Longing for FOTA finish after this drab event

Triumph: Sebastian Vettel celebrates winning at Silverstone
13 April 2012

In jollier times, what a glorious day it would have been for Max Mosley. With a German standing imperiously atop the podium and Deutschland Uber Alles floating across the Northants countryside, he could have looked up tearily and whispered, "Not a bad present, eh, Dad? Happy Father's Day!"

Alas for the son of Oswald, these are such miserable times that even the thought of posthumous paternal approval can't have raised his spirits. Formula One is in such dire crisis that events on the track were entirely overshadowed by the internecine storm clouds gathering above a sun-kissed Silverstone.

Jackie Stewart and others may describe Max as "a dictator". But fondly as he might dream of being motor sport's Supreme Leader, he has no religious police to shoot the dissidents and no way of preventing the media reporting the threat of the eight renegade teams (FOTA to themselves; "the loonies" to Max) to burst free from the budget-imposing tyranny of Bernie Ecclestone and his own FIA.

The battle is regarded by those who claim to understand this endlessly perplexing sport as a game of ultra-high-stakes poker in which each side seek to bluff the other into folding a strong hand.

It's a decent metaphor because the best definition of Texas Hold Em is "hours of boredom followed by 30 seconds of terrifying excitement" - a perfect description also for Grand Prix racing, as yesterday's stultifying procession behind Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel illustrated.

For us non-aficionados, F1's appeal relies entirely on patriotic instinct. If one of our boys is in contention, it's great. If not, it's torment and yesterday British interest died after 0.42 seconds.

Championship leader Jenson Button had admitted he had little chance of winning again after qualifying in lowly sixth but you still hoped he'd somehow contrive a challenge in his Brawn.

When the red lights went out, however, Jenson left the grid after the fashion of the 92-year-old cloth cap wearer, pipe in mouth, reacting to a green traffic light at the wheel of his 1973 Austin Princess. Immediately he was down to ninth - and that was that.

If it was soon clear that the two Red Bulls had it sewn up, the uselessness of the Mosley-Ecclestone axis was almost as quickly apparent.

All the technical changes, which have marooned McLaren and Ferrari in unwonted mediocrity, were designed to increase overtaking. They have done no such thing and F1 is more stately and predicable than ever.

That one brief burst of terrifying excitement came when Sebastian Bourdais drove into the back of Heikki Kovalainen and his Torro Rosso semi-disintegrated.

But where once such a smash would have required an air ambulance, or a fire engine at least, F1 cars are depressingly safe now. If and when FOTA do launch their rival championship, they must find a way to reintroduce the risk of serious injury and death.

As the race dribbled towards its conclusion, Lewis Hamilton (remember him? nice young guy, lives in Switzerland) took a detour over a field just to garner a few seconds of airtime and Jenson found some speed to climb back up to sixth place, earning the three points that may be crucial should Red Bull's threat to Brawn intensify.

But this mini-surge did nothing to salvage a British Grand Prix buried before it began beneath the avalanche of feuding that makes F1 so much more entertaining off the track than on it.

If FOTA can change that, we must wish them the best of British something we didn't see, sad to say, at Silverstone yesterday.

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