When news of the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 started to permeate the German Grand Prix paddock last Thursday, the consensus was it put into perspective the irrelevance of Formula 1.
Compared to the loss of lives and the grieving families, how could Lewis Hamilton's brake failure, Nico Rosberg's victory or the Hockenheim grandstands being emptier than they once were possibly be of the slightest consequence?
But against a backdrop of a passenger plane being shot down, not to mention escalating violence in Gaza and the countless places around the world where hideous atrocities occur on a daily basis but attract little coverage, F1 does matter.