Formula One had a real boost leading up to Silverstone. The promotional event in central London attracted enormous crowds, far beyond expectation and proved once again that despite a tendency to self-destruct F1 has real mass appeal.

The good news extended to Silverstone, with the biggest crowd ever on a Saturday and a full house on Sunday, with no reported traffic problems. I did mention F1's self-destruct habit and they were at it again on Saturday. All teams have their own weather forecasters and the feeling was that rain was due towards the end of the main qualifying session. So in pre-qualifying, which determines the running order in main qualifying, in front of 60,000 paying customers the teams tried to go slower than their rivals so as to avoid the expected rain in final session! What a way to pay back your public.

Last year's event was possibly the race of the year, and certainly Ruben's finest hour. Silverstone is a great track and produces great racing, so much was expected. McLaren had a smiling faces at last. The revised MP4-19B is not only much faster and easier to drive but seems reliable as well. This should have given Coulthard the chance to show who is top Brit and at the same time alert team owners to a top driver currently out of a seat for 2005.

On the day it was his team mate who dominated qualifying, winning an excellent pole position. Next up was our Rubens who had seemed to have the measure of his team mate once again at Silverstone. Top Brit was in fact Jenson Button in the BAR with an excellent 3rd position.

Michael Schumacher was a seemingly lack-lustre fourth from Trulli, Alonso (who would then drop ten places due to an engine change) Coulthard, Montoya, Sato and Webber.

The start was clean with Raikkonen flying away to lead comfortably. He had a 3.5 second lead on lap one which was 4.3 seconds on lap 2. Once the Ferrari's Bridgestone tyres came up to temperature however, Rubens did peg the gap but a lot of ground had been lost. Michael at this time looked pretty average and entirely in line with his qualifying performance.

Lap 8 Alonso pits, lap 9 Rubens pits, lap 10 Coulthard pits and, hello, Michael sets fastest lap! Umm... Lap 11 Raikkonen pits and rejoins behind Sato who then holds him up big-time. Also on lap 11 Button pits along with Montoya - Michael sets another fastest lap, five in a row in fact (are you starting to get the idea ?). Schumi finally pits on lap 15 and rejoins in the lead having been really flying whilst everyone else was being held up! Just like in France.

What was emerging was another Ross Brawn / Michael Schumacher double act of blinding genius. Overstatement ? I don't think so. But to continue .... The expected strategy at Silverstone is a three stop race and nearly all adopted this. On lap 37 Michael pitted for only the second time and was fuelled to the end. He rejoined in the lead once again. That looked like game set and match with Michael projected to win by around 20 seconds or so.

However there was a sting in the tail. On lap 40 Trulli suffered a scary accident on the exit of Bridge. Thankfully he was OK. Just as well judging by how fast the doctor got him to the side of the track !

As you would imagine almost everyone then dived to the pits for their third stop. A "free" stop in effect. 16 laps to go - all fuelled to the end - this is going to be great. The only one not on fresh tyres was Michael. There were only two back markers (Da Matta & Klien) between him and the chasing Raikkonen, Barrichello, Button and Montoya. Get them before Copse - surely ? Come on Rubens!

Lights out on the pace car and off - except Rubens who seemed to have turned his lights out in sympathy! One-and-a-half laps it took him to get past the back-markers, by which time it was all over.

Raikkonen did a decent job at the restart but in the end Michael had enough pace and ability to hold position. In the end there was under four seconds between the first four cars but this, of course, was only distortion due to the pace car.

Now I did say genius before ? At Magny Cours, Michael four-stopped to avoid racing a rival that could have held him up. At Silverstone he two-stopped and gained enormously with a clear track whilst his rivals were in traffic.

Simply - Ross finds Michael clear track and Michael goes like hell - absolutely brilliant and totally admirable. The only thing is that the sport is called motor racing. The game "Strategy" is a board game surely? Why bother with the cars? Make it a Saturday night TV Game Show. Ross is actively getting Michael out of racing situations in order to win. Admits to it - proud of it - brilliant at it and paid to do it.

Sorry folks, it's not for me. Let's start again with a clean sheet of paper:-

Headings

• Big Power
• Big Slicks
• Spanish Gearboxes (Manuel, geddit?)
• No Downforce
• No Refuelling
• No Car/Pit Communication
• Fast Tracks

Draw up your own list....

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