All smiles but sport hits skids

While the Ferrari team partied into the night after Michael Schumacher clinched a historic fifth world championship in Sunday's French grand prix, the rest of the paddock appeared slightly underwhelmed by the German's feat.

Despite his achievement in matching the legendary Argentinian record-holder Juan Manuel Fangio's tally of titles, Schumacher's domination of the sport for the past three seasons made events at the Circuit de Nevers seem almost routine.

And with the six remaining races of the season offering precious little to play for, there is a growing feeling that formula one's popularity - judged by the television viewing figures on which its multi-million-dollar sponsorship lifeblood is based - may go into significant decline.

In terms of British interest, the French grand prix attracted around 3.5 million viewers to ITV's race coverage - a drop of around 2% on last year's race. A fortnight earlier, the British race at Silverstone attracted 4.1m viewers, almost exactly the same as in 2001.

Over the same weekends, golf and tennis produced somewhat rosier figures, with Sunday's final day of the Open at Muirfield attracting an average of 4.4m viewers with a peak of 5.1m, and the men's final at Wimbledon averaging 4.1m with a peak of 5.6m.

And comparing formula one to football, as the paddock is prone to do in portraying itself as the other true "global" sport, Champions League football regularly attracts around the 7m mark and peaks far into the teens.

The last time formula one saw domination on this scale by a single driver-car combination was from 1962 to 1965, when Jim Clark and his Lotus-Climax won two world championships, came within an ace of winning two others and utterly dominated each of these four seasons. But in those days commercial sponsorship from non-motor industry sources did not exist, television coverage was in its infancy and the sport catered largely for the enthusiast market.

Subsequently there have been fleeting periods of domination, but even when the McLaren-Hondas won 15 out of 16 grands prix in 1988, their drivers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost were allowed to race wheel-to-wheel against each other with the same ferocity (and often more) that they reserved for drivers from rival teams.

With Schumacher, it has been different. His contracts with the Ferrari team have given him priority over his team-mates, a state of affairs which was thrown into dramatic relief two months ago when Rubens Barrichello was obliged to relinquish victory in the Austrian grand prix at the last moment. Now the question facing the sport's authorities is surely how to end such total domination before many more fans start to turn their backs on the sport.

"These things are cyclical, and always have been," says Ian Phillips, the Jordan team's business development director. "Michael is the best out there and that's all there is to it. But the fact is that we've just had two terrific races in Britain and France. And remember, just like Tiger Woods, Schumacher is news whether he wins or not.

"That said, everybody else is doing a pretty average job and we would be the first to concede that point. It's up to all the other teams to do something about Michael and Ferrari, not to moan about it."

The truth, therefore, may be hard and uncomfortable. One can consider tinkering with the regulations, banning team orders and perhaps demanding that engine makers expand their investment to supply additional teams. But the bottom line is that, with the fleeting exception of BMW Williams and McLaren-Mercedes, the rest of the formula one field is performing to a distinctly second-rate level. Ferrari's domination may be damaging the sport, but it is up to the other teams to shake off their torpor and get on with justifying their huge sponsorship budgets by doing a better job.

And if this is a bleak prospect for ITV executives seeking better viewing figures, the lack of a British driver challenging consistently for victory is a further reason for the lack of audience growth here over recent seasons. In 1997, when Damon Hill's Arrows stormed past Schumacher's Ferrari to take the lead of the Hungarian grand prix, the viewing figures vaulted at the rate of around half a million fans a race over the next few grands prix.

Just now, however, with Jenson Button committed to a midfield existence with British American Racing, Allan McNish likely to be dropped by the Toyota team and the 36-year-old Eddie Irvine's fruitless three seasons driving for Jaguar likely to end with his retirement at the end of the current season, there is not much good news on the horizon.

TV Figures

Formula one (ITV)

Average audience varies from 2.2m to 4.5m per race (this month's British grand prix attracted 4.1m).

Open golf (BBC)

Sunday's Muirfield play-off saw the audience peak at 5.1m, with an average of 4.4m.

Wimbledon tennis (BBC)

This month's men's final peaked at 5.6m viewers, with an average of 4.1m.

Champions League (ITV)

Average of 5-7m per group game involving a British club.