As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Ferrari have raised eyebrows by choosing to speak the truth about the new teams in Formula 1:

This is the outcome: two teams will limp into the start of the championship, a third is being pushed into the ring by an invisible hand – you can be sure it is not the hand of Adam Smith – and, as for the fourth, well, you would do better to call on Missing Persons to locate it.

This week, that fourth team — USF1 — finally threw in the towel, after weeks (indeed, months) of speculation. And this evening they have been officially removed from the entry list. But I’ll discuss USF1 in further detail later.

However, this news once again shines the spotlight on the new teams, and the FIA’s process for selecting them. Right from the beginning there was controversy surrounding some of the choices. There is also the fact that new entrants were seemingly forced to use Cosworth engines.

It is worth remembering that there were at least two highly credible entries that were rejected by the FIA, to the surprise of many. David Richards and his Prodrive operation has been looking at entering F1 for years, and indeed had a slot on the 2008 grid until the future of customer cars was thrown into doubt. Lola were another highly credible entry with the ability to field a strong car.

So, what’s going on with the new teams? In this short series of articles I will take a brief look at the five main protagonists — Lotus and Virgin (the good side of the process), USF1 and Campos (the bad side) and Stefan (the ugly side).

The good side of the process

The Lotus position: last?

Lotus driver Jarno Trulli openly admits that the team expects to turn up at Bahrain four seconds off the pace. And yesterday Heikki Kovalainen back-pedalled from comments attributed to him that this year’s Lotus is worse than the Minardi he tested in 2003. The Finn claims the comments have been taken out of context.

Nonetheless, for my money the Lotus team has good long-term prospects. The jury is out on Mike Gascoyne’s abilities as a technical director. He is well regarded and appears to do a good job, but critics point out that he has never produced a World Championship-winning car.

Lotus are at pains to point out that they have had just five months to create this F1 car. That is nowhere near long enough to produce a competitive package. In the long term, they could be headed for a respectable role in the midfield.

The driver line-up of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen is unadventurous, but at least it is credible. Trulli and Kovalainen have both won just one race each, and neither is particularly convincing during the race. But at least they are two established and experienced drivers.

Virgin’s CFD gamble

Virgin — the Richard Branson-backed F1 entry of Manor which has been highly successful in lower formulae — has taken a gamble by exclusively using CFD to design the car, without ever having put the car in a wind tunnel. The car has been blighted by several reliability issues, while typically lapping five or six seconds off the pace. If testing form is anything to go by, there is little for the team to be optimistic about.

On the plus side, they have a credible driver pairing in the former Toyota driver Timo Glock and experienced GP2 racer Lucas di Grassi. Perhaps more important, given the current climate, is the fact that the team appears to have been highly successful in attracting sponsorship. I guess sponsors are magnetically attracted to the golden Virgin brand.

Lotus and Virgin are the two teams that are described by Ferrari as “limping” into the start of the championship. That is the best side of the new teams. The other two new teams, Campos and USF1, have both teetered on the brink of collapse. But that is for the next article…

Apologies I’m so late on this one. I have had a busy and tiring week.

On Monday, before the outcome of the WMSC meeting was known, I decided to think about what the outcome might be. Was there any punishment — even zero punishment — that I could not imagine the FIA handing out?

I couldn’t think of a scenario that was outside the realms of possibility. I suppose we are so used to the FIA Random Penalty Generator that you genuinely might as well have a lucky dip.

For the same reason, it is difficult to get too angry at the state of affairs. Because the other question I asked myself before the verdict was delivered was: is there any punishment that anger me? Honestly, I could not think of one.

This case is so complex, with so many factors, and there are a lot of ways to look at it. Particularly given that everyone involved in the conspiracy had already been dispensed with through natural business decisions, it’s difficult to see what further punishment is necessary. At the same time, there is an understandable need for the FIA to send some sort of message that this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated.

