Dreaming of a new life up there with Michael Schumacher? Well, there are ways and there are ways, as Justin Hynes
There your are on the sofa slowly digesting your Sunday lunch, quaffing the remains of the Big Gulp soft drink that accompanied it, in stately recovery from last night's hangover, channel surfing. Ah, the Grand Prix. Yes.
As David Coulthard gets it all wrong and Peter Collins howls with delight and launches into a diatribe about how the Scot is "Mr Mistake!", you can't help but agree.
"Yes," you think, "he bloody is! Sure anyone could do that, they're not going fast. Sure it's only an ould car: four wheels, gears, steering wheel, accelerator. I could do that."
Wrong. You're too fat, too lazy and crucially, at least 15 years too old, probably 30.
Becoming an F1 driver is a little trickier than turning up at Silverstone with a helmet and a heavy right foot. So we offer our 15-step guide to Becoming Formula 1 World Champion.
1 Be born rich - we don't mean being able to afford to supersize that Sunday lunch. No, racing is very, very expensive. We're talking richness of the Croesian variety here. On your way to F1 you'll have to pay to drive the junior series racing cars you hope will get you noticed. A drive in British or European F3 costs about €600,000 a season, a drive in F3000 weighs in at a hefty €1million. You'll need lots and lots of money to go racing.
However, if your dad happens to be called Diniz, you can bypass most of this and buy half a team instead. Pass go, collect your supermodel girlfriend and apartment in Monaco.
2 You're not born rich. Attach yourself to someone who is. This is the most common way to get to where you want to go. Find yourself a bored industrialist and convince him that motor racing is dead glamorous and that he will meet lots of exciting, beautiful people . . . and Eddie Jordan. Then fleece him for every penny he ever earned through 40 years.
Don't feel guilty. His reward will come in heaven, where his now sky-rocketing blood pressure will soon send him.
3 If the above don't work, your dad should be an ex-racing driver - you're as slow as a wet Wednesday but you get noticed by misty-eyed team bosses with vague memories of dad introducing them to a Brazilian model-actress - whatever - in a dubious Rio nightclub in 1978. Your mother should be that model-actress - whatever. From her you inherit genes for aloofness, overweaning superiority complex, lack of intelligence (for driving into a corner at 300km/h and) and a ability to survive on a lettuce leaf and egg white omelettes. This is good as you won't end up like Nigel Mansell.
4 If your dad isn't an ex-racing driver, change your name by deed poll. Current useful names to have are Lauda, Piquet, Rosberg. You might also want to change your first name. Nico Rosberg sounds like a racing driver - but Paddy Rosberg?
5 Go karting - at age three. As soon as you have mastered standing and have acquired the hand/eye co-ordination that prevents you from stabbing yourself in the ear with a spoonful of carrot and pea purée, tell your dad to buy you a go-kart. Either of two things will now happen. One, dad will begin to live vicariously through you and blow his life savings on enough chassis and spares to cope with any conditions (wet, dry, cloudy with sunny intervals), or else he will die of a broken heart as you ruin his life. You will inherit everything anyway. Either way, you're quids in.
6 You've now conquered karting and have been crowned champion. You are a sulky teenager with the attitude of Liam Gallagher and the media savvy of Madonna - perfect racing driver material. You're on your way. Your next step is proper racing cars.
7 Once you might have sensibly learned a bit more craft in Ireland and raced a solid but unglamorous formula here. Why wait! You've got oodles of someone else's money, let's go to Britain, Germany. Italy? Japan! The world is your oyster.
8 Two years on, you're European F3 champion. Formula One teams are knocking on your door. But the wrong ones. You're hoping for McLaren, you're getting Minardi. What the hell, you still got a few mill of that bankrupt property developer's money in your race suit, say hello to Paul Stoddart and F1!
9 Learn how to say "for sure".
10 You're at Minardi. The car's terrible but everybody knows it. You can do something here. But first you have to do two things. One, send an anonymous fax to the tabloids announcing that you are a heartless bastard, who has dumped his childhood sweetheart (if you don't have one buy a volunteer). And two, get yourself a supermodel girlfriend, although being at Minardi this is not as easy as it seems. Hedge your bets and be photographed with Jordan instead. Not Eddie.
11 Blow your team-mate away. At Minardi this should be simple. The clown in the car opposite yours in the garage is even less talented than you. Likely he's from a small Himalayan principality and his government (daddy) is paying lots of money to indulge his fancy and is also plastering Visit Krablukistan! stickers on the side of the car. The team know they won't get paid, you know they won't get paid, so they don't help him. Hey presto! Four tenths quicker in qualifying. Jaguar come knocking.
12 You take them up on their offer of $2million a year, buy a yacht, an apartment in Monaco and a smallholding in Killiney. Your neighbours hate you but you don't care, you're never there anyway. You're too busy doing development work, tyre testing, bonding with the guys at the factory (ie working on your tan with your new supermodel girlfriend off the coast of whatever formerly civil war-torn country is trendy this summer).
13 You're doing okay in the championship, but it's not enough. You need leverage. You hire yourself an ageing lounge lizard manager, skin made by Louis Vuitton. He advises you to immediately take out Finnish citizenship. You change your name to Ikma Hakk/Shmak/Lakkonen. Ron Dennis thinks you've been very impressive this season and has appreciated your work at optimising the optimisation of the optimumness of the package at your disposal. You're signed on two-year contract at $8million a year. You buy a private jet and open a restaurant/niteclub/bar in whatever town you're living in that month.
14 Season two. You have an ultra-competitive car, thanks to Adrian Newey not mistaking doodles of America's Cup yachts for this year's front wing end-plate arrangement and your only competition is Michael Schumacher. The German is rumoured to crack under pressure. So you pick on his younger brother. You then demand that Michael fights you behind the motorhome at four. He is scared and under pressure.
15 But not scared enough. It goes to wire, at Suzuka. He's on pole, you're second. He makes a better start and you tuck in behind. Midway through the race, his tyres begin to go off. Your boots, of questionable morality, are still sticking to the track like treacle. He tries to take you off by driving into you. You both end up in the gravel, on the same points, same wins, same poles. But nobody likes him anyway, so they give you the championship. Hurrah!! You celebrate with your supermodel girlfriend, dump her the following morning for a younger one who looks exactly the same. Your manager buys a team, installs you as number one driver on a salary of $35m a year. You sit back for five years, blame the car and begin buying small south American countries as a hobby. People call you washed up, but you don't care. You've been champion!