Everyone is entitled to an opinion Elf, it’s just that some are more informed than others. What payment has to do with it I have no idea.

Has everything to do with it. Without television viewers, there would be no advertising revenue, and probbly no sport, tbh. Or at least it would have very limited appeal, like minor motor racing events. And teams would be on a teeny tiny fraction of the budgets they’re on now.

So, it’s a form of entertainment. Without an audience, it would just be a bunch of enthusiasts getting together on a Sunday for a bit of car racing. Nothing more.

Which means those who ultimately pay for the entertainment have the right to opinions. Regardless of their involvement in or knowledge of the sport.

Professional sports woon’t exist without people sat in front of tellies watching them. Without blokes in pubs shouting at players on a screen, those players would be playing in the local park, paying subs and having ‘normal’ full-time jobs.

is that true of f1 though ? weren’t drivers like fangio professional superstars in the days before mass tv media ?

Nowhere near the same level! Certainly not in terms of (relative) income anyway. And they definitely won’t have bin household names throughout the Globe, as today’s sports stars are.

No-one is disputing the right to an opinion and there is no question that greater access via the media has increased the knowledge and the number of ‘armchair experts’. But do you really think discussions about football or boxing for example were any less heated in the’30’s? Not much money around then.

However, also important is the fact that greater affluence and increased leisure time has enabled far more people to participate in various sports, previously the preserve of the rich or supremely talented.

Doesn’t alter the fact that I would value the opinion of Martin Brundle over Murray Walker or Steve Parish over Charlie Cox. All are undoubtedly knowledgeable about their sports but only the former in each case have actually competed at the highest level.

“An F1 season is too long for anyone other than the cleverest racer to ultimately win the WDC (taking the car & team out of the equation, obviously).“

Oh, I dunno. With Senna and Prost in the same car it was always close and the title went both ways. One certainly the fastest (not that the other wasn’t fast), the other largely acknowledged as the cleverest (not that the other wasn’t clever).