More then ever before in previous seasons I’ve noticed a debate emerging this past couple of weeks with a strength (and a cod validity) that's quite unexpected over who the worthy or 'real' champion would be this year...
Although pundits mean 'deserving' when they say 'real', the real champion is actually very simple to decide as it is based on things like real races and real points; rather than races that happened in your head or on your Sony Playstation.
It's easy to see why a 'worthy' champion debate might emerge, what with the way points have been overhauled, rule reinvention and regulation tweaking have played into making Ferrari look tainted (again) and also how some final bravura performances from Schumi and final twists have played to the gallery.
What's not so easy to see is why anyone with half a brain thinks it's in any way a useful or justifiable way to pursue any kind of intelligent or logical dialogue about the sport.
Just as Red Bull's dumbass axing of Christian Klien was based on hard numbers rather than softer, more telling facts (that might actually have suggested they should keep him and he was doing pretty well all things considered, thanks) so the Championship is also calculated on a purely mathematical basis.
The champion is no more and no less than the person who comes out on top; worthy or not, fair or unfair. For the loser it's hard cheese, life sucks, and all that. End of story.
The debate would have been equally worthless last year, when Kimi Raikkonen was clearly the 'worthy' champion, as reflected in many popular and professional polls and awards; none of which, you may have noticed, actually caused points scored across 2005 to magically reassemble in his favour.
He was an inspired and daring all-or-nothing racer compared to Nando's route of apparently duller and businesslike competency that year (mirrored in Renault's more conservative strategies); a contrast never more apparent than at the European GP - and who picked up the spoils there too? Exactly.
Worthiness or mitigating circumstances are simply not valid currency - though even today many would still say Niki Lauda was the 'moral victor' or 'worthy' or 'real' champion in 1976.
Well tough titty; because James Hunt was the real champion (and a great one too). Just as Keke Rosberg was the real champion in 1982 when it really should have been the gobsmackingly mercurial Didier Pironi (or who knows, even the equally mercurial Gilles Villeneuve...) - it's worth bearing in mind that Rosberg only took a single victory in his championship year, which is a pretty uninspiring stat...
And in the end, after all the twitching and meddling from Lady Luck, it happens that Alonso is the real champion this year. Schumi is the real runner-up; his last race one that showed him at his very best - spirited, ballsy, deft and committed.
The way to judge the championship is on reality, not a world of alternate possibilities. Would they, after all, have made it a more exciting year? No of course not.
Anyway, now we've cleared that up, when's the next race?
Oct 29, 2006
Oct 23, 2006
A TV Dog's Dinner
You could almost hear the collective "D'oh!!!" waking up thousands of families across the UK very early last Sunday morning, as F1 fans shouted their despair from downstairs, once again missing out on a crucial piece of race action - and this time possibly the most important moment of this year's championship as Schumi retired at Suzuka.
It's not the first time of course that ITV have dropped the ball in their television coverage of F1 this season; far from it - just another numbing low point in their poorly scheduled, ad-intensive product.
Actually I didn't totally miss Schumacher's crucial retirement as I was smart enough to be listening to Radio 5 Live, which boasts two major advantages for the serious F1 fan: firstly it features Maurice Hamilton, and secondly it doesn't feature James Allen.
In fact it frequently also features the excellent Anthony Davidson; as complete and comfortable (and expert) a pundit as he is a driver. (Whether or not Davidson gets a race seat next year is my acid test of whether there actually is a god or if the universe we live in is no more than a cruel and meaningless void).
It wasn't just the Japanese GP coverage that disappointed. Being an 'away' race it also meant that things like the crucial qualifying sessions got the usual careful ITV scheduling treatment, finally appearing on screen at the crack of mid afternoon on the Saturday.
I tell you if I had four digital TV channels at my disposal and had forked out a nebulous amount of money for the F1 broadcasting rights, I'd certainly make sure it took priority over the likes of 'The World's Funniest Animals' and re-runs of 'Emmerdale'.
When it comes to broadcasting Formula One on TV, you have to conclude that it's something that's far too important to be left to TV people. You also can't help but wonder whether the Beeb might even make a better job of this kind of thing nowadays: they certainly seem to take clever use of their portfolio of channels more seriously.
Match that with a lack of advertising breaks and you can imagine that it might be a seriously compelling proposition. Nonetheless, I still can't see any reason why commercial interests should make ITV's coverage such a pig's ear.
There are plenty of conceivable options as far as advertising in the F1 programming goes; from simply locking out adverts for the duration of the race (with more elsewhere), to leaving rotating web-style 'banners' on screen the whole time, or even allowing people to pay to 'opt-out' of watching adverts.
