Not very Grand Prix

Is there anything more exciting that Formula 1? Well, yes, actually: almost everything is more exciting than F1. Crosswords, the BBC’s dismal array of shows about antiques and even watching paint dry – all offer more by way of entertainment than your average Grand Prix. It is the one ‘sport’ I am pleased to see disappearing from terrestrial TV.

Today, Nico Rosberg managed to drive the fastest car faster than everyone else to win the Russian Grand Prix, closely followed by Switzerland’s Lewis Hamilton who was also driving the fastest car, although not quite as fast as Rosberg. In third place was some bloke from, I think, Finland who finished some two hours after the Mercedes cars. (I am not sure if this was the actual time difference but it might as well have been.)

I know this because I briefly tuned into Sky Sports F1, one of Rupert Murdoch’s numerous channels as he continues to build a monopoly of sport. Blissfully, my timing was such that I managed to miss the entire procession (you could hardly call it a race unless your idea of a race is for the two best cars to pull away from the rest of the field at the start of the race and then stay there for the next 200 laps or so. I know, really, that it doesn’t actually last 200 laps: it just feels like it).

Thousands of Russians stood as one to applaud the car, or perhaps it was the driver, or maybe even the bloke who was waving the chequered flag, presumably in relief that the whole dismal thing was over.

It could be that my disinterest in F1 has come about as a result of my increasing age and that younger people are the ones who watch this stuff. And perhaps time really does love a hero and that my thought that F1 was a lot better in the old days is wholly misplaced. I grew up with the likes of Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill and, for a while, I felt man love for Ayrton Senna who had oodles of the one thing Lewis Hamilton does not possess at all: charisma.

I watched for a moment longer and the drivers made their way to an area where they took off their helmets and radio sets. In the room was the utterly charmless F1 supremo Bernie Eccleston and the even more charmless Vladimir Putin, ex KGB thug and Russian president. Rosberg was manoeuvred next to Putin and a bland conversation took place through an interpreter. “How did you find Russia?” “Well, I got off the plane and there it was.” I made that bit up because, quite frankly, I was not interested in what they had to say. Putin stood their with his usual sinister grin which always makes me think that he wants to seriously hurt you. Eccleston, a dictator himself, must have felt quite at home.

I called it a day when Lewis Hamilton was interviewed. It is one of life’s great mysteries how Hamilton ever won the Sports Personality of the Year in 2014 given that he has absolutely no personality and, given his tax dodging status, why he was included in the short list in the first place. Perhaps he should have been a contender for the overseas award? Because people like Hamilton choose to dodge tax is why you and I have to pay more in order to keep the NHS (just about) going.

Doubtless even without my support, F1 will continue to attract petrol heads who just love the sight of watching a ‘sport’ where the result is almost always known before it even starts. In a world where money seems to matter more than it ever did, thank goodness for Leicester City for allowing us to dream and for F1 for getting us off to sleep in the first place.