So Fernando Alonso has defended his countrymen over the racist abuse showered upon Lewis Hamilton last month. Fair enough. I suspect that the 'fans' who were at the centre of the incident are a small minority, but there was still a missed opportunity here. Couldn't he have said something like, 'the racist abuse directed towards my former teammate was abhorent, but please understand that the culprits are a very small minority voice in my country'? Surely his PR people will be rueing the missed opportunity to show Alonso as an ambassador for both Formula 1 and Spain too.

While we're on the subject both Alonso and The Dictator have declared that an anti-racism programme is unnecessary in Formula 1 because 'this was a one-off incident.' This, I would argue, makes it precisely the right time to kick off an anti-racism campaign; stopping it before it gets a foothold will be far, far easier than stopping it once it's an integral part of the sport.

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