GP2 — the ‘official’ way to progress to F1

The most well-known by a long way is GP2. Backed by Bernie Ecclestone, GP2 is the closest thing there is to an ‘official’ feeder series to the pinnacle of motorsport.

Since its inception in 2005, GP2 has been a stepping stone for some of F1′s biggest names. With a solid F1-style car and a unique status as the support race to almost every European grand prix (thereby giving drivers vital experience at many F1 circuits), there is no doubt that GP2 is a strong category.

The main alternative: World Series by Renault

But beyond the ‘official’ routes to F1, World Series by Renault (sometimes known as Formula Renault 3.5) has established itself as a series to take seriously.

No fewer than 18 F1 drivers have raced in World Series by Renault or one of its earlier incarnations. Among them are Robert Kubica, Heikki Kovalainen and Kamui Kobayashi. In 1999, World Champion Fernando Alonso also won what was then the Euro Open by Nissan series.

Most impressively, in 2007 Sebastian Vettel was leading the championship when he became an F1 driver mid-season. We all know how that story ends.

Strong drivers in World Series by Renault

This year’s World Series by Renault field has some very strong drivers in the field. Two of the favourites for the championship, Daniel Ricciardo and Robert Wickens, are currently already F1 test drivers, for Toro Rosso and Virgin respectively. These drivers are so hotly tipped that both have been rumoured to become race drivers before this season is even finished. I will certainly eat my hat if they are not racing in F1 in 2012.

The pair put on a wet weather masterclass in Race 1 at the Nürburgring two weekends ago. In changeable conditions, they had the measure of the rest of the field while engaging in a tense battle for the lead.

The talent doesn’t end there. Other current F1 test drivers participating in World Series by Renault include Fairuz Fauzy and Jan Charouz (both for Renault F1).

Meanwhile, Jean-Eric Vergne is next in the queue behind Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull Young Driver sausage factory, and rightly so. His performances at Spa-Francorchamps were at times jaw-dropping.

Young Estonian Kevin Korjus (Race 2 winner at the Nürburgring) has also turned heads in his rookie World Series by Renault season.

Scrappy driving in GP2

When you compare it with this year’s GP2 field, the ‘official’ feeder series seems to lack that edge slightly. No driver has managed to take full control of the championship — nor has anyone shown signs that they deserve to.

Romain Grosjean has come the closest. But you could argue that he ought to be. He is highly experienced compared to most of his competitors, and even has some F1 races under his belt. He is this year’s Giorgio Pantano. He has been involved in some questionable incidents. He managed to crash into his teammate at Barcelona. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he then climbed all over him as part of the truly farcical scenes in the qualifying session at Monaco.

Meanwhile, the hotly-tipped Jules Bianchi (who is a Ferrari test driver) has been surprisingly clumsy, lurching from needless crash to avoidable gaffe. After a promising (albiet curtailed) GP2 Asia campaign last winter, Bianchi currently languishes in 15th in the championship, having managed to score points in just two of the eight races so far.

Giedo van der Garde has arguably been the most consistent, but still manages to make needless errors. In Valencia, he was penalised for overtaking under yellow flags.

Beyond this, it is difficult to see where the F1 stars of the future are in this year’s GP2 field.

A good alternative for both viewers and drivers

Moreover, the World Series by Renault season has been more action-packed for my money. This season’s calendar visits seven current Formula 1 venues, including some of the best circuits in the world. Spa, Monza, Silverstone and even Monaco all have slots in World Series by Renault. The calendar is refreshingly light on Tilke designs.

The Formula Renault 3.5 cars themselves are impressive, providing an ideal bridge between the well-established Formula Renault 2.0 cars. They typically run just a few seconds a lap slower than GP2 cars.

From next season, the car will step up a gear with a more powerful engine and greater downforce. But most eye-catching is the introduction DRS-style moveable aerodynamics. It could well be that the new Formula Renault 3.5 cars will prepare drivers for F1 better than a GP2 car can.

The combination of superb F1-style cars, excellent circuits and promising drivers is creating great entertainment. For me, it is the feeder series to watch.

It is also special because it has now comprehensively replaced Suzuka as the proper place to settle a World Championship, particularly due to its useful time slot. It is on prime time on European television. That is another unique aspect of Brazil, due to the lack of North American races this year.

So it was most fitting that Jenson Button managed to seal the deal in Interlagos, even when it seemed further out of his grasp than ever. A disastrous qualifying session sent us off the scent. The only saving grace was that Vettel’s was almost as bad. But his main rival Barrichello was on pole at his home race.

Unfortunately for Barrichello, he never gets any good luck at Interlagos, even when he is doing well. I will never forget the tragedy of his car breaking down in 1999 while he looked like he could win the race driving for Stewart. His bad luck struck again.

After a strong first stint which he led with relatively little challenge, he somehow managed to lose the plot by failing to push hard enough at the start of his second stint, handing the lead to Mark Webber. Later in the race came his tangle with Lewis Hamilton, which resulted in a puncture for Barrichello.

(Apparently Lewis Hamilton can’t go to Interlagos without having an eventful time. Hats off to him for ploughing his way up to a 3rd place finish from 17th on the grid.)

