The Streets of Manchester Are Alive with the Sound of Formula One

Formula One cars? Not so much. Even though the WRC racers don't have that much in common with their street-going counterparts, they at least have roughly the same size, they have full working lights and the driver sits in the right position at an adequate height. They also have roll cages, so if anything nasty happens, they'll compensate for the lack of airbags and stuff.

That's why you don't get to see Formula One cars on the roads. Well, that and the fact that, for all their speed and agility, they wouldn't make for an ideal means of transportation. Their stiffer than a corpse suspension system is a pain on the regular roads, especially the potholes-ridden ones in the UK. And then you have tram lines, curbs, and inclines that these cars simply don't have the ground clearance to negotiate.

Well, the fact that they make so little sense in an urban environment is precisely what makes this clip so surprising and entertaining. It's obviously staged, but it's done in a "reality show" manner that makes it easier to fool yourself into believing it is real. And as predictable as some of the situations are - the kids crossing in front of it, the drive-in, and, on top of them all, the final police scene - they don't seem overly-done.

Shooting this was undoubtedly fun for everyone, but there has to be a reason for which everybody went through all this trouble. And there is: the stunt was pulled by Betsafe.com (a betting website) to promote the 2016 Gumball 3000 Rally, which is probably the only thing on wheels that's even crazier than this.

But the funniest part is people's reaction. Some even got upset about how "irresponsible" the stunt is, naming one scene in particular (at 00:34) when the singe-seater overtakes another car. They say it was a dangerous maneuver considering the little clearance the oncoming driver had, which prompted him to flash his lights. Now we don't exactly know what the Highway Code in the UK says about Formula One cars driving on public roads, but we're pretty sure it's against it.

So you don't have to be a direct descendant of Einstein to realize that everything you see here was staged, the traffic was closed whenever possible, and nobody was in any real danger at any point. Besides, who do you think would suffer more in case of a head-on collision? I don't see any halo system on that car. And aren't "danger" and "irresponsibility" two of the core values of Gumball 3000?