Malaysia
I have always been rather fond of Giancarlo Fisichella. For this reason, I am glad he won yesterday's Malaysian Grand Prix. I think he is a very good driver who has been under-rated for the bulk of his career. Neither he nor his minders have ever really allowed his talents to come out and enable him to shine. Like many others before him, though, Fisichella is destined to have his name relegated to a footnote in the motor racing history books. To achieve historical distinction - a name that lives way beyond your retirement from Formula One - you have to become world champion at least once. There is absolutely no substitute. A world championship or nothing.
I thought about this on Friday while chatting with a colleague about the racing action we were both looking forward to. My colleague has been watching Formula One races for many years more than I have but forgets the names of drivers from even relatively recent seasons. "Do you remember Michael Schumacher's maiden Malaysian Grand Prix when he came back to racing after four months recuperating from injury, blew the opposition away and then had to gift the win to Eddie Irvine?" I said. "Oh yes," said my colleague, "I had forgotten about Eddie Irvine, he was quite a character wasn't he?" Eddie Irvine retired at the end of the 1999 season and is already a figure people struggle to remember. This will, inevitably, be the eventual fate of David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher despite each of them having substantially more F1 victories to their credit than many previous world champions. It is only the world champions who make it to the Formula One pantheon. The names of Jim Clark, James Hunt, Keke Rosberg and Mario Andretti (among a host of others) live on for the simple reason that they won the world championship. In some cases luck played a part in their achieving this most coveted of prizes and worthier drivers were denied ultimate glory but this is as nothing in the final analysis. It is all about being world champion.
Fernando Alonso understands this cold hard fact better than any of the young chaps in the paddock this season. He has already assured himself a place in the pantheon but wants to be considered with the fawning respect accorded to the likes of Jackie Stewart, Nikki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and, of course, Michael Schumacher. It is for this reason that Alonso declared his second position yesterday to be of greater significance to him than his win last week. The gap between him at the top of the championship table and the next chap has lengthened to seven points; this moves him closer to a second world championship. Alonso's thinking is mathematically strategic. He knows that points mean prizes. Consistent scoring is the secret to being world champion. It is, therefore, for these same thoughts about history that he looks at Michael Schumacher as being his rival; the man likely to stand between him and immortality. It may be irritating to have to deal with people like Jenson Button, Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen but the man who keeps the reigning world champion awake at night is Michael Schumacher.
I liked the comment made about Kimi Raikkonen yesterday. The TV commentator, James Allen, felt certain that Raikkonen must have wronged someone in his previous life because he seems to suffer nothing but rotten luck. I think drastic action is urgently required. Raikkonen needs to go up the highest mountain in Finland, strip naked and kneel, shivering, before the great God of the Finns. It wouldn't do any harm to take a sacrifice up there with him - perhaps one of the birds from the Helsinki lap-dancing clubs he likes. Only then might he be granted absolution and an opportunity to prove himself on the race track. 2006 is turning out to be a repeat of 2005 for the poor chap. If it isn't unreliable engines (all the blow-ups of 2005) it is unreliable bodywork (like his car's suspension suddenly snapping while on a qualifying lap). As if this isn't bad enough, he is forced to contend with idiots who ram their cars into him and force him into the gravel and out of the race at the first corner - as happened yesterday.
But there is a suggestion that one makes one's own luck. You may be the best man at cutting through traffic irrespective of your grid position but if you are starting the race among the no-hopers at the back, you run the risk of suffering an "event". The words of a long deceased British Prime Minister spring to mind. When asked what he feared most in politics, Harold Macmillan replied sagely "events, dear boy, events".
I have expressed irritation at the FIA before and now I am beginning to get annoyed. Those chaps need to make their minds up. Either we have motor racing or we don't. It is that simple. Some of the cost-cutting measures the FIA has imposed are seriously detracting from the whole point of a Formula One weekend; motor racing. The one engine for two races rule is causing difficulties for teams because it is very difficult to keep the engines reliable while subjected to such heavy use. Teams are therefore forced to demand caution of their drivers. Juan Pablo Montoya was one of the major players who was forced to ease off the throttle for the last fifteen or so laps of the race. He was doing this so as to conserve his fragile Mercedes V8. It is not what Chipo would have expected to see and it is not, I respectfully submit, what Montoya is paid serious money to do. We expect to see flat out action from the moment the lights go out at the start of a Grand Prix. If it means that some engines will blow up, so be it. It is all part of the fun.
Why don't we all just grow up and accept things as they are. Motor racing is a completely pointless event. It does nothing which is of any benefit to anyone. If anything it is a harmful activity. It causes enormous damage to an already fragile environment and is responsible for a woeful mis-allocation of resources. But we KNOW this. We watch it because we enjoy seeing cars driven very fast by drivers competing against each other in tough conditions. We enjoy it because it provides us with entertainment. Nothing in the previous sentence is revelatory. It is a statement of the bleeding obvious. Obvious, I fear, to everyone but the chaps at the Federation Internationale de L'Automobile in Paris. Worryingly, not all of them are French…
Friends, we have a championship battle on our hands. It may be that a little Spanish fellow is inching his way towards greatness. Watch this space.
