Half-time 2006: Ifs & Buts

"If..." goes the old commentators' cliche, "is F1 spelled backwards". Not at the school I went to, it's not matey: that's just poor spelling, which tells you more about the parlous state of the education system and the calibre of F1 pundits than what a bitch Lady Luck can be when she's sat back watching the GP.

Still, as we sit here at something approximating half-time, it is one of those phrases that seems to make sense of a season of crushing predictability, random incident and fateful decision.

What would have happened if McLaren had a genuine combo of speed and reliability, rather than the general absence of either? What if Honda got their aero issues cleared up months back? Well, in truth, they'd probably still both be floundering in Renault's supreme wake, with only Ferrari probably looking like they'd made any comeback at all.

What if Aguri had a proper chassis back in March? Not much change there either: Ide still wouldn't know how to drive it, and Sato would probably just crash it a bit quicker. (Let's face it, he's only had such a 'clean' season because he's not going fast enough to have an accident...)

If Schumacher hadn't been sent to the back of the grid, would he have won in Monaco? Certainly not if I'd been a steward, because he wouldn't have even been taking part. But what if he had been able to park better than that old woman off the 'Driving School' programme? Would he have got away with it then?

Parking skills are something Fernando Alonso is likely to need to develop with his move to McLaren next year. Oh, and the patience of a saint if Raikkonen's 5 wasted seasons there are anything to go by. I wonder if he's regretting that decision just yet...

There are still lots of ifs surrounding the 2007 driver market, most of which rest on Michael Schumacher. Fisichella clearly hasn't been re-signed by Renault as their choice for first driver, and Maranello don't know if they'll have Schumi or Kimi (They surely won't have both).

Also, you have to assume that some 2007 decisions may also hinge on 2008, when Prodrive joins the grid. They're not going to be the bigger names of course, but this is chaos theory writ large, where everything affects everything else.

And there are still ifs surrounding the sport itself, despite the GPMA teams signing up for 2008. If Mad Max continues to mess with the future of engines and so-on, tossing grenades into the mix, then there's still plenty that could happen. Including manufacturers simply walking away from F1 forever.

Any ifs for the rest of this season? Well, probably plenty; but none likely to change the outcome of the Championship sadly. After anticipating a really close, competitive season, it's been quite a letdown. Let's just hope those ifs at can at least add a bit of excitement.

Fun, Fun, Fun...

Ron Dennis calling for more fun in F1 was bound to raise eyebrows. The boss of McLaren suggesting that the sport is too dull and serious is a hefty case of the pot calling the kettle... well, if not black, then certainly a very dull and sombre McLaren grey.

And who's right? Well, as usual, both sides and neither side. Yes the sport does need more to attract and intrigue bigger and younger audiences - that's so simple a point it should be obvious to all but the occasional bumpkin, village idiot and Max Mosley.

But how you actually bring fun to a sport without taking away the mystique could be a difficult question: a driver doesn't need a water pistol to look like a clown when he can just stomp down the pitlane and have an hilarious hissy-fit at Jacques Villeneuve on live TV.

At the same time, the sport can generally appear too aloof and full of itself - fans deserve to be closer to the action and to their heroes a lot of the time (which BMW Sauber is commendably trying to address with its special "F1-land travelling experience sideshow" thingy...)

Back in the seventies some drivers used to camp in the centre of tracks like Kyalami and have barbecues with the punters. Whether you'd want Kimi Raikkonen mumbling at you like Kenny from South Park over over some undercooked sausages is open to question, but then that's never going to be a possibility nowadays anyway.

Nonetheless, special and unique events to bring heroes and fans face to face are surely a good idea... and they're surely possible. This is F1 after all! Anything's possible! (Well anything apart from an emergency chicane at Indianapolis apparently, but I digress...)

Bernie's Mr Fixit isn't he? Why can't he go a bit Willy Wonka and organise for each race ticket to have a unique number on it, and get each race organiser to hold an "Evening with the Stars" to which all the grid are committed? (A couple of hours each GP Friday evening, say...)

All the hundred lucky winners get a special pitwalk and a reception with goodie bags and drinks, and get to meet the drivers, who also do onstage interviews with the press. Then maybe there's another special prize for just one of the hundred on top of that?

