Thank Frankel it's Friday: Time to get our heads round Formula E?

But it is also the month during which we start to look back over the year that’s about to depart and forward to the one to come. Today I’m going to do neither of those things. Instead, I’m going to make a single resolution.

Which is to get my head around Formula E because, apart from anything else, it’s not going away. It is fair to say that the now not-so-new series has its proponents and its detractors, the former in my experience comprising almost exclusively the car manufacturers who are taking part, the latter almost everyone else I’ve spoken to about it. To be fair, I move within a fairly petrol-powered community of chums so purist they think a Porsche 911 with any one of four-wheel drive, a convertible roof, automatic transmission or any combination thereof should automatically deny it the right to the name.

Even so, I don’t yet understand the appeal. The cars look weird, they’re slow, what very little noise they emit is terrible and they compete on makeshift circuits that are chosen not for their ability to show racing cars at their best but for the convenience of their location.

Except, actually I understand completely. Bringing Formula E to major city centres opens motor-racing to an entire and enormous constituency of retail opportunities (better known to you and me as people with money) who’d never think about going to Silverstone to watch cars race, let alone schlep off to Spa or even Le Mans. And with big-name manufacturers employing big-name professional drivers the chances to draw them in are maximized. And of course it’s not just the people who go to watch, it’s all the marketing opportunities that arise as a result. Yesterday a substantial chunk of the Today Programme on Radio 4 was given up to what amounted to a free plug for Jaguar’s Formula E team ahead of this season’s curtain raiser in Hong Kong tomorrow. I know this because I cleaned almost an entire Honda Civic while it was on.

There’s more. With any race at any permanent facility, there is an element of preaching to the converted. People have already bought into the sport and subliminally the advertising opportunities it foists upon them. What Formula E offers is the chance to get at those who’ve never watched those mobile billboards we call racing cars, yet who buy just as many new cars as the rest of us. So far so good.

For the spectator, the novelty value of seeing slicks and wings race cars hurtling around the centre of town has an unquestionable appeal too. What I don’t know is, having had the experience, how many will decide to keep going back year after year.

Because however much it might make sense to car manufacturers, for the normal people who watch on telly or at the side of the track, there has to be a spectacle worth watching. And the manufacturers can bang on as much as they like with varying levels of credibility and conviction about technology transfer and how today’s racing cars are mobile testbeds for tomorrow’s road cars, but ultimately if the show’s not worth watching, once the novelty has worn off, the show won’t be watched.

But what I hate most about Formula E are people who knock it without actually having seen it, which means that right now I actually hate myself. I’ve never been to a Formula E race so I’m not even carping from the sidelines, I’m carping from a small shed in the middle of nowhere painfully aware of the fact that I’ve not equipped myself with the information or experience required to do the job with any credibility at all. I have an opinion based on what I’ve seen on television, a gut instinct and a diehard traditionalist’s inherent suspicion of change, but does that make it informed? Not even close.

So my 2018 resolution is to go to a Formula E race somewhere in the world with a completely open mind and judge it as I would any other weekend away: did I have a good time, would I recommend it to my friends? Resolutions are, of course, there for the breaking but I at least promise to try. And some time in the next 12 months you’ll find out if I’ve succeeded. Or not.