In normal circumstances, therefore, we would normally be talking about Mark Webber’s fabulous win. And Pink Peril was right to point it out in the comments to my previous article. Mark Webber did a great job — the one person who managed to do well in both qualifying and the race.

He certainly had a better weekend than the Red Bull driver who needed it, Vettel. It was suspected that Red Bull would do well thanks to the “testing” Webber was able to do at Suzuka. Sadly we didn’t see much of Webber’s race because the television cameras were more focussed on the Championship protagonists.

As for the Championship winner, Jenson Button, I would say he had the race of his season — possibly even the race of his life. It really is as though his bad qualifying performance gave him the kick up the backside he needed. I read one story today which said that after his poor qualifying, he texted his mum to say, “Don’t worry mum, we’re going to kick some butt.” She replied, “Good, go and kick some butt.”

It was as though a barrier had been passed. Button was no longer defending his lead, as he had been since the start of the season. The tide had turned so far that he now had to attack to win. And attack he did!

His aggressive and ballsy driving was captivating to watch. He was already 9th by the end of lap one. Once the Safety Car period was over, he was ready to line up Romain Grosjean, and in the process took a risk by going round the outside. I thought Grosjean did a solid job when racing side-by-side for two or three corners against Button. Button put a lot of faith in the inexperienced Grosjean not to do something silly. But both came out of the fight looking good.

Within a lap, Button got past Kazuki Nakajima in a rather risky move at the Senna S. Several laps later, also into the Senna S, he finally got past Kamui Kobayashi who was in his first race. After that, as the pitstop strategies shook out, Button found himself looking good.

There has been some criticism of Kobayashi’s driving, particularly weaving in the braking zones. Certainly he pushed it too far later on in the race when he was involved in a high-speed accident with Nakajima. But his defensive driving against Button impressed me and suggests that Kobayashi has promise, even though he wasn’t particularly good in GP2 (like Nakajima).

While there was some decent racing going on for most of the race, the majority of the action came on the first lap which was rather crazy. My theory is that they just decided to do a Wacky Races thing because it was on prime time.

First there was the accident which brought an end to the races of Adrian Sutil, Jarno Trulli and Fernando Alonso. Alonso was so placid about it that the BBC’s commentators did not even notice him at first. He just trudged nonchalantly into his lift. I sense that he really has just been going through the motions, awaiting his big chance in a red car before exerting himself once again.

Little wonder Alonso went by unnoticed, because Jarno Trulli was running up to Sutil and gesticulated in quite a threatening manner. I am struggling to remember the last time I saw a driver so angry. It looked like it was going to turn into this sort of moment!

I am struggling to see what Trulli was so worked up about. Maybe Sutil could have left Trulli some more room, but I think Trulli was optimistic trying to overtake him there anyway. And it is not as if Sutil drove into Trulli. In fact, before Trulli loses control of his car you can see Sutil clearly make an attempt to steer away from Trulli to give him more space.

It was a racing incident in my book. But the accident that resulted was quite a high-speed one, which I guess is why Trulli was so rattled.

Then there was the pitlane fire, when Heikki Kovalainen drove off with the fuel hose still attached. It wasn’t Kovalainen’s fault — he was instructed to leave, but the fuel hose was still attached.

I really am confused as to why we get so many more of these incidents these days. I can’t remember ever seeing a driver leaving with his fuel hose still attached until Jenson Button did it at Imola in 2006. Since then there have been several, from Christijan Albers (who was effectively sacked for it), to Massa in Singapore last year and Alguersuari in Singapore this year, to Kovalainen now. And I’m sure there are one or two more that have slipped my mind.

The increasing frequency of these incidents is quite alarming, particularly when so much attention was given to Ferrari’s pit lane incidents in 2008. Surely teams and drivers must be more aware than ever of the possibility, and it is just bizarre that it keeps on happening over and over again now.

Massive, massive kudos to Kimi Räikkönen for driving through the fire which resulted from Kovalainen’s premature pit box exit. The fuel was more or less being sprayed into his face, and flames briefly exploded all around him. Yet he kept his foot down and kept driving.

After the race, he said his eyes were still burning! Yet he plodded on. As far as I’m concerned he could have been blinded by that sort of thing. He must have huge balls. And people say he doesn’t have motivation.

One last thing to mention — Robert Kubica. He finished 2nd, his best result of the season, after starting 8th. He had a great restart when the Safety Car pulled in — he was right on top of Nico Rosberg and passed as soon as he could. I am sorry that Kubica has not been able to show more of his talent this year. I hope Renault can build him the car he deserves.

Next we head to the brand new circuit in Abu Dhabi. The last time the Championship was decided before the final race of the season was in 2005. Then we were treated to one of the best Grands Prix there has ever been, the breathtaking 2005 Japanese Grand Prix. Maybe the same end-of-term atmosphere can spice up Abu Dhabi, which aside from the gimmicky pitlane exit looks like it will be another bland Tilke operation.

