Red Bull's British Grand prix-view

If you are still recovering from all the excess and excitement of Monaco, then fear not, because the Silverstone event will provide the ultimate rest cure, with very little to do away from the race track. And if you ate too much in the Principality, then just one glance at the menus in most of the restaurants in the vicinity of “The Home Of British Motorsport” should ensure you lose your appetite.

If you choose to dine in one of the really good restaurants that do exist in the area, the fact that dinner for two can easily cost Euro 300 will guarantee you opt for a healthy salad and glass of tap water.

This ascetic lifestyle will leave you fresh and invigorated to watch the opening games of the football World Cup on the giant screens at the race circuit. If you notice lots of locals driving around with the red and white cross flags of St. George sticking out of the windows of their German, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian and Korean cars, they are not about to leave to fight a Crusade in the Holy Land, they are simply nailing their patriotic colours to the mast in preparation for cheering on their country which they insist on referring to in football song as Ingerrland.

Ingerrland last won the World Cup in 1966, an innocent time when no one would laugh at the tournament mascot being called World Cup Willy. While the rest of the world knows this was forty years ago, the English believe it was just a couple of weeks ago and that their brave boys will return the Jules Rimet trophy to its rightful home this summer. This confidence ignores the fact that 45% of the players in the English Premier League are foreigners, that some top teams have fielded squads with no English players at all and no English manager has ever won the Premiership title.

British GP qualifying has been brought forward to 12.30 so that everyone can watch Ingerrland’s opening match against Paraguay this Saturday. Rest assured, if the South American team wins or draws, the English media will tip Paraguay to go on to win the tournament. The other theory about English football is that it would be a much stronger team if, like at the Olympics, it fielded a Great Britain team, with players from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. This is like saying that Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso would be world champions this year if we combined our effort. The Grand Prix itself takes place on Sunday at the earlier time of 12.00, presumably because everyone in F1 really wants to see Serbia and Montenegro play Holland. Don’t they?

Scotland has not qualified for the World Cup finals, so David Coulthard is suitably vague: “I’ve no idea who is good or bad,” he told a TV crew in Monaco. “I’ve heard Brazil are very good and they have the most beautiful female fans.” Doubtless, Neel Jani is happy that the Swiss team is in the finals, but as a Swiss person, Neel faces a big dilemma: should he support Switzerland, or remain staunchly neutral and offer all the teams banking advice. Christian Klien is disappointed that his native Austria have not qualified (never mind, next time they can field a mix of Red Bull Salzburg and the New York Red Bulls) and has decided to join his mate Tonio Liuzzi in supporting Italy. Both men play really well, unlike Scott Speed, who can’t understand why the players don’t just ick up the ball and run with it. We are currently trying to arrange for our Californian to take part in a training session with the US team in Hamburg. In the Dutch squad, Robert Doornbos has a good team to cheer for, but as a former semi-pro tennis player, he probably prefers smaller balls.

The World Cup will be the main talking point at Silverstone and that’s perfectly natural given that Football and Formula One have so much in common: they both start with an “F” and err? There are 22 players in a football game and 22 drivers on an F1 grid and err um? Yes, that’s about it.

For those of you who fail to see the attraction of seeing 22 grown men chasing a ball around a lawn, we leave you with this thought from one of England’s greatest comedians, Eric Morecambe: “Football would be a much better game if someone could invent a ball that kicks back!”