A stitch-up

For once I have some sympathy with Ron Dennis, the McLaren boss. He was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea on Sunday. His protégé, young Lewis Hamilton, was clearly in a position to take his maiden victory but had he been allowed to do so this would have so upset Fernando Alonso as to ruin his whole season and possibly jeopardise his relationship with McLaren. It was a very tough call to make. Hamilton was on a single stop strategy while Alonso, who had done a marginally quicker lap on Saturday and was therefore on pole, was on a two-stopper. When it looked as though Hamilton was going to beat the world champion, McLaren switched strategies and called him in for a second stop. For this they have earned themselves an unwelcome investigation by the FIA about dodgy team tactics.

No surprise then that Hamilton was less than enthusiastic about coming second. His body language on the podium and in the press conference later was indicative of him being very displeased indeed. It is clear to me why McLaren did it. It is simply a matter of time before Hamilton wins a race. He joined McLaren as a precocious, pre-pubescent boy and has been with them since. The lad has been such an insider at McLaren for so long now that it feels like family to him. For Alonso, who is in his first season at McLaren, this must be daunting to say the least. To then have the inexperienced youngster beat him to the win of the most prestigious race on the calendar would, in all probability, have led to Alonso handing in his chips at the end of the season and moving to another team.

The decision must have been deeply resented by Hamilton. It did him absolutely no favours. You could argue that Alonso had beaten Hamilton to pole position and, therefore, earned himself a win at a circuit where it is virtually impossible to overtake but I would disagree. Alonso was 0.2 seconds quicker than Hamilton at the very last moment but he had been fuelled a lot lighter than Hamilton. Notwithstanding this, the lad in the heavier of the two McLarens pretty much dominated qualifying. In all my years of watching races I have never seen a lap driven like Hamilton's flying lap on Saturday. It was absolutely phenomenal. At one point his car was almost sideways - he was pushing it that hard - as he exited a chicane and came up to a left and then quick right turn thereafter. Hamilton's car control is extraordinary.

McLaren is the most regimented of Formula One teams. Ron Dennis and co run the outfit like an army. You do exactly as you are told at McLaren, no questions or arguments. It is why a maverick individual like Juan Pablo Montoya was simply not suited to the team. Both he and the team should have thought better before embarking upon a relationship that ended as disastrously as it did last season. Both Hamilton and Alonso will know this only too well and will be aware that on occasion they may be forced to reign in their personal ambitions for the good of the team. But, understanding as Ron Dennis's actions were, they are not in keeping with the whole point of a Grand Prix: racing. This is something that his counterpart at Williams understands perfectly. If you drive for Williams the rule is don't take your team-mate out but race him for all you are worth; that's the name of the game.
Hamilton's press conference remarks made it clear how sickened he felt: "At the end of the day, I am a rookie...But it is something I have to live with. I’ve got number two on my car. I am the number two driver."
So, once again, an engineered result leaves everyone with a bad taste in their mouth. Since the shenanigans in Austria in 2002 when Rubens Barrichello was shamelessly ordered to move over for Michael Schumacher, I ceased to support Ferrari. I found it impossible to accept that a team could so blatantly attempt to "fix" a race result. People don't like being stitched up. Well, Sunday was a right royal stitch-up. Consequently, I cannot bring myself to support a team that does not allow its drivers to race each other. That's just not on - it is not why we watch F1. I used to respect McLaren but not any more. My loyalties lie with young Lewis Hamilton, not his team. In seeking to keep one driver happy, McLaren have seriously pissed off their second one. What could have been a long term driver-team combination (like the phenomenally successful Schumacher-Ferrari combination) now looks like not having a long term future. It would not surprise me if Hamilton left McLaren at the end of this or next season. Watch this space.