In England, Ukip and the BNP have cornered this market pretty well, with the English Democrats also doing a good job of it. One thing that these three parties have in common — aside from their narrow nationalism — is the fact that they are all pretty vile.

Here in Scotland the nationalist vote is completely mopped up by the SNP. We all know that the SNP uses national symbols which appeal to base instincts which may entice certain types of voters. This gets up some people’s noses, including mine.

But the SNP have done a grand job by keeping a lid on the nastier side of nationalism. For this we can be thankful. All though there is, without a doubt, a nastier side to some of their supporters — as we have seen with the Cybernats — you won’t find these types of views coming from the mainstream of the party.

Indeed, the party is at pains to promote a progressive type of nationalism. They embrace civic nationalism. They reject ideas of Scottishness defined in terms of ethnicity. They avoid anti-English approaches. And we can be especially thankful that violent methods do not form part of the nationalist agenda in Scotland.

This is combined with progressive policies, including an enlightened approach to immigration and a positive agenda towards Europe. While in many other parts of the world nationalism may be equated with right-wing or fascist concepts, the SNP combine a nationalist ideology with a broadly centrist agenda.

Whatever the motives of the voters, the SNP’s form of nationalism is a great deal more tolerant — and tolerable — than the forms of nationalism we see from the likes of Ukip, the BNP, the French National Front, the Movement for a Better Hungary, or any number of extreme parties across the world.

Richard Thomson recently described the SNP as being part of “unquestionably the best behaved nationalist movement in the world”. Looking at the European election results and seeing where nationalist votes seem to go, it’s easy to agree with him.

The consensus seems to be that, Europe-wide, it was a good election for the centre-right. It certainly seems as though the governing centre-left parties have taken a bit of a battering, while voters seem content with centre-right governments.

Those of a socialist persuasion may well feel disgruntled. In the midst of an economic crisis which they say was caused by the excesses of capitalism, voters seem to have lost faith in socialist parties’ ability to deal with it. The far left also took a knock. On the other hand, the Green grouping is the one grouping (aside from non-aligned) to have increased its representation in the European Parliament.

Interestingly, despite the fact that apathy was the clear winner of the election across the EU, the main Eurosceptic grouping was almost totally wiped off the map, with the exception of Ukip. Perhaps domestic issues are the cause of this. But if 2004 was the breakthrough year for Eurosceptic parties (which led to the formation of the Independence / Democracy group), 2009 was the bump back to earth. As thing stand (and no doubt they will try to woo more MEPs on board), Ukip alone now account for almost two thirds of the grouping.

The main UK parties

The UK-only picture was rosier for Ukip, but only slightly. This year will be remembered for the fact that they finished 2nd ahead of Labour. But they would be deluding themselves if they believed this was because of a rise in support. Their increase in the share of the vote was a pretty titchy 0.3 percentage points. Indeed, they gained fewer votes than in 2004, and got just one extra MEP despite the huge collapse in trust of the major Westminster parties.

In a lot of ways, the UK picture as a whole is surprisingly static. Yes, there was a massive drop in support for Labour. But none of the major parties were in a position to capitalise, so everyone apart from Labour just shuffled up a bit. In the circumstances, the Conservatives ought to be pretty miffed that they lost votes and increased their vote share by just 1 percentage point. It doesn’t exactly look like a party with the momentum to take a Westminster landslide.

The Lib Dems, who arguably weren’t hurt nearly as much as Labour and the Tories by the expenses scandal, managed to reduce their share of the vote, which almost no other party did. Of course Labour’s share decreased. Plaid Cymru’s UK-wide share decreased, but their Wales-only share went up. The only other party to reduce its share of the vote was the Scottish Socialist Party, which has cemented its place in history by being consigned to it.

The BNP

The BNP made a different kind of history by winning two seats, which became the story of the election. It was probably inevitable that people would “blame” proportional representation for this. But the simple fact is that PR doesn’t vote fascists in — fascist voters do.

6.8% is not an inconsiderable share. Almost a million voters decided to put their cross next to the BNP on the ballot paper, and they didn’t do so by accident. Gerrymandering them out of existence will only exacerbate the problem.

That’s not to say that the closed party list system used for European Elections isn’t flawed, because it is — deeply so. But the corrupt First Past the Post system would only further increase the anger that people feel at being disenfranchised by the political system.

In a lot of ways, the BNP’s “success” is pretty unremarkable. In 2004 they were the sixth most successful party. This year, they were still the sixth most successful party. In the region where Nick Griffin won his seat, the North West, the BNP actually got fewer votes than in 2004.

The BNP only got seats because Labour’s collapse was so dramatic, and those former Labour votes went to a large variety of smaller parties. 11.3% of votes went to parties that weren’t among the top eight, compared to 8.3% that went to other parties in 2004 (and that was in the days of a relatively strong Respect party).

The BNP didn’t gain seats because they caught up with those in front. They gained seats because others joined the queue behind them. Despite still having five people in front of them, the BNP effectively moved closer to the front in relation to the entire queue — just because more people joined behind them.

Nonetheless, any attempts to ignore or belittle the BNP’s success, or to gerrymander it away, should be condemned. It is important to understand why people would come to vote for a fascist party, because that is the best way of defeating the ideology.

