The DRS was present, but I didn’t feel like it ruined the race too much. But what was vitally different was that the race began in the wet. So, is it a case of rain making racing more exciting once again? No, because the best action came towards the end of the race, when the circuit was at its driest.

Instead, the British Grand Prix provided further evidence that the tyre rules are ruining F1. Because all the drivers started on intermediate tyres, no-one was forced to use both dry compounds. As such, all of the drivers were on a level playing field at all times during the race. They were all using the tyres they genuinely thought was the best at the time, rather than being deliberately hobbled.

No-one had silly advantages of several seconds per lap, as we saw in China. The result was tense, close and hugely exciting racing.

If Pirelli are going to persist in developing deliberately dodgy tyres, surely it is time to scrap the rule that forces drivers to use the worst compound. It is clear that you don’t need this ridiculous rule in order to create great racing. Moreover, the rule very probably inhibits truly exciting racing.

But I wasn’t feeling it quite as much as many others were. I thought the Chinese Grand Prix was okay. But the reaction of others left me perplexed. All kinds of platitudes were bandied about. “The best dry race in decades!” “The best since Japan 2005!” Really? I wasn’t feeling that at all.

But I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was leaving me cold about F1 in 2011. There have been a lot of changes for this season, which has led to a very different style of racing. But what was it about the new F1 that was leaving me less thrilled than others?

It took me some time to work it out. But once I hit on it, the worse it seemed — and it has left me feeling a bit pessimistic about the prospects for truly good racing in 2011.

A pain in DRS?

A lot of attention has been focused on the brand new drag reduction system. Results of the DRS have been patchy.

At some races — particularly Australia — the DRS has been just enough to allow a driver behind to catch up. At the opposite extreme, in Turkey it was obvious that the DRS zone was far too long, and drivers were making easy passes that were not pleasing to watch.

The core problem is that it gives one driver and advantage over another — a significant deviation from the purity of racing. Comparisons to turbo boosts in the 1980s are no good. It may be a button that drivers can press, but there the similarity ends.

Back then, all of the options were open to everyone. You could choose to have a turbo or not, and you could use it whenever you wanted. But to say who can use a device and when they can use it is not on.

To artificially give the trailing driver a speed advantage is taking us into Mario Kart territory. As a friend said to me, “It’s like they have allowed cheating”. It is fundamentally wrong and does not belong in any event that calls itself a sport.

I love the idea of moveable rear wings, but the implementation is all wrong. I don’t even understand why it can only be used in one part of the circuit. As Niki Lauda said, why is it the FIA’s job to say where drivers can pass each other?

Moreover, the hit and miss nature of the DRS zone is leading to different sorts of results in different races. The zones change size, and sometimes the FIA have got it wrong. They have even changed the position of the DRS activation point during a race weekend. What other word is there for this apart from ‘manipulation‘?

This may be a device designed to “fix” the “problems” with overtaking. Instead, we have come one step away from fixing the results.

F1 has sold its rubber soul

But I am more concerned about the situation with the new Pirelli tyres. While the DRS is widely criticised, people have been much kinder about the tyre situation. Indeed, one of the more popular refrains this year has been “thank you Pirelli”. But I am in no mood to thank them.

They are designed to degrade artificially quickly. This is a significant deviation from the concept of F1. Formula 1 is now no longer about the best drivers in the best cars. It’s about the best drivers in the best cars — with the worst tyres.

While technical regulations have always restricted cars (it is the “formula” in Formula 1, after all), the tradition has always been to maximise the performance to create the fastest car possible that adheres to the formula of the day. That is what brings us radical ideas like the double diffuser and the F-duct, that many F1 fans love to talk about.

With the tyres, Pirelli have deliberately made them perform badly. Come on, this is supposed to be elite motorsport.

Moreover, these dodgy tyres have now become the central issue of a grand prix weekend. I have long bemoaned the dominance of tyres in F1. If a car has better aerodynamics, you can see it. If an engine is faster, you can hear it. But the tyres? They are just black boxes that sit in the four corners.

But there is no getting away from it — tyres are hugely important to the performance of a car. What I don’t understand is why you would want to accentuate that.

Critics of F1 often complain that the drivers of the best cars always win. What these people misunderstand is that F1 is all about engineering excellence, just as much as it is about great driving.

But now we have now reached a stage where the deciding factor is neither the driver nor the car. It is now all about strategy — driven by deliberately dodgy tyres — above all else.

They are now so important that the situation is now threatening to make qualifying a complete non-event. After all those years spent tweaking the format of qualifying in the name of “the show”, you have to laugh when further changes totally break a format they finally got right.

The reason? Because you need as many fresh sets of tyres as possible to last the whole race. This means less track action on Saturday, as teams are fearful of using too many sets of tyres. What is this, Formula 1 bean counting, or Formula 1 motor racing?

