#1. What was ever the point? If the circuit had passed down the Avantine or whizzed past St. Peter's Square or took a lap around the Circus Maximus, or if you got a brief glimpse (on the telly) of the Spanish Steps or the Coloseum in the background each lap as the cars sped past, I could be convinced there was some plausible rationale for using Rome as a backdrop. But the circuit doesn't go near
anything iconically Roman. Worse still, they put it in a "Utopian" community built by the Fascist dictator who enthusiastically allied Italy to Adolph Hitler. Now
there's an achievement we all can join in celebrating!
#2. Perhaps they should just call it "The Grand Prix of Borneo" instead. After all, in the past decade alone there've been two GPs in Italy on four different occasions, only they'd chosen to call the one held at the Imola circuit "the GP of San Marino," despite the fact that it's in Italy,
not San Marino. It's even named after Enzo and Dino Ferrari, as Italian as name as ...as ...as ...why, hell's bells, there
isn't another name as recognisably Italian as Ferrari.
Say it with me now,
fuh-RAH-ree. Feels good, doesn't it?
And Borneo isn't presently hosting its own GP, so why not?
What about when Dubai rings up
His Bernieness to tell him they want an F1 race of their own (and they
will)? Will he tell them F1 can't do both Dubai
and Abu Dhabi? Or will he succumb to the piles of money they will throw at him and fabricate an excuse for making them an exception? Like, ...well, they're separate emirates, and an emirate is the Arab equivalent of a country (and the seven United Arab Emirates only ever agreed to form a "country" to appease oil-grubbing westerners anyway), so the several emirates each merit their own race. Well, Bernie, if we're bringing history and national character into it, then Rome once was capital of the Papal States while Monza belonged to the Duchy of Milan, so they, too, have a history of being separate and autonomous countries.
But when that time comes, I'll wager a month's beer money that Bernie will backtrack like a crayfish in full flight and bump some European venue from the calendar for Dubai's benefit (not to mention his own).
