Even accounting for recency bias, it's hard to look past Sunday's race in Mexico when thinking of the dullest Formula 1 races we've seen this year.
Max Verstappen won the Grand Prix to set new records for most races won and points earned in a single season – very impressive stuff. But he and his Red Bull team had already made sure of both titles before the race weekend began, so there was no intrigue to be found on that front.
The crowd, as always in Mexico City, was beyond belief. The passion, the colours, the noise – booming chants of "Checo, Checo," whenever those in the grandstands caught even the faintest glimpse of home hero Sergio Perez were enough to leave you needing new eardrums.
But unfortunately that was the peak, from an entertainment standpoint. The race itself was genuinely quite difficult to watch at times, due to the basic lack of any sort of action. You know it's been a boring one when the weekend is remembered for being the one at which Red Bull decided to boycott Sky Sports interviews over their recent coverage.
The major problem is the altitude. The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez – easily the most enjoyable circuit name to say aloud – sits a whopping 2.2km above sea level. And, of course, that means much thinner air which engines don't tend to like all that much.
Such is the complexity of the modern-day F1 car, that spells trouble. A few specks of dust get into the wrong place, and that can be enough to cripple these giant computers on wheels. Only two drivers had to retire from this year's edition of the race, but that's because everyone went into it having taken some fairly extreme measures to deal with the conditions.
Basically, every team had to turn down their power units by a significant amount, while also adapting their cars to bring in as much cooling as possible to help avoid too much overheating. But that then leads to a watered-down product – racing machines at nowhere near their full potential.
And that leads to races like the one we saw on Sunday – dull. To quote Romain Grosjean from a few years ago: "It doesn't make much sense to have a circuit at that altitude."
What can be done? Well, unless F1 chiefs fancy a lovely spot of terraforming in Mexico's capital city, not a great deal. To resolve the issue, another track would need to be identified or created in another part of the country which has more hospitable conditions in which the cars can be closer to peak performance.
If it carries on like this, Mexico could face losing its race in the future. A deal was recently signed to keep the Mexico City race on the calendar until at least 2025, guaranteeing its short term future at least – but to stay beyond that, more entertainment will required with F1 bosses aggressive in their desire to capitalise upon the sport's new-found popularity.
After all, entertainment is the prime goal these days – why else will these cars be barrelling down the Las Vegas Strip this time next year? The race calendar is expanding, but there is a limit to how many races can be squeezed into a season, and with everyone wanting a slice of the F1 pie right now there is more demand than ever to host a race.
And because of that, no-one is guaranteed a place any more, not even the classics. Monaco held on to its place by the skin of its teeth for 2023, as did Belgium – a couple of decades ago, the idea of taking one or both of them off the annual schedule would have been unthinkable, but not now.
If those venues are not safe, then none of them are. So unless new life can somehow be breathed into the on-track action in Mexico City, those passionate fans may find themselves without a home race to brighten up.
