You can always tell it's that time of year when the deadline for the Gobshite Awards approaches and late entries pile in. I suppose such mild disorganisation is to be expected when the criteria is borrowed from the late Hugh Leonard, a renowned Irish playwright who used a wicked sense of humour to distribute annual awards based on the assessment that 'a Gobshite is a jackass, often harmless but always hopeless.' Never mind submitting an entry, there's been one or two candidates proudly wearing F1 passes who unconsciously qualified for this prestigious (it says here) accolade.
Sauber, perhaps fearing they might not be around in December, made an early bid by providing two unsponsored cars for four drivers and then being surprised when one of them felt obliged to drag the team and the reputation of F1 into a Melbourne court room. Personally, I blame the association with Ferrari, although Sauber should have realised drivers' attitudes might have changed since 1951 when Stirling Moss and his dad travelled by plane and sleeper train to Bari in southern Italy, only to be told that Mr. Ferrari had decided to give Moss's 500 to Piero Taruffi rather than allow the young British hopeful his first race for Maranello.
Ferrari are beyond such an appalling snub now, of course. Being one of the more successful teams of 2015 has placed the Scuderia in a predicament when attempting to qualify for a Gobshite. Members of the judging panel were therefore most impressed in the first week of December when, as a prize for selling lots of Ferraris, H.R. Owen of London were given a 2015 F1 car. The clever part here was that the salesmen in smart suits had great difficulty manoeuvring the wide SF15-T show car with its poor steering lock onto the pavement and into the showroom.
The resulting traffic jam on Old Brompton Road received good coverage on social media. But Ferrari really missed a trick here. They failed to have Maurizio Behavabadly come from Italy and deal with iPhone video opportunists by repeating his charming advice to a SkyF1 cameraman in Abu Dhabi when he kindly offering to adjust the hapless man's collar size.
Ferrari have improved beyond recognition since 1999 when Eddie Irvine made a pit stop in Germany and discovered that one of the four wheels intended for his car had become separated from the rest and was lost behind boxes of 'How Michael Must Win' instruction manuals. Williams's variation on this theme by dispatching Valtteri Bottas with one odd tyre in Belgium was a commendable entry, but one which was carried out so quickly it looked as if they didn't actually mean to do it.
Questionable logic is the essence of Gobshite and therefore qualifies PDVSA for paying Pastor Maldonado millions of dollars to go crashing a F1 car at a time when inflation in Venezuela is running at 70 per cent in accompaniment with a similar rise in sales of carbon fibre at the nearest Screwfix branch to Enstone.
That's the sort of percentage Bernie Ecclestone appreciates -- but only when it's in his favour. Which is most of the time. There has to come a point, however, when his bosses take their eye off the bottom line and examine a Collateral Damage column that saw Monza's future being jeopardised because the promoters of this classic could no longer afford the fees needed to maintain F1's private jets, wind tunnels running 24/7 and Christian Horner's housekeeping bill.
It can't all be the fault of the circuits when you see that the Nürburgring attracted 62,000 fans to a WEC round and yet the country with a four-times F1 World Champion, plus the reigning Constructors' Champion, is faced with the hardly surprising news that the same fans won't pay through the nose for F1. The Gobshite Couldn't Give a F--- Award is won overwhelmingly once again by CVC Capital Partners.
Someone who cares a great deal about image is Eddie Jordan. The Gobshite 'Hole in the Arse of My Trousers' Award -- a cash prize for a needy cause -- goes to Mr. Jordan's tailor. Following the sad demise of BBC TV's F1 coverage, if EJ does not get a broadcasting gig, then his seamstress will be out of work because no one else -- not even Lewis Hamilton -- would dare to wear such gear. By the way, this is an appropriate point to say hats off to Lewis. Not for an award. Just "Hats Off", Lewis.
Desperate to win something in 2015, it can only be assumed that Adrian Newey got chattering in recent days to Jordan. That, surely, has to be the reason behind his confused and contradictory thoughts on the state of F1. In one breath he wants engines, fuel and software to be the same and, in the next, he welcomes rule changes because they "allow the opportunity to experiment", but then admits stability gave Red Bull the chance to do rather well for four successive years.
That's the nub of the problem, of course. Newey, rather surprisingly, has been affected by the 'It's Just Not Fair' virus pervading the upper management as Red Bull fail to come to terms with the fact that competing in sport frequently involves losing and occasionally getting stuffed. The former champions have added a new and not very illuminating chapter to the Gobshite Works of Worldwide Whingeing (also available in French).
You would think Red Bull's nominated recipient ought to be Dietrich Mateschitz for his pathetic threats to pick up the ball and go home. It's not actually his fault. The blame for his skewed vision lies with the boss's only conduit to F1; a man who, at 72, is clearly in need of several cans of his paymaster's product and a boxed set of interviews with Daniel Ricciardo. The 2015 Gobshite Award goes unanimously to Helmut 'Miserable' Marko.
It's only a joke, Dr. Marko. It's only a......oh, never mind. Yeah, we know; you've got to call Mr. Mateschitz and complain. And, no; those horrid people at Renault didn't put us up to it.