NINE-RACE SPECIAL FOR ALL FANS

Father’s Day being mired in socks and ties and vulgar underpants, we tend to ignore it on this site, but here's one de luxe treat being offered as a Father’s Day present that should have much wider appeal.

Upmarket travel firm Page & Moy has created a dream package for the dad who is a motor racing fanatic – covering nine top races in the F1 calender – for £9,000.

The circuits include the British, Belgian, Italian and Brazilian Grand Prix, plus two new meetings in Valencia and Singapore.

“Once you have seen a Grand Prix event for real you will never be satisfied with watching an F1 race on the television again,” says David Wilkinson, product manager for motor racing holidays at Page & Moy. “As the cars rush past you can feel the adrenaline coursing through your veins. It’s an amazing feeling.”

The travel firm has been offering motor sports holidays for over 45 years. In 2008, the company will feature packages to 11 Grand Prix: Spanish, Monaco, British, German, Hungarian, Belgian, Italian, Chinese, Brazilian,Valencia and Singapore.

The Father’s Day special takes in flights, hotel and circuit transfers, a choice of accommodation spanning two to five star, entry to all the circuits and the services of a tour guide.  

At top, bends at Monza, left, the hairpin at Monaco.

If money is no object and the dad extra special, then by upping the ante to £17k he will get access to the much coveted VIP areas at all the circuits on his trips, with membership to the exclusive Paddock Club.  Or for those with a smaller budget if no less special dad, then there’s a weekend break at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in July costing just £408, while a seven-night, four-star break to the new Singapore Grand Prix with full paddock club access will cost £4,839.

By no means restricted to the Father’s Day market or to fathers, go to the Page & Moy website at www.pageandmoy.com/motorracing for full details on their motor sports holidays.

LUXURY LAUNCH AT GENEVA

LAUNCHED at the Geneva Car Show earlier this year, the Infiniti FX50 is a fusion of sports model and SUV, with a host of top features included as standard equipment. This luxury car has a newly developed 5.0-liter V8, 7-speed automatic transmission, DVD based navigation system, around view monitor and BoseÒ audio system. There’s 390 horsepower under the bonnet, an advance rear active steer system and an Intelligent four-wheel drive system.  For the full list of impressive specifications go to www.infiniti.com   A ball park figure of around £55K has been mentioned as a price guide.

MAKING A RED FERRARI GREEN

How to make that red Ferrari green? By joining a car club. That’s the message from Nick Bailey of P1, a supercar club that offers luxury cars, who maintains that by six people sharing the Ferrari over a year it helps keep another five such cars off the road.

"There are six P1 cars for every P1 member, so instead of six people owning six supercars that do a highly-inefficient, and a sometimes reluctant 2,000 miles a year - which is typical of a privately-owned Ferrari or Lamborghini - we're helping keep five cars of their type off the road," said Bailey.

“Most supercars are used only very occasionally for obvious practical reasons - sometimes only one weekend day a month - but the key issue is that sometimes the majority of their journeys are to simply keep their batteries charged. Cold engine, short run - that means high emissions, whereas the vast majority of journeys our supercars do are longer distance with warmer engines meaning mile-for-mile much lower emissions.”

Taking into consideration the cost to the environment of actually producing a car, and the rented red Ferrari does indeed seem green. There’s a £2,500 joining fee and then an annual fee of either £12,500 or £14,500, which will buy between 50 and 70 days driving of some of the world's most desirable cars, including Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Mercedes-Benz as well as Ferraris. Go to www.p1international.com