I can remember a time when you had to tear me away from the telly when a Grand Prix was on. Nowadays, not so much. It's not just that the cars all look the same except for their paint jobs, it's the fact that they are racing on tracks that are for the most part, soul-less heaps of mediocrity...
The re-working of Hockenheim (which was pretty dire to begin with) and Spa (which was perfect just the way it was thank you very much) should have resulted in someone being shot...twice..."new" Silverstone has so many switchbacks and convulted twisty bits that it has lost all of it's former character and it STILL doesn't hold a candle to Brands Hatch (which thankfully didn't 'win' the right to hold the British G.P. and therefore was not Tilke'd to death)...
The locations are a joke too, the Grand Prix of India....really?? Who is kidding whom? Dubai, Abu Dhabi, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, you know, all of those classic tracks that the greats from history drove on like, um,...you know...that foreign guy...and the other famous geezer with the mustache...and that Scots git, you know...the really fast one..
Bernie Ecclestone has single-handedly ripped the soul out of what used to be my greatest passion and sold it off, piece-by-piece to the highest bidder...and I despise him for it...
When I lived on the left-coast of America I would get up at O-dark-thirty in the morning to watch the European GPs live, even though I was recording them as well, my wife thought I was mental, now I can barely be bothered to remember when the damned races are on, never mind recording them Why take up space on the DVR that could be devoted to the Premier League anyway? The only reason I caught the Brazilian GP this weekend at all was as a filler before the Man City vee Liverpool footy match began, and even that was only in the vain hope that they would give lots of ogling coverage of the Brazilian grid girls...
In contrast I still pull an all-nighter every year for Ley Van Catre 'Ers of Lee Mons, and was bitterly disappointed that I couldn't have an endurance fest this year for either the 12 hours of Sebring or Petit Lee Mons due to the crappiest television broadcast deal in motorsports save the WRC's..(where the flock is that carried now anyway?)...
F-1 has long ago lost it's mystique and glamour, the drivers are for the most-part micro-managed spokesmodels, there isn't a rogue amongst them...can you imagine Keke Rosberg in modern F-1?..and they all toe the company line...no dissent allowed...
It is still the one sport in the world that works at the absolute pinnacle of automotive technology, and that, coupled with ear-splitting noise and breath-taking speed should make it essential viewing, yet somehow they have done the impossible and made it boring...
Someone wake me up when next season starts please....Or not...
No comments:
Post a Comment