Yeoh Siew Hoon gets a crash course on Formula 1 and realises it's a bit like the global economy. You have no idea what's going on, just that it's happening really fast and everyone's waiting for a crash.
Downtown buildlings illuminated for TV screens worldwide
It is said in the Formula 1 world, there are only two types of people – those who don't get it and those who get it.
After last weekend and my first experience of the world's most glamorous and fastest event, I think I am split squarely between the two camps.
I don’t get the details of it. The whole technical stuff that makes the cars go as fast as they do. The whole scoring system that shows where a driver is in the charts for the year and then who wins in the end.
In that sense, it’s a bit like cricket to me. It’s a game I don’t get and I am told, all I have to know is, when you’re in, you’re out, when you’re out, you’re in.
I find F1 easier to understand in this respect – he who finishes first wins that particular race.
Even I get that.
What I didn’t get before was too was, how skilful could it be to drive a custom-made car at 300km and hour? Surely any speed merchant can do that? I’ve driven with some.
I was then given a stern lecture by a fan that it takes incredible skill, great courage, awesome focus and concentration, a lot of strength – because the body undergoes tremendous stress at those speeds – and super stamina.
I was also told the drivers all have to be small. So in that sense, they are like jockeys. Small and fit to ride the horses they are given.
These modern-day horses are totally covered with brands. I’ve never seen so much branding going on all at once. There also seems to be a lot of banks associated with the race – RBS, for example – and I wondered what's going to happen now. Will this money evaporate as fast as the fuel they burn in this event?
So another thing I get – F1 is all about image.
Part of the race track with the Singapore Flyer lit up like a rainbow
The lengths Singapore went to to ensure its skyline looked its best on television screens. Special illumination effects on buildings lining the track. Even the Merlion looked rather sexy in a new light.
What I also totally get is how sexy the sport is. The drivers are like rockstars. During a walkabout round the circuit, near a stretch of the fencing, I suddenly saw a group of people lunging towards me with their cameras.
I thought the paparazzi had mistaken me for Michelle Yeoh but turned out that Kimmi Raikkonen's car had slid and he had to get a bike ride back to wherever he wanted to get to.
It is a sexy sport because it is totally adrenalin-charged. Strong men. Sexy machines. Super speeds. And that sound of the cars – ear-splitting, yes, but pure machismo. Aphrodisiac wrapped up in decibels.
It’s why all the beautiful girls flock to F1. In Singapore, they ran a competition to recruit what they called Singtel Grid Girls. These girls have the honour of being, well, Grid Girls. They smile a lot and show a lot of skin.
I attended the Grand Prix of fashion shows called Stylo put together by a Malaysian socialite, Datuk Nancy Yeoh. (Not my sister)
I didn’t find it that "stylo" and would have preferred drinking Milo at home. But the celebrities that showed up, well, they certainly looked well-heeled. The women look like they buy clothes from the same designers, have their hair done by the same coiffeurs and face work by the same plastic surgeons.
Some complained of having to eat curry puffs while wearing a ballgown and there was a debacle at the end when the valets mixed up the keys to their fancy cars. See what happens when you drive the same cars by the same luxury manufacturers.
So another thing I totally get now is F1 is not really a sport. It is a circus in which performers are the super-rich, the rich and the wanna-be rich.
The rest of us, we watch from behind glass and steel fencing.
It's a bit like what's happening in the global economy, really.
