F1: Red Bull makes history - perhaps.

Don't imagine for one minute that we don't think that Red Bull deserve anything less than full credit for building exactly the car required for Silverston, nor for choosing two drivers who - had it not been for a first-corner-fumble - would have raced side by side to the end, nor for adopting a strategy that made everyone else look slightly lame by comparison.

And don't imagine that we have missed the fact that Vettel's victory meant the first time - so far as we are aware - that the Austrian national anthem - for Red Bull's owners - has rung out over the British Grand Prix.

And don't imagine that we missed that Button rumbled home at the tail end of the points, beaten all weekend by his team-mate Barrichello who came a close third.

Nor that we missed - as the stewards seemed to - Raikkonen's first corner antics when, KERS in full force, he took all four wheels of the track in order to secure a position he had failed to take on the track.

But the story of the weekend was supposed to be the making of history. Whoever won was supposed to enter the history books as the last winner of a Formula One Grand Prix at the historic Silverstone circuit.

But it isn't.

The break-up of the Formula One establishment as the Formula One Teams Association have told the FIA that they will run their own championship rather than accede to Mosely's dictator-like behaviour. That means that the Formula One rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone, has an emasculated series for next year. And he holds a contract to hold his race at Donnington. Hence the assumption that this was Silverstone's last year.

But the Donnington circuit is in financial disarray. Who will own it by the time next year's race comes around is in serious doubt. And if the company that has contracted to hold the race goes bust, then the contract is void.If so, Ecclestone might abandon the UK race altogether - or move it back to Silverstone - or even agree to let it run at Donnington if the track improvements meet his requirements.

The FOTA teams do not have any contracts to run at any circuits next year. So they might decide that they will run this year's cars, to a similar set of regulations, as Formula One is run this year. And they can decide where to hold their races.And with most F1 teams - including, despite the national anthem that played over the track - being based within a few dozen kilometres of Silverstone, there is close to no doubt that a FOTA run series will feature at least one UK race and that will be at the track they call home, some of them starting life in old hangars in the outlying parts of the grounds.

So Silverstone is not out of the game.

So whether yesterday's fantastic performance - itself historic - actually goes down in the annals of motor-racing history that only time will tell.

Which, when one thinks about it, is how we get history anyway.

But as it turns out there was one piece of history that will definitely be recorded: the circuit was plastered with the logo of Abbey, formerly Abbey National, and its parent company Santander. With the recent announcement that, by early next year, all Santander-owned businesses will carry only the global brand, here's the one historical footnote we can be certain of:

The 2009 British Grand Prix was the last major motor race sponsored by Abbey to be held at Silverstone.