As a dye-in-the-wool Formula 1 fanatic, I sat down with much anticipation to watch last Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix to find out the lead news story was that Lewis Hamilton had spent an entire press conference messing about with Snapchat filers on his phone, and generally treating the FIA driver's press conference like a night out in Star City.
This made news. Not the resurgence in Red Bull's form, but a driver pissing about with his phone. Understandably some sponsors and officials are already unhappy about Hamilton’s casual approach to the pre-race drivers’ parade, when he is a detached figure listening to music on headphones instead of mixing with his rivals.
But then again this is nothing compared to the antics of James Hunt, who used his career as a Formula One driver to essentially drink, smoke, and bonk his way across the globe … and he was widely revered for it. Given the excitement for a Formula One driver these days often means deciding to have swirly brown pasta instead of the normal straight variety and Kimi Raikkonen getting out of his car during a rain stoppage to have a choc-ice is the height of rule-breaking bad, boy behaviour, it seems a bit rich to criticise Lewis for what is hardly devil-may-care behaviour. Especially when one considers Hunt, Sheene and co used to lure unsuspecting race marshal's girlfriends into their motorhomes in order to let them fiddle with their gearsticks.
And whilst there are some out there that think this is newsworthy, and there are some within the F1 paddock that seems to think that Lewis is at least showing some attempt to shake off the rather staid and sterile image that racing drivers have [a condition I shall in future refer to as Mansellitis], are we are now so celebrity-obsessed that even when a 'sporting celeb' when Lewis buys a new pair of shoes, magazines and newspapers and we all think it’s more important than his lap times ??
The odds are that, according to which rag you grab off the floor of the train, he's persuaded Rita Ora, Nicole Shertzinger and Rhianna to open their DRS flaps, at least there's never a dull moment with Lewis.
It also helps that despite all this, he's still a great driver. As was Hunt.
I was thinking about all of this while watching the Grand Prix, (For those who don’t follow F1, it was all the usual stuff: some cars whizzing around, and the silver one won ahead of the fizzy drink-sponsored one) and I thought; hang on a minute. If we have pro-celebrity football, pro-celebrity ice-skating and pro-celebrity ski-jumping, then why not have actual, proper, legitimately endorsed pro-celebrity motor racing ??
It should be based on the British Touring Car Championships of the 1990’s, where the drivers were clearly mad and you never could tell whether the race was going to be won by Renault, Ford, Honda or BMW. In Japan, Nico Rosberg was so much faster than anyone else, he nearly lapped himself. That never happens in touring car racing.
As was the case back then, each manufacturer would field two cars; only under my system, one would be driven by a professional racing driver and one by someone from the HEAT celebrity world. This way you could have Jason Plato partnered by Holly Willoughby and Matt Jackson teamed up with Peter Andre`. Their points from each event would be added up together, so that the professional driver would have to help out the celeb wherever possible.
The good thing about tin-topped touring cars as opposed to the full-face helmeted F1 stars in their padded cockpits is that the on-board cameras can see the driver's faces as they bump and bash their way through the corners, and each other. You'd need that, if you had Amy Childs at the wheel of a BTCC racer. You'd want to see her eyes on stalks and her cheeks puffed out in terror, screaming as she tried to take Copse corner flat-out at Silverstone, banging door handles with Gordon Sheddon.
So, the car makers would love it because it'd be inexpensive. Die-hard racing enthusiasts would love it because half the field would still be pros. The tracks would love it because thousands would turn up to watch Vicky Pattison going wheel to wheel with Andrew Jordan. The sponsors would love it because their brand could be endorsed by Ferne Cottone, and the television companies would love it because they'd have a motor racing programme people would like to watch.
Which didn't cost them £200 million.
And which doesn’t have to mean being pals with Rupert Murdoch.
Of course, at this point you might be jumping up and down, imagining you’ve spotted the big flaw in my plan, and ironically, it comes in from of Top Gear. If you look at the list of stars who have appeared on 'Star in a Reasonably Priced Car', you'll note that some of them are actually good. Very good.
Let's take Jay Kay from Jamiroquai as an example. You may imagine that, as a rock star, he likes to start the evening punching a few paparazzi photographers with a supermodel draped over his arm before roaring off on his Ferrari to smash up some speed cameras. In fact, he has a cottage in Scotland where he spends all his time camping and walking.
What's more, he's clearly a very, very good driver. And it's the same story with Peter Jones from Dragon's Den and Lawrence Dallaglio. There was also Ellen MacArthur and Jennifer Saunders, then there's Simon Cowell, Tom Cruise, John Bishop, Cameron Diaz, Rowan Atkinson and Jodie Kidd, all of whom have set very fast lap times on Top Gear. So there we are. I have seen the future of motor racing; Joey Essex, charging through the Old Hairpin at Donington Park, at the wheel of a bright orange Honda Civic.
The only problem I see is that the TV rights would probably have to sold to ITV2. Which would also mean Keith Lemon would probably end up being the lead commentator.
Penny for your thoughts, Bernie ??