F1 fans might well wish for simpler times, but no one wants armed race officials…

Did you see the official circuit map for the Chinese Grand Prix a couple of months ago? Have you compared it to the same illustration issued in 2024? It’s like receiving a new laptop today and discovering you now have to follow a complex diagram and wire the motherboard to get the thing to work. 

The ‘LEGEND’ – aka the User Manual – on the circuit map talks about ‘grip activation’, ‘straight modes’ and ‘detection’ as if this is a sort of reversed Escape Room challenge where players have to find their way in before the game can start. It’s easy to understand why even the most loyal Formula 1 fan these days is left scratching their head with one hand and throwing the remote at the TV with the other.

There was a time when the only thing necessary to define a race track was a marker board at 300 yards showing whether the road went left or right. In some places, you didn’t have that luxury. And in even more bizarre circumstances, the race organisers saw the shortfall in track detail as a safety feature. Only in Ireland, of course. 

Back in the 1960s, Malcolm Templeton became a classy and successful single-seater driver after competing in the Ulster Grand Prix and other major motorcycle races in Northern Ireland. I was visiting Malcolm at his Alfa Romeo dealership in Ballymena when he happened to mention the Mid Antrim 150 road race. This used a fearsome 10-mile course on narrow country roads lined with walls and grass banks, pillars, posts and barbed wire fences. It made the Isle of Man TT course look like the M6. 

In the 1940s, the circuit was considered to be so long and hazardous that they did away with practice. Like – there was none at all! According to Malcolm, the organisers worked on the theory that by the time the 150-mile race was done, the riders would have really got to know the place after treating the first few laps with suitable respect. 

There’s something to be said for that, not least when you consider the faffing around we have in F1 free practice today, with more than 1000 people in each team measuring their drivers’ on-track progress to the micro-second. And for what? Knowing precisely where the driver should back off to save his battery even though every natural sinew in the racer’s body is urging them to push the throttle through the floor? Or examining how a rival doing a necessary bit of lift-and-coast half a mile ahead is causing a 0.0001-point loss of downforce that’s worth moaning about on the radio? 

F1 CEO Domenicali spoke exclusively to Autosport

Photo by: Motorsport Network

But let’s not offer anything remotely resembling criticism for fear of offending F1’s CEO as he continues to look for a way out of the mess his business finds itself in. Speaking as one of the “old people with a short memory” (as referred to by Stefano Domenicali in his Autosport interview – which, incidentally, generated a raft of crucifying comments), I can remember far enough back to make painful comparisons with one or two disastrous TV chats in the past where the interviewees clearly thought discussions had gone rather well.

Perhaps we should also be thankful that F1’s representatives do not tote guns at the race track. Or, at least, not like they did during the Grand Prize and International Light Car Race in the USA. This marathon event in 1908 was held on a temporary 25-mile road course prepared by convict labour, just south of the city of Savannah in Georgia. After six hours, the race was won by Louis Wagner in a Fiat. Lost in the footnotes is the story of Rene Hanriot, who was classified fourth. 

An experienced racer in Europe, Hanriot struggled across the line and then decided to do a U-turn and limp towards the paddock. Since the circuit passed through villages and open countryside, course control had been delegated to the army.

The story goes that, when Hanriot appeared from the wrong direction, Captain Davant of the Chatham Artillery ordered his men to stop the Benz. Hanriot would have none of it and drove past the gesticulating officials. Whereupon the outraged Captain Davant drew his revolver and punctured both back tyres and the Benz’s fuel tank. As you do. Earlier in the day, a farmer who had insisted on driving his horse and cart across the track was bayoneted in the chest. Makes a 10-place grid penalty these days seem like a walk in the park. 

The Miami GP will have taken place between writing and this column reaching print. The recent meeting of F1 minds led to a number of tweaks to the current formula, mainly to the electronics. How did it work out? Did you cope with seeing the use of 250 kilo-somethings per hour instead of the full 350? What d’you mean you missed it? This applied at certain places on the race track. And, yes, we’re expected to work out the locations with a quick look at – you guessed it – the official circuit map.

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the June 2026 issue and subscribe today. 

Wagner won 1908 race – and wasn’t shot at!