Confession time: I caved in today. Taken in by all the media hype about the final race in this year’s F1 calendar, I sat myself down and defied the definition of insanity by doing the same thing and expecting different results. Although Lando Norris led the title race, there was the distinct possibility that he could yet be defeated by my favourite driver and Dick Dastardly villain Max Verstappen if – and I am no expert on the exact minutiae – his car failed to finish and something something Verstappen came in first. Well, I thought: that could be exciting. I’ve got nothing else to do. Maybe I’ll be among the first people ever to see an exciting F1 race. How wrong could I be?
I watched none of Sky’s build-up, which usually involves Martin Brundle trudging around the grid asking dreary, generic questions of dreary, generic celebrities, followed by the formation lap which I never quite understand because the cars are already in formation when the formation lap begins. This, I was assured by Sky’s cheerleading F1 commentator, Dave ‘Crofty’ Croft that this would be different. But obviously, it wasn’t.
When the race finally got going it was no different to every other F1 procession I had ever watched, usually in small part. Verstappen started on pole position and stayed in it for the rest of the race, except for when he had to have new tyres. But it was even worse than that. The top six on the grid all finished in the top six. The only change was that Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri swapped places from second to third and vice versa.
At the start, Crofty sounded close to orgasm as the drivers entered the first bend, but then he sounded that way as the drivers went into the pits to change their tyres. But watching it was hell. It was a drab, albeit high speed, procession, with all the excitement of a game of chess. My mind drifted away throughout the ‘race’ and my eyes glazed over at the lack of excitement. My brain flickered back into life as the ‘chequered flag’ was waved by someone who was allegedly famous, leaving Britain’s Lando Norris as World Champion. And that was it.
There are few more stupid sports than motor racing. I won’t go into the reasons yet again, but you must have noticed. It’s uniformly dull to the extent that the regular tyre changes offer the only chance of changes to the running order. Today, it took 1.9 seconds for the average four tyre changes. Lucky for the drivers that they don’t rely on Kwikfit for their new tyres as I did last week. My car was in with them all day for the same thing.
Why did I watch it? Because I was conned. I fell for the bollocks Sky Sports come up with before every race, I was convinced, right up until the race started that this would be a new dawn. Was it fuck. Thank God it’s all over for another year. I just hope I learn my lesson. Whatever happens, it’s going to be boring. It always is.
