The line between hate and love, it turns out, is Netflix exposure I used to hate Formula One racing. Granted, it’s a little strange for a car writer to admit, but right now I’ll raise my right hand and testify: I found the endless calendar of races and squabbling over the tenths of milliseconds between competitors’ lap times an expensive exercise in pointlessness. “Those vehicles bear no resemblance to those 99.99999 per cent of the global population can enjoy, so what’s the point?” was my rationale. Combine it with the generally unrelatable personalities exuded by a starting grid of identical 5ft 6” robotic millionaire drivers and I was convinced the sport was never going to be for me. I used to dread Sunday afternoons when the contests beamed in from far flung destinations clogged up valuable TV scheduling or worse when I, an ungrateful snot bag, was fortunate enough to attend a meeting and the only enthusiasm I could muster centred on the interesting characters in the crowd.