Oh for the simple days of flogging slaves to achieve ramming speed.

Such a simple concept. Catch your despicable "Frienemy" broadside and with a swift flick of the whip, drive the iron beak of your trireme deep into the midships of their luckless galley. Still floating? You won. Chained to a broken pile of oak and cypress at fifty fandoms? Sorry, you just came second.

In today's safety focussed world, chaining slaves to sinking ships would not be viewed as an optimal employee-employer-shareholder relationship. Such were the carefree times for the Citizens of Rome compared to, well, the significant number of the great unwashed chained into war galleys. We, their descendants, now have the luck to run like crack-crazed kittens around the maze of the gig-economy.

This article could easily have been titled "Uber to Survive". Younger generations are driving less, owning cars less, and in general lack the excitement and desire us 'Olduns' possess to be considered a fine driver. By which we used to mean, braking firmly in a straight line, tipping in to brush the apex, possibly with a hint of trail braking depending on the balance of the car, holding speed through the apex, and then powering out of the corner as we artfully unwound steering lock to nail the next straight.

One need look no further than the minor classic (pun intended) of the MG Midget as a sports car for slow speed excitement. About the size of a large box of chocolates, with the same safety features, and with about as much power as a pair of Bose noise cancelling headphones, the Midget was a delight for the simple fact that it was under powered, too flexible, under braked and only "mostly predictable" on the limit. Yet it looked right, sat on beautiful spoked wheels (early editions), and had the benefit that the driver could open the boot without exiting the car (well not quite true, but it really is a very small car). 60 mph, about 90 kph, in a Midget felt comparable to 200 mph in a Jaguar coupe. To pilot one fast down a damp English country lane was to live! The South Downs, the Cotswolds, any road in Wales, most roads in Scotland! Each was a challenge in a Midget that would prove a yawn-fest in a Subaru WRX STi or a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. Heck, surviving the speed bump, roundabout combo in the Aldi car park is a challenge in a Midget!

Which brings me to Urban Assault Vehicles. No, not the ones that would currently be beneficial in Ukraine, I mean the more pervasive, nay, one might say endemic, SUV of the early 21st century. No flying cars for us! No we have land crushing land bruisers with which to assault the suburbs.

High, and Mighty: The dangerous Rise of the SUV is a finely researched, and written book by Keith Bradsher. I treasure it as a finely reasoned piece of quality long-form journalism filled with validated facts, which the likes of Donald Trump are trying to drive away from the people, so they only worship at approved alters of opinion and ego. Get back below decks, and chained to your oar!

Measurement impacts behaviour. Ask any sub-atomic particle. Back at the people level, speed bumps, in-lane rumble strips and chicanes coupled with modern traffic densities which make bee hives look like the Alaskan wilderness are driving people into increasingly urban combat-ready SUVs.

Does anyone remember when Luca di Montezemolo said, "Ferrari will never release an SUV." Well the Purosangue is coming to a Ferrari dealership near you this year. Hello, and welcome late to the SUV party. Already the motoring universe is saying "...it retains the soul of a Ferrari". Really? I think a Dino would fit in the glove box.

Aston? The looks like a Porsche DBX. Lamborghini? The Urus, which is at least easier to spell and pronounce than the Ferrari. Porsche the Cayenne... which outsold the 911 in just a few years of production to become the most produced Porsche in history! Bentley? The Bentayga. Rolls Royce? The Cullinan. These top-shelf motors joining the horde of jacked-up Golfs and Mazdas of the mini-SUV world, and the monsters that are full-size American pick-up trucks. Think Ford F-350, Dodge Ram, Cadillac Escalade.

Everyone now has an urban assault vehicle which fits their budget and misplaced sizing requirements. We can then all dance over the "traffic calming" measures national governments and local councils of the world create. The Australian Bushmaster is, in this scribe's opinion, the current master of the urban "traffic taming" environment. From the beaches, to the bush BBQ, to the battle front, the Aussie Bushmaster has your back. Fire suppression and passenger oxygen systems simply add to the feeling of "We've got this" that the Bushmaster generates. Not sure if it has bluetooth, but it can have an optionally roof-mounted large calibre machine gun, so all is not lost.

