Source:
https://scmp.com/article/694405/risky-business-where-cheats-go-unpunished

A risky business where cheats go unpunished

I was kindly invited by a large financial institution to attend the Formula One race in Singapore last weekend. I learned a great deal at this event, and in particular I learned that Formula One is insane.

First of all, Formula One is probably the only sport that is not only far less interesting, but also far more dangerous, to witness live rather than on television. And I don't mean the danger of being hit by a superheated piece of metal in the event of one of the cars crashing into another one in front of you. I mean the much more likely danger of damage to spectators' ears.

The volume at which these machines move around the track is incredible. The cars are as loud as a jet aircraft taking off, and there's not just one, there are as many as 20 of them screaming around at eardrum-bursting volume. Any spectator not equipped with ear protection in the form of plugs or muffs is going to suffer damage to their hearing.

I'm not aware of any other sporting event where spectators need to carry safety equipment in order to survive without injury.

And then there is the enormous cost. If a child sees a game of football on television and as a result is encouraged to run outside and have a go, generally speaking, he or she probably could.

By contrast, there are probably only a handful of people on the planet with anything like the wealth necessary to enter the Formula One. Each team has two cars and three drivers, which is tough on the third since it's not much fun being a driver without a car.

I met three drivers while I was in Singapore. All were quite small, no doubt to enable them to fit in the tiny cockpit of the vehicle and not weigh it down. They were also each in their early 20s and paid multi-multimillion-dollar salaries that would raise any banker's eyebrows.

The cars regularly need to be repaired or modified and each car has a team of something like 50 people looking after it. Corporate sponsors come up with the funds to match the enormous cost of paying the drivers, acquiring the equipment, keeping it all running throughout the year and transporting it all over the world. Together, the teams spend billions of dollars in order to participate.

Now I recognise that there are plenty of other sports that cost a lot of money. But is any other sporting team spending hundreds of millions of dollars and employing huge support networks with as bizarre a goal as enabling one diminutive 22-year-old to drive around in circles for an hour and a half?

The other thing I learned about Formula One last weekend is that the word 'glamour' means 'skinny teenage girl'. Whenever any advertising or promotional material refers to the 'glamour' of Formula One, it will include a photograph of a skinny young woman standing in front of or near a car holding some sort of prop like an umbrella or a flag.

The cliched strategy of increasing the attractiveness of the product by putting an attractive person next to it remains popular in Formula One. Unfortunately, other than standing next to cars to have their photos taken, there is practically no involvement of women in this sport. There are no female Formula One drivers and, as far as I could tell, women don't seem to get involved in the maintenance of the vehicles or activities of the team.

And there are also the unfortunate events that took place at last year's Singapore Formula One. During that race, a driver was instructed by his team's managers to deliberately drive his car into one of the walls around the track. No doubt against his better judgment, he complied with this request, forcing the safety car onto the track in circumstances that helped his teammate go on and win the race.

The team involved was penalised in a way that didn't require them to withdraw from any part of the competition or change anything else about their activities, although they were warned that they'd better not do it again. A breach of the rules that was specifically designed to create a dangerous accident went practically unpunished in this odd sport.

Now I didn't raise any of these concerns with my banker hosts. I couldn't really have said that I didn't think much of a risky activity that most people will never experience first hand, that requires ridiculous sums of money, is primarily the province of men, and where there is no penalty for significant breaches of the rules. They might have thought I was talking about them.

Alan Alanson is an investment banker who writes under a pseudonym. Contact at [email protected]