Meanwhile, over at Ferrari, things are not going terribly well. Felipe Massa did a good job of damage limitation but Kimi Raikkonen seems to have gone off the boil. So much so that Ferrari may have to demote Raikkonen from number one status before long. With each racing weekend he slips further and further away from the leaders at the top of the points table. Smacking a barrier and breaking his suspension on Saturday did him no qualifying favours and he was thus relegated to the wrong end of the Monaco grid. Points aren't awarded for sixteenth place, so a pretty grim day for Raikkonen all in all. The pace disadvantage to the McLarens is now so great that Massa finished a whole minute behind the leader - something that shocked Alonso considerably. The reason is becoming clearer: whereas, like Schumacher, Alonso understands a great deal about car development, Raikkonen has no interest. It may cost him the opportunity to challenge the world champion for the title.

Next up, north America. Canada is not a circuit which particularly favours Alonso, so the young pretender - who is now level pegged on points with the world champion - may finally get his opportunity to savour the feeling of being on the top step of the podium.

Gitau
29 May 2007

Heart in mouth time

Whereas the bulk of the denizens of western Europe would look askance at anyone peddling a ridiculous tale about a chap being spirited up out of sight in a cloud, the Monegasque population takes the Ascension a little more seriously. Accordingly, there will be no Formula One practice sessions today so that people can enjoy their Pentecost feasting without the roar of motor cars interrupting the slide of caviar down gullets well lubricated with Krug or Cristal. You might argue that this does not quite accord with the ascetism Christianity seems to demand but I am unqualified to pass comment. Importantly, though, the drivers have a day of rest and reflection. This is particularly useful this weekend because I fear I may be in danger of regretting my decision to come out in open support of one driver over the rest.

Quick as a flash, Chipo wagered me a considerable sum of money that Lewis Hamilton would not win the Monaco Grand Prix. I was not unduly concerned until yesterday. But yesterday afternoon produced the lad's inevitable first mistake. Hamilton while driving his McLaren on the absolute limit - giving it as much welly as he could possibly muster - lost it at St Devote and crashed into the barriers. This is not surprising by any means - Monaco and Montreal are famously unforgiving circuits. The absence of run-off areas makes it very likely that the slightest error will result in a wrecked car. It has happened to the best of them and this cannot in any way be blamed on Hamilton's inexperience. Still, it is indicative of the fact that the lad is human after all. What is perhaps irritating is that the driver whose time Hamilton was attempting to beat was none other than his team-mate, Fernando Alonso.

I am grateful for Friday's rest day because it gives Hamilton a chance to refocus on the crucial task of getting on to pole position tomorrow afternoon. For those Hamilton fans out there consider this: Felipe Massa, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso all have poor records at Monaco relative to other circuits. Each of them only has three finishes to his name. Massa has 1 dnf, Raikkonen 3 (including last year while running 2nd), and Alonso 2 (including 2004 while running 2nd). Massa's best finish was 5th in 2004. The other two were both 9th places. Raikkonen had a win in 2005, 2nd in 2003 and 10th in 2001. Clearly the best record of all of them. Alonso was 1st last year, 4th in 2005 and 5th in 2003.

There remain, I believe, reasons for optimism….

Gitau
25 May 2007

The one not to miss

"I've got a box at Market Rasen, Gitau!" the aristocratic male voice at the end of the telephone boomed. "Bring a couple of chums along on Saturday afternoon." Not a lot else was said and he promptly rang off and left his assumption-loaded sentences bouncing around in my brain. His assumptions were threefold. First, that I recognised his voice, secondly, that I knew where Market Rasen was and thirdly, that I had any mates. When I gave the matter some thought I realised that it was I who was being dim. I could hardly fail to recognise the plummy drawl of a gentleman named Pettifer for whom I had spent a summer working in Barton-upon-Humber in north Lincolnshire. Similarly, it was scarcely going to be an effort to persuade two fellow poor students to spend an afternoon eating posh nosh and quaffing expensive champagne at the races! And, even for the most slow-witted of people, it did not take too much sleuthing to establish that Market Rasen was the only racecourse in all of Lincolnshire.