As it was, when the penalty was announced, I was certainly interested. But there was nothing to get too angry about. Many journalists felt that Renault got off lightly. I noticed a few in the media pointing out that just two years ago McLaren were hit with a ONE HUNDRED MEELION DOLLARS fine after one staff member’s wife went to a shop and photocopied the Haynes Ferrari manual.

Deliberately crashing a car is no mere intellectual property theft — it is a major safety issue. It goes without saying that someone could have been killed. So there does appear to be a mismatch between McLaren’s “espionage” fine, and this relatively light punishment for Renault.

That just further underlines the ridiculousness of the McLaren fine. It was the McLaren punishment, not the Renault punishment, that was wrong.

I am a believer in individual responsibility. I am not keen on the idea of an entire team being punished for the acts of one or two rogue individuals. If there are repeat instances, and there appears to be a culture of bad behaviour within a team (and by that I don’t just mean that the FIA President slightly dislikes the team boss), then you can go and punish the team. But for a one-off crime carried out by an individual, it is right to punish that individual.

In that sense, it is right for the FIA to focus on the individuals involved in this case, even if the media wanted to report on an embarrassing punishment for the Renault team. The fact is that there are hundreds of good people working for the F1 team, and countless people working for the manufacturers, who are just as badly let down as anyone else. Renault’s defence in the WMSC meeting was that it was as much a victim as anyone else, and it is an argument I have some sympathy with.

As one British politician might say, Renault have been tried in “the court of public opinion”. They have already been found guilty and paid the price. The penalty already handed out to Renault as a car manufacturer has been an unimaginable amount of bad publicity which could well have an impact on its sales. After all, even for people who know nothing about F1, they are bound to have heard something about this story and the one name they will remember in relation to it is “Renault”. Anyone buying a car just now may well have this influence their decision, even if it is subliminally.

For the Renault F1 team, not only have they lost two of the most important members of the team, they have also lost two of their most important sponsors, including their title sponsor. Okay, so ING only had four races left anyway, and going by previous history Mutua Madrileña will follow Alonso wherever he goes. But anyone thinking of inking a deal with Renault will be having second thoughts, and will almost certainly be able to pay less for the privilege of having their logos displayed.

In relation to this, I note that during the WMSC verdict, Max Mosley declared that this was nothing to do with Renault the company, only Renault the F1 team. Given that the team faces a permanent ban, suspended for two years, I wonder exactly how the “F1 team” is defined.

Perhaps there is already an official answer for the FIA (though knowing them there probably isn’t). But if, say, someone like David Richards came along and bought the Enstone-based team, is that still Renault F1? If there is a Brawn-style scenario, is that the same team? It today’s Renault team the same team that entered as Toleman and competed against Renault in 1981?

As for the three people implicated — Nelsinho Piquet, Pat Symonds and Flavio Briatore — I would be surprised and disappointed to see any of them involved in motorsport again. The punishments for Mr Briatore and Mr Symonds seem fair to me. Although Briatore’s lifetime ban is, on the face of it, draconian, if he was implicated as the WMSC appear to believe then I see no reason why he should be allowed to work in F1 again.

Reaction to this has been mixed. Different drivers have different views. I find it interesting that the drivers who are sceptical of Briatore’s involvement have all been closely involved with Briatore in the past and are sure to know his character and if he is capable of plotting such a scheme. Fisichella and Trulli have both driven for him, while Mark Webber is positively glowing about his experience being managed by Briatore.

Jarno Trulli’s comment is, in a way, a backhanded compliment: “Briatore knows little or nothing about strategy, it’s weird that he would be the one who paid the highest price.”

That is interesting when you consider that Pat Symonds still maintains that it was Nelsinho Piquet who came up with the idea to deliberately crash a car, something which is backed by the mysterious Witness X. F1 Wolf points out:

Graham Stoker questioned Mr. Piquet about this “discrepancy” during the hearing (about 19min25sec mark of the recording). Nelson Piquet replied in line with his previous statements and then Mr. Philips, his lawyer, came to Piquet’s defense ridiculing the possibility that 20 something guy, a junior driver in a team could have come up with such strategy. And that was it, no more questions on this topic.

