Formula Fun

OK, so the football was a shambles.

And the tennis is probably heading the same way, and Andy Murray will stop being British and become Scottish again. Good job there is a sport we ARE good at – Formula 1.

This weekend sees the British Grand Prix take place at Silverstone, and there’s a very good chance that the winner will be British too. Sort of.

There are 3 Brits in F1 at the moment – Lewis Hamilton (former World Champion, complains a lot, has earrings and a silly beard, hangs out with Nicole Shirtzingler), Jenson Button (former World Champion, affable, scruffy beard, currently wondering why he’s driving so badly, nice model girlfriend) and Paul di Resta (newish, young, sounds like he’s been programmed by his team, quick, girlfriend not obviously hanging around in back of garage).

Hamilton or Button have a pretty good chance of winning, di Resta less so. They’re up against the classiest field for years, with 4 other World Champions , Alonso (Spanish, only one, big, eyebrow, damn quick), Raikkonen (Finnish, sends viewers to sleep when he speaks, damn quick), Schumacher (German, has his own bus pass, damn quick) and Vettel, the reigning Champion (German, annoyingly likeable, waggly forefinger, damn quick), and a bunch of other chaps who would like to give them a good pasting on home soil too.

With Silverstone having been impressively upgraded over the last few years, and a pretty much guaranteed spot of rain, it’s likely to be a cracking race, adding to the 8 great ones we’ve already had, featuring 7 different winners.

And even if one of the British drivers doesn’t make it to the man waving the black and white chequered tea towel first, then at least the car the winner is pedalling will be in some way of this green and pleasantly damp land. Whilst many of the teams list their nationality as non-UK, most are based here, and even those that aren’t (Ferrari, notably) feature many key staff who enable them to go racing, and burn ridiculously big piles of cash chasing an extra two tenths of a second of lap time.

All we have to do now is sit back, relax, and try to cope with Eddie Jordan on the BBC forgetting to actually ask a question of an interviewee, whilst they smile politely and look bemused and frightened at the same time, both by his interview technique, and shirts that even blind viewers can hear. In the company of David Coulthard (the ex-driver who looks like he’s still wearing a crash helmet painted skin-colour) and Jake Humphrey (so corporate, he probably has ‘property of the BBC’ tattooed on his bum), it should be an entertaining few hours.

Sky? Nah – You have to pay for that, and I bank with Nat West.

Good news, then! The winner of the British GP is guaranteed to be at least very slightly British-ish! By our current sporting standards, that really is quite a result...

Have a very fast weekend.

If you can.

This post first appeared in my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column in the North West Evening Mail on Friday 6th July 2012. This is the unedited version - you can view the printed/online version here: After my moment of triumph last week, where they actually used my title, this week the paper went for "Ready for weekend of British triumph", which cunningly encompasses the fact that, startlingly, that grumpier-than-me bloke has made it to the tennis final at Wimblydon. It'd be grand to see some comments, so please go there and leave one. A nice one, if you like. Or a bad one. It's a democracy, after all.)

(New CD day! David Gilmour's  "Live In Gdansk" CD popped itself through the letterbox this week. Top guitarage!)