You could also look to a more heavyweight and complete sponsorship package of the whole product - or split it section by section. But you really need to take it all more seriously that ITV seem willing to do at present.
We've been here before, I know, but surely somebody needs to take Bernie aside and start talking about a proper multi-screen, pay per view, stand-alone channel, backed and produced by F1 experts.
Still; on we go to Sao Paulo for what could be an exciting and emotional end to the season, and to the end of Michael Schumacher's career. Anybody fancy a wager on whether they cut the post-race coverage short to show that repeat of the episode of 'Airline' where that bloke can't find his cello at luggage reclaim?
(*This article appeared in an edited form on Teletext on ITV; 16/10/2006)
It's not the first time of course that ITV have dropped the ball in their television coverage of F1 this season; far from it - just another numbing low point in their poorly scheduled, ad-intensive product.
Actually I didn't totally miss Schumacher's crucial retirement as I was smart enough to be listening to Radio 5 Live, which boasts two major advantages for the serious F1 fan: firstly it features Maurice Hamilton, and secondly it doesn't feature James Allen.
In fact it frequently also features the excellent Anthony Davidson; as complete and comfortable (and expert) a pundit as he is a driver. (Whether or not Davidson gets a race seat next year is my acid test of whether there actually is a god or if the universe we live in is no more than a cruel and meaningless void).
It wasn't just the Japanese GP coverage that disappointed. Being an 'away' race it also meant that things like the crucial qualifying sessions got the usual careful ITV scheduling treatment, finally appearing on screen at the crack of mid afternoon on the Saturday.
I tell you if I had four digital TV channels at my disposal and had forked out a nebulous amount of money for the F1 broadcasting rights, I'd certainly make sure it took priority over the likes of 'The World's Funniest Animals' and re-runs of 'Emmerdale'.
When it comes to broadcasting Formula One on TV, you have to conclude that it's something that's far too important to be left to TV people. You also can't help but wonder whether the Beeb might even make a better job of this kind of thing nowadays: they certainly seem to take clever use of their portfolio of channels more seriously.
Match that with a lack of advertising breaks and you can imagine that it might be a seriously compelling proposition. Nonetheless, I still can't see any reason why commercial interests should make ITV's coverage such a pig's ear.
There are plenty of conceivable options as far as advertising in the F1 programming goes; from simply locking out adverts for the duration of the race (with more elsewhere), to leaving rotating web-style 'banners' on screen the whole time, or even allowing people to pay to 'opt-out' of watching adverts.
You could also look to a more heavyweight and complete sponsorship package of the whole product - or split it section by section. But you really need to take it all more seriously that ITV seem willing to do at present.
We've been here before, I know, but surely somebody needs to take Bernie aside and start talking about a proper multi-screen, pay per view, stand-alone channel, backed and produced by F1 experts.
Still; on we go to Sao Paulo for what could be an exciting and emotional end to the season, and to the end of Michael Schumacher's career. Anybody fancy a wager on whether they cut the post-race coverage short to show that repeat of the episode of 'Airline' where that bloke can't find his cello at luggage reclaim?
(*This article appeared in an edited form on Teletext on ITV; 16/10/2006)
Oct 15, 2006
Orders Please...
It's always 'glass half empty' for some people, isn't it? When things aren't going absolutely 100% or more their way they just glare at you like they're sucking on a lemon... Apart from when he actually won the Japanese GP, Fernando Alonso (possibly about to take his second WDC title) spent the last couple of weeks wandering around with a face like a slapped arse.
Have you ever seen anybody looking so grim? Look into his eyes and you'd have thought the prize was a wet weekend in Withernsea.
The reason, of course, is that he was equally close to NOT taking that title, and this is a sport where second is nothing more than the first of the losers.
Having said that, even Schumi, after losing his engine at Suzuka (and probably the championship at that very same moment) managed to go back to the pits and smile while shaking hands with all his crew. Okay it was a fake smile and it looked like someone had selotaped his lips back to his ears, but dammit at least he tried; and you know that at that moment he would - for all the gloss he might want to put on it - be heartbroken inside.
Still, at least it's not all doom and gloom in F1-Land...
One comedy gem (surely accidental as the team has been irony-free since the late eighties) is McLaren's announcement that they're branching out into selling a strategy software application for businesses, based on their own software which they use for race strategies.
For anyone who hasn't noticed; having failed to deliver at least two perfectly achievable titles in the last five years alone, the team is on the verge of its first win-less season since 1996. You just hope they don't mention that on the packaging...