Well, the question is not about who came up with the strategy. We know the strategy came from Mr. Symonds, nobody seems to dispute that. The question is, who came up with the idea to deliberately crash the car.

It seems very possible that Symonds may have mused that Alonso’s only chance to win the race was for a Safety Car to come out early in the race. Who is to say that Piquet did not at this point suggest crashing the car?

Whatever, I am disappointed in the fact that Piquet was given immunity. For me, he is the biggest criminal in this situation. Neither Symonds nor Briatore had the power to crash the car. Piquet was the driver. The steering wheel was in his hands; the throttle was underneath his foot. Piquet was the man with the power to say: “no”.

Caron Lindsay argues that Piquet deserves some sympathy because of the amount of pressure he was under. No doubt his situation was unusual, not least because his team boss also happened to be his manager.

But as I have pointed out in a previous article, Martin Brundle (another person who has driven for Briatore) is not convinced that Piquet was under an inordinate amount of pressure. Piquet’s main defence appears to be that he was worried he was going to lose his job. How many drivers has this applied to in the past? Even this year, Sébastien Bourdais was on the verge of losing his job all season until it finally happened, and he managed to avoid deliberately putting other people’s lives at risk.

I would also suggest that if Piquet can’t handle pressure, racing in Formula 1 is probably not the right profession for him. It seems as though Piquet is a fragile character, and you can’t criticise him for that. You can’t really help this sort of thing. But if you are in such a poor mental state that you decide it would be a good idea to crash, you can’t really have that in F1.

Maybe his heart wasn’t in it. Piquet is a proud name, and the events of the past few weeks have clearly been conducted in large part by Senior. It seems to me as though Piquet Jr was as much a victim of pushy parenting as anything else.

This morning the FIA has published the entry list for the 2010 Formula 1 season. It was widely anticipated to be a huge news story, and the entry list certainly raises a lot of questions.

The first thing to note is that all ten currently existing teams are on the list in some form or another. Five of the Fota-aligned teams are at the bottom of the list and have asterisks next to their entries. Conditions are still attached to their entries, so their participation in the 2010 season depends on how talks between Fota and the FIA proceed.

There is a deadline of 19 June for the situation to be resolved. That will no doubt be another big news day as the FIA will have a few extra teams up its sleeve ready to take the place should any Fota teams pull out.

Provocatively, the FIA has entered three of the Fota teams — Ferrari, Red Bull and Toro Rosso — and listed them as unconditional entries. These three teams all signed agreements with the FIA and FOM back in 2005 — the last time a breakaway was on the cards. Ferrari feel that its agreements with the FIA have been broken already, therefore it does not have an obligation to enter in 2010. Ferrari have reiterated that they have no intention of participating in the 2010 season unless its conditions are met.

Meanwhile, Red Bull feel that the FIA has reneged on its assurances that customer cars would be allowed. This is a matter upon which Red Bull’s agreement was apparently based. Red Bull have made clear that they have no intention of taking part as either Red Bull or Toro Rosso as things stand.

No matter what contracts have been signed by whom, you do have to wonder exactly how the FIA intends on forcing teams to participate when they have absolutely no intention of doing so. What is to stop Ferrari or Red Bull from competing half-heartedly in protest, sending out underdeveloped cars and a small team who are uninterested in taking part and fail to qualify, or retire after lap 1?

It wouldn’t exactly do much good for Formula 1’s image. I guess the FIA are banking that such a stunt would be bad for the image of Ferrari and Red Bull too, which would put them off doing it.

The most uncontroversial element of the entry list is the inclusion of Williams and Force India. Both teams were recently “expelled” from Fota as they felt obliged to submit unconditional entries due to previous commercial agreements.

The three new teams are USF1, Campos and Manor. This is a surprise to me. I — and I think most others — expected the three teams to be USF1, Prodrive and Lola.