A Prize-Draw event isn't fun in the clowning-around sense, no... it's a thousand times better and it generates better feeling. If I want belly laughs I'll watch my "Best of Takuma Sato" DVD. But Ron Dennis seems to be confusing fun with true engagement.

With things like the Prize-Draw, people tell everyone they know, they post their photos online, they make other people want to have been there. Everyone wins. Keep it up, do more, build on it and you have a virtuous circle: something much longer lasting and less messy than a fight with silly-string.

New Teams, New Teammates

In Paul Simon's classic song "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" one particularly imaginative and hurtful method that he didn't cover was telling your lover you're splitting up with them fifteen months in advance and then carrying on as if nothing's happened.

And yet that's basically what Fernando Alonso did to Flav and to Renault immediately after he delivered them both titles in a loved-up, landmark season: jumping ship to McLaren and causing no end of mayhem in the ongoing "Kimi to Ferrari?" saga.

Whilst you'd have thought that Ferdy's experience at Renault in 2006 might be a bit weird following such a shocking decision, that's really not happened at all: the team have resisted doing things like put drawing pins on his seat and carried on like the utter professionals they are.

Alonso too, has managed a serenely committed start to the season, and it's not surprising that it's over at McLaren - where things remain unclear and uncertain - that the atmosphere seems perpetually wretched and stressed.

Ron Dennis's problems are of his own making of course... who's staying: Kimi or JPM? Or neither??? You'd want to think that he's going to try and keep the Kimster and have himself another uber-pairing like that of Prost and Senna.

But it's worth bearing in mind that their relationship was self-destructive to the extent of taking each other out in Japan in 89. And combos of genius can end up even worse: witness the tragic loss of Gilles Villeneuve in pushing his competition with Didier Pironi beyond the limit in 1982.

It's unrealistic to expect complete harmony between team mates in such a highly ambitious sport but some combos do work pretty effectively, particularly when a certain level of difference in ability, stature and priority helps keep things ordered for both team and drivers.

And whilst gimp-like doormats actually end up making the team look stupid and taint the reputation and the achievements of the "star" driver - yes, we're talking Schumi and Rubens here - a solid first and second driver relationship is still great when it works.

So how can McLaren dispel the clouds of doubt and gossip and rumour; of sulk and counter-pout? Simple... Get it over with. Ron: decide! Kimi: decide! Talk to each other and talk to us. Get done with the lawyers and get on with the sport.

Raikkonen must still be wondering though, how Ron could possibly love someone else enough to spoil his singular role as the McLaren wonderboy (especially after giving them so much for so little reward). It's no wonder divorce lawyers are such busy people...

Ant Rant

I did actually promise myself that I wasn't going to write columns devoted to particular drivers. I promised my editor too, so I can probably expect to have a keyboard whacked across my face for trying to sneak this one through...

But please indulge me just this once, because it's crucial - it really is. So who is it that's so important they warrant this? Schumi? Ferdy? The Kimster? JV, DC or even our own Jenson Button? Nope. They have acres of print and screen devoted to their charmed careers. No - it's Anthony Davidson.

What I want to know is what Davidson has done in some previous life that's stopping him from being F1's next Great Briton? A man who often matched and frequently bettered Jenson Button and Dan Wheldon in karts should clearly not be where he is now.

In British F3 he partnered Takuma Sato throughout the 2001 season to come second in ever improving races and with obvious pace, persistence and a wily, ballsy penchant for overtaking. But since becoming Honda's 3rd driver, things have clearly drifted - not helped by the team effectively leaving him on the bench, Gil de Ferran bringing in Barrichello, and the team being reluctant even to let him do things like the Williams shoot-out test.

Davidson is known by many names: 'The Ant', 'Little Ant', 'Boy Friday', 'F1's Best Kept Secret' - and, quaintly, by a friend of mine as 'That Total Ginger Studmuffin'.
The Boy Friday moniker comes from his 3rd driver duties with Honda this current season, and in 2004, where his scorching sessions in both years sometimes led to lazy (and fundamentally wrong) notions that he was running on fumes. He also has a phenomenal reputation as a test driver.

His feedback to engineers in testing and developing cars is well renowned, as is his searing pace not only on short runs but over huge distances, week in week out. He has also had the very briefest of actual GP outings.
Nothing though, ever seems to give Ant enough kudos to have a decent team put him in a race seat; something not helped by his lack of absurd Buttonesque ego or PR presence. F1's Mr Nice Guy is sadly also F1's invisible man.

