For easily explained reasons we recently purchased and watched the 4K remaster of The Sound of Music. My wife made me do it. Told you it was simple to explain.

Released in March 1965 it won five Oscars including best picture. It ran for 174 minutes (that's almost three hours folks!) and for a production budget of $8.2m US (around $87m today) taking $287.8m US (about $3 billion today!) at the box office. A rate of return that Liberty Media would die for, being around a 3,448% return on investment. The music was created by Rogers and Hammerstein (songs), and Irwin Kostal (score). It has subsequently been judged as the 55th greatest film, and 4th greatest musical of all time.

Along with other ear-worms of great magnitude it gave us the joyfully cheeky "What are we going to do about Maria?" There was no need to worry about the state of F1 back in 1965. The FIA was busy running the 19th season of the Formula One championship. Jim Clark won the title, being his second and final championship. Graham Hill finished second overall for the third season in a row, and a rookie finished third at this first attempt! Yes, Jackie Stewart arrived with a bang.

As for the Constructors' Championship, Lotus carried off the trophy, with BRM second, and Brabham third. Other teams on the grid included Ferrari, with John Surtees in one car and an entire revolving carousel of drivers in the second. Both Honda and Ford had engines on the grid. Over the course of the season a total of 26 (!) differing entries attempted to qualify to race.

Round 1 was in South Africa, before the season moved to Monaco, plus six other European races including the giants Spa, Monza, and Silverstone. The season came to a climax in the Americas, with round 9 at Watkins Glen, and the final race in Mexico City.

Jim Clark won the South African opener, plus another five races in a row, from Spa through to the German GP, for a total of six wins and the title. Graham Hill won Monaco. Jackie Stewart had his first F1 win in his first season at his first F1 running at Monza. Hill had a second win for the season at Watkins Glen, before Richie Ginther won the final round in Mexico for Honda.

Ferrari finished 4th and Honda 6th, while the best placed Ford-powered team, Brabham, was a non-point scoring ninth in the standings.

What a year. What legends of the sport. Clark, Hill, Stewart as your top three, with Gurney, Surtees, McLaren, Brabham, Hulme, Siffert, and Rindt among the many other fine drivers lower down the listings. So many greats. So many who did not live to enjoy long retirements or chilled, long-farewells as TV sports presenters. Eleven drivers who started a race in 1965 would die behind the wheel in subsequent years. This being a one-in-five death rate considering the 50 or so drivers who drove that year. That's a tale for another day.

Fast forward 61 years to season 2026. The Sound of Music is still a valid watch for those that can stand the issues of aging. Taking time building a scene, and thus a story, with characters that are not Instagram forgettable. Making a point every few minutes by bursting into song, usually with a catchy, clean chorus and a great melody which has aged surprisingly well. The remastered picture and sound makes the entire thing feel surprisingly fresh, except that we spend time developing themes and delivering those songs. For all the on-screen energy it was not a film in a rush.

Which brings us around to "What are we going to do about Stefano?"

The nuns had a fear that Maria did not understand the seriousness of the situation, what was being asked of her, and how to conduct herself correctly. Here we are 61 years later and we have exactly the same issues with Stefano. Back in that golden season of 1965 Filippo Caracciolo of Italy (8th Prince of Castagneto, 3rd Duke of Melito) was just ending his FIA presidency which commenced in 1963. During the year Wilfred Andrews of the UK (first UK president of the FIA, and instrumental in getting Silverstone on to the calendar) took over the role which he held until 1971.

It does not take too much imagination to envisage these two fine gentlemen singing, with some concern, "What are we going to do about Stefano!?" How about they first recommend that the song and dance routine he breaks into every press conference should be toned down, if not completely rewritten and made more of a decorum piece than Liberty Media Fan Fiction, or greatly truncated as a minor improvement. (Anyone else notice Stefano's preference for white trainers, as worn by all aging rock stars? - Ed)

Next, they might want to sit him down quietly with Mother Superior and explain the difference between facts and opinion. It is a fact more people watch F1 on TV now than in 1965. It is an opinion that this season is the greatest ever. After a slow sip of tea Mother Superior might then explain the sin of excessive exaggeration. Inflating viewing figures or online responses is but a cheeky exaggeration to excite the sponsors. It is a fantasy of extrapolation, and a greater sin, to then infer that by 2034 more people will be watching F1 than exist on planet Earth.