Luckily, YouGov have done a good job at finding out (more detail here). And — surprise surprise — it seems that BNP voters are mostly racist. That rather undermines the idea that people voted for the BNP just as a protest vote. With so many potential protest parties, why choose BNP? I guess they were at the top of many ballot papers, but that oughtn’t gain them so many votes. No, people vote for the BNP mostly because they are racists.

In difficult economic circumstances, people often turn to fascism. It is totally misguided to do so though. One potential plus side of the BNP gaining a couple of MEPs is the fact that the spotlight will now be shone on them, and people will see just how rotten their ideology is.

I will look at the Scottish results in a separate article

The decision to vote

A series of posts

1. A pathetic situation
2. Five disturbing things about democracy
3. How should politics be reformed?: Part 1
4. How the new politics might look: part 2
5. European election leaflets: The main parties
6. European Parliamentary Election literature: small parties
7. A second opinion
8. I decided! And I decided to vote

A couple of tools have emerged in the run-up to the European elections. They aim to help people decide who they should vote for.

This is nothing new — nowadays every election comes with its own similar tools. They are the cousins of Political Compass and the like. While they may not be totally scientific, they are quite enlightening in their own way — and a bit of fun whatever. So I have taken both tests to see what they say.

EU Profiler

This test doesn’t give you results for all the parties, but the big hitters are there. This has the advantage of also comparing your views with parties right across Europe, not just in Scotland or the UK. The Europe-wide results are interesting in themselves.

But first, here are my results for parties that I can actually vote for. The top party is the Liberal Democrats, which perhaps shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Ideologically, they are the only party I am closely aligned to, and I have always voted for them in the past. I am a 60.3% match. Not terribly high, but higher than the other parties.

Second is the Conservatives with a 58.3% match. The SNP are a 55.2% match, while Ukip edge ahead of the Greens to be my fourth-closest match. Labour slug it out with the BNP to be my least favourites.

If you exclude the importance I attach to issues, Labour actually rise up to 4th place. Perhaps this suggests that I agree with many Labour policies — just not ones that I think are important.

I have a much closer affinity with other political parties outside the UK. My strongest match, by quite a long way, is Sweden’s Pirate Party. This is a recently-formed party which rose up in protest at over-zealous copyright laws. Makes sense I guess.

One striking thing about the Europe-wide results is the fact that three Croatian parties appear in my top five matches! Is there something about Croatia’s politics that would make me swing that way ideologically? Are there just lots of similar parties in Croatia? The three are the Social Democratic Party of Croatia, the Croatian Social Liberal Party and the Croatian People’s Party — Liberal Democrats.

The other parties in the top ten are: Liberal Democracy of Slovenia, People’s Movement Against the EU (Denmark), Estonian Reform Party, Freedom Union — Democratic Union (Czech Republic), Humanist Party (Portugal), Liberal and Centre Union (Lithuania). To be fair, having had a glance at each of these parties, they seem to vary quite a lot, so I wouldn’t put too much faith in them.

Incidentally, the Liberal Democrats are only my 65th strongest match. So in theory, there are 64 other parties across Europe that I would rather vote for. Not very good, is it?

Vote Match

Vote Match gives me very different results. My strongest match is Libertas with a score of 51/54, which seems quite high. (I’ve taken the test three separate times now, and Libertas were the top result each time.) This is despite the fact that I chose Scotland as my region and Libertas aren’t standing in Scotland.

Joint second are the Greens and the SNP with 41. The Lib Dems, the Conservatives and Labour are all joint fourth with 39. Jury Team’s Alan Wallace has 33 and Ukip have 28.

The results page on Vote Match is very comprehensive, with a table of each party’s position on each of the 30 questions. Looking down the table, it does appear as though I agree with Libertas on a lot of issues, and all of the issues that I marked as important. On all the issues I marked as unimportant, I disagreed with Libertas. This has perhaps accentuated their score.

These results just don’t sit right with me though. The list seems wrong. It is especially odd to see the Greens so high up there. Perhaps this is where differences in policies for Holyrood or Westminster and Europe come into play. But I’m taking this result with a pinch of salt.

Political Compass

This isn’t related to the European Parliamentary election, but it is the granddaddy of online political tests, and I think it is a couple of years since I have taken it. So I thought I’d take another look. My result now is:

Economic Left/Right: 1.25

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.82

So I’m — just — on the libertarian right. But I am still more of an economic centrist, though firmly a social libertarian. This is more or less what I expected. A clear trend that I have noticed is a slow drift towards the libertarian right. The last time I took this quiz, two years ago, my economic score was 0.38 — closer to the centre, but still on the right. The social score was a slightly less libertarian -6.10.

The time before my score was 1.00 and -6.21. The time before that, in 2006, it was -0.13 and -5.08.

I still haven’t decided whether or not I will vote. However, I think if I do vote, I know which party I will vote for. I’ll report this evening on my action / inaction.

