of Grosjean but is now highly likely to drop out of the table altogether in 2013. Apart from that, the rest of the table is status quo.

Drivers – Increases
01 – 59,149 – Fernando Alonso (n/a)
02 – 47,849 – Lewis Hamilton (n/a)
03 – 33,950 – Jenson Button (n/a)
04 – 18,493 – Sergio Perez (up 2)
05 – 18,351 – Mark Webber (down 1)
06 – 16,343 – Felipe Massa (down 1)
Average driver = 13,278
07 – 13,144 – Pastor Maldonaldo (n/a)
08 – 10,650 – Bruno Senna (up 1)
09 – 8,000 – Narain Karthikeyan (up 6)
10 – 7,273 – Heikki Kovalainen (n/a)
11 – 6,999 – Kamui Kobayashi (up 2)
12 – 6,659 – Nico Rosberg (n/a)
13 – 5,983 – Pedro de la Rosa (down 5)
14 – 4,874 – Romain Grosjean (down 3)
15 – 4,773 – Paul di Resta (down 1)
16 – 3,683 – Daniel Ricciardo (up 2)
17 – 3,104 – Nico Hulkenberg (down 1)
18 – 2,871 – Vitaly Petrov (down 1)
19 – 2,617 – Timo Glock (up 1)
20 – 2,253 – Jean-Eric Vergne (down 1)
21 – 1,819 – Charles Pic (n/a)

The top three above are identical their position in the same table last month. It is worth noting though that the raw values are not directly comparable as December’s table is over five weeks compared with four weeks for November.

Nevertheless, it is unsurprising to see all of the raw numbers down and relatively close together now we are in the off-season. Narain Karthikeyan for whatever reason increased six positions, whilst his team-mate for 2012 dropped five places.

Teams
01 – 402,307 – Ferrari
02 – 278,271 – McLaren
03 – 208,820 – Red Bull
04 – 172,434 – Mercedes
05 – 169,142 – Lotus
06 – 96,637 – Marussia
07 – 96,490 – Caterham
08 – 96,362 – Force India
09 – 95,576 – Sauber
10 – 87,872 – Williams
11 – 72,056 – HRT
12 – 59,964 – Toro Rosso

To milestones above is that Ferrari went above 400,000 and Red Bull went above 200,000. In a reversal of on the track, Marussia moved up above Caterham to finish 2012, albeit by a few hundred followers.

Teams – Increases
01 – 18,235 – Ferrari (n/a)
02 – 10,424 – Red Bull (n/a)
03 – 9,172 – McLaren (n/a)
04 – 8,080 – Lotus (n/a)
05 – 6,727 – Williams (up 7)
Average team = 6,407
06 – 5,871 – Mercedes (down 1)
07 – 4,025 – Marussia (up 1)
08 – 3,960 – Force India (down 1)
09 – 3,558 – Sauber (down 3)
10 – 2,809 – Caterham (up 1)
11 – 2,800 – Toro Rosso (down 1)
12 – 1,227 – HRT (down 3)

Surprisingly, Williams recorded a huge gain here, much higher than in previous months! The next update will be at the end of January with 2013’s teams and drivers.

Driver and Team statistics as of Monday 31st December 2012.

Winter is now in full force, the 2012 Formula One season is over, and it should be a few months of quietness in the Twitter outlook. Which means that this is the last weekly update for a little while until March. The end of month updates, however, will continue so the next time I check the counters will be on New Year’s Eve.

For this update and December’s update the 2012 line-up will be used, but from January, some drivers’ will be getting automatically eliminated and removed from the table in preparation for a new bunch.