USF1 were always going to be a dead cert. They had announced that they would enter the 2010 season even before there was a suggestion of a budget cap being in place. Indeed, the team has shrugged its shoulders over the idea of a budget cap. It is perfectly content to participate without a budget cap, which rather undermines Max Mosley’s contention that no new teams will enter without a budget cap.

Campos will probably be a solid operation. The team will be headed up by former Formula 1 driver Adrián Campos, who has been a successful team manager in lower formulae. The original Campos Motorsport won the first three seasons of the precursor to World Series by Renault, winning the championship with Fernando Alonso in 1999. In later years, Campos concentrated on GP2 and became one of the best teams on the grid, winning the 2008 Teams’ Championship. Adrián Campos sold that team which is now known as Addax.

Manor is an alliance between Manor Motorsport and Nick Wirth, two solid names. Nick Wirth was a major force behind Simtek. When the team collapsed, he went on to work at Benetton.

Manor Motorsport has a strong pedigree in lower formulae, having run successful British Formula Renault, British Formula 3 and F3 Euroseries operations. Its Formula Renault team is probably most famous for having run Kimi Räikkönen in the year before the Finn took the unbelievable leap all the way up to a full F1 race drive. It also housed Lewis Hamilton when he won the British Formula Renault championship.

All three of these new teams are pencilled in to run with Cosworth engines, although James Allen believes that USF1 is considering switching to Toyota. The use of Cosworth engines is no surprise. Max Mosley’s threatened standardised engine was the Cosworth lump, and their engine which was used by Williams in 2006 is more-or-less up to date with the current regulations.

I find it highly surprising that Prodrive have not been given the nod. The last time the FIA invited new teams to enter F1, Prodrive was the team that succeeded in gaining the place. However, when the FIA decided to ban customer cars, Prodrive were unable to take that slot which has remained vacant ever since. David Richards knows what he is doing, and had a long-term aim to bring the Aston Martin brand to F1. It seemed to be everything the FIA was wanting, but seemingly that is not the case.

Lola also must have felt pretty confident about getting an entry. Although their last foray into F1 in 1997 was an unmitigated disaster, there were commercial reasons behind it and there was no reason to suggest that they would repeat the mistake. Lola is a classic name which fans of motorsport recognise. And unlike ghostly entries using the names “Brabham”, “March” and “Lotus”, this classic name is the real deal.

It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if Prodrive and Lola are options for the FIA to fall back on in case talks with Fota fail. The ever-present threat that a manufacturer may pull out without warning is also there.

Another notable aspect of the entry is that Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Brawn are all currently without engine deals. But with the manufacturers threatening to jump ship, it probably doesn’t mean much anyway. But it does add further credibility to the idea that Red Bull is angling for Mercedes engines for next season.

I truly feel deeply sorry for anyone who follows / followed the Honda F1 team. The team has been a walking joke for years. The events of the past few months have shown that Honda can’t even disappear from F1 without making a total hash-job of it.

It wasn’t always like this. Of course, the BAR team was always a bit of a loony show. Expertly (ahem!) led by a ski instructor, the team was a shambles. They couldn’t even get their livery done correctly.

But things took an upswing towards the middle of this decade. David Richards hauled the team up the grid and in 2004 BAR’s performances were consistent enough to earn it 2nd place in the Constructors’ Championship on merit. Then David Richards left.

He was replaced with Nick Fry, a smirking, over-confident fool who seemingly couldn’t manage his way out of a paper bag. At round 4 of the 2005 Formula 1 Championship, the team was caught out when an illegal second fuel tank was discovered. After that point, the team’s performance plummeted for some reason.

Since then, Honda have bought the team outright. You would have thought that would be a good thing. Oh no. Those clever people decided to bring in a motorbike designer, Shuhei Nakamoto, with minimal experience with designing cars, as technical director. He replaced the perfectly competent Geoff Willis, who now works at Red Bull Racing. After Nakamoto’s disastrous design was unveiled, Honda spent two years in P-nowhere. Can’t think why.

