Golden Lap is a wonderful reminder that motor racing’s about the perfect blend of terrifying thrills and mind-numbing math

Motor racing is just like any other sport.

Its heart beats to the dorky drum of things scribbled across chalkboards before the game has even really kicked off in the eyes of the spectator. There are always fifteen different front wing designs, 150 different ways of setting up your gears, and fifteen thousand different things that can go wrong with an engine, all thrown into a sordid equation that determines if you can win or lose – and often by less than one tenth of a second.

On the other side lies the Mr Hyde that emerges as soon as the tyres hit the tarmac or trail. The reason we all turn up or tune in is for the colourful human coating that gets splashed across the carbon fibre canvas once all of the engine covers have been slammed shut. For better or worse, on Sundays, it’s largely up to the person with their hands on the wheel to steer their clan of car connoisseurs to the promised land.