I rounded up my mates Douglas and Joe - the latter principally because he owned a vehicle! - and we set off for Market Rasen on the appointed Saturday. It was a joyous afternoon in the sun and Pettifer's box filled one with the joys of summer. The fly in the ointment was my woefully poor horse selection techniques. Mister Incredible at 12/1 proved himself to be aptly named - he was incredibly stupid and wanted to run round the track the wrong way. I gave up when Dawn's Progress fell at the first hurdle and concentrated instead on Pettifer's excellent Veuve Clicquot. Douglas proved just as pathetic as I was and gave up when he realised he was getting through about half a pack of fags each time the horses set off. For Joe things could not possibly have been better. Against our impassioned pleas about the folly of what he was determined to attempt, Joe stuck £20 on Whistler's Mother for a win at 20/1. Would you believe it, Whistler's Mother came in first! Our looks of utter horror were matched only by Joe's yelps of unadulterated joy (tempered only when advised that his behaviour was not quite becoming of a person in the hallowed confines of a posh box: "steady on, dear boy!").

Lincolnshire lasses have good noses. It was not long before the attentions of the county's comeliest ladies were lavished on a very receptive Joe. Fill an impressionable lad's pockets with dosh and wave a bit of totty at him and all reason flies out the window - such is the moral strength of youngsters. At the end of the racing afternoon, Joe weighed his options - drive all the way back to Guildford with two dejected lads with minds sozzled by Veuve Clicquot (Joe had been forced to abstain, you see) or have a night on the town with the best bit of skirt east of Cheltenham. Douglas and I thought it very mean-spirited of the chap to choose the latter option without even giving it a moment's thought but there is little to be said when a chap has nothing but totty on the brain. So, there we were: high and dry. Needs must, as they say, so Douglas and I got onto a clapped out old bus headed for London and left Joe to his celebrating.

The bus gave lots of reasons to be grateful for small mercies. Along with a jolly, singing bus driver, the bus company had thrown in a VCR and telly which, unbelievably, was showing the 1955 Monaco Grand Prix. Watching the 1950s racing cars winding their way though the money-soaked streets of Monte Carlo was a rare treat. Then some Italian fellow flew off the racing track into the harbour. "Hang on a minute," I thought, "racing cars aren't supposed to be in the Mediterranean!" I put it down to champagne fuelled hallucination and allowed myself to fall asleep. Years later I learned that, in one of the most bizarre Monaco Grands Prix, double world champion, Alberto Ascari, had made a near fatal mistake and ended up in the harbour in 1955. Such is the extraordinary nature of the Monaco Grand Prix. For anybody who has no more than a passing interest in motor racing I consistently say this: if you watch nothing else watch the Monaco Grand Prix.

I am sure I have mentioned before that for any Formula One driver there are two prizes. The first is winning the world championship. The second - and the one that makes them shed tears and want to shower the world with gold - is winning at Monaco. Even hardened men like Ayrton Senna, the Monaco master (he won six times - five of them consecutively!), are reduced to snivelling wrecks when handed the coveted trophy by Prince Albert II (I met His Serene Highness some years ago on another island but this one had only donkeys, not Ferraris!). Of the four championship contenders, two have won at Monaco and two haven't. Kimi Raikkonen won in 2005 and Fernando Alonso received the honours last year. Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa are yet to go weak-limbed after a Monaco win. That last sentence is not quite right; it ought to be qualified by the addition of the words "Formula One" before the word "win". For Hamilton already has Monaco silver in his home in Hampshire. He has won there in the lower formulas - including F1's younger brother, GP2 - and knows his way round the Monte Carlo Streets only too well.

Crucially, there is no pressure on the youngster. I cannot believe I am writing this but this will only be Lewis Hamilton's fifth Grand Prix. The pressure, therefore, must sit squarely on the shoulders of reigning world champion, Fernando Alonso. He would never admit this in a million years but a win for Hamilton at Monaco would be galling for Alonso. It would mean that the headline writers have been right all along. It would be confirmation that all bets are off; that 2007 and beyond may well belong to the young British driver and not to him. It would also mean that he would never see the huge cheques Michael Schumacher became accustomed to as of right. In other words, disaster.

