Invisible Racing For 2010?

"Knock knock"

"Who's there?"

"It's the invisible man."

"Tell him I can't see him."

OK, so it's an old joke, and it never was awfully clever. What do you want on a dull Sunday afternoon?

Bear with me while I try to construct some relevance to F1.

I live in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, often referred to as "the UK". My coverage of F1 is provided by the BBC, and a very good job they do of it, if I can ignore the incoherent gibbering of commentator Jonathon Legard, who tends to sound as if he has never seen a motor race before and has no idea what's happening.

The reason I watch F1 on BBC is that our national broadcaster has a contract with Formula One Administration. The essence of the contract is that in return for a payment of £30M per year FOA provide the BBC with their coverage of FIA F1 World Championship races.

Naturally, because they've got money to burn the BBC send a large team to every event. We get to see highly-paid experts like Martin Brundle and Eddie Jordan stand in the pit lane and voice their opinions, and there are brief interviews with drivers who say very little and team officials who say even less.

The real content of each programme is of course the race, and every shot we see of a car in motion on the track is from an FOA camera pointing where an FOA director instructs, every screaming gear change come via an FOA microphone.

If the group of FOTA rebels do break away, reject the federal authority of the FIA and form their own racing confederacy, will the BBC still be contracted to show us the official F1? Even if the whole thing is such a farce that not even the drivers will care who wins?

I've a horrible feeling that the BBC are indeed stuck with whatever show Max and friends can put on, and will be up to and including the year 2013. The same will apply to other broadcasters who have signed multi-year contracts with FOA.

It would seem likely that Formula not 1 would get some TV coverage, maybe edited highlights at 3am on Eurosport. That just is not the same as settling down in front of the TV around Sunday lunch time to watch a live event, and I will not bother to view a bunch of Mosley-favoured Cosworth-powered nobodies compete in a worthless series for an irrelevant championship.

So, you say, there's a new series next year? And all the top teams will be there? Tell them I can't see it.