In a dark historical period lacking brilliant minds and dominated at all levels by a headless, shouting mob, we are witnessing a demeaning, widespread intellectual and cultural decline.
And even Formula 1 and sport in general, which should be the place par excellence where merit prevails, are unfortunately no exception.
We've long postponed this article, but enough is enough; we can't take it anymore.
From football, a sport now unwatchable, boring, broadcast to the point of exasperation in every way and the undisputed reign on Sky Italia of Fabio Caressa, the forerunner of the group, a category of shouting and, above all, incompetent commentators has been imported.
Carlo Vanzini.
Sky Italia's Carlo Vanzini cries out for vengeance. His endless and constant pearls of wisdom and his shouts force us to watch the races with the volume turned down. His incessant "fuchsiaaaaa" appears in all our worst nightmares.
He announces certain overtaking moves that never actually happen, he constantly blunders across the board, constantly corrected and saved with team spirit by poor Marc Gene', instead super-competent, who finds himself being his subordinate instead of his boss.
Until Q3 qualifying for the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix, where he really reached the limit of endurance: with Lando Norris busy with his flying lap, he started screaming: “he lifted his foot, he lifted his foot, he lifted his foot”….. “It's pole position!! It's pole position!!” That is, he thought Norris was slowing down due to the yellow flags and then had to change his mind, announcing his pole position, as if nothing had happened, making a fool of himself that should have led him to resign or whoever is above him to fire him on the spot.
Tragically, he is also entrusted with directing during testings and the damage he causes increases tenfold. It's no longer enough to turn down the volume because the view is ruined also. He decides, unfortunately now consistently, to cut the full-screen image while a driver is doing a fast lap with the stopwatch ticking, to insert panels in which he shows us completely unnecessary and meaningless details.
From Telemontecarlo to Formula 1 commentary and not in a marginal role but as head of the sports editorial team. The question that arises is: "why?" Why not choose someone who comes from Formula 1 and knows the sport?
Guido Meda.
In parallel with Vanzini, in MotoGP, the screamer Guido Meda reigns supreme, who, like him, makes endless mistakes, constantly corrected by poor Mauro Sanchini, also super competent and his subordinate who should be his boss and who tries to save him from his horrendous embarrassments.
Meda teaches us 'his' Italian, peppered with epic phrases like "francobollato", "gas a martello", "prima dentro". The commentator should set an example for his listeners and speak perfect Italian, without abusing the subjunctive and so on.
Vanzini and Meda are the bards of motorsport in Italy, the land of motorsports. There should be a revolution but, instead, they're lauded by everyone, their troglodyte cries elevated to gospel. Among the dissenting voices is Marco Lucchinelli, who, referring to Meda, says "when someone wins, you say it only once, twice at most, but you stop there", while Meda usually repeats it 20 times.
In the 1950s and 1960s, when drivers risked their lives, the winner of a Grand Prix limited his celebration to simply raising his arms slowly, while today they tear their hair out and shout incoherent phrases into the radio. The world has changed, all right, but there's a limit to everything...
Invasive advertising in F1.
And then there's advertising, which not only increases exponentially year after year amidst general silence, but does so with unprecedented aggression and violence. Have you ever heard a voice on television, read a newspaper article or listened to a politician protest, even subtly, against this whirlwind of commercials at every moment of our day?
Previously, football had two halves and commercials were inserted between them. Today, as Diego Maradona predicted — the only protest I've heard in years — hydration breaks have been introduced and matches last four halves, distorting the very essence of the game. To help players hydrate, they tell us, but do we really want to believe this joke they're feeding us? The real reason is to increase the number of commercial breaks.
In the past, one or two competent commentators were enough to cover football and motorsports; today, teams of 10 are used. Previously in F1, for each car there were very few engineers like Forghieri who were worth as much as the 100 of today.
Invasive TV screen tiles.
Previously, Formula One GPs were never interrupted by commercials throughout their entire run. Today, in addition to increasingly frequent and lengthy interruptions, the practice of constantly inserting invasive ads of all kinds throughout the race has become widespread, often reducing the viewing area to a nearly invisible square. And this is all under the direction of the aforementioned commentators, who insert ads during the most exciting moments of the race because they are unable to understand it.
In short, if we want to be good, a disaster.
Stefano Domenicali at Ferrari.
The matter then takes on an even more serious turn if we consider the level of some of the current F1 super managers.
The role, not exactly marginal, of F1's super boss has passed from Bernie Ecclestone, first the true inventor and then the enlightened manager for decades of F1, who made it the global sport it is today and who, above all, loved and protected it in its essence as a sport, to Stefano Domenicali, first a gray and obscure interpreter of regulations at Ferrari and then its team principal, certainly not brilliant. Domenicali, sporting director, constantly dished out mystifications of reality, describing a Ferrari that was victorious even when it finished 13th. Rightfully cast aside by Maranello, he was promoted to the role of F1 boss. A transition that even today is difficult, even remotely, to comprehend.
Domenicali advocates complete market adherence, despite fully realizing that today's F1 audience is essentially composed of non-enthusiasts with limited knowledge who demand spectacle, not technical content. This translates into a progressive spectacularization of the sport, which goes hand in hand with its denaturalization. Goodbye to historic circuits, to the most beautiful corners, and hello to revenue streams of all kinds and regulations that protect safety to the point that racing is no longer held in the rain and that the safety car is deployed more and more frequently and for longer periods, until in some cases the race ends behind the safety car. And all of this is in the hands of obscure race directors and various bureaucrats who, to avoid risking their jobs, prefer to cancel standing starts, stop races, limit their length and so on.
Mattia Binotto, Ferrari team principal.
And then, last but not least, there's the case of Mattia Binotto. I've been following F1 for 45 years but I've never seen anything like it, not even remotely. Binotto, a talented engineer, was appointed Ferrari's team principal, a role he assumed immediately making himself and, unfortunately, Ferrari ridiculous for a long time. His incompetence, coupled with arrogance, led to his dismissal, extremely belatedly, when banners like "Binotto go away" had already appeared on Italian highway bridges. His strategic decisions, which caused Ferrari to lose countless points, were memorable, culminating in a Monte Carlo Grand Prix that nearly sparked a revolution in Italy. To beat Binotto in strategy, a shrewd and clever Neapolitan street urchin would have been enough, nothing more, at no cost. Only now, years later, he admits: "we made some mistakes in our strategy..."
After this past, you might say, Binotto and F1 should never have crossed paths again, for the good of both. But that won't be the case. Mattia Binotto, in all his splendor, is appointed Team Principal of Audi. I would also cast a tragic, very heavy veil over this decision.
With this article, we don't intend to offend anyone personally, as all the people we've discussed are certainly worthy. We simply feel entitled to express our opinion regarding their professional profiles. It remains solely and exclusively our opinion, nothing more, not an absolute truth. Their results demonstrate that our point of view remains very limited, yet we feel entitled to express it freely and, we repeat, without intending to offend anyone.
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