Drivers
01 – 1,345,473 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
02 – 1,259,053 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
03 – 1,243,589 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
04 – 524,598 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 499,881 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 349,665 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 303,675 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 226,343 – Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
09 – 222,060 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
10 – 204,780 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)
11 – 197,719 – Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)
12 – 177,386 – Paul di Resta (Force India)
13 – 157,604 – Narain Karthikeyan (HRT)
14 – 113,929 – Vitaly Petrov (Caterham)
15 – 100,897 – Nico Hulkenberg (Force India)
16 – 91,301 – Timo Glock (Marussia)
17 – 96,391 – Romain Grosjean (Lotus)
18 – 95,038 – Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber)
19 – 54,510 – Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso)
20 – 39,259 – Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso)
21 – 24,353 – Charles Pic (Marussia)

In the penultimate check of the year, both Ferrari drivers moved up a position in the table, Fernando Alonso moving into the lead ahead of Jenson Button and Felipe Massa overtaking Nico Rosberg. It shall be interesting to see if Rosberg moves up a lot more in the New Year with Lewis Hamilton as his team-mate. Further down, Romain Grosjean went ahead of Kamui Kobayashi, but it is within the realms of possibility that both of those drivers’ may disappear after the update at the end of December.

Regarding milestones, Nico Hulkenberg went above 100,000 followers, while Pedro de la Rosa moved above 200,000 followers.

Drivers – Increases
01 – 144,705 – Fernando Alonso (n/a)
02 – 69,707 – Lewis Hamilton (n/a)
03 – 44,901 – Jenson Button (n/a)
04 – 28,756 – Mark Webber (up 2)
05 – 28,525 – Felipe Massa (n/a)
06 – 21,694 – Sergio Perez (down 2)
Average driver = 21,454
07 – 12,742 – Pastor Maldonaldo (n/a)
08 – 12,275 – Pedro de la Rosa (up 3)
09 – 12,100 – Bruno Senna (down 1)
10 – 9,453 – Heikki Kovalainen (up 5)
11 – 9,383 – Romain Grosjean (up 2)
12 – 9,130 – Nico Rosberg (down 3)
13 – 7,807 – Kamui Kobayashi (down 3)
14 – 7,083 – Paul di Resta (n/a)
15 – 6,840 – Narain Karthikeyan (down 3)
16 – 6,335 – Nico Hulkenberg (up 1)
17 – 4,388 – Vitaly Petrov (down 1)
18 – 3,788 – Daniel Ricciardo (up 1)
19 – 3,225 – Jean-Eric Vergne (up 1)
20 – 2,946 – Timo Glock (down 2)
21 – 2,410 – Charles Pic (n/a)

The top three above are identical their position in the same table last month. It is worth noting though that the raw values are not directly comparable as November’s table is over four weeks compared with five weeks for October.

Fernando Alonso’s monthly increase is his second highest, having recorded a 153,000 gain back in June. Elsewhere, it is surprising to note that Felipe Massa and Bruno Senna did not go up any positions despite it being their home race, in fact Senna moved down a position.

Teams
01 – 384,072 – Ferrari
02 – 269,099 – McLaren
03 – 198,396 – Red Bull
04 – 166,563 – Mercedes
05 – 161,062 – Lotus
06 – 93,681 – Caterham
07 – 92,612 – Marussia
08 – 92,402 – Force India
09 – 92,018 – Sauber
10 – 81,145 – Williams
11 – 70,829 – HRT
12 – 57,164 – Toro Rosso

No changes above, Caterham down to Sauber are still extremely close. Interestingly, over on their Facebook, some Caterham fans were saying how they would unlike them if they got rid of Heikki Kovalainen. I wonder if we could see a negative increase in the next month or two if that did indeed happen.

Teams – Increases
01 – 22,898 – Ferrari (n/a)
02 – 20,254 – Red Bull (n/a)
03 – 17,064 – McLaren (n/a)
04 – 13,528 – Lotus (up 1)
05 – 6,505 – Mercedes (down 1)
Average team = 9,176
06 – 6,012 – Sauber (n/a)
07 – 5,840 – Force India (n/a)
08 – 5,198 – Marussia (n/a)
09 – 3,986 – HRT (n/a)
10 – 3,066 – Toro Rosso (up 1)
11 – 2,987 – Caterham (down 1)
12 – 2,784 – Williams (n/a)

So no weekly updates from now, the next update will be on New Year’s Eve for this particular series with the December round-up.
Driver and Team statistics as of Monday 26th November 2012.

