Monday Morning Crew Chief
Written by Jonathan Ingram · June 9, 2008
Just when I thought last year’s Ferrari spy scandal couldn’t be topped, the now infamous video of the embattled FIA President Max Mosley, caught flagrante dilecto as the divorce lawyers like to say, appeared. Given the choice of inevitably following all the details of yet another tawdry scandal — or not — I chose to put F1 on the back burner.
Monaco, with all its compelling traditions, was my return date for full-time viewing of the races. Given that the absence of the U.S. Grand Prix no longer creates newspaper or magazine assignments to cover F1 in Indianapolis, television is the only option. With intermittant rain at Monaco, a superb and unpredictable race ensued, well worthy of the sport’s tradition. Then on Sunday, the Canadian Grand Prix served up its usual unpredictable smorgasbord, ending up with the sport’s first Polish victor.
It was not a surprise that Robert Kubica finally stood on the top step of the podium, nor that BMW returned there. Long live the king, as the tradition goes, when the old guard is no longer in place.
When the race was over, I not unexpectedly asked myself the question of whether the current crop of drivers measures up to the days when Ayrton Senna vied against Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell as a young Michael Schumacher made his way onto the scene?
If one asked the team owners that question, the answer would be an unequivocal yes. Team owners do not have the luxury of sentimentality and are quick to move on to the next generation, lest they themselves become yesterday’s story.
Driving for Renault, Fernando Alonso beat Schumacher en route to two championships. Kimi Raikkonen so impressed Ferrari that the scuderia moved the great Schumacher into retirement in order to secure the Finn’s name on a contract. Raikkonen promptly rewarded the Prancing Horse team with a championship last year ahead of Alonso, in his first year driving for McLaren, and last year’s phenomenal McLaren rookie Lewis Hamilton.
But times past are different, just as generations are different. And the current crop of drivers sometimes bear little similarity to their predecessors in ways that are significant, if not necessarily important.
Can any driver in the current generation invoke the concept of God and how He relates to motor racing as did Ayrton Senna? Has any driver in the current generation of teen phenoms quickly promoted to the top rank suffered through the early career trails of one such as Mansell? Did Alain Prost have more talent and a little less career luck than the incredible Schumacher? After all, how many guys have lost a title by half a point the year after losing it by two points?
I’m not sure in the current scheme of things if a team would hire a driver who put religion as one of the highest of his priorities. Or, if a somewhat goofy guy like Mansell, after his early penchant for accidents, would get a shot at a front-running ride. In any event, Mansell was 26 years old in his first season at Lotus, about the age most of his front-running peers arrived as well.
What we have now are an army of brilliant young drivers groomed for stardom from a young age in a sport where many millions are at stake for all concerned. There’s not a potential fun-loving James Hunt, who nevertheless drove through the fog at Fuji to win his title, in the lot. Raikkonen might have taken up this mantle of playboy at large if not for the repercussions — gadzooks — from Fleet St. that now play a heavy hand in the eyes of team owners and sponsors.
It’s easy to forget sometimes that all these observations and judgements can come relatively easily through the cornucopia of TV and the Internet, which are also the offspring of the rising tide of money in the world we live in. There was a time when you had to search or pay dearly to find someplace to read about F1. The race reports back then were sometimes so archaic in style and late in arriving that you almost expected Don Quixote to be listed at the back of the grid. Or, they were so confusing that it seemed as if Tazio Nuvolari might have been a front runner midway in the event.
So one can’t get too irate at sanctioning bodies, manufacturers, team owners or drivers for the changing times that have made the sport more readily accessible as well as profitable. It’s not as if we’re held hostage, although Mosley’s pathetic affair comes close. One can only hope a divorce from the sport comes sooner than later. His case, too, is the result of changing times and electronic viewing habits.
In some significant ways, we’re down to pure sport as art. Watch the race, appreciate the talent, commitment and skill on all sides when it comes to building and driving the cars, then forget about the scandals and boring interviews unless they might reveal information about a turning point in the outcome.
At least these days there’s no burden about the possibility of motor racing disappearing all together. Previously, it was possible to believe the support of those who followed it despite the absence of coverage by the mainstream media kept motor racing from falling off the planet. It’s now possible to tune in, turn on or drop out, which also might be a forecast of viewing habits in general in a few years’ time as opposed to sitting down to watch races live.
In my case, after dropping out briefly the turning point was Monaco, where I enjoyed a fantastic trip in 2000 with my future wife and saw Shumacher win the pole from the hillside at Le Rocher and a guy named Coulthard — the same one who showed up on the podium in Canada — come home first.
It’s a funny thing how memories help make the anticipation of each new day.
Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com.
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Great piece Jonathon, but I get the impression you (like me) have taken the ostrich approach to anything other then what happens on the track.
Despite the FIA proving it’s not fit to run motorsport, F1 continues to steam ahead & damn the torpedoes.
BTW, “Can any driver in the current generation invoke the concept of God and how He relates to motor racing as did Ayrton Senna?”
Thankfully no…..Senna’s use of God & his faith, when justifying his behaviour behind the wheel, was for me the most utterly frightening aspect of the talented Brazillian psyche.
Perhaps, and I’m not endorsing it. But Senna’s religion made things interesting as well as unpredictable.
As far as being scary, if a driver can brandish a cultural sword, why not?
There are those who thought of Senna as primitive. I’d call it unchecked ambition.