Last night I was dropping the kids of at the pool flicking through “Born To Be Riled” by Jeremy Clarkson. It’s well worth a read. One of the stories in it was about the 1997 Formula 1 Championship. After the dubious decisions that went on that year to penalise the drivers in a way that dragged out the championship way beyond what it should have been (Jacques Villeneuve had a far superior car to Michael Schumacher that year and was a giveme for the title), Jeremy questioned what Formula 1 had become. Is it really about as real as WWE wrestling?

I reckon the same questions are going to be asked this year. There is a lot of anti Ferrari feeling going around, people think they are being favoured by the powers that be. I think they’re right.. But I don’t think it’s Ferrari’s fault that all Lewis Hamilton has to do is fart to get a penalty. I’m sure if a Ferrari driver was leading the championship and in danger of extending that lead then all sorts of mystery penalties would be pulled out of Mr Formula One’s arse. Formula 1 makes a good share of its entire income from selling TV rights. To get the best price the championship needs to be competitive right up to the last race, an 8 point lead for Lewis Hamilton is not competitive, a 2 point lead on the other hand is. If team Formula 1 had any sense they would realise that Lewis Hamilton is the best thing to happen to the sport in the last 10 years. He’s brought back overtaking and with it viewing figures, or rather he did. If he overtakes he gets penalised, on the other hand I reckon it would take Kimi Raikkonen jumping out of his car and taking a dump in the McLaren cockpit to get a penalty, everything else is fair game for Ferrari…. well until they pull out a championship lead anyway. It’s a staged panto to drag everything out until the last race of the season. It pisses me off because I used to LOVE watching Patresse, Prost, Senna and Mansell “fighting” on the track. It’s become boring, but even worse it’s staged boredom.

So I’ve established that Formula 1 is now nothing to do with racing but just a panto to sell TV rights. So why criticise Ferrari, are they really cheats? Yes. Not because they are getting preferred treatment but because they DON’T HAVE THE HONESTY TO ADMIT IT. After what happened at Spa their drivers, officials, the whole Ferrari team should have come out and complained about the penalty Hamilton received. It was racing, they are a racing team, with racing drivers. Or they are supposed to be. To tow the FIA line and say that all is well is a load of bollocks. That is why Ferrari are cheats and why I’ll not be following the drivers of my favourite team anymore. They should be disgusted with themselves. For the first time in my life I’ll be supporting a McLaren driver, even better I hope that they stuff Ferrari at Monza, now that will be justice.

Raikkonen’s early braking was clearly a contributory factor to which Hamilton pointedly remarked: “That’s the way he drives. If you don’t have the balls to brake late, that’s your problem.”