F1 Drivers Interrogate the Press SINGAPORE - Formula One has arrived in Singapore for its only night race of the year, and that means the whole paddock is kind of out-of-step. Most of the Formula One drivers, team personnel and reporters are living on European time as just about all the track action takes place on European time, although it's six hours later in Singapore - that is in the dark. The result of this strange time lag is that there is something of a mood change amongst the denizens of F1. This has led to some interesting times in the press meetings with the drivers and team staff - especially all the meetings on Thursday, before the series got down to its first practice sessions on Friday. At just about every little press scrum, sources turned the table on the journalists and asked for the latest gossip and paddock rumors. Was it because they thought the media knew more than they did, or were they just looking to be entertained by the latest wild media speculation? A little of both, it turned out. And, it also turned out, this was occasionally something of a humbling experience: to learn just how the drivers and other insiders view the media. For instance, one of the big issues of the moment is who will be racing with which team next year: which drivers will be transferred from one team to another. Although most such decisions have already been announced, there are a few key moves yet to be made or decided. Will Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton both stay at McLaren Mercedes next year, or will Hamilton move over to the Mercedes or Ferrari team? Will Button go elsewhere? Will Felipe Massa stay at Ferrari? Will Michael Schumacher remain in the series at all? Will his teammate, Nico Rosberg, leave Ferrari? And what about Sergio Perez of the Sauber team? Will he go to Ferrari or McLaren ... or what? "I love reading everything," said Button at one of the media scrums. I read the papers, because we all do - even if you say you don't - and the Websites. I don't know how much truth is there in any of it - not saying you guys don't write the truth," he said. "Funny thing there are no quotes from any of the people involved," he added. It's amazing how you write so many stories with no quotes from the people who are actually involved saying yes or no. That was pretty poignant stuff to toss out to a group of 25 or so of the world's top racing journalists. It got me to thinking. But it was not the end of the barrage. Over at Mercedes, Rosberg had his own little observation to make. Not long after Mercedes director Norbert Haug had also been asking for the latest news, Rosberg was asked by a journalist if he was likely to be replaced at Mercedes by Hamilton, rather than Schumacher being replaced. "That's not a very useful question but I'll answer it," he said. I did a long-term contract last year with Mercedes, you know. I am very happy where I am. Very proud to be driving the Silver Arrow and looking forward to many more wins. Then when the journalists had finished asking him for news, he said, "What's the latest gossip? Jenson replacing Michael at Mercedes? Perez, for his part, also observed how the rumor mill churned: "There are so many rumors around," he said. Before it was Ferrari, and now it's McLaren. Always, when I have a good race, they put me in a different team. But here I really began thinking about the other side to the story. The journalists may often develop and repeat or - at the bottom of the food chain - fabricate rumors. That's bad journalism and there's no excuse for it. At the same time, nature abhors a vacuum. And that is exactly what the drivers and team personnel create when they refuse to tell the truth and give nothing but pat answers that give nothing away, because they have to conform to contracts or official announcement schedules. Or they fear derailing negotiations. Having said all that, I would like to guide the readers to take a look at some of my previews for this race. In fact, speaking of Button, I did a Q&A with the 2009 champion, in which he speaks his mind - or at least appeared to.... And for the lead story in the 4-page report I looked at how Formula One is being used as a laboratory for the "connected car" of the future. Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop writes about the parties surrounding the race this weekend, where everyone just drops the rumors and relaxes. There are several other stories as well, but I might just withhold that information until tomorrow... Although you can check them out on the main sports page.