But, and I don't use the word lightly, Goddammit! Somebody give him a drive! At a time when even people like Ide (who simply couldn't drive an F1 car, let alone communicate with his team) manage to get seats and when apparent heavyweights (cunningly disguised as has-beens) like Barrichello can flap around so uselessly without getting sacked or punched, it's criminal that Ant isn't on the grid.

The burblings of a drive at Aguri in 2007 sound dangerously like a dead-end though: he deserves way better than that, and it's high time a top team manager came to their senses and put him in a race seat worthy of his considerable gifts and skills.

Rant over: Peace, out.

Monaco - Flawed Jewel In The F1 Crown

Wow! It's Monaco! Woohooh! The glitz! The glamour! The shiny opulence of it all!

Rubbish - most people's experience of the Monaco Grand Prix isn't glamourous at all: it's just sitting in front of a telly, shouting at interminable adverts and hurling abuse at James Allen.

Monaco always has some kind of Get Out of Jail Free card, and never gets a rough ride from the authorities despite the fact that it is the very opposite of everything they demand from every other event.

It's a narrow, unforgiving circuit that would be struck off the calendar in a flash for safety reasons if it were based anywhere other than the diamond encrusted cliffsides of Monte Carlo. And before I get taken for some raving communist let me just say I honestly don't mind that: I just think there are far better venues that get treated abysmally (Silverstone or Spa for instance) and I don't like double-standards.

That rant out of the way, Monaco has certainly staged some memorable races in both the past (1982's surrealist comedy where pretty much everyone took it in turns to lead the race in the final couple of laps, stopping after 100 yards each) and the present (Raikkonen creaming the field in 2005 - and one of the most quietly classy passing moves of the season by Nick Heidfeld).

There's also the hilarious one-upmanship of the teams and their daft publicity stunts: the Red Bull 'Star Wars' pit crew last season who got so much extra coverage from the cameras that it was even more embarrassing than it need have been when both their cars dropped out. Or the Jaguars in 2004 with fabulous diamonds in their nosecones to promote 'Ocean's Twelve' - until Klien put his Jag into a barrier and the diamond was never seen again. Somewhere there's probably still a Marketing executive being punched in the windpipe every hour for thinking that one up....

And yet it's hard not to want to make an exception for Monaco - it DOES look very cool, it can thrown up spectacular moves and crunches as the grid powers into St Devote, the cars sound massive as they tear through the tunnel and out into the harbour...

Okay, I admit it. It IS glamourous. But only in a ludicrous way. Monaco is great because it typifies and magnifies the excesses of the Formula One world. If ever you wanted to distil the essence of F1 - money, egos, marketing and spectacle - you couldn't find a finer or more potent mix than Monaco.

As a race, it's pretty good (but I defy anyone to disagree that there's far better on the calendar - or NOT on the calendar in the case of Spa...) but as F1 it's brilliant.

Simon Fuller Spices Things Up

Simon Fuller... Name ring a bell? How about if I mention the Spice Girls? No? Well, let me put you out of your misery (although I'm probably partly to blame for that misery by mentioning the Spice Girls in the first place)...

Simon Fuller is '19 Entertainment' and the man responsible for the Spice Girls and S Club 7 (I personally think it's very big of him to own up to that...) and he is also the man now responsible for bringing stacks of clever yooftastic funtainment to Honda Racing.

Quite who at Honda had the great idea of bringing in Fuller I don't know, though it has all the hallmarks of a particularly punchable marketing executive - and why it's so crucial when they should be concentrating on not weeing away their race weekends is simply beyond me.

Nonetheless there he is, ready to help bring modern showbiz tricks into the biggest showbiz sport in the world. Who knows, maybe his pop and entertainment formats can bring a new dimension to the way F1 is presented and to the way it appeals to audiences...

He could pull together shows like "Jenson's Deal or No Deal" where a panel have to guess how many of the boxes in front of them contain contracts between Jenson Button and any number of different teams (and whether any of them are worth the paper they're written on).

Or a special "Pimp My F1 Ride" where teams compete to build a more or less viable car from a 4-year old chassis with the aim of making it look utterly cool, so long as it still goes at least one lap per lap slower than everybody else.