The key to Sunday at this circuit more than any other is Saturday. Overtaking is a no-no here. The only chap who seemed to manage it was Schumacher - like he did last year (but towards the end of his career Schumacher's reputation was such that drivers would see his Ferrari in their rear view mirrors and soil their pants). Qualify on pole in Monaco and you pretty much have it in the bag. This has been Massa's strength so far and could well work in his favour. Hamilton has not made pole yet and will need to if he is to earn his maiden win. I dearly hope he does. For the first time in years I am off the fence. I am not ashamed to say that I am now terribly partisan: I am a fervent supporter of Lewis Hamilton. If he wins in Monaco I shall prepare myself for the inevitable angry phone call from my bank manager and crack open the champagne.

The weather could be a factor. When it rains in Monaco things tend to go haywire. I usually like this but not this weekend. This one is too important. Even if you have to watch it from behind your fingers, by all means

Enjoy Monaco!
23 May 2007

The champion is humbled at home

If you went to Montjuic on a day other than the weekend when this sleepy little Catalan village annually hosts the Spanish Grand Prix, you would struggle to believe that it is possible to have nearly half a million people converge there. The railway station at Montjuic is a two platform, minor affair (one platform leading in and the other out). You would never dream that any more than, say, a couple of dozen people could use it. But thousands converged on the tiny station this weekend. As many Spaniards as the population of a small country found their way to Montjuic this past weekend. Whether it meant taking the train to Montjuic, driving, walking, cycling, rowing anything - they simply had to be there to see the Spanish world champion strut his stuff at the Circuit de Catalunya on the hill above the village.

Saturday came and, just when it seemed certain that Fernando Alonso would not disappoint his myriad fans by starting anywhere other than on pole position, Brazilian speedster, Felipe Massa, squeezed a teeny weenie extra bit out of his Ferrari and pipped the world champion's time. Everyone knows that Barcelona is one of those circuits where Saturday usually matters more than Sunday. It is so difficult to overtake there that races are more like processions following the pole-setting leader than anything else. Alonso knew this and it bothered him not a little. He was world champion and he was racing at home before a whooping crowd. It was his duty to win at home. Nothing less was sufficient. Thus energised, he went to sleep on Saturday determined to do something about Massa.

When the lights went off on Sunday and the Spanish Grand Prix was "go", Alonso went for Massa. He lunged on the inside but Massa closed the door.. He then switched tack and tried to overtake the Ferrari on the outside. Massa wasn't having any of it and Alonso found himself in the gravel. He was fortunate not to end his race there - that's what usually happens in these situations - but managed to recover back on to the tarmac but now in fourth place behind Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen. If he ever had a chance of winning the Grand Prix it ended there. As Chipo wryly put it "does Alonso think the others are simply going to move aside and let him win?" I detect panic in the world champion. That challenge on Massa was not a wise thing to attempt. The thing to have done was stay behind Massa and harass him into making a mistake; or, if this was not possible, get him through a clever pit-stop strategy. Uncharacteristically, Alonso placed the blame for the incident firmly in Massa's lap. To my mind it was probably six of one and half a dozen of the other. In the event, Massa reaped the rewards of his third consecutive pole position and took a well deserved victory. Not good for the Spaniard. But worse - far worse - was, once again, to finish behind his rookie team-mate, Lewis Hamilton.