Divergent strategies reduce real racing

In addition to spearing Saturday action, it is my view that the tyres situation is making Sundays less exciting too.

Take the experience of Mark Webber. He climbed from 18th on the grid to finish 3rd in China. You’d think if anyone would be excited about the wheel-to-wheel action in 2011, it would be him. Not so much.

After the race he told the BBC, “Sometimes the overtaking moves aren’t that genuine because the guys really have nothing to fight back with. It’s more tactical now, and a bit less racing.” During the BBC’s broadcast from Turkey, Martin Brundle revealed that Webber had told him privately that he got no satisfaction out of the progress through the field in China. James Allen further hinted at Webber’s distinct unhappiness at the situation.

Following Turkey, Jenson Button lay the blame for his poor result squarely on his strategy. Asked about what happens when his tyres go off, Button said, “You’re not racing any more. You’re trying your best to get the best out of the car, but you’re not racing anyone around you because you are a sitting duck… They just come past you and you can’t do anything.”

Overtaking has looked like it’s too easy this year, and it is not just because of DRS. The situation with the tyres means that drivers are dealing with such radically different levels of grip that the slower driver does not even bother to defend any more.

Many celebrated Lewis Hamilton’s pass on Sebastian Vettel for the lead of the Chinese Grand Prix. But for me, it killed the race as soon as it happened. I was hoping for Vettel to be able to defend, but he simply couldn’t. As it was, the pass was inevitable for laps in advance.

In the laps between Hamilton’s pitstop and his pass on Vettel, the McLaren driver was an average of 0.9s a lap faster than the Red Bull. (At one point he set a lap time 1.6 seconds up on Vettel.) To put this into perspective, during Q1 in China, a 0.9s gap to the fastest driver would have earned 18th on the grid.

Is it really exciting to watch a car that’s got an advantage of around one second a lap breeze on by? Not for me. This isn’t overtaking — it’s merely passing. It’s hardly Dijon 1979, is it? Today René Arnoux would flip his flap, press his boost button and head off into the distance on his superior tyres — race over.

The performance differences are huge, and it is all down to decisions that are made by computers far in advance. It is out of the driver’s hands. What is this, the Excel Grand Prix of Spreadsheet?

It is right that strategy plays a part in a race. But this year the balance has been tipped way over the edge, to the point where the driver’s influence on the outcome of the race has been severely diminished. You almost may as well hold the grand prix on a computer where all of the strategies have been put in.

To open up strategy options for this season without resorting to crap tyres that create crap pseudo-racing, they could simply have ditched the rule whereby drivers are forced to run on both compounds. This would have opened up the possibilities of running a 0, 1 or 2 stop strategy.

Instead, we are now seeing record-breaking levels of pitstops — upwards of 80 pitstops a race — for no good reason. This has taken away the emphasis from the on-track action, and has made huge amounts of the “racing” totally irrelevant.

It wasn’t broke, so why “fix” it?

The most disturbing thing about all the changes this season is the fact that there was very little wrong with Formula 1 in the first place. I didn’t complain that Formula 1 is dull. And while there was room for improvement, I have long bemoned the gimmicky thinking that has come about through efforts to “improve the show”. Now it is in danger of jumping the shark.

I love Formula 1 motor racing. I have done since the mid-1990s. There were lots of other people who claimed they also loved F1 — but at the same time complained about “processional races”. They said that F1 was too dull. Yet, for some reason, they still watched it anyway, and demanded changes. Huh?

I feel like the sport I love has been hijacked.

I also believe that the criticisms of the new format have been misunderstood by some insiders. It is not “too much overtaking” or “too much of a good thing”.

James Allen said, “it’s a bit like going into a sweet shop and eating half the stock, when you’ve only been used to getting a packet of Polos at best.” That’s not how I feel. It’s actually more like going into a nice restaurant expecting a good meal and being served a Big Mac instead.

Time to end the fixation with “the show”

Don’t get me wrong. I am still deriving satisfaction from Formula 1 this season. But the wheel-to-wheel action has become a lot more insipid this year, and bland passing has become so prevalent that overtaking has become devalued.

Kers is great for Formula 1. But the tyres situation, combined with DRS, is threatening to spoil the party. It wasn’t broke, but they fixed it anyway. But in “fixing” the racing, we have come just one step away from fixed races. The positioning of the DRS zone, determined by an FIA mandarin, could potentially make the difference between who wins and who loses.

Somewhere along the line, F1 has become so fixated on “the show” that it has forgotten about the race. There are now too many gimmicks and complications that deviate from the core concept that has served motorsport well for over a century: put a bunch of cars on a track and discover which is the fastest.

