22 cars and drivers, 11 teams. Founded in 1946. International, worldwide coverage. 17 races. Billions of dollars invested. Countless people in its entourage.
Formula One, the World’s most prestigious motorsport event.
And sometimes, the most confusing.
I guess for any corporation to be as big as F1 is, its going to encounter problems from time-to-time. With so many people involved, its inevitable that now-and-again they aren’t all going to see eye-to-eye. It’s part of massive success on a global scale. Mo’ money equals mo’ problems.
But when the racing starts getting decided off the track, surely someone has to step back, take a look and say ‘Whoa.. something is not quite right here’.. surely?
The shenanigans of the F1 spy row involving Ferrari and McLaren have consumed the news of late - even to the point of overshadowing the racing. I remember logging onto the major F1 news sites and seeing interviews with the drivers. Testing results between races. Drivers talking up opportunity, change of teams. What they liked to do in their spare time. Now all that seems to make headlines is ‘McLaren in possession of Ferrari documents’ or ‘Alonso hates Hamilton’.
F1 has become a tabloid. Inevitably, the media has taken over the sport and turned it into its creative fan-fiction.
And its just not as enjoyable. I find myself following other race series, other passions in between races, rather than reading the F1 news articles. I grab some photos, new wallpapers after the race - but I don’t get to watch the race.
I popped on to check the results of Qualifying from the Hungarian round on Saturday night. Every forum was touting Fernando Alonso as evil, the devil, a bad sport… a cheat. Not a single soul had posted the results on any of the four forums I looked at - all were hellbent on tarring and feathering Alonso. I had to visit F1.com - the only site to have the results listed immediately.
Alonso it seems, had ‘blocked’ Hamilton during the last round of pit stops, and as a result, Hamilton was unable to complete his final qualifying run. I wondered why a double-world champ would do that. There had to be something else - an ulterior motive surely… surely?
The facts trickled in over the next few hours - but the damage had been done.
The stewards took over, Alonso was demoted from pole position and would start further down the order. And McLaren would be ineligible to score any Constructors points regardless of results in the race.
While I see it as a gross over-reaction, something that should have been dealt with amongst the team - particularly as there is no rule attributing blocking in the pit lane or stating how long a driver may - or may not remain in his pit, but the global view was not so and thus, the race was decided before it even began.
Sure - its not all bad. It’s the closest Championship we’ve had in years. Two teams and four great drivers all with great chances of winning the series. And we’ve had some utterly historic races too, like the European round at the ‘Ring.
Even so, I feel we are truly in uncharted territory regarding the ’sport’ in Motorsport.
Hungarian GP - Winners and Losers (PlanetF1)
A very interesting read…