Across the Formula One world there is extreme perplexion about what to make of this youngster. We have never seen his like before. Fourth on the grid, he managed to get past Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari at the first corner (exactly what Alonso tried but failed to do to Massa) and happily inherited second place from Alonso when Alonso went off. He then drove a solid race but his McLaren never really had the legs of Massa's Ferrari. He did, however, manage to keep the deficit respectable and finished just over ten seconds behind the winner. Four races, four visits to the podium and counting. Spectacular. I struggle to remind myself that the most consistent scorer in 2007 thus far, the world championship leader and the youngest driver in the paddock is racing in his debut year as a Formula One driver. It seems foolhardy to think of Hamilton as a rookie any more. He drives with greater skill and authority than drivers who have spent eons at the wheel of a Formula One car. It is disingenuous of Alonso to say that he is more worried about the other chaps - Raikkonen and Massa - than he is about his team-mate. Hamilton puts the wind up the world champion hugely. I can just about hear Hamilton psyching himself up in the shower ala Pacino: "You think you're big time? You're gonna die big time!"

The other chap who might also have the McLaren rookie on his mind is Kimi Raikkonen, the highest paid driver in Formula One. While Hamilton earns significantly less than a million, Raikkonen trousers a cool twenty million from Ferrari and a great deal more from endorsements (not to mention that side business in Helsinki I once mentioned - "Ice Tits", the lap dancing joint). The perennial question arising whenever a driver retires through mechanical fault - is it the car or is it the driver? - ran through my mind yesterday. Raikkonen has made clear that he has no time for the former Ferrari team leader, Michael Schumacher. He wants to do things his own way. One cannot begrudge him wanting to do this but when the advice of a man who has won 91 Grands Prix and seven world championships is available free of charge, it seems prudent to take it. Schumacher, Massa and the team of Ferrari mechanics stayed well into the night in the Ferrari garage tweaking this and adjusting that so as to ensure optimum performance from the Ferrari. Raikkonen was not interested. Result: Massa got pole position, fastest lap and race victory - in other words, everything - while Raikkonen limped away from Barcelona with a broken down Ferrari. Coincidence? You can see that Massa learned from the Schumeister. When his car caught fire during refuelling, he did a Schumi and simply shrugged it off as irrelevant.

What was baffling about yesterday’s race was the attrition rate. Car after car dropped out in increasingly bizarre ways. At the Barcelona circuit, which all the teams know more intimately than any other, this was very strange.

We're getting used to having young Hamilton on the podium now - he doesn't know anywhere else to end a Grand Prix! Next up is the premier motor racing event on the calendar, the Monaco Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton knows the streets of Monte Carlo extremely well. Every time he has raced there in lower formulas he has won. The calm smile he gives when asked whether he can win there should send shivers down the spines of his opponents. Hamilton goes to Monaco without being under any sort of pressure. A win would be superb but not winning would be no disaster. Hamilton enjoys the luxury of not having the weight of any expectations on his shoulders. The same cannot be said of his team-mate. Roll on Monaco!

Gitau
14 May 2007

Bernie's Bewitching

Another day another staggering announcement. From next year, Singapore will host the first ever night-time Grand Prix on yet another new street circuit. Bernie Ecclestone must have cottoned on to the fact that his source of funds - us the fans - were seriously irked by his absurd decision to interrupt a fabulous season as rudely as he did with the culling of Imola. The Valencia and Singapore deals must have been done ages ago but, learning from the superb spin-doctoring tactics of one Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (about whom you might just know a little!), Ecclestone chose to announce the deals on successive days just before the Spanish Grand Prix. The message is crystal clear: "Look chaps, hardly any point being upset now is there?"

Whatever the reasons for the timing of the two announcements, this is stunning stuff. A Monaco-esque race in Valencia and a night-time race in Singapore. Wow! I have every intention of being in Valencia for its first race but, sadly, doubt I can get as far as Singapore.

As ever, there will be a catch to this but we won't be told about it because in Ecclestone's brave new world information is disclosed strictly on a need to know basis. We do not need to know in which respect we are being shafted. Before you crack open the champagne in celebration for these spectacular presents, think about the ones you currently enjoy which you will, inevitably lose. Remember that Ecclestone likes big money. Well, big money is found wherever you find Big Tobacco smiling. Europe is hostile to Big Tobacco. Asia is not. Which races in Europe are we going to lose. You can bet it won't be the worst one: Hungary. So which of the classic circuits are we never going to see again?

