As far as one can feel sorry for a group of people who get paid extremely well to do what they passionately love doing, I do feel sorry for Formula One racing drivers at the moment. They are required to be technical, tactical and competitive masters of their trade, to exercise split-second judgement and total commitment, and to do so under extreme conditions. Over the last 40-50 years, what they do has evolved from being the pastime of high-living, four-wheeled fighter-pilot dilettantes to a profession in which their diet, physical regime and PR schedules place them under near-total management, even when they are nowhere near the circuit.
In return, they can sometimes provide us with some of the most gripping sporting contests on the planet, in settings of high drama and glamour.
It's something of a tragedy, then, that those at the top of the sport's administration have managed to arrange things so that the negative effects of their own actions outweigh the positive contribution made by the drivers.
The massive governance failures of Indianapolis 2005, the extraordinary appointment of a race-specific FIA scrutineer in Brazil 2007 "to make sure McLaren treated both its drivers equally", the constant haggling over financial and actual control over the Silverstone circuit, and so on and so forth.
Last Sunday's news carried another classic piece of F1 management aberration: Bernie Eccelstone is reported as having "upped the pressure on Max Mosley to resign". This in itself is perhaps not surprising, given the nature of the coverage Mr Mosley has attracted in the past few weeks. What seems characteristic of Mr Ecclestone's style is that he has "invited F1 team principals to sign a letter calling for Mosley to stand
down and said he would add his name if they all signed it." So rather than declare his principles and stand up for them, he has set out what he wants, but will not put his name to it unless preceded by all those who are most financially dependent on him. Hurrah for moral fibre.
F1 is often described as a 'media circus' - but the evidence is that it has no need of the media's help.
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