Formula One Is Like....(aka Swiss Bernie)I love Bernie. Apart from the fact he is a squillionaire and I long for the day I can follow him round picking up any notes he may drop, of late he has given the world some beautiful quotes, the sort of quotes that leave you scratching your head. Earlier this year he talked about F1 in terms of medicines and pills to the point I thought he must be auditioning for the next series of Casualty. But there is one quote from Mr E that is sticking in my mind, which is quite disturbing on a number of levels. For those, who like me, adore The Fast Show it will add to overall experience if you now imagine Bernie in the role of Swiss Toni, here comes the quote: "People who go to Formula 1 wouldn't dream of going to other, lesser forms of motor racing, even though it's a bit like sex: it's all about what they think is going to happen rather than what actually happens". I was brought up told there are two things in life you should never try and imagine: the Queen going to the toilet and vicars having sex. I now have a quite disturbing image of Mr E likening Formula 1 to sex which is, to be frank, a damned scary mental picture. As well as upbringing that tried to cleanse my mind of such hideous images I am a devotee of Carry On films and make no excuses for my love of a tittering Kenneth Williams and guffawing Sid James, and am also an avid reader of women's glossy magazines. This mental stew combined means I am finding it rather difficult to work out what Mr E was trying to getting across. 'Formula One is a bit like sex.' In Cosmopolitan mode I may presume he means it involves a lot of men doing the same old thing as quickly as possible. In Carry On mode I suppose he may be trying to point out it's farcical and involve a lot of tits. Bernie says F1 is like sex because the anticipation and reality are two different things, and he's not wrong there. We've been anticipating George Clooney and fireworks but too often get a couch potato with a damp sparkler. May I suggest it's time F1 and its spectators went to marriage guidance as of late we are talking about doing it once every fortnight out of habit? All in all it is a rather amusing part of a quote that can lead to no end of double entrende and innuendo which detracts from the part that really gets under my skin, "people who go to Formula 1 wouldn't dream of going to other, lesser forms of motor racing." Formula One is in no position to preach its superiority to any other form of motorsport. In truth, it never has been. Whenever you consider the peak of Formula One to have been, there has never been an era which warrants the smugness that certain people in the sport have cultivated. There is nothing more off putting than a self-absorbed sport, like a paunchy film star bitterly trying to belittle their younger co-star. And I wonder what these lesser forms of motorsport are? Should I never dream of attending a F3000 race or Formula Three? Should the thought of a MotoGP be far from my mind? Should a day's rallying be construed as nothing more than a brief fling beyond F1's back? Oh Bernie, what a flippin' stupid sentence that was! It is the 'lesser forms of motor racing' that carries the weight of Formula One on their shoulders. It is the lower single seater formulae that are the breeding grounds of tomorrow's F1 talent, the replacement cogs in Formula One's money making machine which grinds components down very quickly. Elsewhere in the world of motor racing not everyone thinks the sun shines out of an F1 exhaust pipe, what a boring world it would be if they did. Where Bernie went wrong is to suggest 'the people' wouldn't dream of attending other series. Well, actually 'we' would. Motor sports spectators are really rather clever and our heads can cope with enjoying more than one series, if anything we are a rather greedy bunch. I sit and expect F1, MotoGP, WRC etc to all deliver the goods. I suspect Bernie was misinterpreting the word 'money' as 'people'; there is a finite amount in a sponsorship pot that all branches of motorsport are clambering after. Perhaps with this quote Bernie was just nudging the donors to remind them Formula One is where it is and therefore it's a good idea for their cash to follow. From the business side, of course Formula One wants to build its elitist status to the full, luring those with open wallets in to the fray. If that's what it takes, fair dues, that's F1's business (sic) but do not confuse it with mine. On saying that perhaps I am not the type of person Mr Ecclestone encounters attending races and maybe this is where the confusion in his statement lies. I suspect a great many people who attend races in the good (hospitality) seats wouldn't want to attend 'lesser forms' where one may have to do something as indignant as take your own sandwiches. Attending the 'lesser forms' of motor racing does require some home comfort sacrifices I'll admit. If Mr E wants to paint disturbing pictures of the similarities between F1 and sex here's a volley back. There is no woman, be her competitor, worker or spectator at 'lesser forms' who would not admit the greatest advantage is strong thigh muscles so you can hover above the toilet at the more, ahem, 'rustic' circuits around the world. If you think that the lesser form of racing may be boring take your 'Observers Book of Bugs and Insects' and go to the lav at any regional circuit in Britain. Whilst Bernie continues to decry the Silverstone facilities may I speak up and say the toilets there are pretty darn good (but I'm still not paying a few hundred pounds to go to a Grand Prix and pee in relative comfort). I doubt very much the often pitiful attendance numbers at events such as F3000 and F3 are due to discerning Formula One spectators not wanting to be seen at the poor relative's. It is an area where I couldn't say with any great conviction that there was one overbearing reason for a lack of spectator support. There are countless hypothesis and the situation will of course be a mixture of:
I do not expect spectators to all rush out each Sunday to give unwavering support to every class of racing ever invented, in much the same way I don't expect to see every football fan attend every Sunday League game or every cricket fan make their way to the village green on a Sunday afternoon. However, I would like to think that spectators are being given the information and opportunity to investigate and support a wide spectrum of motor racing should they please and I most certainly never, ever want to hear anyone involved in the sport even come close to belittling the lower Formulae.
PS ©Rebecca Hobbs (c)RH PR 2007
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