Of course, motorsport must always seek to entertain the audience. It wouldn’t exist otherwise. But you also need to remember why fans of motorsport tune in. Clue: it’s because they want to see a motor race. There are plenty of other places where you can be entertained by contrived or fictitious means.

But sport is supposed to be based on merit. It needs to be real.

When Renault’s James Allison said “We are an entertainment business,” it showed how wrong this whole approach is. We are dangerously striding towards WWE territory. If James Allison wants to work in an entertainment business, he can go to work in Hollywood. I want to watch a race.

The toxic focus on “the show” needs to stop.

This is a show:

This is a race:

Now, let’s go racing.

I recently received this print as a gift. It is a poster advertising the 5th Monaco Grand Prix, held in 1933. Doesn’t it look great?

A great deal has changed in the past 78 years. But this is unmistakably Monaco — the exit of the famous tunnel, with the harbour to the left and the hills to the right. It’s a great design that sums up Grand Prix motor racing beautifully, whether it’s 1933 or 2011.

Meanwhile, a fan-made set of posters for each of the grands prix of 2011 has taken the internet by storm. PJ Tierney’s Formula 1 2011 poster series is a brilliant exhibition of great design.

PJ Tierney set himself the challenge of producing a poster a day. The idea is to use Formula 1-based imagery to form the flag of each country hosting a grand prix in 2011.

It is a simple but brilliant concept, beautifully executed. The poster for the Japanese Grand Prix particularly impressed me. It is clean, bold and clever. This poster would look great on the wall, so it’s just as well you can buy them.

The use of the DIN typeface also links these posters in neatly with official Formula 1 branding. These are so good that they really ought to be the official posters. Bernie should get this guy on his books!

Compare it with the actual official posters, which are bland and utterly devoid of character. The example here is for the 2008 Chinese Grand Prix. (If you really want to, you can buy this poster for the knock-down price of 45p.) Mind you, it’s quite apt.

A near identical poster was produced for each grand prix of that season, and was used as promotional imagery on the website and elsewhere.

Deeply dull, these official posters are a brilliant example of how to turn the marvel of grand prix motor racing into something sanitised and watered-down.

The “midfield battle” for sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship looks like being one of the tastiest of the year. Force India have shown themselves to be one of three strong contenders for this “best of the rest” position.

Each of the five teams above this sixth place battle have won at least one Championship in the previous five seasons. So the sixth place finisher can genuinely be proud of their achievement.

Although Williams have disappointingly — but quite comprehensively — dropped out of this battle (at least for the time being), each of Sauber, Toro Rosso and Force India have plenty of cause to be optimistic for the year ahead.

Sauber

Sauber’s success is as a result of a tasty mixture of a decent chassis, combined with two punchy drivers and a willingness to take strategic risks.

Who can fail to have been impressed by Sergio Pérez? In Australia he outsmarted everyone by managing to make the Pirelli tyres last much longer than everyone else. With a brave one stop strategy, Pérez took a hugely commendable seventh place. Never mind that the Saubers were disqualified due to a technical infringement. Pérez had put himself well and truly on the map.

His scrappy Chinese Grand Prix, in which he earned two drive-through penalties, demonstrated that he still has plenty to learn. I wouldn’t say he’s a star of the future in the Vettel mould. But as a Kobayashi-style midfield wunderkind, Pérez surely has a promising future ahead of him.

Meanwhile, Kamui Kobayashi has been his usual feisty self. He collects a handful of points at a time while wowing the crowds with his audacious overtaking moves.

With James Key in place at Sauber, the team has come a long way since the darkness of winter 2009-2010. And you can only see that situation improving over time.

Toro Rosso

Toro Rosso have perplexed many by opting to retain its two drivers Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari. Particularly when you consider that the talented Daniel Ricciardo is waiting in the wings, it is odd to offer Buemi a third season.

Neither Buemi nor Alguersuari have been particularly impressive so far. Retaining them goes against the supposed concept of Toro Rosso has a driver development team, the final link in the Red Bull Junior Team sausage factory before being rubber-stamped to drive a bona fide Adrian Newey machine.

However, it has to be said they have done a commendable job so far this season. Toro Rosso clearly have a car with promise, with its radical sidepods paying dividends. When you consider that Toro Rosso weren’t even designing their own chassis a few years ago, this is pretty impressive.

A strong qualifying in China underlined the potential of the car, even if they didn’t quite have the race pace to keep grasp of the top ten positions. I thought Toro Rosso would run out of steam. In fact, if anything, they are getting stronger.

Force India

But I thought Force India would be even further behind. I thought they were a spent force. They started the 2010 season in a strong position, but after losing technical staff throughout the season they slipped further and further down the grid. I struggled to see where an upswing would come from.