2009 was supposed to be better than this. They had brought in Ross Brawn specifically to make 2009 better than this. This was going to be Honda’s big comeback year! We could see what the man who masterminded every single one of Michael Schumacher’s World Championships could do. Then Honda pulled the plug on the entire F1 project mere months before lift off.

Now, fair enough. Honda can’t exactly help economic circumstances and if they need to make cutbacks (even just for cosmetic reasons) then that is just the reality they face. But have they managed to do it in a vaguely dignified way? Of course not. This is the Honda F1 team. They make a botch job of everything.

If anyone can make head or tail of all the contradictory news stories about Honda that have emerged over the past week or so, could you please explain all because I am at a complete loss. The deadline of the end of January has long been forgotten about. The management buyout was supposed to have been done and dusted by now.

Now, having seen off all of the other potential buyers with all the talk of a management buyout, something seems to have gone badly wrong. Rumour after rumour has emerged over the past week or so, and it seems as though the Honda team don’t have a clue what they are doing.

A week or so ago I read that, despite the fact that things had gone quiet on the Honda front, things were looking up for the team. Since then, there has been an explosion of peculiar rumours that suggests that all is not well.

First of all, it was rumoured that Bruno Senna had signed for the team, that Honda would continue to supply limited funding and that Bernie Ecclestone would provide further financial backing. But it turned out that Bernie can’t supply funding to Honda, even if he wanted to.

Then we were told that Honda had secured backing for the first four races of the season, mostly as a result of funds raised from Petrobras via Bruno Senna. But the four races thing sounded ominously similar to Super Aguri’s 2008 season.

Petrobras poured cold water on the suggestions pretty quickly, pointing out that not only are they not interested in Honda, but they don’t do driver sponsorships either. So the rumours were a load of hogwash all along.

But all was not lost!, we were told. Honda were in talks with a major company that could provide solid backing and had a reputable brand that was known worldwide. James Allen revealed that the company could be Virgin. Grandprix.com outlined why a deal with Virgin could make sense, because of the links between Richard Branson, Adrian Reynard and the Honda F1 team.

But then Pitpass phoned up Virgin, whose Brand Development and Corporate Affairs Director, Will Whitehorn, was very negative about the idea. And that it was Honda who approached Virgin, not the other way round.

Now Reuters have reported that the deal is possibly on. The BBC have since reported that a Honda spokesperson has now confirmed that talks with Virgin are under way.

In out, in out, shake it all about. Part of me wonders if Honda are deliberately spreading these rumours just to try and generate some interest in the team. To be scrabbling around like this with mere weeks until the beginning of the season is not good.

Then there are the engines. Soon after Honda announced their withdrawal, Ross Brawn practically said that an engine deal with Ferrari was a given, which was news to the Scuderia. Now apparently only Mercedes are interested, and that is only if they can be guaranteed that Honda have “bulletproof” backing. Which Honda clearly do not have.

Even if they do get it together by the start of the season, Honda’s prospects for the 2009 season are utterly doomed. Even if the car is fundamentally good, the late change of engine supplier is bound to result in reliability problems, as pointed out by James Allen. Honda will also arrive in Melbourne having had very little testing.

It is such a shame. 2009 was supposed to be Honda’s comeback year. They had literally given up on 2008 so that they could focus on 2009, and I was genuinely excited to see what they could come up with. Unfortunately, if there is one thing you can rely on in F1, it is that Nick Fry and his merry men are 100% guaranteed to cock it up. What a shame.

See also F1 Wolf’s Honda rumours summary post

Formula 1 is waving goodbye to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Or it would be, if it was still there to do so. We’ve already had our last trip there without even knowing about it. It’s like dumping someone by text message.

We tried our best, but in the end it just wouldn’t work out.