There were a couple of close calls last season. The season finale at Interlagos last year was strange enough. The fact that the entire circuit was plunged into complete darkness immediately after the chequered flag only added to it. The podium was lit, and the sky behind looked pitch black even with all of the techniques they can use on television to mitigate it.

The sun wasn’t even setting. Sunset was approximately 90 minutes after the end of the race. But heavy clouds ensured that if the race hadn’t finished, they may well have had to bring out the red flag anyway, so dark the place seemed.

It was a similar scenario during Friday Practice for the Italian Grand Prix last year. Even in the late morning, when the sun is high in the sky, a fierce storm gave teams a dry (okay, a very, very wet) run for the dark conditions they were to expect at the following race in Singapore.

In the past two yeras the start time of the Australian Grand Prix has been shifted from 1400 local time to 1530 last year to 1700 this year. The idea behind this is to have the race starting at 0700 British time (0800 CET), which is a smidgen more sociable than 0300.

I don’t know about you, but being a nightowl I much preferred the middle-of-the-night start. It felt like a special occasion, and for me it was all part of the romance and the excitement of the build-up to the start of the season.

Sometimes ITV put on a special night of programming building up to it. No such thing from the BBC this year of course. A “grand prix night” is a bit redundant when the grand prix is on in the morning. This is a missed marketing opportunity, showing once again that Bernie is not quite as smart as he thinks he is.

But does the later start also have implications for safety? The evening start is a messy compromise. Bernie wanted a night race, but the Australian GP organisers refused. So they met in the middle.

That’s all very well in normal circumstances. The race starts at 1700. So the sun will be pretty low, but it will still be daylight.

But what if something unforeseen happens? The start of last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix was delayed by fifteen minutes. If the race has to be stopped, that will add more time as well. On top of all this, the race may be anything up to two hours long (and that excludes any stoppages for red flags).

On 29 March 2009 the sun sets in Melbourne at 1918. Let’s say the formation lap takes three minutes. If the two hour time limit is reached, cars could still conceivably be running at racing speeds at 1905 (for the time it takes for the leader to reach the finish line, then the cars on the lead lap to complete that lap). Then there is the in-lap. If, for some reason, the red flag has to come out, they would only be able to take ten or fifteen minutes maximum to be sure that the race will be completed with the sun still in the sky.

It is an unlikely scenario. The two hour time limit is seldom reached, and a lengthy race stoppage is thankfully also rare. But the possibility exists. I’m surprised not to have seen anyone else mention this. Can the drivers, marshals and spectators be sure that all of the appropriate precautions have been taken?

Could the Australian Grand Prix be the first ever dusk race?

Now, normally such an announcement wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. Ever since I started watching Formula 1 in the mid-1990s, I have watched teams and manufacturers come and go on a regular basis.

I saw Renault withdraw from the sport as engine supplier to Williams and Benetton in 1997, only to return as a fully-fledged constructor when they bought the Benetton team just a few years later in 2000. Ford came to the party when they bought the Stewart team in 1999, only to leave the sport entirely a few years later in 2004. Peugeot left the sport in a huff at their own lack of success in 2000, having only joined the circus in 1994.

I learnt quickly, therefore, that manufacturers’ interest in F1 is almost always transient. For every Mercedes that appears fully committed, there are a handful of Renaults and Hondas who will enter and exit the sport according to the wind direction.

Honda’s announcement was shocking partly because of its suddenness. The speed with which the decision was taken is made clear when you read James Allen’s account. There is also the fact that at the start of this year Honda owned not one but two F1 teams. Now they have dramatically trimmed right back to zero, and will not even offer an engine supply to any teams next season.

There is also the fact that Honda were massive spenders in F1. This appeared to signify a magnificent commitment to the sport, despite the relative lack of success. But the flipside of this is that it made Honda an absolute laughing stock within the sport.

The huge amount of money the Honda F1 team spent also made it more vulnerable to the red pen of the bosses. No other manufacturer will save as much money by axing their F1 team. It may be true that Honda’s withdrawal is for political reasons, as former BAR-Honda driver Jacques Villeneuve posits. But it is Honda’s huge costs, coupled with the utter lack of success, that made it vulnerable to such political manoeuvring.

As such, the withdrawal of Honda is not such a shock when you think about it, even though I wouldn’t have predicted it. Moreover, Honda is not a fixture of Formula 1 like Ferrari, or even Mercedes. The current incarnation of the Honda F1 project only got the nod in 1998, and even then it was quickly reigned in to become a mere engine supply deal with BAR. Honda bought the team when tobacco sponsorship left the sport just a few years ago. Despite having run a team in the 1960s, and the huge success of the corporation as an engine supplier in the 1980s, an F1 institution it is not.

What makes people worried, though, is the economic climate in which this news has come. Whereas Ford found a buyer for Jaguar Racing easily enough in Red Bull in 2003, buyers for Honda will be thin on the ground due to the lack of credit that will be available to interested parties.

Next season’s Formula 1 calendar has already lost two races — Canada and France — and China and both German circuits currently in use have recently warned that they may not hold races for much longer. Again, it all comes down to money, with circuit owners being unable or unwilling to pay Bernie Ecclestone’s fast-increasing costs of staging a grand prix at the same time as attendances are tumbling.