Someone who certainly hasn't lost his sense of humour is Ferrari's Technical Director and Head of Bumptiousness Ross Brawn who, clearly seeing some kind of job in stand-up comedy during his forthcoming sabbatical year, demanded that other teams (that'd be Renault) 'play fair' as the season draws to a close.
To their eternal credit no teams actually responded to this; doubtless being far too busy wetting themselves, changing their underpants and then wetting themselves again.
If Brawn genuinely wasn't having funsies in his comments about fair play, then his utter lack of self-awareness clearly extends beyond the many, many antics of years past to such recent events as his star driver ignoring chicanes in Canada and Hungary, and trying to turn the Monaco circuit into the world's most expensive short-stay car park. Not to mention that 'blocking' nonsense at Monza.
Having said that, I must say I hope that Renault do go for team orders, and I hope Ferrari do likewise...
The stand-alone performance of cars hasn't really brought excitement to the sport this year; it's been the on and off track dirties and controversies, peculiar regulation changes and novel rule 'clarifications' that have driven the championship drama.
So I say go for it: Dastardly & Mutley in the Ferraris, Pinky & The Brain over there in the blue corner - do your worst; block, scheme, weave, whatever... All I'd ask is that we're open about it.
It's probably a bit late to expect team orders in Brazil, with Schumi now unlikely to claw the driver's title back; but with it still theoretically open to him you should never count him out. And if events turn his way, then a little bit of scheming could come in very useful.
I have to say I think it's the inherent dishonesty of covert orders and tactics that's the problem, not orders or 'out in the open' team strategies in themselves: maybe it's time the FIA revisited the subject, as it's a mess of their making - the usual indistinct murk of dos and don'ts that a legal brain like Max Mosley could surely make a better job of.
But then, as we all know, it's sometimes easier to clarify a poorly-written rule in somebody's favour rather than have them fall foul of a well-written one in the first place. Playing 'fair' - like most things - would be easier if the FIA had the mind to make it so. But they don't.
And as long as that's the case, there *will* be scheming and conning, dirties and tricks.
They just seem curiously content to leave it that way...
Have you ever seen anybody looking so grim? Look into his eyes and you'd have thought the prize was a wet weekend in Withernsea.
The reason, of course, is that he was equally close to NOT taking that title, and this is a sport where second is nothing more than the first of the losers.
Having said that, even Schumi, after losing his engine at Suzuka (and probably the championship at that very same moment) managed to go back to the pits and smile while shaking hands with all his crew. Okay it was a fake smile and it looked like someone had selotaped his lips back to his ears, but dammit at least he tried; and you know that at that moment he would - for all the gloss he might want to put on it - be heartbroken inside.
Still, at least it's not all doom and gloom in F1-Land...
One comedy gem (surely accidental as the team has been irony-free since the late eighties) is McLaren's announcement that they're branching out into selling a strategy software application for businesses, based on their own software which they use for race strategies.
For anyone who hasn't noticed; having failed to deliver at least two perfectly achievable titles in the last five years alone, the team is on the verge of its first win-less season since 1996. You just hope they don't mention that on the packaging...
Someone who certainly hasn't lost his sense of humour is Ferrari's Technical Director and Head of Bumptiousness Ross Brawn who, clearly seeing some kind of job in stand-up comedy during his forthcoming sabbatical year, demanded that other teams (that'd be Renault) 'play fair' as the season draws to a close.
To their eternal credit no teams actually responded to this; doubtless being far too busy wetting themselves, changing their underpants and then wetting themselves again.
If Brawn genuinely wasn't having funsies in his comments about fair play, then his utter lack of self-awareness clearly extends beyond the many, many antics of years past to such recent events as his star driver ignoring chicanes in Canada and Hungary, and trying to turn the Monaco circuit into the world's most expensive short-stay car park. Not to mention that 'blocking' nonsense at Monza.
Having said that, I must say I hope that Renault do go for team orders, and I hope Ferrari do likewise...
The stand-alone performance of cars hasn't really brought excitement to the sport this year; it's been the on and off track dirties and controversies, peculiar regulation changes and novel rule 'clarifications' that have driven the championship drama.
So I say go for it: Dastardly & Mutley in the Ferraris, Pinky & The Brain over there in the blue corner - do your worst; block, scheme, weave, whatever... All I'd ask is that we're open about it.
It's probably a bit late to expect team orders in Brazil, with Schumi now unlikely to claw the driver's title back; but with it still theoretically open to him you should never count him out. And if events turn his way, then a little bit of scheming could come in very useful.
