Is F1 For Real?

If you watch that World Wrestling nonsense, or if you're lucky or old enough to remember the wrestling on World of Sport (where old ladies used to try and knock the villainous Giant Haystacks unconscious by throwing their mules and handbags at him) then you'll see where I'm headed with this...

It's obvious that the WWE wrestling is utterly faked; with its catcalling, squabbles, blatant baddies and underhand fighting (painstakingly scripted and staged to make up for a thuddingly dull sport) - and it's gradually dawning on me that F1 must surely be faked too.

When I say F1 is faked, I don't mean in the sense that the moon landings were faked - as if it's some huge deception. No, I simply mean it's all staged and made up for our entertainment like wrestling. Perhaps it was starting to really go off in the mid nineties, and Bernie decided that something had to be done.

And so, after decades of top notch sport and sportsmanship, it was transformed into the most widely broadcast comedy farce in the world. Still convincing enough to hoodwink the casual observer, but for those who dig any deeper, clearly contrived and unreal.

Consider the evidence: for a start would a real sport shoot itself in the mouth with both barrels like F1 did at Indy 2005? Of course not: that would be even dumber than a Vin Diesel movie. It's just not possible - it's only explicable as a huge plot twist.

Likewise when Ferrari threw a wobbly about tyre regulations in 2003, causing the FIA to change the rules and the press to laugh openly at Ross Brawn in a press conference... Again, clearly impossible. Just another set-piece drama to reverse flagging ratings.
As was Schumi's Monaco parking incident this year. Obviously. Nobody is that poorly skilled. My cats can drive better than that, and they don't even have opposable thumbs or a super-license. No F1 driver - or World Champion - could possibly do that by accident; and doing it deliberately could only be a spectacularly inept attempt at cheating, or to do the bidding of F1's puppetmasters and grab worldwide attention just as the season was getting really boring.

Another giveaway is when you notice actors on the grid. Not Sly Stallone, Michael Douglas & Co freeloading at GP weekends, but when they're actually driving the cars... Anybody who's been paying attention knows that Scott Speed isn't real. The plainly fake name aside, he's obviously actor Sean William Scott playing an angry airhead. Who can't drive.
And Rubens Barrichello: clearly the bloke who plays Frasier. Who unsurprisingly spent the first half of the season driving like a middle-aged talk-show host. Ever wondered why you never see Nick Heidfeld and Hayley Joel Osment in the same room? Exactly.

So where next for F1 - The Movie? Well in a very dull, accountancy-based heist plot, Bernie seems to be making off with all the money. And in general, Max Mosley continues to play Doctor Evil and threaten the sport with all kinds of ludicrous deaths. The rest is just processions and politics.

The best outcome has to be that it's not like WWE, but more like Dallas: we wake up and find it's all been a dream, Ayrton Senna's still about and they didn't ban turbos.
However if, god forbid, I'm wrong and this IS all real, then what kind of a sport are we all watching?