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The waving of the checkered flag at a Formula 1 race is something exciting! Cars speeding by, engines roaring, people cheering on their favorite drivers. It’s a magical moment when emotions run high. Heck, even fireworks are set off to mark the end of a motorized gladiator match. It appears no one—literally no one—told Apple CEO Tim Cook this while at the U.S. F1 Grand Prix last Sunday.
VIP and celebrity guests are often invited by Liberty Media to raise the profile of key races during the F1 season, and many of these get to wave the checkered flag. These honorary flag wavers are typically excited (sometimes too excited) when it’s time to commemorate the end of the race. But not Cook. When it came time for the tech executive to perform the one job he had been invited to do, he did so with as much energy as a Snorlax. Yeah, that Snorlax—the Pokemon that’s always sleeping.
F1’s global feed zoomed in on Cook as Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton crossed the finish line, marking a momentous occasion for the sport in the U.S. Not only was Austin’s Circuit of the Americas celebrating its 10th anniversary as the host of the United States F1 Grand Prix, but Verstappen had also managed to clinch the manufacturers’ championship for Red Bull Racing.
Cook, however, was less than enthused, looking like he could just sit down and take a nap on the spot. And shall we discuss his flag-waving technique? It’s unclear if F1 offers flag-waving lessons to these special guests, but if they don’t, they really should. Listen, all I’m saying is that if something like this happened at the Indy 500, heads would roll. The flag waver stand is hallowed ground, and the act of waving the flag—green or checkered—is sacred.
This is how you wave a flag, in case you’re curious:
Maybe Cook partied really hard the night before and he was overly tired come Sunday, or maybe F1 isn’t exciting enough for him. We’ll never know. Chances are he’s back in Cupertino now playing fetch with his robot iDogs. Hopefully, he can throw a ball harder than he can wave a flag.
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