Meanwhile, car sales are in freefall on a global scale, with a number of large car manufacturers seemingly in serious financial danger unless drastic action is taken. In the backdrop of these events, participation in motorsports looks like an extravagance. Even if the old “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” mantra holds true in normal times, right now western consumers are tightening their belts meaning that any increase in sales may be too small to be justifiable.

As such, Honda’s withdrawal is seen as just another sign that Formula 1 faces a crisis. We have a slimmed-down calendar that relies increasingly on flyaway races away from the sport’s European heartland to help pay CVC’s bills, and no races in the vitally important North American market for the first time in five decades.

Now there is a slimmed-down grid of just 18 cars — a number that is getting smaller. When you consider that the 2008 season was originally destined to contain 24 entries, F1 has essentially lost a quarter of its teams in a matter of months. Formula 1 is beginning to look like a shadow of its former self.

Now the question everyone is asking is, “who is next?” Initially the finger pointed at Toyota. Many pointed out that Toyota are only really in F1 because Honda were there. Toyota are also, like Honda, huge spenders with little to show for it.

But Toyota quickly put the lid on the speculation by issuing a statement that appeared to affirm their commitment to F1 — although, as James Allen pointed out, the word “currently” in front of “committed” looks like a carefully worded way to give them an easy exit should things take a turn for the worse. After all, if Honda’s decision was so sudden, why would a decision from Toyota not be?

BMW and Mercedes-Benz have both also affirmed their commitment to F1. But one manufacturer has spoken with a deafening silence.

I always suspected that the first manufacturer to go would be Renault. Its CEO, Carlos Ghosn, is said to be sceptical of motorsport participation, and there has been a question mark over the team’s future ever since he joined Renault in 2005. Besides which, Renault’s history in F1 has shown that it will come and go as it pleases.

Even though some news websites have reported that Renault is committed to F1, I have seen no quotes which the other manufacturers have been happy enough to provide. Was the media palmed off with a stock answer from a Renault spokesperson?

Meanwhile, rumours circulate around Red Bull. Dietrich Mateschitz recently re-bought Gerhard Berger’s 50% stake in Toro Rosso, but many think he did this so that he could sell it more easily. But with billions to play with and no car sales to drop off a cliff, I see little reason why he would pull the plug on both teams.

Williams has been perceived to be in a vulnerable position for a few years now. It is the last brave privateer team that is in it not to sell cars and not to sell drinks, but purely for the love of racing. It has been hit hard, but it doesn’t have to be seen to be reducing costs for political reasons like the manufacturers have to. Ironically, Williams may be safer than some of the manufacturers now.

We will just have to wait and see. It’s clear that Formula 1 is currently undergoing a massive change. Could the ground be being laid for a return to a privateer era? If so, you won’t find me complaining too much, no matter how painful the current events are in the medium-term.

But what else was in the news that day? An output editor on the 6 O’Clock News BBC News at Six, Katy Searle, had a tough job picking a story.

So what else? The housing market and the strains of the credit crunch continue to claim a good slot on the Six. Today’s repossession figures are startling and on another day, could easily be our lead story.

For those of you who look beyond our shores, strong pictures of fierce fighting in the disputed region of South Ossetia will be explained and analysed. Not a natural story for the Six? With Russia threatening a robust response, it’s right to be in the show.

So apparently a war in Europe “not a natural story for the Six”. And on top of that Katy Searle feels the need to justify the possibility that the story will even be in the programme! That is despite the fact that this important story was listed behind the “credit crunch”, a “news” story that is now a year old. Jesus. Does the BBC really believe people are this stupid?

Do people tune in to the news to watch the news, or do they tune in to the news to watch highlights of a ponced-up dance routine which they can also catch earlier in the day, later in the day and on a relentless cycle on BBCi? Let me sit down and think about this!

It kind of sums up why the 6 O’Clock News has not been a bulletin to take seriously for several years now in my view. Of late is has been shaped to become the “news” for people who don’t actually want to know the news.

The thing is that, even though I am in Britain, I live a long way away from Silverstone. I don’t exactly live in the sticks, but the central belt of Scotland where I reside is hundreds of miles away from Silverstone. The British Grand Prix is not my grand prix. I’ve never been in a position to attend it. And I doubt I would be in the future. It simply involves too much upheaval.

Of course I would one day love to attend a Grand Prix and would pull out all the stops when I decide to do so. But would Silverstone be my first choice? Probably not. Travelling all the way to Silverstone would only be marginally more convenient than travelling to, say, Magny-Cours, Catalunya or Hockenheim.

Once I decide to spend such a significant amount of time travelling somewhere, I really may as well make a holiday of it or something rather than going along just to spend a blustery weekend in a crumbling, roofless Silverstone grandstand. It is notable that the one grand prix I have actually seriously considered attending is the Hungarian Grand Prix. I’ve never looked into travelling to Silverstone.

So my “home” grand prix means very little to me. When home is hundreds of miles away it ceases to have any meaning. My affinity with Silverstone is zilch. Of course I appreciate it as a circuit, just as I appreciate any other circuit. But I wouldn’t shed any more tears for the British Grand Prix’s loss than I would for the removal of, for instance, the Belgian Grand Prix.

