I've been an F1 fan since I watched Ayrton Senna get killed 10 minutes after I turned on my first race in '94. Weird, but I was hooked. The last time F1 was run at Indy in 2005 was a disaster. Michelin brought the wrong tires and 14 cars did one lap and pulled into the pits quitting the race.

Senna was before my time, and I'm not even a F1 fan, but watching him in action is a mind-blowing display of skill.

Here's an on-board view of an on-board lap in Australia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOkvo5v5-VU

1400hp engine (in a car body weighing half-nothing), manual transmission (Senna would drive with 1 hand on the wheel a good chunk of the time), no electronic driving aids...pure driving. I've watched documentaries where he would make the car 'dance' in the rain and destroy everyone on the track.

One commentator described his cornering technique - Senna would flick the wheel in the direction of the corner before turning into the bend - allowing him to get the tightest possible racing line, so he would brake less than other drivers.

His famous heel-and-toe technique:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8By2AEsGAhU

That latter video is one of my favorites on YouTube: Senna on Suzuka in an NSX wearing loafers! His skill is truly unmatched, but to be fair, heel-and-toeing is a rather common technique in performance driving. Hell, I do so to match revs on every 3->2 downshift before a corner when driving around town, and I wouldn't call myself a skilled driver.

I still stand by 'previously' as 5 years is an awful long time to keep people interested in a sport that doesn't appear in your country and has none of your countrymen involved, especially with similar series (Indy 500 etc) running anyway. Especially 5 years in F1, where everything gets changed around and fiddled with.