No late braking. No hammering it in second gear out of mid-speed corners. No easy four-wheel drifts on a trailing throttle. Bump, grind, survive.

BMW and Toyota combined their pocket money to create the current Supra and Z4. Both are stunning cars that will keep any owner with access to private race tracks happy, never requiring either car to operate within the modern urban assault environment. You use public roads (that your tax money built), and you want to drive at a speed reasonable for the conditions, rather than the posted limit of "Walking pace"? Sorry, you're thirty years too late for that party.

So, back to chained oars-folk and ramming speed. Ben Hur had a bad day below decks. Michael Masi had a similarly bad day some 2,000 years later. The rest of us are punished one mile at a time each journey we attempt. Speed bumps, Senna chicanes, rumble strips, cameras, endless mini-roundabouts. The skill of driving is no longer rewarded.

We now inhabit the Universe of "Uber to Survive". None of us get to enjoy the thrill of driving in a "controlled, but fun" manner on the public (i.e. the road you paid for with your taxes) road. Toll ways, point-to-point measurement devices, cameras. No wonder Liberty Media is seeking to magnify personalities, because none of us get to drive for fun anymore. Drive to Survive is all about the personalities not about driving skill, because today more than ever, no one really relates to on the limit braking, tread shuffle, high speed corner entry understeer, throttle controlled oversteer. Nope, focus on the back stabbing, the moans, the bizarre rules, the track invasions, the red flags and the tyre choices.

"Act to the Camera to Survive" would be a more fitting title. In a world where we simply cannot tackle a weaving B-road with zest and joy, how are people to connect with the magnitude of the driving skills the drivers display each race? Enjoying the thrill of the drive is simply not allowed by local councils, government road safety bodies or the FIA road-focussed safety drives. Let's not make driving licenses hard to earn, hard to keep, and involve knowing how to really drive. No, let's dumb it down as much as possible, frown on car culture and lower speed limits to the point where one could safely travel with unrestrained pavlova in the cockpit, and never spill a spoonful.

The FIA wants to further reduce out of season testing, and delete in-season practice sessions. It's as if the FIA and Liberty Media want the drivers to smile and talk about racing yet not actually perform any driving!

We will move from the Kardashians on wheels, as Christian recently described F1, to Kardashians near wheels. Your scribe is waiting for the moment the FIA agree that simulator racing is simply safer, and lines up twenty simulators at each race course with a static display of vintage cars and a carnival/casino/beach party vibe all around. This would have the benefit of being able to be set in any destination city, without any need for one of those annoyingly large and potentially dangerous circuit things.

Imagine the F1 simulator parties in Trafalgar Square, the Washington Mall, the Arc De Triumph, Niagara Falls, the Piazza San Marco, Sydney Harbour Bridge! Why, as soon as we banish the need for actual driving the entire show is so much simpler and safer!

...and would the YouTube/Tik Tok generation care? They do not hack MG Midgets down narrow country lanes. They do not late-brake into medium speed corners, the rear of the car following a sweet smooth arc, as the neatest touch of opposite lock is applied. They do use their mobile phones incessantly, and they do post to the web every few seconds on one of their endless feeds.

No wonder Stefano is so keen to delete yet more driving from F1. He has signalled the drummer to up the tempo and get the good ship F1 up to ramming speed. All those annoying old folk that actually like, no, love, driving need to be rammed amidships and sent to the deepest sea bottom as soon as possible. The future is an endless riffing party related to the concept of racing and plenty of flash relatable personalities all falling over one another in an endless blur of witty slight, minor backstab, self-promotion and media friendly drama.

The good ship F1 is heading into stormy waters, sirens call on all sides, and the captain is curating his Instagram feed.

Storm warning folks! And if you get the opportunity to loosen your leg irons to strike for the surface when we sink, well now would be the time. Pass the Vaseline (to ease off the shackles), and next time the Centurion turns his back we all swim for shore! Let's see what ramming speed Liberty can muster once we have all abandoned ship.

Max Noble

Learn more about Max and check out his previous features, here