I'd quite like to see a special F1 edition of Antiques Roadshow where a bunch of experts inspect Max Mosley and tell him he's worthless, (old gags, always the best...) or a variation on The Apprentice, where Mike Gascoyne goes round teams, helping them build better cars and repeatedly gets thrown out with the words "You're fired!"

Best of all they could do their own lottery show where random events and the fickle finger of fate conspire to... Oh, hang on, that's called Qualifying isn't it.

The Fuller/Honda relationship, and the Ron Dennis "More Fun!" statements both smack a bit of desperation; like some government initiative, or a lame geography teacher who wants to be loved.

Truth be told, F1 honestly doesn't need that (although the idea of an F1 version of Fuller's Pop Idol format would be good if only for seeing Ant Davidson cream a whole bunch of mediocrities from the 2006 grid). On the whole though, if the sport is good then everything else will follow.

And if it isn't good then no amount of superficial tarting like this is going to help.

Kicking The Habit

Well, I'm just glad they're stopping tobacco advertising in F1. I'm fed up with switching from Camel to Marlboro to Lucky Strike to West, depending on who I support... I even had to give up and switch to Nicquitin patches when I supported Williams.

That's a lie of course; nothing more than pure, lame sarcasm. It's just that the constant idea that people are idiots ruled by pavlovian responses to advertising and branding is one that annoys me to seething point.

Advertising does work of course, or else brands wouldn't fork out vast sums of money to fritter away on cars that go so fast you can barely see their logo. And admittedly people are often idiots too. (How else do you account for the frankly inexplicable popularity of Robbie Williams?)

But that doesn't mean that there's a massive fog of idiocy that gathers whenever people watch sport and forces them into taking up smoking or switching their zombie-like allegiance from brand to brand.

Philip Morris, the owners of Marlboro, have apparently decided that the Ferrari red is now synonymous with Marlboro and so plan to continue spending a huge amount of money on the team even if they can't show their logo, possibly moving towards a red car devoid of other logos.

It was this extraordinary strategy - and presumably a hefty and secure financial commitment behind it - that led Ferrari into allowing Vodafone (who would gladly have been their title sponsor) to part ways with them and leap into the arms of Ron Dennis and McLaren.

Already Ferrari often replace the Marlboro wordmark with a bunch of anonymous blocks, and McLaren used to replace the West wordmark with the drivers' perfectly fitting names (possibly the only remotely fathomable reason for having Montoya in the team).

Even further back, McLaren used to replace Marlboro with the word McLaren in the same typeface: very cheeky and a pretty effective trick on anyone without 20/20 vision.

But will the 'non-Marlboro' Marlboro Ferrari be worth it for Philip Morris? I have my doubts: Ask most people why a Ferrari is red and they won't stroke their chins and say, "Ah... this is of course because red is the primary swatch in the brand palette for Philip Morris's Marlboro cigarette line..." No, they'll look at you as if you're an imbecile having a particularly stupid day and say, "Because it's a Ferrari of course... Durh!"

Probably the main group of people who actually would know the answer are already F1 fans and already committed to either smoking or not smoking: You can't help wondering if it's not like burning money. Sponsorship, like smoking, can be a very expensive habit.

The Euro Issue

It's a Eurosceptic's dream really - alighting upon the European GP, getting really wound up and bellowing "European??? It's always in Germany!!! What does that tell you?!?!" before going on to somehow relate it to fishing quotas and the end of the world as we know it.

Still, it's actually a very good point. The 'European' isn't genuinely a European GP at all. It's just a second German GP. Just as the 'San Marino' GP is a second Italian GP.

With talk of bringing on a second Spanish race, you surely have to wonder if there's a better way of handling the 'European'.
I have to say if I were Max or Bernie then, apart from getting a decent haircut, I'd drop the San Marino GP, and drop the Nurburgring as the 'European' venue too.

Imola could then alternate with Monza as the venue for the Italian GP, or it could be one of the many genuinely European venues for a genuinely European Grand Prix.

There's only room in the calendar for a finite number of Grands Prix, so giving Spain a second one purely as a sop to Ferdy's newest fans seems pretty fickle and shortsighted.

