Hands up, who believes in fate? It might be a bit of a deep question for a Monday morning comment piece on last weekend's on-track action, but one that's certainly pertinent given the result.
Daniel, you must stop smiling. Got it?
Which was a victory for Lewis Hamilton and a retirement for Nico Rosberg, sending him in the red, white and blue corner to the top of the drivers' world championship standings by three points.
Edged out for pole pole by an ugly, Platypus-style nose - 0.007 seconds - the German struggled to get his car to the grid come race day, eventually taking the start after a steering wheel change.
More problems during the race for Rosberg meaning only his gearshift paddles were working (also meaning no hybrid power or DRS) was eventually traced to a knackered wiring loom in the steering column, putting him out of the twilight Grand Prix on lap 14 and redressing the reliability balance that's been so far weighted towards Hamilton this year.
This means it's now game on for the title with five races left, including double points at the last round.
How much influence should they have?
But this weekend was interesting for another, potentially very important reason. It marked the introduction of an FIA directive clamping down on the use of pit-to-car radio to improve vehicle and driver performance - something that could impact a number of other FIA-governed race series around the world, from the World Endurance Championship to European F3.
As a trendsetter (take KERS and DRS, for example), the FIA's decision could filter down to other national championships as they look to make F1 copycat moves.
With immediate effect last week, all communications to the driver from his engineer with intent to make him or the car go faster was ruled out, which, where my two cents are concerned, is definitely a good thing. Refreshingly, it's been welcomed by drivers, too.
A quick recap: this includes contact about lines, riding kerbs, changing car setup for certain corners, details on sector times and corner speeds, gear selection, braking points and throttle application - absolutely and compared to other drivers - car stability, use of DRS or any electric motor energy and driving technique. So, in short, pretty much everything a driver is employed to do.
And there's a championship back on!
Making sure everyone continues to know he's still pulling some strings backstage, having claimed the idea for his own, Ecclestone waded in hinting that there could be a further ban on telemetry in the future. Bernie says... here's an opportunity to make lots of money.
Driving by committee
The man has a point. Article 20.1 of the FIA's Sporting Regulations states that "The driver must drive the car alone and unaided." Up until now, that's been a delightfully vague statement that's been left open to interpretation and loophole finding by teams.
My view is F1 shouldn't be a process of driving by committee. The current cars are incredibly complex, but they shouldn't need an engineer to extract the speed - if they did they'd have a second seat for a co-driver. And then it'd be called rallying.
In Singapore Rosberg reckoned the team was telling him about 20 per cent of the stuff it would have done prior to the new rule, meaning it's a big challenge for the driver - but that's what spectators watch the sport for, isn't it?
Driving 'alone and unaided' always vague
It puts more emphasis on the pilot. It means they'll have to do more homework. More of the onus is placed upon them to pedal a car quickly.
Any driver in tier one motorsport should be able to feel the car, sense the tyres going off and develop a strategy to drive around any problems that might arise, more than likely grip related.
They should also choose when to deploy any battery energy, where they need to brake, how the diff should be set for individual corners, and the brake bias, and the brake migration, and work out how much time they're losing/gaining through a particular corner, and how to make it up or make even more on their opponent.
That's quite a lot of things to do in a lap, which is why the best drivers would rise to the top quicker, rather than those whose ultimate talent limit is masked by an army of data experts in the back of a garage - or even a warehouse somewhere on the M4 corridor.
And we've not even talked about adding a third pedal and a stick yet...
Why stop at simply removing radio?
It's a debate that's taken up a hefty chunk of PH server space in recent times: manual gearboxes vs automatic paddleshift transmissions. Whether it's on a 991 GT3 road car or a top echelon single-seater, this one's not going to go away.
Dealing with the above takes a lot of brain processing power - and that's without the physical aspect of driving a car either. So should F1 return to manual gearboxes?
It'd slow speeds and lap times down, and prove a technical challenge to get a hybrid powertrain to work with an H-pattern 'box. But that's what F1's about, devising clever solutions to complex problems.
But it's more about driving. A great driver can make a lousy car go quicker than it has any right to, but I'm not so sure the reverse is true. If the FIA is going to stop driving by committee in cutting down comms between car and pit, do it with conviction.
Cut down communication between ECUs and let the main computer processing data inside a car be the driver's brain. Some might say that's dangerous (I'm not sure I agree), but it'd certainly be interesting. It worked with banning traction control again.
Give them a clutch and a stick and put a pedal cam inside the foot well of each car like they used to in V8 Supercars and watch 'em dance. Involve fans in it like this and it'd be a success, I'm sure. What do you think?