Where does the buck stop in Formula 1?

Not a month ago, PM Keir Starmer fell on his sword. His litany of policy failure, the British cost of living, a stagnant economy and rampant ‘immigration’ among his sins.

He’s among a few high-profile heads to roll this year. Target CEO Cornell, IndiGo boss Elbers, and Fermi's top man Everson are among them. Stepping down in disgrace is nothing new. Keer’s peers Johnson, Truss and Sunak; Shmyhal in the Ukraine; Afghan Ghani; and Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka all did.

And then there’s the opposite. Characters like Jakob Zuma. Steal, rape, shower. Rule. Or Mugabe, Angola’s dos Santos, Orban in Hungary, Malaysia’s Rabak, Ghaddafi, Saddam and the rest. Hold that thought as you read on.

A 50/50 hybrid crock of crap, in my opinion. When the FIA set off on apparently Formula 1’s biggest-ever rules rewrite, its single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis ran the show. True, he was aided and abetted by F1 management, the FIA's technical departments and the teams and manufacturers.

Together they cooked up a 50/50 hybrid crock of crap. Anyone with half a brain knew it could never work long before a power unit ever landed on a test bench. The drivers warned it wasn’t plausible the moment they drove the tech on the sim.

Yet the show went on. Of course, it didn’t work. The laws of physics instantly proved F1’s heathen rules pack for what it was. A thirteenth-hour Band-Aid admitted defeat. Yet F1 blamed the carmakers, EVs and misguided ideals for its own mistakes.

‘We cannot be held hostage’, F1 head Domenicali warns. Sat in the middle, Doctor Tombazis offers, ‘It needs an apple a day.' FIA boss Ben Sulayem bangs it on his future V8 belief. Cool alibi, that. And collectively, they carry on smiling, giggling. Playing Lego.

The FIA is big on competitors ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’. Like all of them, our local book’s rule 172 prevents that. Transgress, and your rival will shout ‘172’ as loud as George when Charles wanders an inch wide. Or a spastic soccer player chasing a free kick.

Put the shoe on the other foot, and what’s Formula 1 doing about putting its own sport in disrepute? Who will be to blame when the F2 cars have more power and likely turn out quicker than F1 at Spa this weekend? Whose head is rolling for the mess the sport is in?

Is F1 more aligned to that other lot? So we keep waiting to see what happens. Besides giggling, smiling and playing Lego. See, unlike Starmer, Johnson, Cornell or Elbers, it seems the F1 leadership buck doesn’t stop. Which makes one wonder whether Formula 1 is more aligned to that other lot...