Why not do something more constructive and have a proper "roving" European GP that takes in Zandvoort and Estoril and this second Spanish venue? There are plenty more good tracks that could inject some more personality and variety too: Donington, the A-1 Ring, Paul Ricard...

Short of adding half a dozen extra races to the calendar (which I must admit I'm all in favour of, although it would be completely unfair on the teams and their families, damn them!) I'd take the opportunity to re-jig the summer into an extended and geuninely European sector of the season.

At the same time, other chunks of the season could be rethought and reorganised into more geographical legs of the Championship.

Sadly Bernie thinks in 'markets' not 'circuits'. And whilst there already exist plenty of great venues, he's always going to jump at somewhere with a vast untapped TV audience. And build a shiny new Hermann Tilke abomination in it.

In fact, that Hermann Tilke's German and he gets to design all the tracks!!! What does that tell you, eh??? Eh???

What's In A Name?

When I first heard the name 'Team Super Aguri' I thought it must be an insanely violent Japanese cyberpunk cartoon on Sky. Surprisingly it turns out to be something even better...

In my head they had outlandish haircuts and went around doing superhuman things, and the truth isn't far off: despite their first pit stops being choreographed by the Chuckle Brothers, what the team have actually achieved in so little time is a pretty superhuman feat.

We've all grown used to a relatively stable line-up of teams of late, and it's great to see new ones like Aguri diving in. In the eighties and early nineties it seemed like dozens of crazy new names would appear and disappear each season.

It would be nice if more teams had such lively sounding names though: Super Aguri is just the kind of name we need, and in fact Yuji Ide does sometimes sport a strangely Manga haircut too - so that's perfect.

Red Bull always sounded just right for a cool fast team; and their second team Toro Rosso is a brave and cheeky attempt to extend that vibe, but makes the staggering faux-pas of nicking the word 'Scuderia'.

And although I'm not actually a Ferrari devotee, even I hold the somewhat irrational belief that nobody else has the right to call themselves 'Scuderia' anything...

'Midland' however, must be the most non-F1 name ever dreamt up - even when they put 'F1' right next to it. It could only lack more glamour if they called the team 'Kidderminster' or 'Derek'. Even calling it Scuderia Midland wouldn't save that one...

It seems a bit unfair to blame Midland for being dull though: that's like blaming the rain for being wet... go to www.midland.gg and you'll be surprised they didn't paint the car completely grey. And make the drivers wear grey nylon slacks.

Super Aguri could certainly teach the big teams a few things about exciting names: Renault becomes 'Equipe Ultra Flav', McLaren becomes 'Silver Shiny Ronster Monsters'... it would be the perfect marriage to James Allen's hyperactive commentaries.

It still leaves us with the problem of what to call Midland though. I'm still working on something sexy and exciting that starts with the word 'Conglomerate'...

Born In The USA

I wonder if your reaction was the same as mine when you heard Scott Speed had been fined $5000 for using abusive language during the stewards' hearing after the Australian GP?

"Yay! F1 has its own John McEnroe! Er, except without the talent."

Speed seems such a perfectly arrogant and caricatured Californian that his real name is probably 'Scott Speed 90210'.
And he'll certainly need a lot more than mere attitude if he's to compare to America's greatest F1 drivers.

Phil Hill of course was the USA's first F1 World Champion back in 1961, and the following years saw some seriously useful drivers like Richie Ginther, Peter Revson, Dan Gurney and Eddie Cheever on the grid.

Cheever was certainly one of the sport's nice guys and a real talent, although sadly never a real legend. The States' most recent star, and last World Champ, was Mario Andretti who spearheaded Lotus's victorious 1978 season in the "ground effect" Lotus 79.

Mario's son Michael drove (or rather crashed) for McLaren for much of 1993, spending most races covered in gravel at the far end of the track. And then for the next thirteen years... nothing.

Thirteen years without an American driver! Think about that... Given the country's fondness for razamatazz, other motor sports, and their love of absurd and horrendously inefficient cars in general, that's a pretty shocking statistic.

Which brings us back to Scott Speed, who defended his attitude and language, saying "I'm the American out there"; apparently under the impression that he's starring in a John Frankenheimer movie for gung-ho thickheads where Uncle Sam saves the world through F1.

Do you know why Narain Karthikeyan didn't rage that he was "the Indian out there" last year? I'll tell you: he'd have sounded like an insufferable nitwit, that's why.