Formula 1’s relationship with Indianapolis is about as rocky as it gets — and that really is saying something in F1. In a way, it is amazing to think that, had Indianapolis been a venue next year, it would have been its tenth Formula 1 race. When people look back on the period, some might wonder if it was just a silly experiment that was doomed from the start.

On paper, it was a fantastic idea. One of the world’s most prestigious racing circuits (indeed, the self-styled “Racing Capital of the World”) plays host to the world’s greatest motor racing series.

Unfortunately, there was an elephant in the room. In fact, there wasn’t just one elephant in the room. There were several.

First of all, despite all of its chest-beating, and the reverential treatment which American motor racing fans give it, Indianapolis Motor Speedway is not a great circuit. I was in the room with my father when I heard the news about Indy being dropped. The radio reporter was waxing lyrical about how special the circuit is. My dad instantly spluttered, “No it’s not! It’s an oval!”

So a plan had to be hatched in order to stop Formula 1’s broadly European fan base from being sent into a coma by the prospect of F1 races happening on the oval. They also had to accommodate the fact that F1 drivers are used to racing through corners and, moreover, corners that go both left and right. So an actual circuit that had to be designed by means other than drawing around a protractor was built on the inside of the oval.

The circuit has broadly met with disapproval from those who dislike its ’stop-start’ nature and “Mickey Mouse” corners. In sum, it was a botch job. You could never escape the fact that it was really an almost unwanted appendage to the oval.

This all stems from the fact that American motor racing culture is so different to European motor racing culture. So while Indianapolis is a Mecca for American petrolheads, Europeans are much more likely to worship the Nürburgring Nordschleife.

I have written about this in the past. In a nutshell, while we Europeans don’t “get” oval racing, Nascar and the like, Americans don’t “get” Formula 1.

It is quite appropriate that I should write about this in the week that David Beckham has moved LA Galaxy. At the moment, commentators are predicting that Americans will be attracted by the glamour, but they probably won’t understand why he is a good footballer. It is said that Americans will be expecting Beckham to score five or six goals a match, without even realising that he isn’t a forward.

Exactly the same is true of F1. I sense that Americans have a sneaking suspicion that Formula 1 is great. But they just don’t understand why it’s great. They expect lots of overtaking! They expect big crashes! But Formula 1 does not supply this enough, instead emphasising aspects like great driving, technical excellence and, er, turning right.

I remember reading an amusing comparison a few years ago. I think it was made by David Richards (correct me if I’m wrong). He said that Nascar is like a cheeseburger, while Formula 1 is like caviare. That sounds like a snobby thing to say, but it has a ring of truth to it.

In this sense, selling F1 to Americans is a little bit like flogging a dead horse.

The next problem was television. In one sense, the US Grand Prix was a dream for Formula 1, because it took place during prime time for Europe. It was a double-edged sword though (in the UK at least) as it meant that ITV had better things to do in prime time than watching cars going round and round on an oval a Mickey Mouse track. So the programme was shortened, with little post-race analysis.

Moreover, viewers had to endure for what felt like half the race a ticker that helpfully informed us that “Coronation Street follows the race”. This was despite the fact that the race was not eating into Coronation Street’s scheduled slot, which was exactly the same slot that it occupies every other Sunday.

Don’t forget that the race was coming from America, which meant that for a couple of years viewers had to endure pictures broadcast in the blurrier, fuzzier NTSC standard rather than the PAL standard which Europeans are used to. Not very good, particularly when we are trying to watch fast-moving cars. A bit more blur is the last thing we need.

The situation was so bad that Bernie Ecclestone, for the only time ever, allowed terrestrial broadcasters to transmit the superior F1 Digital + pictures (shot using FOM’s own equipment) in 2002. Following the closure of F1 Digital + at the end of that season, FOM has thankfully remained as the “host broadcaster” of the US Grand Prix in every subsequent year.