Mother Abbess asks at one point in the song, "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" To which Sister Margaretta observes "She's a flibbertigibbet! A will-o'-the-wisp! A clown!"

My! How well has that observation aged when addressing a problem like Stefano? A flibbertigibbet is defined as a person who is silly, flighty, and when finally confronted an excessive talker. Does that fit Stefano? The new rules are perfect, he cries! Well, that was a silly assertion from the start. We fans demand to talk about the new rules, was the cry post-Melbourne. Yet despite having previously urged us not to panic, Stefano took flight faster than Wile E. Coyote on an Acme rocket and was not seen or heard from for weeks. One presumes he was at the bottom of a canyon somewhere in a large cloud of (bull) dust.

Recently, in the lead up to Miami, which is being hyped as the season relaunch of a lifetime, Stefano reappears and will not shut up about how well reasoned, awesome, and excessively loved the new rules, and engines are by teams, fans, drivers, his mother, Martians, you name any life form - they all simply love these new rules!

A few cheery song lines later Sister Berthe notes "She's always late for chapel!" I think we can take this as another observation that Stefano went MIA on the rules discussion. Before Sister Margaretta chimes in with the joyful, "And she's always full of tricks!"

Don't you think this could have been written for Stefano? Really?

In summary the nuns are frustrated by Stefano's, sorry I mean Maria's, high spirits and energy leading to a lack of focus and discipline, while acknowledging her kind nature, and love for F1, sorry, I mean the convent.

Now if we could just get Toto to agree to play Baron von Trapp, then have the other team principals sign-up as the von Trapp kids we'd have a fantastic musical second half of the season!

So, The Sound of Music and the wisdom therein, has aged well. The F1 season of 1965 remains a classic for the ages with the retelling only improving with each passing year. Yet F1 under the FIA, is starting to age badly. Rather like inheriting a case of 1959 Bordeaux, only to open one and find that 50 years in the attic rather than the cellar has rendered them all highly expensive red wine vinegar. F1 is aging badly. It needs to be re-cellared in the right conditions to bring back the legendary flavour, and that full rich body of delight which the 1965 vintage served up.

What chance we can get the ghosts of Filippo Caracciolo and Wilfred Andrews to dress in nun's habits? Then channel their inner Rogers and Hammerstein (plus a quick twist of Scrooge's ghosts) before singing "What are we going to do about Stefano?" In such a manner as to get him to display all the right temperaments for the duties required of him?

Spoiler alert. Near the end of the movie, as the von Trapp's are trying to make good their escape, two of the nuns sabotage the engines of the pursuing Brownshirts' Mercedes, allowing the family to reach freedom. Possibly we could suggest to Stefano that these two nuns attend ongoing engine talks with the FIA? Their skills could prove invaluable to saving the day.

I am left sorely tested as what else to do for Stefano the misbehaving novice. A novice who by amusing happenstance was born in May 1965 in Imola Italy, just two months after the release of The Sound of Music. Maybe I should post him a 4K copy and recommend it as informing his own character arc. Because right now he appears more headed to a fate like a spoiled bottle of '59 Bordeaux, to wit, going down the drain, than that of a nun who has found herself, her family, and her freedom.

I Have Confidence, Stefano may well insist, but unless the rules overhaul provides Something Good over the course of the season, it may well be a case of So Long, Farewell.

Foot Note: After terribly mixed reviews The Sound of Music got to number one in the US box office four weeks after release. It stayed there for thirty of the remaining 43 weeks in 1965. The original theatrical release would continue unbroken in the US for four and a half years. The 1965 F1 season was not the only remarkable spectacle that year. Indeed... what are we going to do about Stefano...?

Max Noble

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