Well, wherever it has come from, it is there for sure. OK, so their points finishes in Australia were inherited as a result of Sauber’s disqualifications. And the Chinese Grand Prix failed to yield any points.

But what is striking about Force India’s first three races is the sheer consistency of their performances. A ninth place finish, two 10ths and two 11ths bode well. They look like being strong contenders to grab a few points in every race.

Most impressively of all, their faith in Paul di Resta has been generously rewarded. While I poo-pooed the idea of a DTM driver coming into F1, there is no denying that di Resta has done the business.

The greatest thing is that di Resta has achieved this with great maturity and consistency. He is certainly showing the relatively plain Adrian Sutil — now entering his fifth year in F1 — just how it is done.

Exciting battle in prospect

It is too early to say if Force India can continue to challenge for sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship. To my eyes, it seems as though Sauber have the upper hand here, although Force India can well expect to beat Toro Rosso.

What Force India can certainly take heart from is the fact that they definitely have not dropped out of the midfield. They are not being caught by, for instance, Lotus.

That is certainly a lot more than can be said for Williams, the team that narrowly beat Force India to sixth last year. That Force India have managed to avoid Williams’s fate is evidence enough that they are still a force to be reckoned with.

Last week when I saw that a German website had written about this, I prepared a simple but telling graph looking at the form of Williams over the years. But I refrained from publishing it in case my conclusions were overly harsh.

But today the team’s technical director Sam Michael has come out and said for himself that the recent performance of Williams is not good enough.

What I would not be happy with doing would be not changing anything – even myself. Even if everyone said everything is perfect, I know it is not. So, I am not happy with the job that we have done as a group. I would review that anyway – including myself. I don’t exclude myself from any of that.

I, as technical director, have chosen the technical team that works for me… They are all people that I have chosen to put in those positions, so if it doesn’t work then it is my responsibility.

This is refreshing honesty. It is no secret that Williams’s form has been disappointing in the last few years. But it has never been properly confronted.

In the light of Sam Michael’s comments, here is the graph. It tracks the Constructors’ Championship positions of Williams throughout its 32 years in Formula 1. Alongside the annual positions, I have added a five-year rolling average to allow us to see the longer term trends.

It is well-known that Williams has always been a highly successful grand prix team. The 1980s were a bit of a rollercoaster. The team mixed hugely successful years with a few more disappointing years. Overall, the trend has been for the team to hover around 3rd place on average.

Then came the mid-1990s, when Williams were truly dominant. This was the period where Adrian Newey was on board. It is almost impossible for the five-year trend to get any higher, as the team strung together an incredible seven consecutive top-two finishes.

It is no secret that Williams have never dominated in this way ever since Adrian Newey left in 1997. But looking at the trend, Williams continued to average around 3rd place in the Constructors’ Championship — if anything, still slightly better than the pre-Adrian Newey years. But in the middle of the 2000s, it begins to change for the worse — dramatically.

In fact, if you look at the trendline, with no other knowledge I think you could actually guess when Sam Michael became technical director. In case you haven’t spotted it, I have added a subtle hint that pinpoints the year.

This could well be a harsh assessment. Sam Michael seems to be well respected among his colleagues at Williams. But from the outside, it has long perplexed me why there hasn’t been more of a question mark over Sam Michael’s role.

The team has made many changes in recent years. They have switched engine manufacturers from BMW to Cosworth via Toyota. They have brought on board hugely experienced drivers (Alexander Wurz, Rubens Barrichello) along with promising rookies (Nico Rosberg, Nico Hülkenberg). And there have been lots of changes behind the scenes with the operation of the business. None of these changes have done the trick.

Now, with Williams enduring their worst start to an F1 season since their very first one in 1978, it is crunch time. They need to face up to their issues properly.

We know the problem is not money. After all, the team keeps telling us they have no money worries whatsoever!

Currently the team languishes in 10th place in the Constructors’ Championship, behind Lotus, a team that is not yet two years old. Indeed, in China, Pastor Maldonado was beaten fair and square by Heikki Kovalainen in the Lotus.

Amazingly, this position is up from the situation after Malaysia, when the team was also behind Virgin in the Constructors’ Championship. Virgin is another team looking carefully at its technical set-up, as Nick Wirth’s CFD-only approach fails to prove its worth.

Here, just for fun, is the graph of Williams’s Constructors’ Championship positions with their current 10th place for 2011 added.

During the Chinese Grand Prix we saw Jaime Alguersuari’s right rear wheel roll itself off the car soon after a pitstop. It flew off towards marshals, photographers and other bystanders, while Vitantonio Liuzzi took to the inside to avoiding being hit while he passed the stricken Toro Rosso.