I have to say I think it's the inherent dishonesty of covert orders and tactics that's the problem, not orders or 'out in the open' team strategies in themselves: maybe it's time the FIA revisited the subject, as it's a mess of their making - the usual indistinct murk of dos and don'ts that a legal brain like Max Mosley could surely make a better job of.
But then, as we all know, it's sometimes easier to clarify a poorly-written rule in somebody's favour rather than have them fall foul of a well-written one in the first place. Playing 'fair' - like most things - would be easier if the FIA had the mind to make it so. But they don't.
And as long as that's the case, there *will* be scheming and conning, dirties and tricks.
They just seem curiously content to leave it that way...
Oct 9, 2006
Down To The Wire
This season promised so much before it actually started. Then once the first flag dropped it fell into a drearily dull and predictable mulch before controversies like Michael's Monaco madness and the FIA's mass-damper ban threw things wildly up the air again, and brought us back towards something approaching a classic season finale.
But what's really brought the excitement back? Simple. H20. Buckets of the stuff at both Hungary and Shanghai. Best innovation of the year: rain!
Even things like the new qualifying system don't make for as much fun as the odd torrential downpour. The wet stuff separates the men from the boys; the boys tending to disappear sideways into the gravel (or sideways into DC in the case of Felipe Massa).
Hungary's spray-filled air was equally thick with chaotic excitement, and the 2006 Chinese GP was no different, with the sport's best brains going into overdrive to snatch every advantage from the treacherous conditions.
Shanghai not only showed Schumi at his best; keeping his head, constantly adjusting and waiting for things to come to him when he couldn't do anything else - it also showed Renault at its weakest; making an amateurish mistake of changing something that was working perfectly well, throwing Nando's race out of the window in a single pit-stop. (It wasn't the rear wheel change that was the real problem, it was changing wheels at all in the previous stop...)
Seeing the Michelin and Bridgestone tyres gaining and losing form, against each other and in ever-changing conditions, reminds you of what a dumb decision a single tyre supplier for 2007 is.
I'd have at least two suppliers - in fact, I'd prefer three or four. Tyres are so crucial these days and dropping all variation and competition is another drab, standardising piece of Max's dumbing-down jigsaw.
Wet races aren't just about tyres though, as the wildly differing wet-skills of Schumi and Nando at one end (masterful) and Massa and Speed at the other (on a par with my gran) show. And China wasn't just about skill either, as Kimi Raikkonen (having a blindingly good run) would surely testify.
He must be dying to get to Ferrari after five years of varying levels of frustration and outright despair - although he still has to go to Suzuka and Sao Paulo first to find out what fresh hell McLaren have in store for him there...
And now it's down to the wire. Two contenders, 116 points apiece with two races to go; one likely to favour Michelin runners and one likely to favour Birdgestone. You could see from Schumi's unfeasibly excited bouncing at Shanghai that he wants to walk away with both those races in his pocket, having broken his China duck.
Whether he will is of course unknowable. And strangely enough, I'm not actually that bothered. I just want it to rain. Lots. That way it'll be a finale where we all win...
But what's really brought the excitement back? Simple. H20. Buckets of the stuff at both Hungary and Shanghai. Best innovation of the year: rain!
Even things like the new qualifying system don't make for as much fun as the odd torrential downpour. The wet stuff separates the men from the boys; the boys tending to disappear sideways into the gravel (or sideways into DC in the case of Felipe Massa).
Hungary's spray-filled air was equally thick with chaotic excitement, and the 2006 Chinese GP was no different, with the sport's best brains going into overdrive to snatch every advantage from the treacherous conditions.
Shanghai not only showed Schumi at his best; keeping his head, constantly adjusting and waiting for things to come to him when he couldn't do anything else - it also showed Renault at its weakest; making an amateurish mistake of changing something that was working perfectly well, throwing Nando's race out of the window in a single pit-stop. (It wasn't the rear wheel change that was the real problem, it was changing wheels at all in the previous stop...)
Seeing the Michelin and Bridgestone tyres gaining and losing form, against each other and in ever-changing conditions, reminds you of what a dumb decision a single tyre supplier for 2007 is.
I'd have at least two suppliers - in fact, I'd prefer three or four. Tyres are so crucial these days and dropping all variation and competition is another drab, standardising piece of Max's dumbing-down jigsaw.
Wet races aren't just about tyres though, as the wildly differing wet-skills of Schumi and Nando at one end (masterful) and Massa and Speed at the other (on a par with my gran) show. And China wasn't just about skill either, as Kimi Raikkonen (having a blindingly good run) would surely testify.
