How I worked out how terrifying quick F1 is using a motorway and channel five late at night

Formula One cars rocket past at up to nearly 200mph sometimes. This is quick, but is just a number. I have been watching F1 on the telly for bloody ages now and am used to knowing how fast they go.

But the telly doesn’t really relate quite how fast this is. The cameras tend to follow the cars about cancelling out any impression of sheer speed.

I’m used to this, I know it’s nearly 200mph even if it doesn’t look it, that’s enough for me.

Then one night, bored and alone, I found myself watching NASCAR on channel five. I’m not really a fan of NASCAR, it just looks like the M25 to me.

In NASCAR a lot of the cameras are locked off trackside so when the cars zip by it really feels fast – I almost dropped my cup of tea at one point. I don’t know how fast NASCAR cars go, but I reckon it’s less quick than F1… so why does it feel so much faster?

F1 directors are so pre-occupied with helicopter shots (helicopters are pretty quick too) and super slow mo seeing something wobble over a kerb that they seem to have totally mislaid the importance of making the things look as fucking terrifyingly quick as they are in real life.

A few weeks after my NASCAR experience I was on the way to a gig in a car on a motorway. We had to stop to look for a mislaid satnav somewhere amongst the seats and I found myself standing on the hard shoulder somewhere between london and leicester. I’d never stood on a hard shoulder before. I was utterly terrified. The cars nipping past me were going horribly fast. And I know they were only going at 70mph (no faster, 70 is the law, no one would dare).

This is just over a third of the speed of what an f1 car almost goes at. And utterly terrified multiplied by three equals bloody good telly.

So come on F1 chaps – make it look fast.