After a fantastic return to America, this weekend it is Brazil for the final round of the 2012 season. Did America boost Twitter’s standings larger than normal? Let’s find out…

Drivers – The Top 10
01 – 1,278,415 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
02 – 1,245,533 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
03 – 1,224,844 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
04 – 521,308 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 491,540 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 343,673 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 301,045 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 219,425 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 213,621 – Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
10 – 200,594 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)

Drivers – Biggest Increases
01 – 33,244 – Fernando Alonso
02 – 19,348 – Lewis Hamilton
03 – 11,804 – Jenson Button
04 – 10,067 – Mark Webber
05 – 7,906 – Felipe Massa

Drivers – Smallest Increases
01 – 559 – Charles Pic
02 – 756 – Jean-Eric Vergne
03 – 889 – Timo Glock
04 – 1,073 – Vitaly Petrov
05 – 1,094 – Daniel Ricciardo

Some very large rises this week compared to normal in the charts, specifically Pedro de la Rosa jumped over 7,000 followers to break into the 200,000 follower club! By far his largest rise, so congratulations to him.

With Brazil being his home race, expect Felipe Massa to be in front of Nico Rosberg when next week comes around.

Teams – The Top 10
01 – 376,418 – Ferrari
02 – 262,153 – McLaren
03 – 191,543 – Red Bull
04 – 164,664 – Mercedes
05 – 158,005 – Lotus
06 – 92,668 – Caterham
07 – 90,995 – Marussia
08 – 90,595 – Sauber
09 – 90,471 – Force India
10 – 80,439 – Williams

Teams – Biggest Increases
01 – 6,084 – Red Bull
02 – 5,334 – Ferrari
03 – 4,652 – McLaren

Teams – Smallest Increases
01 – 811 – Caterham
02 – 843 – Toro Rosso
03 – 962 – Williams

A lot of milestones broken here. Marussia, Sauber and Force India break the 90,000 follower barrier with Sauber overtaking Force India too. And having won the Constructors’ Championship, I guess it is only fair that Red Bull record the biggest increase in the teams table.

Driver and Team statistics as of Tuesday 20th November 2012.

This weekend Formula 1 returns to North America for the United States Grand Prix to be held in Austin, Texas. But for the moment, here is the weekly Twitter update.

Drivers – The Top 10
01 – 1,245,171 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
02 – 1,233,729 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
03 – 1,205,496 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
04 – 517,940 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 481,473 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 336,550 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 296,732 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 216,984 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 205,715 – Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
10 – 194,531 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)

Drivers – Biggest Increases
01 – 17,104 – Fernando Alonso
02 – 15,706 – Lewis Hamilton
03 – 10,511 – Jenson Button
04 – 4,668 – Mark Webber
05 – 4,463 – Sergio Perez

Drivers – Smallest Increases
01 – 439 – Charles Pic
02 – 498 – Timo Glock
03 – 575 – Jean-Eric Vergne
04 – 728 – Daniel Ricciardo
05 – 965 – Vitaly Petrov

All fairly status quo in the drivers’ table as Alonso, Hamilton and Button continue to pull away from the other drivers’ at a significant rate.

Teams – The Top 10
01 – 371,084 – Ferrari
02 – 257,501 – McLaren
03 – 185,459 – Red Bull
04 – 162,705 – Mercedes
05 – 154,826 – Lotus
06 – 91,857 – Caterham
07 – 89,458 – Marussia
08 – 89,058 – Force India
09 – 88,669 – Sauber
10 – 79,477 – Williams

Teams – Biggest Increases
01 – 3,460 – Ferrari
02 – 3,391 – Red Bull
03 – 2,772 – Lotus

Teams – Smallest Increases
01 – 301 – Williams
02 – 490 – Caterham
03 – 650 – Toro Rosso

Kimi Raikkonen’s win for Lotus at Abu Dhabi keeps them in the top three, whilst Williams record the lowest increase of the week.

Driver and Team statistics as of Monday 12th November 2012.