He must be dying to get to Ferrari after five years of varying levels of frustration and outright despair - although he still has to go to Suzuka and Sao Paulo first to find out what fresh hell McLaren have in store for him there...
And now it's down to the wire. Two contenders, 116 points apiece with two races to go; one likely to favour Michelin runners and one likely to favour Birdgestone. You could see from Schumi's unfeasibly excited bouncing at Shanghai that he wants to walk away with both those races in his pocket, having broken his China duck.
Whether he will is of course unknowable. And strangely enough, I'm not actually that bothered. I just want it to rain. Lots. That way it'll be a finale where we all win...
Oct 2, 2006
Excursions & Chicanery
Some drivers find it very difficult to stick to the road these days. Here in the real world for example it's clearly too much like hard work for arrogant, slappable oafs who don't like boring things like pavements or zebra crossings to get in the way of a good mobile phone conversation.
Still you'd have thought that clever, talented, experienced and focussed F1 drivers would better understand the difference between 'road' and 'not road' wouldn't you...
Yep. And you would of course be wrong.
Tyre bosses complaining about the surface of kerbs at Monza hit a slightly surreal note: surely they should be concerned at how their tyres perform on the track itself, not off it - and hopefully that's where their drivers will be planning on keeping their car.
This isn't to belittle safety matters of course, but the best way of avoiding a meeting with a barrier is to actually drive on the circuit itself and not on kerbs, gravel or run-offs.
Concrete run-off areas may well be safer than gravel, but they are also something of a 'get out of jail free' card for drivers these days. You don't want harm to come to them, but at the same time you can't help feeling a price ought to be paid for going off track. Like not being able to get back onto it, for example.
Whereas once you would be bogged down in gravel and unable to continue, now there is no penalty from huge run-off aprons and you can just take a nice comfy excursion and pootle back on a few seconds later.
Beyond the matter of run-off areas, Michael Schumacher has been spearheading a campaign to make chicanes a thing of the past too, prompting a novel FIA "clarification" following the Hungarian GP that appeared to fly in the face of decades of perfectly understood, observed and upheld rules.
Actually it wasn't just Hungary: a lot of people seem to have forgotten that Schumi also left out any bits of circuit that didn't appeal to him in Canada earlier in the year, where he appeared to decide that he really just couldn't be arsed with the final chicane at all on a number of occasions.
You have to wonder why circuits actually bother with chicanes or white lines or kerbs - or basically a track - when all and sundry can drive wherever appeals to them with apparent impunity.
Having said that, now that all the grid have basically been told that, contrary to popular belief (and indeed rules) that you can block others by cutting chicanes, it will be interesting to see if any resulting lawlessness backfires on Charlie Whiting and the FIA...
Let's hope so.
Still you'd have thought that clever, talented, experienced and focussed F1 drivers would better understand the difference between 'road' and 'not road' wouldn't you...
Yep. And you would of course be wrong.
Tyre bosses complaining about the surface of kerbs at Monza hit a slightly surreal note: surely they should be concerned at how their tyres perform on the track itself, not off it - and hopefully that's where their drivers will be planning on keeping their car.
This isn't to belittle safety matters of course, but the best way of avoiding a meeting with a barrier is to actually drive on the circuit itself and not on kerbs, gravel or run-offs.
Concrete run-off areas may well be safer than gravel, but they are also something of a 'get out of jail free' card for drivers these days. You don't want harm to come to them, but at the same time you can't help feeling a price ought to be paid for going off track. Like not being able to get back onto it, for example.
Whereas once you would be bogged down in gravel and unable to continue, now there is no penalty from huge run-off aprons and you can just take a nice comfy excursion and pootle back on a few seconds later.
Beyond the matter of run-off areas, Michael Schumacher has been spearheading a campaign to make chicanes a thing of the past too, prompting a novel FIA "clarification" following the Hungarian GP that appeared to fly in the face of decades of perfectly understood, observed and upheld rules.
Actually it wasn't just Hungary: a lot of people seem to have forgotten that Schumi also left out any bits of circuit that didn't appeal to him in Canada earlier in the year, where he appeared to decide that he really just couldn't be arsed with the final chicane at all on a number of occasions.
You have to wonder why circuits actually bother with chicanes or white lines or kerbs - or basically a track - when all and sundry can drive wherever appeals to them with apparent impunity.
Having said that, now that all the grid have basically been told that, contrary to popular belief (and indeed rules) that you can block others by cutting chicanes, it will be interesting to see if any resulting lawlessness backfires on Charlie Whiting and the FIA...
Let's hope so.
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