Top F1 journalist Adam Cooper reported on Twitter that the wheel came dangerously to hitting him:

# Hoping to bump into @squire3 [Jaime Alguersuari] tonight after his STR wheel nearly killed me! Luckily he missed…

# I was behind an opening in the debris fence and hit on the next secition, about 2m away, head height. Bit scary…

# Here’s the wheel that Jaime Alguersuari @squire3 tried to kill me with! Scared the #### out of me… http://twitpic.com/4m224g

For me, loose wheels are easily the most dangerous thing in F1 today. When two marshals died in he space of a few races just over a decade ago, they were both as a result of flying wheels. Stronger wheel tethers were introduced after those incidents, but these do no good if the wheel is not properly attached to the car in the first place.

With the emphasis on tyre changes now at the very forefront of every race, it is no surprise that teams have been looking to save time in this area. Mercedes have been particularly inventive, developing a wheel nut that is attached to the wheel itself.

But there have been lot of wheels coming off since the start of 2010, clearly as a result of not having been attached properly in the first place. Robert Kubica’s wheel detached after a few laps of the Japanese Grand Prix.

Mercedes also had a few wheel failures last year. Among these was the truly scary moment in Hungary when Nico Rosberg’s wheel came off the pitlane, causing all sorts of havoc as it bounced and rolled around while several dozen mechanics were busy working.

It is high time this was nipped in the bud. I am sure the teams would take more care in their pitstops if a real penalty was applied. This isn’t a sporting issue. It is a safety issue, and any teams that are not attaching wheels securely enough should face a ban.

Flying wheels are not just putting drivers at risk. They are putting marshalls and mechanics at risk. But worst of all they are putting spectators at risk.

Renault were suspended in 2009 after Fernando Alonso’s wheel came off in Hungary that year. However, the suspension was lifted. That was fine. Then, it was a one-off incident — in the refueling era there is little to suggest that Renault were cutting corners.

But today, the loose wheel problem is truly endemic. It must be stopped.

Lewis Hamilton has long had a repuation for ruining his tyres too quickly. Up to this point, it has only bitten him once in a while. The benign Bridgestones were, for the most part, accommodating to Hamilton’s excesses.

But with Pirellis that are designed to drop off in performance quickly, Hamilton may find himself being bitten more often. The McLaren car is performing well, yet Hamilton was only able to finish 8th in the race.

He put this down to having to stop early, then stop early again, and again — and again. And it is that final fourth stop that really sealed Hamilton’s fate. While early stops may not have been ideal, if he only made three of them he could have salvaged a few more points.

But here we come to Hamilton’s second weakness — his lack of strategy nous. Hamilton has been feeling the heat for being weak on strategy and relying on McLaren to call too many of the shots.

What is interesting is that in this instance, according to Ted Kravitz, Hamilton went against the advice of his McLaren strategists. McLaren advised that, despite the excessive tyre wear, Hamilton might have been able to hang on to finish 5th or 6th if he stayed out. However, Hamilton decided to make the extra pitstop nonetheless.

It is not often that we see Hamilton act autonomously like this, but sadly it backfired on him. If F1 in 2011 is going to involve better tyre management and more strategic thinking, this could play right into the hands of Jenson Button.

While tyre management and strategy are two of Hamilton’s biggest weaknesses, they are Button’s greatest strengths. At least twice in 2010 we saw Button use making smart strategic decisions that helped him win races. In Australia he went against the advice of McLaren, and went on to win the race. China, too, saw Button capitalise on good strategy.

If Hamilton seemed overly despondent after the Malaysia Grand Prix, it may be because it was the moment the penny dropped that he is going to find F1 a whole lot more difficult from now on. And it won’t be fixed by having a faster car — because in these conditions, Button will always come out on top.

A few of the journalists were pretty effusive about the race. Will Buxton was particularly euphoric:

Epic race. One of the best of the season. Wow.

I saw that this drew a few hoots of derision, including from me! Because from the comments made by other fans watching at home was that… well… it was a bit dull really.

It wasn’t a stinker by any means. There was some good action and a fair few talking points. But large stretches of the race were rather processional. Hardly epic.

The epic race without the racing

Will Buxton justified his comments:

No sarcasm. Epic race. ALO VET lap trading, WEB early stop and brill drive, HAM / WEB moment, GLO driving arse off. KUB amazing.

There is some truth in what he says. While Webber and Kubica provided some entertainment, this was only because they were out of phase with the surrounding cars strategy-wise, so were not on an equal footing with the drivers they were battling with.

As for the battle at the front, the problem was that Alonso’s victory was never truly in doubt. He commanded the track all weekend, and always even looked like he might have a bit extra left in the tank too.

During the first phase of the race, Vettel drifted back to 3.5s behind Alonso. After the pitstops, the gap eventually grew to over 2s before slowly decreasing again. Vettel did get mighty close to the end of the race, but this was typical Alonso driving conservatively.

