Not the Formula One News

There have been all sorts of F1 stories in the news recently, here is a summary:

1. FOTA split with the FIA.
2. FOTA kissed and made up with the FIA; both parties swore undying love.
   
3. FOTA said they had won and gone back to the FIA on their terms, which included Max Mosley shutting up and going away.
   
4. Max Mosley got annoyed at FOTA claiming their victory was a win, or that their win was a victory, and thus he was no longer sure about shutting up and going away.
5. Bernie Ecclestone said some kind things about the late Herr Hitler. He also said that Max Mosley could run Britain better than anyone else.
6. I said my dog could run Britain better than the current prime minister. Or Max Mosley.
7. Bernie Ecclestone retracted the kind things he said about the late Herr Hitler, but made no mention of my dog.
   
8. FOTA and the FIA had a technical meeting that was abandoned when fighting broke out.

This is such an exciting sport, quite incomparable.

Every time I see Max on TV I can't help wondering if he has a plaster on his butt due to the exertions of Madam Whiplash. Bernie always makes me think that while elderly poor people get dementia, elderly rich people merely become more eccentric.

Strange to say, though, the news cycle is about to be interrupted by a racing event, what F1 enthusiasts call a Grand Prix. The world has turned many times since we last saw such a thing, it was at the Silverstone circuit in England.

Silverstone was jam-packed with race fans for three days, as it always is for the British Grand Prix. In fact, the event is such a success at Silverstone it is being moved to another circuit, there's just the small matter of building the facilities at Donnington Park.

The fans don't want the move, the teams don't want the move, the drivers don't want the move. One man wants the move, an elderly eccentric who has the only opinion that seems to count for anything.

There is nothing so uncommon as common sense, and it does not exist in F1.

Still, there's an F1 race on Sunday, and better than that, qualifying the day before. Which is Saturday, to save you looking at a calendar. Because the qualifying period tends to be infinitely more entertaining than the race, and is likely to show which will be the three drivers grinning on the podium, it is probably more deserving of time in your TV schedule.

On race day, the driver who was fastest in qualifying (his name will be Jenson or Sebastian) will first lead the field in a parade lap. When the race is started, that driver will then the field for the first lap, the second lap, the third lap, and so on until the race finishes about two hours later.

Alternatively, you could spend your Sunday afternoon on holocaust studies, or on watching paint dry.

Now look, I would love to have written about how F1 is so competitive that anybody could win on Sunday. I would have been pleased to tell you that the sport is at least as exciting as MotoGP, and that the drivers are devil-may-care heroes who will risk everything to pull off a sensational overtake.

But that's not the F1 news.