As such, I can only shrug my shoulders for the prospect that the British Grand Prix is under serious threat. So I am not particularly bothered about the proposed move to Donington. I suspect most people are apprehensive about it because they suspect that Donington will never be ready in time for 2010 and therefore the announced move is little more than a proxy for the removal of the British GP.

Clearly Donington needs a lot of work to be brought up to the standards expected of a modern F1 circuit. But it is a nice circuit with plenty of history. People talk about Silverstone’s history as though it’s the only place that has history. But Donington has it as well.

People talk about Donington as though it is a pigsty. But in recent years it has been the venue for the British MotoGP. MotoGP is not Formula 1, of course, but it’s not that much smaller. Of course Donington needs work, but as I pointed out in my previous post so does Silverstone (certainly in the eyes of Bernie Ecclestone).

Access is also said to be a problem. But it handles MotoGP okay (though I’ve heard the traffic was pretty bad this year). It also plays host to the rather large Download music festival. And it’s not as though Silverstone has been free of traffic problems over the years.

There are many who also point out that Silverstone is by no means the F1 circuit with the worst facilities, with Interlagos frequently being cited as a terrible venue. However, this ignores the reality that Formula 1 simply needs a venue in South America even if that venue has to be a total dump. If F1 is to have any pretence of being a World Championship, it can’t afford to ignore this part of the world, especially as it has brought us so many great drivers over the decades. Europe, meanwhile, has grands prix falling out of its pockets. F1 can probably afford to lose the British Grand Prix. It certainly can’t afford to lose the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Where the Donington story gets fishy is the idea that the upgrades will be finished within two years. And that £100 million will somehow be raised by a fan-powered debenture scheme. Then again, you could just as easily ask where Silverstone would get the money it needs to make its improvements.

I think the harsh reality is that Britain now has no venue that is capable of holding an F1 grand prix. That certainly seems to be the view of Bernie Ecclestone. If the best hope of retaining the British Grand Prix is to throw our weight behind Donington, it might be the only way to go. Whether fans will feel this way to the extent of £100 million collectively remains to be seen.

So, yet another Eurovision Song Contest, and get another round of chest-beating and sour grapes from people who think that the reason the UK came last was because of a Europe-wide conspiracy against us and in favour of any of those commies to the east. Every year the protests seem to get louder, and every year they annoy me even more.

Apparently it was inevitable that Russia were always going to benefit from “political” voting. So inevitable that I didn’t see anyone predicting it. Terry Wogan himself didn’t, except until Russia started racking up the points at which point it had become an obvious conspiracy.

The thing is, this is nonsense. As Chris Applegate has pointed out, this is the first time Russia has ever won the Eurovision Song Contest. So much for the inevitability of Russia’s success.

While so many wise-guys are quick to say after the event how predictable the result of the ESC was, I’ve yet to see so many people successfully predict who will win beforehand. Derek Gatherer predicts who will win, but only after the semi-finals have taken place. This is a bit like buying a lottery ticket once you know what the first five balls are. Even then, his prediction — Ukraine — was wrong (although close).

There were three specific countries that Terry Wogan said twice during the broadcast would benefit from political voting across Europe. He said this for each of the three countries during their turn, and he said it again during the recap while the phone numbers are displayed on the screen. (Check it on BBC iPlayer.)

The three countries that, according to Terry Wogan, were inevitably going to benefit from political voting? Romania, Albania and Poland. These countries finished 20th, 17th and 24th respectively — out of 25 countries in the final. If there was a conspiracy, whoever was behind it cocked it up big time.

Of course, Terry Wogan could have seen that his theory was bogus if he simply looked at the results of the semi-final (he did do that, didn’t he?). He would have seen that Poland only got through because it was chosen by the jury and did not finish among the top seven chosen by the televote. Albania also just scraped in, having come 7th in the televote.

The fact that Poland came joint-last in the final along with the UK shows just how hollow the ‘bloc votes’ theory is. It is certainly not as simple as “countries in the east are bound to benefit”. Poland’s paltry score of 14 was made up of points from just two countries — Ireland and the UK. The last time I checked, neither of these countries were in eastern Europe.

Furthermore, the past fourteen Eurovision Song Contests have been won by fourteen different countries. This is completely unprecedented in the history of the ESC (the previous longest run being eight). Incidentally, only 7 of those countries can be credibly described as “eastern European”.

It hardly needs to be pointed out that the countries that make up the British Isles have been the most successful in the ESC’s history, Ireland and the UK having won twelve contests between them, including an incredible run of five wins in six years in the mid-1990s. The UK has also finished second 15 times, more than any other country.

Far from becoming predictable, the Eurovision Song Contest is more open than it has ever been. You can put this almost entirely down to the introduction of televoting in 1998. As Chris Applegate says, it is far easier to rig Eurovision when it is just a few jury members rather than the entire population of the EBU countries that have to be manipulated.

