The FIA and the teams were in crisis mode this morning, while Bernie - in his typical way - pretended he knew nothing. "What breakaway? What's the argument about? I don't worry about anything. I know nothing. You should speak to Max. Yadda yadda yadda..."
My morning got off to an inauspicious start too when I was having breakfast with some friends from Ferrari. One of them was struggling with a non-squeezy bottle of tomato ketchup. 'Give it here', I said, 'you just need to give it a good whack'. The ketchup shot across her plate and all over her shirt. Still, at least she was wearing red.
Since this latest crisis reached fever pitch it's easy to forget there's a race on this weekend. Still on Wednesday in London one could get away from it all. I was invited to an event by Oris watches where I got to race a Scalextric against Nico Rosberg, Kazuki Nakajima and some other guests. Nico proved pretty handy. I finished a glorious fifth which, I think, might have had something to do with the beer and two glasses of wine I had before the do. Never before has a Scalextric car been so sideways.
That evening there was a Grand Prix Lounge party held at Jalouse in Mayfair. Nelson Piquet and Bruno Senna were there and on good form. But otherwise the paddock turn out was quite small. I think the concept was 'lets stick a McLaren MP4-4 outside and charge 500 quid a ticket'. Of course, I blagged it.
I'm staying in Oxford this weekend at the Malmaison, which was once a prison and is still very much in that style, with cells and wings rather than rooms and corridors, and a visitors room instead of a lounge. Whether the concierge are known as 'screws' I don't know. The bedroom doors are tiny, the windows have had their bars removed but are still too small to crawl through and downstairs in reception on the TVs they've actually got old episodes of Porridge on loop.
In fact, when I walked out onto the restored atrium, with five floors of cells, I could hear the jangling of keys and the opening dialogue "Norman Stanley Fletcher, you have pleeded guilty to the charges brought by this court..."
But, as I said, it's actually very posh and they've removed the bunk beds and replaced them with comfy king-size jobs. The showers aren't communal, which reduces the chances of arse rape considerably, and the view across the exercise yard is blocked by a Carluccio's.
Actually, with all these luxuries I feel more like Mr Bridger from The Italian Job, who lived by different prison rules and had a chandelier in his cell.
And, to drag it back to F1 politics, maybe the Formula One World Championship and the rich sporting history it has provided could be characterized as Great Aunt Nellie. At her funeral, Mr Bridger's thoughts were clear:
"We've come here to pay our respects to Great Aunt Nellie. She brought us up properly and taught us loyalty. Now I want you to remember that during these next few days. I also want you to remember that if you don't come back with the goods, Nellie here will turn in her grave, and, likely as not, jump right out of it and kick your teeth in."
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