As the icing on the cake, it looked quite bad on the television because there were so many empty seats despite the fact that the US Grand Prix is one of the most highly attended of the year. But whenever the camera had a surplus grandstand situated on a part of the oval that is not used by F1 in the background of the shot, it looked pretty bad.

Then there is a matter of what actually happened on the race track. It is highly unfortunate that some of Formula 1’s very darkest moments have happened at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Canspice puts it succinctly: Formula 1 has consistently shat on Indianapolis.

First of all, there was the manufactured dead heat controversy of 2002. Michael Schumacher slowed down before the finishing line in what was perceived to be a return of the favour that Rubens Barrichello gave him at the Austrian Grand Prix of earlier that year.

What Schumacher forgot while he was cocooned in his cockpit and helmet was that two wrongs do not make a right. And while Barrichello was stripped of his deserved victory in Austria, the American fans were denied the right to see the rightful victor crossing the finish line first. In short, the whole race was pointless.

Amid a cacophony of boos and jeers, Michael Schumacher made up a lame excuse. He was bored of all that winning malarkey and had taken every record in the book. In search for a new challenge, he wanted to manufacture the closest finish to a race ever.

Nice try, Schumi. I know the stereotype is that Americans are not quite as intelligent as some on this side of the pond. But they are not, in fact, stupid. American race fans were taken for mugs that day.

But that was nothing compared to what was to come in 2005. Due in part to the unusual banked Turn 13 (unlucky for everyone in F1 — especially Ralf Schumacher), Michelin tyres were failing. And Turn 13 is one place were you do not want to be driving an unsafe racing car. It was yet another example of why the circuit was just not suitable for Formula 1.

But it was too late to do anything about the layout of the circuit now. At least, it was if your name is Jean Todt or Max Mosley — whose stance on making last-minute alterations to a circuit had completely changed since Barcelona 1994.

There was plenty of buck-passing, finger pointing and blame gaming. Everyone had their opinion as to who was at fault (you can see what I thought at the time by browsing through the archives of this blog). The problem was that all of the extended arms pointing fingers tangled up to make a massive web that the whole of F1 got stuck in.

As such, only six cars took to the grid and American fans were deprived of a proper race. It was hilarious in a sense — partly because it was a farce, and partly because it showed that even with only six cars on the entire track, Michael Schumacher still managed to crash into his team mate. But beyond that, it was more offensive than doing a poo on the dinner table.

Since then, F1 has been on its best behaviour — particularly in America. Almost. Because, despite all of the crap that Formula 1 has flung at Indianapolis, IMS boss Tony George seemed fairly keen to keep the race.

More keen than Bernie Ecclestone was at least. Over the past couple of years, Ecclestone has been lobbing several insults at America, along the lines that Formula 1 doesn’t need America (probably true, as it survived without for most of the 1990s, and never had the full attention of America before and after then either) and that F1 gets more viewers in Malta than in America (demonstrably false).

It is as though, having explosively crapped on the dinner table, Bernie Ecclestone wanted to do a little wee on the carpet just to top it off. Yet, Tony George wanted F1 to keep on visiting Indianapolis. Is he a masochist?

Not really. Because, despite all of the above (and there is a lot of it, as you can see!), Formula 1 had the potential to work at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway — particularly in recent years.

In fairness to the track, it is not actually all that bad. It had grown on me, particularly this year. This year’s race had some interesting overtaking battles on the infield, and this was improved by the tight “left–right–left” switchbacks. These corners do not look attractive and are apparently not fun to drive.

But they ensured that overtaking manoeuvres were prolonged. It was no longer a matter of sticking your car on the inside and breaking later — because your opponent has the inside line to the next corner.

Even though Americans just don’t “get” F1, it is still massively important to them. There were even hints last year that the state could subsidise the Grand Prix!

Also, the businesses of Indianapolis also love the Grand Prix. In fact, it is often their biggest weekend of the year. Amazing when you consider that it is the home of the Indianapolis 500, but there you go. Seemingly, F1 fans are big spenders. But that’s what happens when you’re used to caviare.