In my humble opinion, Formula One is a sport unparalleled in prestige, tradition, wealth, gamesmanship, sportsmanship and simple, old fashioned bravado. Sure, it’s had its low moments over the years, but name me a sport which hasn’t. The thing is, all this doesn’t automatically mean good entertainment. However in 2011, they really have got it right. Here’s why.

Let’s kick it off with the two voices that will guide you through a race weekend: Martin Brundle and David Coulthard. Sadly, they can’t boast a championship title between them, but that would be obscuring the fact that they were both great drivers in their own right. They both know the sport intimately, and their knowledge and experience is hugely beneficial to the viewing experience.

Brundle and Coulthard are old mates; Brundle used to manage Coulthard’s contract in the early 90s. And it shows. The two of them are simply hilarious in the commentary box. Brundle has possibly the driest sense of humour of any sports commentator on earth. During the Belgian Grand Prix last year, Brundle commented: “Hamilton’s as sharp as a kumquat out there.” Coulthard replied, “Are kumquat’s sharp then?” to which Brundle quips, “I have no idea, it was just my word to get into the broadcast today.”

I could recount hundreds of examples of what we now call Brundle-isms, but suffice it to say that F1 now has the best commentary team in years. It’s all part of the BBC having taken over the English-language broadcast. They have brought the financial might and expertise that ITV, the previous broadcaster, could only dream of. Unfortunately each track has its own TV director, which can be hugely frustrating at times, but the rest of the coverage is top notch.

Out on the track, the current field of drivers is superb, and I have no doubt that in 20 years time this era in Formula One will be looked back on in the way we look back at the, for instance, Senna/Mansel/Proust years. There are currently five World Champions fighting for the title: Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton, Schumacher and Button, notwithstanding brilliant drivers who have never claimed the title, like Webber and Massa. Brilliant young drivers are coming though and grabbing points; Petrov, Kobayashi, Di Resta, Perez and Rosberg all drive with unbelievable skill and grit.

In a remarkable show of technological progress, the cars have been reined in year after year, but are just milliseconds off the pace of the bonkers V12 heydays a few years back. Teams like Red Bull and Lotus Renault have really thrown down the gauntlet to stalwarts like Ferrari and McLaren. Currently, we’re witnessing a the very best aspect of the sport: money is not everything, and personality, spirit and heart are certainly invaluable. Just ask Toyota, and to a lesser extent BMW, who threw a tonne of money at the sport and came away with nothing but a hangover.

There has not been a single boring lap in any of the six races so far, largely thanks to two huge new changes: tyre manufacturer Pirelli and the new Drag Reduction System, or DRS. In terms of tyres, teams need to use at least two sets of optional tyres, and start with what they qualified on (if higher than tenth). However, the real curveball is that the rubber literally disintegrates after about 12 laps on the harshest circuits, meaning the strategists have to really, really concentrate, and the drivers have to be at their best to conserve rubber. It’s led to some incredibly exciting closing stages at each Grand Prix, as drivers with fresher tyres literally hunt down those without.

DRS is being criticised as making overtaking too easy, and this is not a baseless allegation. The FIA has insisted that they might make some mistakes in the first year of the system’s use, as with each track they have to customise the DRS zone. By next year they should have this waxed. Essentially, the way the cars are designed these days – to maximise downforce and cheat the air – creates a violent zone for the trailing car, referred to as dirty air. This makes overtaking incredibly difficult, and rare, a criticism of F1 for years.

The new system allows an overtaking driver to bang open the rear wing for barely a second, adding about 10km/h to his closing speed, and making overtaking possible by counteracting that dirty air. It’s certainly working. In Turkey, the FIA marked the zone too long, and overtaking was too easy. However in Shanghai, the zone was spot on, and drivers fought past each other throughout the race, resulting in an overtaking record for the sport. It was simply brilliant to watch. And in Monaco this past weekend, Hamilton used the DRS to leap past Schumacher at the end of the main straight, something that no one was expected to achieve. He drove like an angry drunk for the rest of the race, but that piece of driving skill was a joy to watch.

At the very core of all this though, are extreme athletes. Piloting an F1 car in the modern age is like being an astronaut, an engineer and a media darling all in one. These drivers are phenomenally fit; there’s a reason Button does IronMan Triathlon’s in the off-season to stay in shape. Drivers experience a peak of 5Gs every lap of every race for two hours, while an astronaut riding the space shuttle will experience 3Gs for 40 seconds. And while they’ve got all that going on, they still have to chat to the team, fiddle with the brakes, gearbox and diff, overtake the guy in front and preferably not destroy the car in a ball of carbon-fibre fire. These are human beings at the very summit of human ability.

I think Formula One can put viewers off in two ways. One, it just seems like a very expensive way of going round in circles. Or two, it’s so ridiculously complicated that maybe you can’t be bothered to really get into it. But like most futile pursuits (sports), the more you know, the better it gets. There are so many angles to F1, from the individual pursuit of each driver, to the fanatical team work of the pit teams and mechanics, the politics of the sponsors and team owners, the incredibly beautiful women who seem to follow this circus around the world, the boundary-destroying engineering, the wit of the commentators, the guilty thrill of a crash, or the extreme athleticism involved in driving one of these machines.

It’s like a soap opera with better looking people, performed at 340km/h. And if that’s not a reason to watch a sport, I don’t know what is.