Is F1 really a sport or something else?

Having watched the recent F1, I bring what I consider a different view of it. I have never been a fan of F1 and I understand that it brings a lot of excitement by watching cars curving and over taking and racing each other round the circuit. My views have changed after witnessing an F1 on TV for the first time last sunday. I have driven a car for almost 14 years now and I had always enjoyed driving and the feel is like none other from places to places in a terrific piece of engineering machine. So having the passion in driving, here is my question on why it is call a sport...

According to Wiki, it says that a sport combines physical and mental activity for the purpose of competition, and that there is a scoring system involved. It would seem that F1 racing is covered under that definition except that I question whether there is much physical exertion involved. Having driven a car for so long, I consider myself an experienced driver but not enough to know what strength it requires to race. The side effect of watching the recent race has made me wonder, if a racer doesn't need to run like a footballer, or walk like a golfer, does it makes the game lesser of a sport than soccer or golf?

When we call something a sport, there is a competition which require a reasonable amount of physical strength like running, cycling or swimming. So if racing is a sport because we require strength of the arm, then can we also call eating a sport? Normally when there are little physical strength requires, we call it a game. For example, monopoly game. Chess game. Poker game. So should we call racing a game since the main strength to drive a car come from a part the same part of the body to play a game of monopoly - the arm. So where does racing fit into the spectrum?

Well, apparently it's not that simple. I believe what sporting bodies will consider something a sport is that they are reactionary. For example in F1, you have to use a part of your body, for example hand or shoulder to react or response to influence a favourable position in the competition. For example, if you play golf, your your head and shoulders need to react according to the position you need to undertake.

If you look at games, there is no reactionary of the body. You don't need to raise your shoulder or any part of your arm to play a good game of poker. It is a strategy game and you only think about each move and the consequence of it.

So if F1 a sport, a game or something else? Do you think Hamilton can race the circuit with a square shoulder for 61 laps? F1 is definitely a sport. It is completely reactionary and they don't only think about going left, right, stop or go, they have to control their body in the car, the aerodynamics of it all. But then again, it doesn't mean that if we're driving then we are playing a sport because we don't worry about going round corners or overtaking at highspeed. It is merely a transportation hence there is not much of a reactionary involved.