I wonder who actually watches Formula 1 so-called motor racing these days? During a pause between doing very little and doing little else, my remote unwittingly directs me to Sky’s F1 channel where the contestants are qualifying for tomorrow’s Saudi Arabian grand prix. I know few of the names of the drivers these days. Lewis Hamilton is still there by the looks of it and Max Verstappen who I am vaguely interested in because he appears to be a pantomime villain and he’s Dutch, but the rest of the names are a mystery. It doesn’t help that Sky’s list of qualifiers only includes three letters of a driver’s surname. So, when I can be arsed to check, I am confronted by Gas, Had, Tsu and Law, which means absolutely nothing to me.
The commentator, whose name escapes me, does his best to make it all sound interesting, as does Martin Brundle who it seems has been relieved, if only temporarily, of his duties wandering up to drivers and celebrities on the grid and asking them inane questions for no obvious reason. But it isn’t interesting.
The time difference means that qualifying takes place in the dead of night, which I find extremely disconcerting. It looks more like a computer game that you are watching and not participating in. Now we are hearing about “the shoot out” which I hope is not a literal thing, but if it is, it won’t be any less boring than what I am watching here.
I suppose I am the last person who should be passing comment on F1 because, apart from a short period of time when Ayrton Senna was alive and racing, I have rarely found it less than mind-numbingly dull. Ayrton was different, like Ballesteros in golf and Gazza in football. Controversial, for sure, but dripping with charisma. With F1, you have to be exceptional to get my interest. This dire qualifying session is anything but exceptional or interesting.
As ever, Sky does this stuff very well and they do it by having a separate F1 channel over three long days on a dedicated channel. It’s all filler, no killer. In the old days, I am not sure the old TV companies even bothered with covering qualifying sessions. The announcement as to who was in pole position would usually be the ‘and finally’ item on the news. On the Sunday, the coverage would begin as the cars lined-up for the start of the race. And you know what? The coverage was still too long and far too boring.
It could be the company I keep, but I don’t hear anyone talking about F1 except to say how crap it is. No one says, “How brilliant were Gas, Had, Tsu and Law qualifying” apart from the real anoraks, F1’s trainspotters. The technical guff we hear makes rugby union a simple game to understand.
I would think that when F1 was on terrestrial TV, there was more interest among your average Joe and Josephine. Once you have got to start searching the channels to learn where the motor racing is on, attention drifts. At least mine does.
Brundle is currently boring for England as he drones on about Red Bull’s engineer and there’s a lingering close-up of a load of blokes in black shorts and T shirts standing round a car, possibly a Mercedes. There is nothing happening so Brundle prattles on about track temperatures and Q3, whatever the fuck that is. I could look it up but I am losing the will to live.
Millions must love it and for the life of me I don’t know why. I’ve given up long before qualifying has finished and we find out who is going to win tomorrow’s actual race, by whom I mean the bloke who is in pole position. If qualifying is bad, just wait until the procession race tomorrow.
