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Mark Hughes: F1's Inside Line

"There was no press as such as there was no way of getting into the paddock"

I had a nightmare a few nights ago. It was set in Formula 1's near future.

The sport had moved away from its European base entirely. The cost of feeding the debts the sport's owners had incurred in buying F1 meant they could no longer stage races that weren't being funded by governments. Just to keep ahead of the interest on those debts required the sport's owners be paid obscene amounts of money from race organisers in order to show up and stage a grand prix.

In the western democracies the idea of paying millions of tax payers' money to a bunch of billionaires to stage a race was a non-starter. But those governments unconstrained by the ballot box and looking to advertise themselves as investment havens happily paid. And F1 moved eastwards, doing its stuff exclusively in palatial venues that sat cheek by jowl with starving citizens - either there or rising like a mirage out of deserts.