Formula One has often - and usually fairly - been accused of being po-faced. Drivers are kept on a PR leash, rarely able to spit invective at the person who last punted them off the road. Teams are now multi-million pound businesses who operate with military precision rather than rag-tag bands of spanner monkeys. New circuits are built as sanitised concrete car-parks with acres of room to make clumsy errors rather than the twisting, demanding rollercoasters of yore. Fine if you're a hardcore fan of the sport, but hardly the most inviting prospect for everyone else.
It's okay, though, Codies has got your back. Enter F1 Race Stars, which aims to inject a much needed dose of silly sauce to the entire thing. This is F1 by way of Mario Kart - rather than endless grip, the cars will slide around like they're greased up with goose-fat and you'll be able to strap weapons and other pickups to them.
We're expecting around 8-10 of the more interesting and exotic locations from the F1 calendar to make an appearance in the final game, with Monaco, Texas and Silverstone already confirmed. The Codemasters Birmingham team is promising an extensive career mode featuring multiple championships and there'll be as yet unspecified RaceNet support to boot.
The drivers themselves have been turned into the stylised, Pixar-esque caricatures you see dotted around these pages and while Formula One Management won't let them race without helmets, you'll see them mucking about as the grid lines up to race. We're expecting the game to be riddled with cutesy, Lego-esque cutscenes at the beginning and end of the races.
With the focus on four player split-screen and 12 player online multiplayer and hopefully some party games inspired by DiRT Showdown's selection, this should be a more light-hearted way for casual fans, particularly kids, to get involved with what is often a fiercely technical and faintly daunting motorsport.