12 February

You can see the boy racer mentality that dominates everyday road driving on display right now in F1. The new cars are more technical, 50% combustion, 50% electric, and require a lot smarter driving to create, conserve and use energy to your advantage. But the old school drivers just want to be able to drive flat out all the time, they say that’s ’real racing’. It just isn’t. It’s like saying the best sex is a quickie. Driving fast is a one dimensional skill, and often won’t get you to the destination faster. Driving smart, including in interaction with other drivers on the road and minimising energy use with smooth driving, is much harder. Even in racing it’s often the driver who conserves fuel and tyres with smooth driving that wins the race. My litmus test for good driving? Are your passengers comfortable and relaxed at the end of the journey, did you drive smoothly? And did you make the road a nicer place to be for other drivers too? Did you use less energy to achieve the same travel time, by smarter driving? The boy racer wants none of that, they’ll throw passengers around the car with their stupid flat out cornering, and aggressively try to get everybody else on the road out of the way, while gulping gallons of fuel. That’s not good driving, it’s not skilled. It’s being a spoiled child.