The F1 Computer Game.

IBM’s Watson Analytics apparently makes sense of all our nefarious data. Pump it full of binary steroids and it will tell you what to think. Notice in F1 for every driver there is a whole bank of digital operatives only marginally less than required for a moon landing. Back at the factory only the cleaner wields mechanical aids, so between the cleaner and Hamilton few wrestle directly with physical reality. Maybe this is why F1 is struggling to be a spectacle of human interest. I mean however high tech an Amazon distribution centre might be it will never make a spectator sport. So the only thing that might make this weekend’s Chinese GP anything like interesting is the unforeseen glitch in Hamilton’s engine that’s put him last on the grid. The winner is a given, ‘but how far will H get in his reckless drive through the field?’ That’s the human content that’s somehow been lost between regulations and computers. The plucky Spitfire pilot that flies home with only one wing is a thing of the past, it’s all been reduced to zap or not zap thanks to software like Watson. And Bernie’s attempts to throw a spanner in the works with a new qualifying system look like whacking a Mercedes with his teddy bear to slow it down. But computers are amazing, I love them, they can do the donkeywork in the wink of an eye. Then again we’re not donkeys but we might be if IBM’s Watson Analytics tells us what to think.