MOTOR SPORT/Formula One British Grand Prix: There is no other event like it. No sporting occasion can match this for passion, devotion and sudden expressions of intense emotion. And none has the ability to produce such short-term fanaticism in all who cross its path.

The World Cup is the only game in town. At Silverstone yesterday, just eight cars, piloted, in the balmy heat, by test drivers, took to the circuit for first practice, and while that's nothing new - Fridays have long been soporific affairs - it did seem to sum up the lack of focus for the motor-racing element of this weekend in front of timing screens and big screens.

Almost every driver was trotted out for photocalls in a national football shirt. A little Brazil here, a touch of Italy there. Germany for Williams's Nico Rosberg, Australia for team-mate Mark Webber. And so much England it's scarcely believable.

Even the blue-blood conservatives who run the circuit and whose vision usually stretches no farther than the end of turned-up noses have bowed to the inevitable. England's opener in Frankfurt is an unstoppable force. Today's qualifying sessions for tomorrow's British Grand Prix have been shunted back to 12.30. Tomorrow's race, to accommodate Serbia Montenegro's match against Holland, has been given a noon start.

The atmosphere at Silverstone hasn't been muted, however, just diffused.

Whether it has affected ticket sales for a race that, even on days when the rain falls like stair rods, is a sell-out, hasn't been revealed, but for the fans attending qualifying today will be the appetiser before they gorge on a main course that, like foie gras, has resulted from overfeeding and been stuffed into bizarre shape.

How can a car race compete? By dressing up its chief local selling point in a new helmet. Jenson Button, in recent years the focus of all British motorsport hysteria, yesterday revealed his support for Becks and co with a new helmet sporting the cross of St George and the word "England". It's hard for a boy to get noticed in this climate.

But it is increasingly hard for Button to get noticed for what he does on track, too. Since his debut in 2000 for Williams, when he really did seem like a champion-in-waiting, he has floundered. A difficult stint at the old Benetton team in 2001/'02 led to a hotly tipped move to the BAR-Honda team, now Honda, the following year. And with that, hardly anything has happened.

And now even pace in qualifying is eluding Button. In the first quartet of races this season he easily dismissed his new team-mate Rubens Barrichello. But as the Brazilian has come to terms with the car the roles have been reversed, embarrassingly so.

Button is going backward: his qualifying stats for the year read 3, 2, 1, 2, 6, 8, 13. Barrichello's 6, 20, 16, 3, 4, 5, 5.

Silverstone offers respite. It is an old stomping ground. It is a home race.