The basic question seems to be whether Speed is a rising star with attitude to match, or a gobby yank who should do his talking on the track?

Quite frankly, who cares: unless he's truly amazing, his most useful contribution to F1 will be to help reinvigorate interest in the USA, already hobbled by last year's disgraceful farrago at Indy. And that, nitwit or not, he's surely capable of...
The spats and swearing are just a hilarious bonus for the rest of us.

The Egos Have Landed

Over the past couple of years most F1 drivers appear to have been the subjects of highly successful charisma bypass surgery; being by and large unforgivably drab and giving precious little entertainment out of the car.

This year, however, looks like it could be excellent fun as a sudden rash of egos, tantrums, swearing, taunting and - dare I say it - personality, appears to have broken out.

A fine example is Michael Schumacher who, with all the self-awareness of someone who thinks the world revolves around him (but that it clearly doesn't do it well enough) is demanding that a bump be removed from the Melbourne circuit because he was clumsy enough to drive over it.

Schumi crashed because of this same "notorious" bump three years ago; suggesting that 1) he might be in some way aware of it and 2) he might want to avoid it. Like virtually every other driver managed to, in fact.

Then there's the $5000 fine for Scott Speed's swearing outburst in a stewards' hearing. Given that Giancarlo Fisichella didn't get fined a single Euro for announcing on live TV that his Renault was "F***ing S**t", Speed must have used some pretty fruity language indeed. I want a tape.

Someone else who can have very few toys left in his pram right now is Montoya, who lashed out at Kimi Raikkonen apparently for the simple reason that the Finn managed to whup his ass on the track by battling him for position and coming out on top. Strange...

Perhaps the most bizarre outburst so far this year though is from Moto GP star Valentino Rossi, who clearly believes he is living in 17th century France and has challenged Fernando Alonso to a duel.

Ferdy could probably be very good in a duelling situation, particularly if he grew that hilarious pointy chin-hair again and put on a big cloak. Sadly though this duel (possibly a hugely inspired PR stunt?) would only involve bikes and cars.

It's good to see some personality back in F1: it's easy for things to get lost under all those helmets and overalls, and livening up an already lively season with a wealth of ego-based idiocy has to be a great thing.

And what with the Speed versus DC row, and Liuzzi versus JV, there's every possibility that the race at San Marino could be spiced up by simply replacing it with an almighty punch-up and bitch-slapping session on the grid instead...

Wings & Things

You've got to feel sorry for Renault, who had the temerity to make noises about Ferrari's 'flexi' wings: so the FIA went and put Renault under scrutiny instead... D'OH! Then other teams 'revised' their wings after the FIA started tutting at them too.

The only people left apparently unscathed were the reds who said they never did anything wrong anyway and, following a friendly chat with the FIA, changed theirs as well. For 'performance' reasons. Ahem.

I have to say I love front and rear wings whether they flex or not: they're beautifully sculpted assemblies that have a huge role in defining the car's character, as well of course as the airflow over, around and behind it.

What I can't stand though is all those ridiculous extra mini-wings, winglets, wingettes, and sticky-out wing-style aero improvers... Whatever language you use they're ugly as hell and they're sprouting everywhere.

Winglets are only a very recent blot on the landscape too, much like mobile ringtones or McFly - look at a car from 2001 and it looks as smooth as a baby's bum by comparison.

Just as the very silly 'tower wings' of 1998 were quickly and effectively banned, there surely has to be some decent legislative way of outlawing these ridiculous devices. (And McFly ideally...)

Okay so they're deliberate aero elements, but there must be a way of reframing the regulations to allow designers more freedom of bodywork design at the outset, but preventing these dog-ugly devices from being bunged all over sidepods and chassis.

It's ridiculous - F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsport, but line the cars up and it looks like they've all been vandalised by some deranged squad of ninja panel-beaters...

Winglets are only really there, like flexi wings, to get around aero regulations. But rather than make rules that are subverted in such easy, effective and ugly ways, why not regulate around absolute standards and dimensions, then step back and leave the rest to designers?

What the sport needs, as ever, is sensible legislation where it's needed and a lack of interference the rest of the time; be it bodywork, engines or other components. What it gets, as ever, is the exact opposite.