The best job in the world

Here I am drinking coffee and reading the Saturday paper that tells me Lewis Hamilton is fastest in qualifying for the grand prix.  Nothing unusual in that except I am watching the qualifying for the grand prix – and Hamilton is already out apparently.  Once again I find myself completely baffled by motor racing and its complicated way of doing things.

But one thing is for sure.  The baby-faced BBC presenter and his two mates must have the best jobs in the world.  All they seem to do is travel the globe and talk about something they are passionately interested in.  It would help if the rest of us were remotely interested – but you can tell that the sheer tedium of F1 as a spectator sport hardly matters one iota.

Last week they were in some pile of sand in the gulf – the week before Australia.  And this time it seems to be Malaysia – although it looks for the entire world like the M25 on a damp bank holiday weekend.  Throw in all the first class travel, the glamour that attaches itself to F1 like a leech – and the largely exotic locations and it does seem a good way to make a living.

The only tricky bit is making the spectacle itself interesting.  But that does not seem to matter too much.  Especially as the personable young man’s sidekicks are essentially garrulous and entertaining.  As former grand prix heavyweights they seem to have ready access to anyone and everything too – though this might be good PR at work.  You can’t imagine the BBC being given such access to the permanently furious, gum-chewing world of Alex Ferguson for example.

As I write this, the BBC is actually broadcasting rain live from Malaysia.  And we are talking about a red flag.  Some time soon we’ll be hypothesising if dark clouds mean more rain is on the way.  And I rather suspect it does.  All in all the BBC’s idea of broadcasting tedious practice for a tedious event is looking somewhat tedious.

It’s Sunday morning and once again that  old Fleetwood Mac melody is churning round my brain.  It can only mean that the BBC has been bombarding me with adverts for the start of another Grand Prix season.  This time, apparently, it will not be a procession of motorised billboards going round in circles – it will be a race.  And the bloke in front will be the guy who is actually leading rather than the one who has the wrong fuel strategy or tyres.

As a closet Formula One fan I suppose I find the idea that they might actually be racing again quite intriguing.  I am not sure when or how Formula One lost its way.  Probably when Michael Schumacher, by far the best driver was shoehorned into by far the best car.  Add on the fact that the fastest car also starts from the front of the grid – and you have the perfect recipe for dull predictability.  I mean would Usain Bolt seem anything like as awesome if he won by yards having been given a clear head start?

So from today the cars apparently go out and race.  If they come into the pits its because something is wrong and needs putting right.  No longer will we have commentators getting hysterical about a group of blokes changing a wheel or filling up with petrol  We know from our own visits to Tesco that popping into the garage is rarely exciting.  Racing should surely be confined to the race track.

So here we go again.  I have to say that from my cynical viewpoint the signs are not good.  The formula one circus is kicking off in some sterile desert in the middle east rather than in front of a crowd of fans.  I think it ends just down the sand track in Abu Dhabi too.  Maybe it is just me – but these new tracks (that presumably are unsued for 51 weeks of the year) look rather too much like computer games and rather too little like sporting theatre.

Still – let’s give them all a chance.  The papers have been hard at it trying to hype up some excitement – ignoring last year’s evidence that the only thing that matters is the car.  So even though the German bogeyman is back – he probably won’t do very much unless his car is at least as good, or more likely significantly better, than the other, younger guys.  But stranger things have happened – just ask Jenson Button.