All of this is not to say that there is not political (or cultural, or whatever) voting going on. Incidentally, the cultural-similarity argument is quite strong, though not watertight. Even correcting for linguistic and cultural similarities, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania still engage in bloc voting.

Even so, this is a very small number of countries. As Ewan Spence points out most “blocs” consist of 5 or 6 countries.

In fact, Derek Gatherer’s Venn diagram shows that “blocs” are actually as small as two countries, or four at a push. Of course, the UK and Ireland have formed their own little bloc, which is what makes little Britishers’ protests all the more pathetically hypocritical.

As such, the fact that Russia won cannot credibly be blamed on bloc voting. In order to win the ESC, any country has to appeal beyond their bloc and gain votes from across Europe. For this reason, the idea of entering different songs for England, Scotland, etc. (or even full-on independence — any excuse to bring that up, eh? ) so that the UK could engage in its own bloc voting would fail.

The ESC Today website has analysed the votes of “western” and “eastern” European countries separately. What they show is that even in the western-only table, Russia came fifth. That’s not a win, but it is only 13 points behind the western winner, Greece. Also of note in the western-only table is the fact that Germany finished bottom and the UK also did very badly. Meanwhile, in the eastern-only table, Poland finish joint bottom with nul points.

Clearly, blaming the iron curtain as Terry Wogan does (hopefully in jest) is wide of the mark. Even locking the eastern Europeans out of the voting, eastern Europeans would still pick up plenty of points.

The thing about the “bloc votes” theory is that it’s just the sort of thing that becomes true if you just say it often enough. Ignorance has a lot to do with it.

Recently I had the misfortune to catch an episode of The Paul O’Grady Show where Terry Wogan was a guest talking about the ESC. He mentioned in passing that Azerbaijan were participating for the first time — to hoots of laughter from the audience. “Azer-ban-jan?!”, yelped O’Grady. “I’ve never even heard of Azer-ban-jan! Is it even in Europe?” I hope O’Grady was joking (though there’s every chance he wasn’t), but I just know that some of the laughing audience members were thinking exactly that.

I think for a lot of people, the Eurovision Song Contest is perhaps the only time of the year they discover a Europe beyond, say, the EU-12 or the iron curtain or Mediterranean holiday resorts. In a contest of 41 countries, and with many well-known western European countries (Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg) declining to participate, the chances are high that the winning country will be one that many people couldn’t point to on a map. It might be as if “eastern Europe” is just one big country for these people.

If a country people can’t point to on a map (or those dirty commies in Russia) wins the ESC rather than a country a stone’s throw away from the UK, people jump to conclusions and start concocting the conspiracy theories. So if Russia wins, it’s political voting because eastern Europeans don’t want Russia to shut down the gas pipe. If Serbia wins, it’s the Balkan bloc voting that did it. If Finland wins, it’s the Scandinavian bloc vote. And so on.

Well here is a radical idea. Perhaps the countries that win the Eurovision Song Contest do so because they write songs that appeal to a wide variety of European countries and performed well on the night.

The real reason the UK tends to do so poorly in the ESC these days is that its entries are so mediocre. The UK seems to alternate between entering a song that is overtly camp and too knowing and / or stupid to be taken seriously (Scooch, Jemini, Daz Sampson) and insipid, bland, instantly forgettable dross (Javine, James Fox, Andy Abraham). It’s no accident that the last time the UK won the ESC back in 1997, it was with a song that was actually quite good (and incidentally holds the record for the largest winning margin in the ESC) and performed by a well known band and not some reality TV reject?

I mean, really, what can the UK expect if it enters someone like Andy Abraham? The man lost at The X Factor for crying out loud. What made anyone think he would win Eurovision?! As for the performance, it was nothing to write home about was it? Terry Wogan said he liked it, but I seem to remember he said the same about Jemini’s notoriously bad performance.

Blaming the UK’s loss on bloc voting when there are more sensible explanations just reflects badly on Wogan and all the others who bring up this red herring. It comes across as sour grapes.

I suppose the question is, does the UK really want to win Eurovision? The ESC is seen as trashy kitsch by most in the UK. This helps explain why most of the UK’s entrants these days are desperate reality television losers. Some countries may see the ESC as a joke, but others are clearly passionate to win the contest. Russia in particular tends to enter more famous artists. Their performer this year, Dima Bilan, is one of the country’s biggest pop stars who is on the verge of making a name for himself internationally.

It seems to me as though there are many countries who want to win the Eurovision Song Contest much more than the UK wants to. So why not let them win rather than throwing your hands up and shouting “conspiracy”?

As for Terry Wogan’s hints that he may quit Eurovision, I do hope he calls it a day. I can’t stand his commentary. The man is not a fraction as funny as he thinks he is. He mistakes rudeness for wit. He has been past it for as long as I can remember. If he quits, I hope Paddy O’Connell get the job. He has always done a fantastic job at commentating during the semi-final. He is witty but not cynical, and obviously still likes the ESC, unlike Wogan.

For what it’s worth, my favourite song was France’s — ‘Divine’ by Sébastien Tellier. I think France should just be given bonus points for entering a song containing non-French lyrics for a change!