Why you should watch F1

I was thinking about what my next blog post would be about this morning, and, like most mornings, couldn't think of anything really worth writing about; hence the ages between the last post and this. I thought about it a bit more as I sat and watched the Canadian GP this afternoon and realised that Formula 1 is something that I love, which I very rarely blog about.

F1 falls into the same 'guilty pleasure' part of my life as does blogging itself, and the two nerdy revelations of the post below. I think I don't go on and on about it very much because I feel that the people I socialise with probably don't have enough of an interest in the subject to hold an interesting two-way conversation with me about it. The general response (and one I come definitely across more often in the UK) is that which usually contains some reference to 'cars going round and round' and the obligatory associated idiot hand circle movement.
Yes, well done, you've reduced quite a nuanced and captivating sport into a small phrase which goes only as far as to illustrate how informed your decision on this particular subject actually is.

As a kid I have vivid memories of F1 being the Sunday morning obstacle to cartoons. I have a vague recollection of Senna's crash, of Villeneuve's world championship victory, and of trying to conjure up foolproof ways of getting my napping father's hand off the remote without waking him up.
So if I can be a really avid fan now, anyone can! F1 really is interesting - I promise! There's a lot of strategy involved, and a lot of engineering detail which I don't entirely understand, and that's just fine. The television coverage caters for thickos like me; everything is explained, and you feel like you can make informed judgements on how someone's race or season is progressing.

And that's also connected to the drivers themselves. There is so much personality in F1 - even the quieter, more private drivers have enough back story to keep the viewer entertained. Your feelings on Schumi aside, you have to look at people like Button, Raikonnen, Sato and Massa and admit that their foibles and quirks bring a sort of drama to the sport that I find lacking in, say, MotoGP.

The tracks are also always interesting; the fact that there are both the drivers' and constructors' world titles at stake, the money involved in the sport; and, as witnessed in yesterday's race, the crashes too. It's kind of bittersweet to see - as I would have tomorrow morning, were it not for Hamilton's win - an in-air shot of Kubica/Ralf Schumacher/some poor sod's car, generally upside down or in flames, on the front of the morning Metro on a Monday. It's great that the sport gets recognition and 'air-time' as it were, but also sad in that any concept of there being subtely to the sport is lost in a freeze-frame of flying plastic bits.

Hopefully, with Hamilton doing so unbelievably well, the feeling about the sport will change here. I honestly can't think of one bar in London that I could go to on a Sunday and watch the race at; while I know I would have been able to find a spot in Cape Town, Jo'burg, Knysna and even Grahamstown where like-minded fans would sit and watch and support their this-year's-guy. It's a sad state when there are 4 British drivers in the championship that this is the way things are.

I hope I'm wrong, and that I just haven't encountered the avid British fans. And I hope that if you don't watch, you'll sit down next Sunday and give it a chance.

I'm going to go out on a limb and ask, that if you do watch, which driver do you support? And why?