Formula One's popularity a mystery

It is difficult to understand why Formula One motor racing has, apparently, become so popular in recent times. The word "apparently" is used here because this writer is not so sure that it has. What is certain is that there seems to be a very powerful lobby in the sports media to give it vast amounts of newspaper space as well as radio and television coverage, totally out of proportion to what it deserves.

For a start, anybody would think that we Irish have a vested interest in this very expensive activity. Nothing could be further from the truth. So Eddie Irvine lives in Killiney for a few months every year and Bord Failte hands out some tax-payers' money but, apart from this peripheral association, it is hard to believe that Ireland has anything to gain from the vast amount of media coverage which the sport gets.

The word "sport" in this context is used very loosely for, it seems to this observer, that there is little which is sporting about it.

We shall come to the recent Grand Prix in Spain in a moment but within the last few weeks we have had the extraordinary situation where Irvine, who was in a very strong position to win a race, actually allowed another driver to go past to enable that driver (his team-mate Michael Schumacher) to go on to win.

It is all very well to say that it is a team sport etc, but if a trainer had two or three racehorses in a race and the fancied one was being beaten it would not be acceptable to the racing authorities that a stable-mate should give way. In fact, both trainer and jockey would find themselves up before the stewards and could be in for serious suspensions.

Then last week we had the spectacle of one driver trying to force a rival off the track, a ploy which did not succeed. The guilty driver tried to dress it up as an "accident" and, at first the authorities took his word for it but later decided that some form of action would have to be taken and the matter is now up for hearing next month.

As for Irish interest in the Formula One sector there is little or no reason to suggest that an Irish car is involved. As far as I know, the Jordan car which is associated with this country has never had any connection good, bad or indifferent with Ireland. It hasn't been built here, hasn't raced here nor is it ever likely to do so. One might say that this is a pity but it is, nevertheless, a fact.

Motor racing at this level has another distinction in that it is a sport where people looking on can be killed and, in this respect, it is much more lethal to life and limb than the much misunderstood and vilified sport of boxing, for instance.

Before anyone writes in to say that more people have died at soccer matches than at motor racing events I would point out that it was the spectators, not the participants, who were responsible for the deaths in the case of soccer.

It is only fair to admit here that I never drove anything more lethal than a Ferguson tractor, fuelled by TVO. If you want to know what TVO is, or was, you will have to look it up. This is not a university lecture - although I suppose it will not be long until students are doing PhDs on the subject of motor racing.

One man who is surely a PhD Hons in the subject is Brendan Lynch whose wonderful book about the history of motor racing in Ireland, Green Dust, has been mentioned here before. I would far prefer to read his accounts of the way the sport developed here in Ireland in this century than watch a Formula One race any day.

I suspect that many of the people who watch these events are the same kind of people who go to rugby matches twice a year, mostly to be seen rather than to see.

It seems obvious to me that in any grand prix there are very few - perhaps three at most - who have the slightest chance of winning. Instead of having a decent handicap system which would give more people a chance there are practice drives in the days before the event and the fastest cars are then put at the front of the field to give them an even greater advantage over the slower cars.

Then a driver who might be in with a chance of winning the race will let a teammate through and sacrifice his own chance. This is commerce, not sport, for it casts doubt on the authenticity of the result.

There is another aspect of the sport which tends to worry an observer like me. That is speed. In recent times in this country there has been an extraordinary increase in the number of deaths on the road. Many observers blame speed as the major factor in this. Could increased exposure to motor racing on television have anything to do with this?

It cannot be denied that people will always be attracted to dangerous pursuits and there may be positive factors involved in motor racing as there are in all sports. Nevertheless much of it seems pointless.

The entire sport of motor racing, or that which we see on television at any rate, seems to this observer to be boring, particularly when you know from the start that, barring an engine fault or an "accident", only two or three have any chance of winning.

Even then when you see a young driver in with a good chance of winning his first ever Grand Prix pull over to let his big name team-mate through you begin to wonder what is the point of it all.