Gallery: F1 pictures of the year

Christmas mornings in childhood homes of Top Gear's Sunday Afternoon Club were usually spent looking through that year's Autocourse annual and, frankly not much else unless there was some Scalextric in the stocking.

Yup, that's how hardcore we were/are. 

Autocourse is, of course, the grand prix annual and has been published since 1951, although the highly collectable yearbooks didn't become a fixture until 1959. This year's is out now, with its usual race-by-race season report, photographic portfolios, enough stats to take you through ‘til Boxing Day and its often controversial Top Ten Drivers (although we bet they're not as controversial this year as our own which we'll publish next week).

If you fancy a copy, it's is available directly from the publishers at autocourse.com and the exact price of £42.46 includes free UK postage and a year's access to the annual's covetable digital archive.

In the meantime enjoy this selection of images from the album, snapped by Peter J Fox of peterjfox.com...

Rookie Jean-Eric Vergne represents a new generation of driver; handsome, cool (you can tell that by details like this hipster bracelet) and not quite fast enough.

Caught in a perfect storm of a maybe-not-as-fast-as-we-first thought team-mate and fresh anxiety over driving standards, 2012 was Kamui ‘Kobay-crashi's' last season.

"Yes, yes, yes, I'm doing all that". The moment of the year? F1's very own Keith Richards, Kimi Raikkonen reminded us all that the definition of proper cool is simply not caring what people think.

Every-time it rained in 2012- every time - we hoped and prayed we'd catch a glimpse of the ‘Old Michael'. We didn't, he mostly just fell of the track.

Scariest moment. Alonso's Spa crash aside, was the fire in Spain that engulfed the Williams' garage moments after it's magnificent comeback win.

Alonso on Vettel, Vettel on Alonso, Monza. - the overtaking moves of this year and last, and proof that in 2012 at least, these two were a class apart from the rest.

Jenson has what he wants for Christmas; the ‘best team in the world' all to himself. Mind you after this season, he might want to mull on getting what you wish for.

Was your driver of the year Vettel or Alonso? He's another thought, it was actually Lewis Hamilton. We think he'll win races in 2013. More than McLaren.

Romain Grosjean? ‘First lap nutcase' or the breakthrough driver of 2012? On his day, he was faster than Kimi. Don't forget that.

Three championships on the trot, and already one hand on a trophy that reads ‘Legend', but it's going to take a special winter indeed from Mr Newey for the run to continue.