Renault engineers always talked about how conservative Alonso was as a driver. They never had to tell him to turn the engine down; he had already done it.

So it was in Singapore. Alonso had done just enough to establish himself as the certain winner of the Singapore Grand Prix and had the whole situation under control.

It may have looked good on the timing screens. I did indeed get excited when purple sectors were being set and Vettel started to decrease the gap. But the “lap battle” was partly down to the street circuit becoming cleaner and faster towards the end of the race.

I’m sure they were playing with each other, but neither looked to be pushing particularly hard. Alonso was always in control, and Vettel never looked interested in truly pressurising.

At the start of the race, Vettel had ceded the first corner, setting the tone for his race. It did not look like he was particularly interested in winning — a suspicion confirmed by Vettel’s comments that passing Alonso would have been too risky. And why bother? Alonso is the ultimate defensive driver, as his amazing battle with Michael Schumacher at the 2005 San Marino Grand Prix demonstrated.

The bottom line is that if you hold a race on a street circuit with one overtaking spot — two at a push — then the racing isn’t epic. There might be stuff surrounding the racing — strategy, crashes, pretty buildings… But not much overtaking.

Interesting, yes. Epic, no. The ingredients simply weren’t there.

Epic racing or epic facilities?

There is a trend for certain venues to be talked up a lot by the F1 circus, no matter how good the racing is. I particularly remember Valencia Street Circuit — which has served up three of the most turgid grands prix seen in the last decade — was universally praised by the teams as being a great venue for grand prix racing.

Scratch the surface of the headlines, though, and you see that they are not so interested in the racing itself. Ron Dennis said that the 2008 European Grand Prix at Valencia was so great that it made him “ashamed to be English”. But it left most others ashamed to be F1 fans, it was so bereft of racing.

Of course, Ron Dennis was thinking about the facilities. Facilities are apparently the only thing that matter in F1 these days. Never mind what the viewers at home make of the track. As long as the venue is equipped with a shiny silver throne for the McLaren chief to do his golden business in, who cares about the people at home?

Similarly, the journalists have clear favourite places to visit and places they can’t stand. China? Don’t talk to them about it. And spare a thought for poor, poor Magny-Cours. It was so awful — not because of the circuit, of course, but because it was in the middle of nowhere, as the journalists never missed the chance to remind us!

Meanwhile, Melbourne is always the “great place for a race” — is that code for a booze-up? And Singapore is now “epic”.

Never mind the fact that the Marina Bay Street Circuit is not great for overtaking. Never mind that the 2008 race needed a manufactured crash to pep it up, and that the 2009 race was voted the fourth worst of the season by F1 Fanatic readers.

TV coverage demonstrates skewed priorities

The scenario was not helped by some rather lacklustre television coverage from FOM this weekend. It looked to me like the director was more used to directing pop music videos than motorsport.

Coverage at night races is always dominated by shots of the lit-up buildings and the scenery surrounding the circuit. It feels more like the Singapore Grand Prix is more like an advert for Singapore than a motor race. Who was going to bed last weekend without seeing that flashing “Your Singapore” banner in their sleep?

When it comes to races like this, Bernie Ecclestone’s priorities are clear. Why else would the bland coverage of last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix have won an FIA award for best coverage of the season? Much of the race action was missed. Anyone not paying full attention would have thought that the race was won by a hotel that looks like a giant flashing lady-toy, so fixated were the cameras on anything but the cars.

Those in the inner circle in F1 should remember that the fans at home are looking for epic racing — not epic Holywood movies, epic nightlife or epic superloos.

Now, after a Monza masterclass and a Singapore showcase, the Fernando-Ferrari package looks formidable. Alonso has the momentum, and has shot up into second place in the championship.

This isn’t just back-to-back wins. This is back-to-back wins on two circuits that are polar opposites of each other. Monza is a true low-downforce, high speed challenge. That was supposed to favour McLaren. Singapore is a circuit where teams apparently run with more downforce than they do in Monaco. That was supposed to favour Red Bull. Instead, Fernando Alonso was majestic in his Ferrari at both of these radically different circuits.

Much has been made of the fact that Alonso can also fully rely on the support of his team mate Felipe Massa, while both rival teams have both their drivers battling each other as well. But Alonso does not even need this support. Massa played no role in Alonso’s victory at Monza, and he wasn’t even in a position to assist in Singapore. Alonso is supreme — and that is what is making him the main contender now.

It is all the more amazing when you consider just how many mistakes Alonso was making earlier on in the season. It really was a case of unfulfilled potential at the midway point. There was the first corner incident at Melbourne. The jump start in China. The hugely costly practice crash at Monaco. Getting bogged down behind Petrov in Turkey. Botched overtaking attempts on Kubica and Liuzzi at Silverstone.

