While we're off topic...
David, I agree whole-heartedly about it being just as difficult (if not more so) to build an engine that lasts long. I was quite bemused by the comments coming out of the F1 camps after the change of rules that suggested extending the life of the engine was somehow dumbing down the sport.
Just, another point. Did I interpret it correctly? Did you question whether F1 was a sport?? In my opinion, I would go one step further and say that it is the ultimate sport.
F1 drivers are true athletes. Consider Mark Webber trains on a bicycle. During a training stint, he managed a time on a Tour de France section that would have had him on the podium, and he isn't the fittest driver in the paddock. He brushed it off by saying that he would only do these times over one day, as opposed to a whole event, but still...
Also, F1 drivers experience the highest heart rates ever measured, perform their knife-edge skills with both hands and feet, in G-force levels that cause their vision to blur, and do so in a situation that is life threatening.
To put this into perspective, it would be the equivalent of a footballer kicking a ball through the goals while passing another ball by hand to a teammate while being tackled... and if he was not pinpoint accurate in all these things, would risk serious injury.
Incidentally, I hold endurance racing in similar esteem for different reasons.