Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

This post has nothing to do with Mazda (remeber the "zoom, zoom, zoom" ad not so long ago?) unless Mazda are planning to field an F1 team for the 2008 season.

It was announced in the local press last weekend that a Singapore-led consortium reached an agreement with Bernie Ecclestone to host one leg of the F1 Grand Prix for 5 years starting from 2008.

This was not some low-key announcement, as you might imagine. Bernie himself did not appear but it made headlines in all the local newspapers.

What will this mean for Singapore? Obviously, the entire F1 circus will descend on Singapore for at least one weekend for the next 5 years. As you can see from the picture above, the race will be held on a street circuit, like in Monaco, rather than on a purpose-built track. For a better view, see the 3-D layout of street circuit in the picture below.

I've got rather mixed feelings about this. On the one had, I would love nothing better than to see all my favourite F1 boys in person but having been to enough live sporting events, I know that it will be better to watch it on television. I might go to the inaugural race or perhaps the 2009 one and then watch the rest on television.

F1 is not exactly the most interesting of spectator sports. Car whizz around a circuit for several laps and apart from the overtaking action, it's not really that exciting to watch and more often than not, the overtaking rarely happens in front of the spectator stands.

So what's the attraction of F1? Is it the fast cars? Maybe.

Or perhaps the grid-girls in their all too small outfits waving off the drivers? No, I don't think so. Not for me anyway.

As I alluded to earlier, the boys of F1 look incredibly sexy in their racing suits and arguably, a lot more sexy out of them. I'll post some choice pictures of my favourite F1 drivers soon and it should be apparent where (or more specifically, in whom) my F1 interests lie.