Which means ITV will pull out and F1, the glory of motor engineering will end up on Men 'n' Motors shoved between Camel Racing from Dubai with Nick Knowles and Extreme Ironing with Ant and Lard.

The big question is why so many people have tuned out of F1 in recent years, and the simple answer is this: it's mind-numbingly boring. You have no idea which driver is which, you can't see them doing anything other than turning a steering wheel, and when they get out, they talk like they're flatlining.

Everyone is crediting Lewis Hamilton with greatness, and, I must say, his opening corner manoeuvres at the first two races were genuinely breathtaking, but then at the end of the race he gets out and thanks each of the viewers personally, and the team, and the people who made his stupid tyres.

No, no, no. Come on, man. You should get out and shout, "I'm going on the podium now and then I'm going on some women."

You know this new kid Koivanainenenenan? Why has he not celebrated his elevation to F1 by setting fire to Martin Brundle's trousers? Why has he not smeared six inches of snot down the side of Kimi's Ferrari? Rene Arnoux, I'm told, used to sleep with his boss's wife. Nelson Piquet used to piss in the car. And still Lewis drones on and on about Ron Dennis and how kind he's been for reminding him to drink water on a hot day.

Act your age, son. Get drunk. And get laid.

We've all read The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe, and if you haven't, you should. He paints a picture of early test pilots up in the high desert of California, hanging their balls over the line every day and then if - and he does mean if - they landed safely, tearing into Vegas in their Corvettes, to go drinking and screwing around.

Even when seven were chosen to become the Mercury astronauts, and they had to be chisel-jawed, superhero, family men, for their cover shots on Time magazine, the high jinks didn't stop.

They were young. They were doing something dangerous. And they lived. F1 drivers should be the same, not standing around on the grid drinking Ribena from a bloody squeezy bottle.

Then there's the business of racing. At the moment, they set off, race to the first corner and then spend the next two hours following one another around the track. The only excitement comes in the pits and I'm sorry, but if I want to see men changing tyres and putting petrol in the tank, I'll pop down to my local Kwik-Fit.

I've had many ideas over the years for enlivening the spectacle. Once I even said that a driver a year should be sacrificed to keep us all entertained. But I've since realised this was cruel and ridiculous. A broken leg or fractured skull would be just as satisfactory.