Formula One has died for me. My peak of enjoyment was seeing the Brazilian Grand Prix live some years ago. Already by then my interest was waining but that live performance in the rain jerked my interest back to life.

A year before, I would have known everything. Every rule change, every driver move, when the new aerodynamic packages were due and who had designed them. I knew the names of engineers working to develop engines and when they moved between teams. I knew what an idiot and liability Murray Walker had become as senility took hold and that he had to, loved as he was, go.

The problem, as it happens, is that the personality has been systematically weeded out of the sport. No Eddie Jordan, no Jean Alesi, no Aryton Senna, no Eddie Irvine, no one actually any fun. A bunch of clones, essentially, with every word censored by sponsors where a little misbehaviour out of the cockpit gets a driver dropped so fast it makes the cars going down the main straight look pedestrian.

'Michael Schumacher may well have been the greatest driver of his generation or possibly ever. But he was so, so terribly dull'


Why not just remove the drivers entirely? Michael Schumacher may well have been the greatest driver of his generation or possibly ever -- but he was so, so terribly dull. And he was interesting compared to the rest!

At least Eddie Irvine went out, got drunk, misbehaved and womanised a bit. The kind of thing you expect from a testosterone-fuelled adrenaline junky.

Sport is meant to be fun. I want a Formula One filled with flair and characters. Everything in F1 seems sterilised and devoid of flair. The last straw for me was losing Jaguar, a team with style and not associated in my mind with a big corporate moster (even though it is).