Silverstone will play host to the British Grand Prix this weekend with a maximum crowd of 140,000 expected, even though the Covid-19 pandemic still rages in England.
How has F1 and the British government seen fit to allow all the fans back when there will be no social distancing and no crowd bubbles, yet the Australian government has caused the Australian GP in November to be cancelled because it won't exempt the drivers and team personnel from the compulsory 14 days' quarantine in a hotel upon entry to Australia?
The contrast of the two scenarios was never more extreme. England is prepared to take a chance of living with the coronavirus and reducing the risk through an expansive vaccination programme, while Australia along with New Zealand is sticking to its elimination plan, while its vaccination programme is woefully behind schedule.
Only time will tell which countries have got it right, but if you are an F1 fan England and Europe is the place to be if you want to watch it live.
We have seen on TV near-capacity crowds at the Wimbledon championship, the Euro soccer cup competition, and across the channel hundreds of thousands lining the Tour de France routes to cheer on the riders, and in one woman's case, bring down 90 per cent of the peloton with a clumsily held large piece of sign-written cardboard that she was more intent on displaying for the TV cameras, rather than worry about avoiding hitting the riders approaching at over 45km/h. Sport can bring out the best and worst in people, but at least the crowds are back whether you approve of it or not.
Silverstone will be the 10th grand pix in a scheduled 23 races, although that number may yet be reduced as Covid-19 has caused the cancellation of Canada, Singapore and now Australia, with Japan soon to make a decision on whether there will a Japanese GP in October.
That decision will be made two weeks after the Olympic Games in Tokyo, which are going ahead even though not a single spectator will be allowed to attend any of the events.
Silverstone was the venue in 1950 for the first world championship race, which was won by Giuseppe Farina driving an Alfa Romeo.
The multiple winners are headed by Lewis Hamilton with seven victories, while Jim Clark and Alain Prost won it five times. Apart from Hamilton, of the current drivers only Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel with two wins apiece, and 2007 victor Kimi Raikkonen, have won the race. Championship leader Max Verstappen has yet to lift the impressive gold trophy presented to the victor, but it's a boomerang, as winning drivers are not allowed to take it home.
F1 will introduce 17-lap sprint races for the first time to determine the grid. Hamilton suggests the format will be nothing more than a parade, while Alonso thinks the concept will be modified after its debut.
"I always like to try new things and it is a format that can bring surprises," Alonso claims. "I'm sure there will be tweaks for the other two events because even Formula One is saying this. We will have Q1, Q2 and Q3 on Friday and it will be very difficult to change the order of qualifying after that. The fastest will start first on Saturday, it will be more or less like that in the race and then you get to Sunday like that as well. So let's see how it goes at Silverstone, but I don't think we will see much that is new. The fastest cars will be ahead."
For Williams and British driver George Russell, the British GP could be significant for an expected announcement by Mercedes that he will join Hamilton in that team next year. Last week he was told, "if you do a good job you will be rewarded".
He expects that reward will be the Mercedes drive at the expense of Valtteri Bottas. When Russell replaced a Covid-struck Hamilton in last year's race in Bahrain, he was nearly an instant winner. Only a rare botched pit-stop by the Mercedes team deprived him of victory. If he is promoted, Russell is ready for it.
"Everyone wants to go up against the best driver," Russell says.
"Everyone believes in themselves, but for me, I'd love the challenge because the pressure would be off and I'd find myself in a win-win scenario. I'd go with that mentality if I ever found myself up against one of the best drivers of all time. You have got nothing to lose -which I think is great really."
"That is the sort of situation that Sergio Perez finds himself in at the moment. He's got no pressure because he's got nothing to lose - and so you go there and enjoy it, and show them what you can do."
If Russell does get the Mercedes drive, which seems as inevitable as night and day, it is understood Bottas might go back to Williams.
Another British driver in the limelight is McLaren's Lando Norris. The Bristol-born 21-year old is in just his third season in F1, having joined McLaren in 2019. He already has three podiums for third place, two of them this season, and lies fourth in the driver's championship.
But his success has come at a price, because his aggressive style has got him into trouble with the race stewards. At the Austrian GP he was given a 5-second penalty for forcing Perez off the track at Turn 5, even though Red Bull boss Christian Horner didn't think Norris' actions deserved a penalty.
If a driver accumulates 12 penalty points, he receives a one-race ban. Norris now has 10 penalty points, although a clean sheet at the British GP will take the number back to eight, as points are accumulated over a 12-month period and F1 didn't start until July in 2020 due to Covid-19. If Norris gets to 12 points, his replacement will probably be Stoffel Vandoorne, who drove for McLaren in 2016 and 2017 and was out-qualified in every race by Alonso.
McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl hopes Norris does not get a ban.
"It is not reassuring. There is a fundamental risk," he said. "I think we all agree that in an incident like with Checo it is not in the interests of F1 and sport if a driver is suspended for a race because of such an incident.'
That incident was when Norris was found to have pushed Perez off the track when the latter attempted to pass around the outside. Many drivers say that in their karting days they were told such attempts would end up with them in the gravel, so the pass was not on.
"We will discuss that in the next meeting with the teams and Formula One, and drivers will also bring it up safely."
Verstappen will take a lead of 32 points over Hamilton into the race. Silverstone has not been a happy hunting ground for the young Dutchman, but if he is to cement his championship lead, it will be important for him to beat Hamilton there.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is aware both the driver's and constructor's championships are slipping away from the seven-time champions.
"Of course, losing every point is a blow," Wolff said after the two Austrian races where Hamilton was second and fourth. "Lewis lost six points compared to finishing second and adding that all up is making the momentum go in the wrong direction. Losing 14 points (to Verstappen) is not great and it is against the odds for us now."
"But this is far from over. He is 32 points behind Max, which is a DNF away, and then he is in the hunt again. We need to up our game, make fewer mistakes and continue to understand the car better."
Damon Hill, the 1996 World Champion and now a Sky F1 commentator, says Red Bull were "pretty dominant in Austria, they had a pit-stop advantage so absolutely smashed it."
"Toto Wolff was putting a brave face on it saying its one DNF away from recovering all that deficit, but then DNFs happen the other way around as well."
F1 has being paying tributes to 79-year old former F1 driver Carlos Reutemann, who died on July 7.
The Argentinian driver won 12 grand prix in an F1 career spanning 1972 to 1982, and driving for Brabham, lost the 1981 world championship by just one point to Nelson Piquet. He had led the championship at the halfway point of the season at Silverstone, but lost it in the second half.
That will be something Verstappen won't want to see happen as he seeks his first win the British GP, a win that is not against the odds the way he has been driving in the past four races.