Do I not like that

Apologies, I'm slow on the uptake what can I say. It finally clicked this weekend, I understand what the offer is, what the Formula 1 circus represents these days. Smarter folk worked it out long ago I'm sure but I was hampered by the lingering memory of great drives from the likes of Senna, Piquet, Schumacher et al going further back than I care to remember sometimes. When was the last time you saw a really inspirational piece of driving in formula 1? I mean inspiring driving, not smart tactics in qualifying or clever work in the pitlane where thinking on their feet got their boy out in front despite the performance shortfall but actual driving..

The performance of the car, nowadays referred to as the 'package' because of it's almost mystical dependance on the black arts of tyre compound and aero technology is so finely tuned that there is no longer any area for a creative driver to express their skills - these things are optimised to the nth degree. They look like they corner on rails because they do. It's amazing stuff and weird to actually watch; you stand at the entry to Copse and it seems as if the laws of physics have been suspended. Very impressive but the downside is that between extreme aerodynamics, faultless sequential gearchanges and the rest of it nobody battles on the track - we'll leave that for the pitlane, the drawing board and the lawyers interpretation of the rule book.

What formula 1 reminds me of more than anything else now is the popular PC game Championship Manager. I boggled when I first saw it - a football game that doesn't show football - but the genius behind it's huge success tapped into a resounding truth in football fandom. For those who are unfamiliar with it, when you play championship manager you take on the role of manager of a football team. Well duh. But the telling part is that after you have made your deals, briefed your players and so forth the match takes place on an empty screen - the work has been done, algorithms will take care of the rest.

Football fans hoard a staggering amount of detailed statistical information about their sport, and they all reckon they could manage the national team if in some fantastic moment the job fell into their laps. CM removes the (exciting fabulous, but nevertheless distracting spectacle of the) actual matches and concentrates on the deals and the wrangling that occurs for the rest of the time that isn't those hallowed 90 minutes.

Between Bernie, Oswald's lad, Ron, Jean, Flav and the rest of that parliament of whores they've managed to excise all the sport out of the driving and site it firmly in the paddock. Their perfect employees are clean cut timepiece salesmen always available for an enthusiastic endorsement for whatever fragrance or mortgage product they're shilling for. If only they'd sell us the spectacle of great driving.

This is motorsport today and it's a dam shame, because I love to see drivers fighting it out on the track.*


*unless it's Plato and Neal - they just get on my tits. Pair of cunts.