The European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring
As I emerged from Blackfriars railway station yesterday morning, there were four chaps dressed as Inspector Clouseau handing out freebies. As I got closer I realised that each was handing everyone who proffered their hand a packet of crisps and a packet of mixed nuts. "Have some Nobby's Crisps," they were saying, "nibble Nobby's Nuts!" As I nibbled on Nobby's' nuts later, I began to realise that desperation was creeping into the world of advertising.
With so many television channels available and so many different ways in which people can amuse themselves these days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to advertise things. Why spend millions shooting a snazzy television commercial if only a few thousand people will ever watch it. Worse, people are finding ever more innovative ways of avoiding annoying commercials. With digital quality recording now cheap and easily accessible, I find, like many others, that I very often choose to watch Formula One races at moments of my choosing rather than the times dictated by the TV company. This way I can avoid the interruptions of advertising and replay bits which I want to see again. This is why Nobby lets me nibble his nuts for nothing. How else will he get noticed?
The woes of the advertising world are not a million miles away from Formula One. Over the years it has become ever more difficult to keep the punters interested. If you stay at home, there is a plethora of other things you can watch on television. If you begin to consider going to a racing circuit to watch a Grand Prix live, what weighs heavily on your mind is the sheer cost of doing so. If you do shell out whatever it costs to get to a racing circuit you will be pleasantly surprised to find that the Formula One racing is almost a non-event. You will be regaled by a race among equally matched turbo Porsches, another involving Lamborghinis and one involving vintage cars. As if that isn't enough, you will have parachuting displays, aerobatic demonstrations and, the icing on the cake, baton-twirling pit-babes wearing next to nothing. You may also get to do a Chipo and strong-arm your favourite racing driver into signing a programme for you.
At races like the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, none of this sideshow stuff is strictly necessary. The circuit is so outstanding that even if all you see is Sunday's Grand Prix you leave with your hand propped against your chin to keep your jaw from repeatedly dropping. This is what the Nurburgring ring was once like. In the days of the super-circuit (of which we have only Spa left - and not this year, alas), the Nurburgring ring stood head and shoulders above every other. It was not a circuit for the faint-hearted. To drive the 14 mile daredevil circuit at full-tilt required superhuman courage and a little lunacy. Nikki Lauda, a man with his colours firmly placed in the Formula One pantheon, suffered one of the worst accidents ever at the Nurburgring in 1976 when his Ferrari crashed and burst into flames. The consequence was an abandonment of the old circuit and construction of today's soulless race-track. The European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring ring is not a race that gets my pulse racing. On a day with no rain and no crashes, it can be terribly bland.
Notwithstanding this, Michael Schumacher likes the Nurburgring. He considers it to be his home circuit since it is the closest race-track to his home town of Kerpen. He knows how to win at the Nurburgring (well, truth be told, he knows how to win just about anywhere!) and has smelled an opportunity since his masterful performance at Imola a fortnight ago. I am keen to see whether I will be proved right in my assertion that there has yet to be a resurgence of Ferrari greatness. If Ferrari are to demonstrate that they are as competitive as Renault or McLaren they need to perform a show of strength this weekend. Schumacher needs to win if he is going to be within a shout of challenging for the world championship.
I fear, though, that Fernando Alonso is out-Schumachering Schumacher. Michael Schumacher has repeatedly demonstrated that the way to win the world championship is to pump in as many points as you possibly can in the early races. The season is all downhill thereafter. The three names at the top of the championship table are Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen, in that order. But Fernando Alonso is so far ahead of his competitors that it is almost impossible to overhaul him. With 36 points (having scored in every race and come no worse than second) he has 15 points more than Schumacher and twice as many as Raikkonen. He would still be more than a race ahead of Schumacher if he came second on Sunday and Schumacher won the race.
This emphasises the urgency of the situation for Kimi Raikkonen. He is in negotiations for his 2007 drive as I write this. He has admitted that he is speaking to McLaren, Ferrari AND Renault. His bargaining power is diminished the longer he leaves things and the further behind Alonso he falls. And he is one miffed Finn. The offer of shares in the club where he has secured many a tenner with the elastic of a dancing girl's knickers has been quietly withdrawn. He has threatened to start his own lap and pole dancing club called "Ice Tits" but he wants to do some racing first. He has the benefit of racing at the home race of Mercedes-Benz, suppliers of McLaren engines. Mercedes are trying out a new engine this weekend and Raikkonen has the advantage over his team-mate, Juan Pablo Montoya, because of the silly two race per engine rule. The two drivers are out of sync in the engine change stakes. JPM had a new engine for Imola, so he has to use it again at the Nurburgring.
Engine change or not, we are rapidly coming to the point at which Honda will lose their patience with their drivers. Rubens Barrichello may perhaps be forgiven for his less than stellar performance thus far because he is having to get used to a car that is not nearly as well engineered as the Ferrari he drove for so many years. Not so Jenson Button. When a chap defends himself with the words "I can win a Grand Prix, you know" it is time to worry. The ground has shifted. This is the chap who not very long ago spoke of beating Michael Schumacher to the world championship…
Ignore my pooh-poohing of the Nurburgring. There have been some riveting races there in recent years. And Germany is the home of lager and sausage. My local deli guy is versatile. He has got me some bratwurst (blood sausage) and I have obtained a few sneaky bottles of Furstenberg Pilsener. There should, therefore, not be any reason why I like you ought not to,
Enjoy the Nurburgring!