Ferrari were not having a great time either. The car has not always been competitive. Not so long ago Alonso was making negative comments about the pace of development at Ferrari, noting that it was much more relentless when he was at McLaren. Then there was the distraction of the team orders fiasco and the fallout that ensued. Yet now, Alonso is in the pound seats for the Championship.

Red Bull’s challenge

Red Bull have, all in all, looked like the strongest team all season. And although much has been made of their calamities, they have generally done a good job. More is made of their inability to convert front row starts into wins than is necessary. When there are 23 cars behind you, it is easy peasy for one or two of them to usurp you.

What is more notable is that Red Bull have had so many front row starts when the others just haven’t. And while the victories may have been a bit more evenly shared out, Red Bull have still be consistently up there, challenging all the way through the season while both Ferrari and McLaren have had peaks and troughs. Moreover, it has been abundantly clear that Red Bull have been innovating heavily throughout the season.

The fact is that Red Bull currently lead both championships. And while they have lost a bit of momentum recently, they are still the team that have the least to do in the remaining four (or three) races.

Has the tide turned against Red Bull? In one sense, no. Monza was always going to be their weakest circuit of the year — yet they still managed to finish 4th and 6th in the race. Not great, but not too bad either.

Red Bull’s biggest problem is not that they have lost momentum. They are still a formidable force, whether or not they have had to compromise on flexible wings and floors. No; Red Bull’s biggest problem is completely out of their hands.

McLaren on the back foot

Red Bull have to deal with the fact that essentially McLaren have faded into the background of the championship race. This means that the rewards are being split three ways rather than five. If Red Bull have a problem, it is Alonso who capitalises — full stop. Earlier in the season, it could have been either Alonso, Hamilton or Button. Not now that McLaren have essentially faded from view.

Spa and Monza were crunch races for McLaren, as the last two circuits in the calendar that truly suited their car. Neither race was perfect. Spa was not too worrying — Hamilton took a dominant win in arguably his most majestic display to date. Button was running well until his accident with Vettel.

But Monza must have rung alarm bells. Seemingly distracted by the decision over whether to run the F-duct, McLaren lost their grasp. Hamilton was rattled after his set-up disadvantaged him during qualifying. The team had to rely on Jenson Button to do the business at the front.

The problem is that Button has not looked like he has had the fire in his belly since some point in the season — maybe around Turkey? Button started the season with two victories in the first four races, but has not looked like winning since then.

Monza was a good chance. But in reality, it was clear all race long that Alonso has the superior pace, and there was nothing Button could do to avoid ceding the lead.

Hamilton, meanwhile, knocked himself out on lap one by getting involved in a needless accident — a scenario that was repeated in Singapore. While Alonso has been dominant and mesmerising, Hamilton has returned to his clumsy ways, misjudging a move for two races in a row. He has thrown away a shedload of points.

You have to question Hamilton’s mental state as we approach the end of the season. He was supposed to have shaken off these clumsy errors, but now he has only himself to blame for finding himself on the back foot.

Most worrying of all from McLaren’s standpoint is the fact that it doesn’t look like they know what to do to turn the tide. Since the failed upgrade package of Silverstone, McLaren have not been on great form.

It looks like Ferrari have won the development battle. The failure of experimental gearbox parts on Massa’s car in Singapore demonstrates that they are pushing very hard towards the end of the season. No wonder that all of his rivals now view Fernando Alonso as their number one threat.

Today, Williams can’t beat Ferrari, so I am rather indifferent about them. But at a time where the majority of the grid is made up of manufacturers — of cars and drinks — even I can see that there is something romantic about Williams. I think it would be good to see them at the front again.

But if I was a fan of the team, I would probably have well and truly lost patience by now. Every year the team says, “just wait — next year we’ll be back”. They spend all winter making positive noises. And then when it comes to the big day itself? They are even slower than they were before.

One of the most successful teams in history

When they last won a Constructors’ Championship in 1997, Williams had won more of them than Ferrari. The record was staggering — nine Constructors’ and seven Drivers’ Championships in just 20 seasons. It was an utterly fearsome record.

At that stage, Williams had won races in all but two of its seasons — its very first in 1978, and a brief drought in 1988 when the team had to make do with inferior Judd engines after Honda jumped ship to McLaren. Even then, Nigel Mansell managed to wring a couple of second place finishes out of it, which is more than can be said for what came after 1997.

Once again, Williams was left in the lurch after the departure of the front-running engine manufacturer — this time Renault. To make matters worse, chief designer Adrian Newey left Williams to join McLaren. 1998 was a year of continuity for Williams, in all the wrong ways — using what were effectively year-old Renault engines and what some said was the 1997 chassis adapted for 1998 regulations.