Folks, could this mean the death of - heaven forfend - Silverstone?

Gitau
11 May 2007

Finally, Barcelona

What spurs the human desire for money? Is it the ability to buy nice things? Yes, if you belong to the categories of people crammed to bursting with the likes of me, it does. If you give me £1,000 today, you will make me very happy because I will be thinking about all the lovely things I can get with it. If, however, you belong to the rarefied ranks of the super-rich - the kind for whom a boast about being worth anything short of a billion pounds is a risible joke - amassing more and more money has nothing to do with spending it. No. In most cases these people have more money than they could ever spend even if they tried very hard. For them the acquisition of ever greater sums is an end in itself: the more they have the happier they feel.

This is what motivates a certain diminutive gentleman who goes by the name of Bernie Ecclestone. Seventy-plus and possessed of more wealth than Croesus, Ecclestone's ambition continues to be to make more money than any other human has ever made. Only then will he die happy. Having had his hands round the neck of Formula One since as long ago as the time when it was permissible, even normal, for me to soil my clothes and have someone willingly change them while cooing at me, Ecclestone has used it as his vehicle of enrichment. Each new Formula One decision that has me close to tears when announced has one motive and one motive only: make Bernie Ecclestone richer.

Imagine then my perplexion at the decision to erase the San Marino Grand Prix from this year's calendar. Denying himself the assured revenues from the splendid old circuit at Imola dealt the old rascal a double blow which he might not have appreciated at the time he made this ridiculous decision. The first was the obvious loss of television revenue from one fewer race on the calendar. The more insidious consequence was the reputational damage Formula One has been made to suffer. After the most electrifying start to a season in decades, Formula One was made trendy again. A sure sign was people going into pubs to watch races on a Sunday - something that was unimaginable in 2002. In the brave new technological world of the 21st century, with distractions continually being bombarded at us, people have become a great deal more fickle than they ever were. A sure way of alienating new fans and annoying old ones was making them wait a whole month after only three races. Imola traditionally filled this gap and would gracefully have got the momentum going for a rash of fortnightly races.

I fear that Ecclestone took his eye off the ball last year. He was so busy tying up contracts for new races in Asia and the Middle East he forgot that his natural constituency lay in Western Europe. Getting rid of European races is not the way to win friends and influence people at home. The news is not all bad, I am delighted to report. There is life in the old goat yet. It has been announced that there is to be a harbour-side Grand Prix in Valencia, Spain from next year. Oh joy! Spain will thus take over from Germany in hosting the European Grand Prix (which for the last few years has been at the Nurburgring in Germany). This is a wily move. No country is experiencing as massive a surge in motor racing interest as Spain. The success of local boy, Fernando Alonso, has so delighted the Spaniards, a historically proud race, that they will flock to any part of Spain to watch a race in droves. Valencia is a master stroke - at least notionally it is. Two races in Spain's most pleasant locations each year is mouth-wateringly brilliant. Roll on 2008!

Ahem, I hear you say, we haven't quite got over 2007, matey! Quite. We haven't indeed. There is some racing to be done in Barcelona this weekend. At the race track which the drivers know best - it is the principal testing circuit for everyone - we have an excellent opportunity to settle a few questions. First, is McLaren the equal of Ferrari in raw pace. The jury is out on that one, but I suspect Ferrari have the edge. In which case, I would expect Kimi Raikkonen to be only too eager to silence his ambitious Brazilian team-mate, Felipe Massa, and show just who is team boss.

Another interesting question which may be settled is one I never expected to be asking so early this season. Is Lewis Hamilton quicker than Alonso? Perish the thought but he just may be. Let's can this one for the minute. Time will tell.

I don't want to be the man to rain on Fernando Alonso's parade. It is his home Grand Prix after all and his best buddy (none other than His Majesty King Juan Carlos!) will be in attendance. So instead I will raise a glass of Rioja in a toast to the Spanish people and their worthy world champion and hope that you too will,

Enjoy Barcelona!

Gitau
10 May 2007