Gitau
5 May 2006
With so many television channels available and so many different ways in which people can amuse themselves these days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to advertise things. Why spend millions shooting a snazzy television commercial if only a few thousand people will ever watch it. Worse, people are finding ever more innovative ways of avoiding annoying commercials. With digital quality recording now cheap and easily accessible, I find, like many others, that I very often choose to watch Formula One races at moments of my choosing rather than the times dictated by the TV company. This way I can avoid the interruptions of advertising and replay bits which I want to see again. This is why Nobby lets me nibble his nuts for nothing. How else will he get noticed?
The woes of the advertising world are not a million miles away from Formula One. Over the years it has become ever more difficult to keep the punters interested. If you stay at home, there is a plethora of other things you can watch on television. If you begin to consider going to a racing circuit to watch a Grand Prix live, what weighs heavily on your mind is the sheer cost of doing so. If you do shell out whatever it costs to get to a racing circuit you will be pleasantly surprised to find that the Formula One racing is almost a non-event. You will be regaled by a race among equally matched turbo Porsches, another involving Lamborghinis and one involving vintage cars. As if that isn't enough, you will have parachuting displays, aerobatic demonstrations and, the icing on the cake, baton-twirling pit-babes wearing next to nothing. You may also get to do a Chipo and strong-arm your favourite racing driver into signing a programme for you.
At races like the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, none of this sideshow stuff is strictly necessary. The circuit is so outstanding that even if all you see is Sunday's Grand Prix you leave with your hand propped against your chin to keep your jaw from repeatedly dropping. This is what the Nurburgring ring was once like. In the days of the super-circuit (of which we have only Spa left - and not this year, alas), the Nurburgring ring stood head and shoulders above every other. It was not a circuit for the faint-hearted. To drive the 14 mile daredevil circuit at full-tilt required superhuman courage and a little lunacy. Nikki Lauda, a man with his colours firmly placed in the Formula One pantheon, suffered one of the worst accidents ever at the Nurburgring in 1976 when his Ferrari crashed and burst into flames. The consequence was an abandonment of the old circuit and construction of today's soulless race-track. The European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring ring is not a race that gets my pulse racing. On a day with no rain and no crashes, it can be terribly bland.
Notwithstanding this, Michael Schumacher likes the Nurburgring. He considers it to be his home circuit since it is the closest race-track to his home town of Kerpen. He knows how to win at the Nurburgring (well, truth be told, he knows how to win just about anywhere!) and has smelled an opportunity since his masterful performance at Imola a fortnight ago. I am keen to see whether I will be proved right in my assertion that there has yet to be a resurgence of Ferrari greatness. If Ferrari are to demonstrate that they are as competitive as Renault or McLaren they need to perform a show of strength this weekend. Schumacher needs to win if he is going to be within a shout of challenging for the world championship.
I fear, though, that Fernando Alonso is out-Schumachering Schumacher. Michael Schumacher has repeatedly demonstrated that the way to win the world championship is to pump in as many points as you possibly can in the early races. The season is all downhill thereafter. The three names at the top of the championship table are Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen, in that order. But Fernando Alonso is so far ahead of his competitors that it is almost impossible to overhaul him. With 36 points (having scored in every race and come no worse than second) he has 15 points more than Schumacher and twice as many as Raikkonen. He would still be more than a race ahead of Schumacher if he came second on Sunday and Schumacher won the race.
This emphasises the urgency of the situation for Kimi Raikkonen. He is in negotiations for his 2007 drive as I write this. He has admitted that he is speaking to McLaren, Ferrari AND Renault. His bargaining power is diminished the longer he leaves things and the further behind Alonso he falls. And he is one miffed Finn. The offer of shares in the club where he has secured many a tenner with the elastic of a dancing girl's knickers has been quietly withdrawn. He has threatened to start his own lap and pole dancing club called "Ice Tits" but he wants to do some racing first. He has the benefit of racing at the home race of Mercedes-Benz, suppliers of McLaren engines. Mercedes are trying out a new engine this weekend and Raikkonen has the advantage over his team-mate, Juan Pablo Montoya, because of the silly two race per engine rule. The two drivers are out of sync in the engine change stakes. JPM had a new engine for Imola, so he has to use it again at the Nurburgring.
Engine change or not, we are rapidly coming to the point at which Honda will lose their patience with their drivers. Rubens Barrichello may perhaps be forgiven for his less than stellar performance thus far because he is having to get used to a car that is not nearly as well engineered as the Ferrari he drove for so many years. Not so Jenson Button. When a chap defends himself with the words "I can win a Grand Prix, you know" it is time to worry. The ground has shifted. This is the chap who not very long ago spoke of beating Michael Schumacher to the world championship…
Ignore my pooh-poohing of the Nurburgring. There have been some riveting races there in recent years. And Germany is the home of lager and sausage. My local deli guy is versatile. He has got me some bratwurst (blood sausage) and I have obtained a few sneaky bottles of Furstenberg Pilsener. There should, therefore, not be any reason why I like you ought not to,
Enjoy the Nurburgring!
Gitau
5 May 2006
posted by Gitau at 11:52 am
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