In 1999 the team faced further difficulties with Alex Zanardi struggling to adapt to F1 after a successful time in ChampCars. While the wins dried up, this difficult spell was thankfully short lived, as in 2000 Williams forged a new partnership with BMW.

2000 was a learning year for all concerned, but successes came between 2001 and 2003, when Williams returned to winning ways. Williams were even strong title contenders in 2003, with four victories and nine podiums, Williams were a strong player in a tight three-way battle for the championship. As unlikely as it seems today, Juan Pablo Montoya was almost a World Champion!

The slide from the top

Unfortunately, things started to go pear-shaped again in 2004. A radical “walrus nose” concept brought little in the way of performance, and a more conventional design was brought out midway through the season. Montoya managed to win the final race in Brazil, but this race remains the team’s last taste of success.

Almost every year since then has seemingly seen Williams slip back a bit further, with the successes of the old days becoming an ever more distant memory. In the past five years, the team has had just four podium finishes. (Barring success in Turkey, that number will reduce to three this weekend!)

The brightest spot has been 2007, when a consistent set of results from Nico Rosberg helped the team bag a commendable fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship (although that was after McLaren’s disqualification from the Championship). Apart from that, Williams have become a fixture at the back of the midfield — if you can call 8th out of 10 teams the “midfield”.

Arrogant enough to believe their own excuses

All the while, the excuses came, and fans were reassured: “next year is our year”. And next year comes and everything is all the same. Even if they trick people into thinking they’re fast by topping Friday Practice times, as Williams did in the first half of last season, people soon become wise to the fact that the car is not truly capable of it.

Before, there was always a positive spin to put on the situation. In 2009, Williams were bad — but at least Renault were worse and BMW weren’t much better. In 2008 people were more concerned with the alarming lack of pace in the Honda. 2006 was regarded as a tough deal for Williams, struggling with apparently sluggish and unreliable Cosworth engines.

It’s difficult to sugar-coat this year’s results in the same way. Although seventh doesn’t sound too bad, in effect the only teams that are behind them are either new (in the case of Virgin, Hispania and Lotus), facing hugely difficult political and financial constraints (Sauber) or have designed their own car for the first time (Toro Rosso). The shocker is that Williams are even being compared to teams like this.

Meanwhile, Force India look a great deal more convincing, and Renault have again leapfrogged Williams and look like potential challengers to the top four teams. Indeed, Toro Rosso even look like they can realistically challenge Williams on the racetrack, particularly with a couple of feisty young drivers who are stepping up to the plate in style, particularly in the case of Jaime Alguersuari. Meanwhile, in China Nico Hülkenberg finished behind the Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen.

It seems as though Williams allowed arrogance to get the better of them. It was always someone else’s fault. But increasingly, Williams have been made to eat humble pie.

Williams lay the blame for their early-2000s dip at the door of BMW. This ended in an acrimonious split in 2005, by which time each party had become convinced that the other side was not pulling its weight. But BMW did a pretty good job when they joined forces with Sauber, the disappointment of 2009 notwithstanding. Meanwhile, Williams became inert — a permanent fixture of the midfield.

Of course, if it wasn’t the engine’s fault, it was the drivers’ fault. I was very interested to see Frank Williams admitting that, in the light of Mark Webber’s recent successes, the team was too hasty to lay the blame at the door of its driver for their average spell in 2005 and 2006.

When we had him obviously our car was a disappointment and we felt he was part of the problem. He probably wasn’t actually, with hindsight. The major point was that the car had problems.

Is there a way back?

I think the Williams of today is a great deal less arrogant than the Williams of four or five years ago. But now the damage has been done. Is there a way back to the top for this proud team? 13 years on from its last Championship success, it’s difficult to see.

Already, there are rumours that Williams are unhappy with Cosworth (just like in 2006). Rumours are linking them to a partnership with Renault. Williams were linked to Renault last year too, and Frank Williams confessed that the prospect of “Williams Renault”, a reminder of the team’s most dominant period in the 1990s, was exciting.

Other rumours link Williams to a partnership with Porsche, with whom they have collaborated on kers. But the problems run deeper than the matter of their engine supply, as surely the lessons of the BMW split show.

Despite all of its history and past successes, Williams have tried and failed to recover for too long now. Sadly, it seems as though this year Williams have to make do with racing against the likes of Sauber, a zombie team that is on emergency life support, and Lotus, a team that didn’t even exist a few months ago.

I hope they can make it. I was privileged enough to be invited to the Williams factory and museum last year. The museum is a wonderful place, brimful of some of the most successful grand prix cars there have ever been. The team only goes back just over 30 years, but it is such a huge part of Formula 1′s history. It would be such a shame if Williams were stuck at the back of the grid forever.