Gitau
20 March 2006
I thought about this on Friday while chatting with a colleague about the racing action we were both looking forward to. My colleague has been watching Formula One races for many years more than I have but forgets the names of drivers from even relatively recent seasons. "Do you remember Michael Schumacher's maiden Malaysian Grand Prix when he came back to racing after four months recuperating from injury, blew the opposition away and then had to gift the win to Eddie Irvine?" I said. "Oh yes," said my colleague, "I had forgotten about Eddie Irvine, he was quite a character wasn't he?" Eddie Irvine retired at the end of the 1999 season and is already a figure people struggle to remember. This will, inevitably, be the eventual fate of David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher despite each of them having substantially more F1 victories to their credit than many previous world champions. It is only the world champions who make it to the Formula One pantheon. The names of Jim Clark, James Hunt, Keke Rosberg and Mario Andretti (among a host of others) live on for the simple reason that they won the world championship. In some cases luck played a part in their achieving this most coveted of prizes and worthier drivers were denied ultimate glory but this is as nothing in the final analysis. It is all about being world champion.
Fernando Alonso understands this cold hard fact better than any of the young chaps in the paddock this season. He has already assured himself a place in the pantheon but wants to be considered with the fawning respect accorded to the likes of Jackie Stewart, Nikki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and, of course, Michael Schumacher. It is for this reason that Alonso declared his second position yesterday to be of greater significance to him than his win last week. The gap between him at the top of the championship table and the next chap has lengthened to seven points; this moves him closer to a second world championship. Alonso's thinking is mathematically strategic. He knows that points mean prizes. Consistent scoring is the secret to being world champion. It is, therefore, for these same thoughts about history that he looks at Michael Schumacher as being his rival; the man likely to stand between him and immortality. It may be irritating to have to deal with people like Jenson Button, Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen but the man who keeps the reigning world champion awake at night is Michael Schumacher.
I liked the comment made about Kimi Raikkonen yesterday. The TV commentator, James Allen, felt certain that Raikkonen must have wronged someone in his previous life because he seems to suffer nothing but rotten luck. I think drastic action is urgently required. Raikkonen needs to go up the highest mountain in Finland, strip naked and kneel, shivering, before the great God of the Finns. It wouldn't do any harm to take a sacrifice up there with him - perhaps one of the birds from the Helsinki lap-dancing clubs he likes. Only then might he be granted absolution and an opportunity to prove himself on the race track. 2006 is turning out to be a repeat of 2005 for the poor chap. If it isn't unreliable engines (all the blow-ups of 2005) it is unreliable bodywork (like his car's suspension suddenly snapping while on a qualifying lap). As if this isn't bad enough, he is forced to contend with idiots who ram their cars into him and force him into the gravel and out of the race at the first corner - as happened yesterday.
But there is a suggestion that one makes one's own luck. You may be the best man at cutting through traffic irrespective of your grid position but if you are starting the race among the no-hopers at the back, you run the risk of suffering an "event". The words of a long deceased British Prime Minister spring to mind. When asked what he feared most in politics, Harold Macmillan replied sagely "events, dear boy, events".
I have expressed irritation at the FIA before and now I am beginning to get annoyed. Those chaps need to make their minds up. Either we have motor racing or we don't. It is that simple. Some of the cost-cutting measures the FIA has imposed are seriously detracting from the whole point of a Formula One weekend; motor racing. The one engine for two races rule is causing difficulties for teams because it is very difficult to keep the engines reliable while subjected to such heavy use. Teams are therefore forced to demand caution of their drivers. Juan Pablo Montoya was one of the major players who was forced to ease off the throttle for the last fifteen or so laps of the race. He was doing this so as to conserve his fragile Mercedes V8. It is not what Chipo would have expected to see and it is not, I respectfully submit, what Montoya is paid serious money to do. We expect to see flat out action from the moment the lights go out at the start of a Grand Prix. If it means that some engines will blow up, so be it. It is all part of the fun.
Why don't we all just grow up and accept things as they are. Motor racing is a completely pointless event. It does nothing which is of any benefit to anyone. If anything it is a harmful activity. It causes enormous damage to an already fragile environment and is responsible for a woeful mis-allocation of resources. But we KNOW this. We watch it because we enjoy seeing cars driven very fast by drivers competing against each other in tough conditions. We enjoy it because it provides us with entertainment. Nothing in the previous sentence is revelatory. It is a statement of the bleeding obvious. Obvious, I fear, to everyone but the chaps at the Federation Internationale de L'Automobile in Paris. Worryingly, not all of them are French…
Friends, we have a championship battle on our hands. It may be that a little Spanish fellow is inching his way towards greatness. Watch this space.
Gitau
20 March 2006
posted by Gitau at 12:04 pm
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