Sorry you can't play, can't stay, can't ref - you're foreign.
Yes, the most inclusive global event has started!
But first…
There is something deeply reassuring about the fact that Formula One, having spent untold millions convincing the world that it exists at the absolute cutting edge of human ingenuity, has arrived in Barcelona with half the paddock discussing what appears to be a dispute involving a measuring device favoured by pyramid-building Egyptians - a trundle wheel. Not a quantum computer. Not an artificial intelligence platform. Not a proprietary predictive modelling system developed by men whose job titles sound like rejected characters from a science-fiction novel.
A wheel on a stick.
You will remember that in Monaco last weekend, many drivers were penalised for exceeding the speed limit by 0.1 km/h, which is the sort of infringement that sounds less like sporting justice and more like a dispute between rival accountants. The theory doing the rounds is that alterations to the pit lane, partly linked to the arrival of Cadillac, may have slightly changed the distance between timing points. Alpine’s subsequent deployment of a trundle wheel and Pierre Gasly’s recovered podium have only deepened the suspicion that modern Formula One remains perfectly capable of spending hundreds of millions of pounds to rediscover the value of measuring things twice.
Meanwhile, the 2026 engine war has already begun. The FIA’s initial assessment apparently places Red Bull Ford at the head of the field in combustion-engine performance, with Mercedes-, Ferrari-, Audi- and Honda-powered teams receiving additional development freedoms to catch up. Officially, this is a carefully calibrated mechanism to preserve competition. Unofficially, it resembles a school sports day in which the fastest child is informed that everyone else may now start ten yards closer to the finish line.
Lewis Hamilton, for his part, has arrived sounding distinctly more upbeat than he did a few months ago. Consecutive second places have encouraged quiet talk that Ferrari may finally have built something worth believing in, while Antonelli continues to collect victories for Mercedes with the unnerving ease of a man who appears not to have received the memo about how difficult Formula One is supposed to be.
The real anxiety concerns the tyres. Barcelona has been roasting. Track temperatures have exceeded 50 degrees. Lando Norris topped Friday’s running by the sort of margin normally associated with a mistimed sneeze, George Russell sat almost alongside him, Verstappen sounded distinctly unimpressed with his balance, and Pirelli has spent much of the weekend issuing increasingly diplomatic warnings that degradation may become severe. One rather suspects that “severe” is the corporate equivalent of seeing smoke emerging from the engine room and describing the situation as “sub-optimal”.
The result is a curious atmosphere. The cars appear close. The field appears competitive. Yet nobody seems entirely certain what sort of race they are preparing for. Two stops? Three stops? Conservative strategy? Aggression? Survival? Guesswork disguised as expertise?
All remain available.
Elsewhere, from our man in the $5,000 World Cup seat, the football tournament is settling into its familiar rhythm of sport, politics and commerce colliding at speed. Corporate guests are discovering that a luxury hospitality package does not necessarily guarantee air conditioning, while several senior officials are already performing the traditional dance of insisting that everything is running perfectly, only to explain moments later why several things plainly are not.
On the pitch, the early consensus is that the established powers still look strong, but the real gossip concerns what is happening off it. Security arrangements, sponsorship sensitivities and diplomatic positioning appear to be generating almost as much conversation as the football itself.
The first thing people are whispering about is attendance. The opening matches have looked healthy enough, and the USA’s 4-1 win over Paraguay drew more than 70,000 people in Los Angeles, which calmed some nerves. But there remains a persistent anxiety among organisers that international travelling support is softer than expected, particularly given visa concerns, security procedures and eye-watering ticket prices. FIFA publicly dismisses the criticism; privately, people are still counting hotel bookings and watching secondary-market prices rather carefully.
The situation with Iran is becoming the tournament’s elephant in the room. You have a World Cup hosted in part by the United States, while Iran participates amid an active geopolitical crisis. Iranian officials, dissidents, FIFA, American authorities and security services all appear to be having entirely different conversations about what the tournament is supposed to represent. Several disputes involving support staff and media visa disputes have already generated controversy.
The line doing the rounds in hospitality suites is that this may end up being remembered as the most political World Cup since Argentina 1978, not because FIFA wants politics involved, but because politics keeps kicking the door down and sitting at the table anyway.
The weather is also causing some grief, but because the yanks don’t want to sound negative, nobody likes talking about it! Houston’s fan festival sent 22 people for medical treatment due to heat-related illness before the tournament had properly settled into life. Across Texas, there is genuine concern about how supporters from northern Europe, South America, and parts of Asia will cope with long days spent outdoors in June and July.
And finally, almost every journalist, European fan, and visiting official repeats the same thing… this feels less like a World Cup and more like twelve separate World Cups happening simultaneously. The distances are enormous. The host cities barely resemble one another. A fan can go from Los Angeles to Kansas City to New York and feel as though they’ve visited three different countries. Some love that. Others think FIFA underestimated how fragmented the experience would feel compared with Germany, France or even Qatar.
FIFA’s dream of a seamless continental festival is slowly turning into a collection of expensive local improvisations, and one can only hope that once we get to the final 16, the tournament will have settled down and become more about footy and less about Trumpian politics or FIFA’s greed.