Hamilton hammers Hungary

For Lewis Hamilton, yesterday was all about preserving his bank balance. You, see, the chief difference between chaps like Lewis Hamilton, Tiger Woods and chaps like me is this: I depend for my existence on the amount I am paid for the work I do. If I am fortunate enough to earn any money outside of work it is supplemental income. Hamilton is generously paid by his employers, McLaren-Mercedes, for the work he does for them – driving a Formula One car skilfully and very fast – but his main source of income is his “brand recognition” value.

Luxury brands have always understood the ability of human beings to delude themselves. When L’Oreal use the unmistakeably ravishing face of Penelope Cruz as the identifying mark of their products, they do not do so because they particularly like her. Hardly. It is because they recognise that there are millions of women in the world who would love to look like Cruz and will gladly part with their hard earned cash for cosmetics which might assist them in achieving this laudable ambition. Women like Cruz make vastly greater amounts of money by selling their faces to the purveyors of beauty products than they do from acting. Similarly, Hamilton earns staggering amounts of money from selling his face to companies like Reebok, Pepsi and Bombardier Jets which bear no relation to his – admittedly huge – McLaren salary. He brings to the table a cocktail of massive advertising potential: he is young, handsome, mixed race and highly talented at Formula One racing, the ultimate in glamour sports. As if all that isn’t enough, Hamilton also has a racially indeterminate, gorgeous girlfriend who is a major pop star to boot. In other words, Brand Hamilton is very serious business indeed.

Having established that there should be no money worries for Lewis Hamilton, his children (should he have any) or any grandchildren, we arrive at a momentous problem. Brand recognition depends for its success on ubiquity. To pay a sportsman $100 million, you need to be assured that the world will regularly see that sportsman regularly excelling at his chosen sport. Such huge expense means that a successful Formula One driver is both a very good as well as a very bad bet.

It is a good bet because, the driver’s face alone – and not that of, say, a football team - will be on display on the front pages of newspapers all over the world on the day after winning a race. A heaven sent advertising opportunity if ever there was one. It can, however, be an atrocious bet because of the sheer unpredictability of Formula One from season to season.

Roughly 20% of a driver’s success is down to his talent. The rest is dependent upon the driver’s car and the team he has around him. Hamilton began the 2009 season as world champion but soon realised that defending his championship was going to be impossible because McLaren had contrived to manufacture a completely hopeless car for him. Midway through the 2009 season - and not a single podium for Hamilton - and it does not take too much imagination to see what was simultaneously going through the minds of the Reebok finance director, Hamilton’s financial manager (his father), Hamilton’s bank manager and, of course, Hamilton himself: bloody hell, this isn’t going according to plan at all!

Hungary presented an opportunity to rectify the situation and Hamilton seized it with both hands. From his KERS assisted thunderbolt start, yesterday, the race win never seemed in doubt. As his McLaren-Mercedes took the chequered flag and he punched the air with glee, the cameras swung between him and his Pussycat Doll girlfriend, Nicole Sherzinger, dancing in the McLaren paddock. It was then clear to me that, for Hamilton, Hungary was all about investing in the bankability of the Hamilton brand. Sure enough, Hamilton receiving a champagne shower on the Hungaroring podium was the image on the front page of every major newspaper this morning. The lad can safely rest in the knowledge that his bank balance is secure; at least for another year or so.

The other risk a luxury goods manufacturer runs – and one which we have been spared for a good many years now – is the danger inherent in open car racing. Since Ayrton Senna became the last man to die from injuries sustained in a motor race – at Imola in 1994 – Formula One has been almost miraculously fatality free. We were reminded that luck, as much as significant improvements in Formula One car design, has a lot to do with this refreshingly welcome statistic. The memories of that ghastly weekend came rushing back during qualifying on Saturday when a suddenly loose mechanical part broke away from the Brawn of Rubens Barrichello and struck the helmet of Felipe Massa who was travelling at 150 miles per hour behind him. Massa had to be taken to hospital for emergency brain surgery and remains in a critical condition in intensive care as I write this.

Massa’s accident was made all the more poignant by the fact that a young man, Henry Surtees (son of former world champion John Surtees), was killed a week ago in a GP2 race in England when a wheel came off another GP2 car and struck Surtees in the head. It is little wonder, then, that the watching world was aghast yesterday when the Renault engineers failed to secure a wheel on the car of Fernando Alonso during his pit stop. Having started the race on pole position, Alonso suffered the ignominy of a retirement and the team has been banned for a race – an opportunity for them to think about things. It doesn’t help that the next race in Valencia, Spain, is a home race for Alonso.

I was going to put money on Jenson Button winning in Hungary but never got round to it on Friday. While glad to keep my £20, I must say that I feel for poor old Jenson. His lead has now been whittled down to 18.5 points with seven races still to go. Still, with the improvement in the likes of McLaren, Ferrari and others, all may not be lost. If they keep taking points off each other, Button’s current lead may prove to be crucial.

F1 now goes on its month-long summer holiday. I reckon the remainder of the season is going to be very dramatic indeed.

Gitau
27 July 2009

The heat is on in Hungary

Something should have told me this was going to be an unusual evening. The air hung heavy and people’s moods seemed odd. Nevertheless, I was filled with the joys of summer in London and wanted to make as much of it as I could. It just so happened that on the evening in question I was playing host to three American law students visiting the City for the summer. My suggestion of a foot-stomping evening at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club went down extremely well and we made our way on the Tube to Soho. While standing in the queue in Frith Street for tickets to Ronnie Scott’s, I warned my American friends that Ronnie Scott was as famous for his bad jokes as his atrocious food, so it would be sensible to find somewhere decent to eat before joining the revelry in the jazz club.

We made our way round the corner to The Gay Hussar in Greek Street – a famous, old Hungarian restaurant, popular with journalists and politicians, which owes its name to a time when “gay” meant cheerful and merry and not something…um, well, something entirely different. Across the room from us was a largish group of journalists from a national newspaper who appeared to be celebrating a major scoop. Their groaning table was generously laden with several bottles of wine, large dishes of veal goulash, Hungarian salami, chicken in paprika sauce and various other Hungarian delicacies. The journalists seemed to be joshing one another about journalistic mistakes or silly stories in such an entertaining manner that the Americans and I gave up any pretence of speaking to each other and instead concentrated on eavesdropping on the journalists.

As ever with such situations, as the wine flowed, the banter became harsher and eventually settled on the foibles of one member of the group. The emphasis of the ribaldry seemed to be weaknesses associated with the individual’s age. He, it must be said, was considerably older than his colleagues and appeared to be touchy and, thus, more susceptible to teasing. Inevitably, a vicious cycle ensued: the more irritable he became, the worse the joshing, followed by more annoyance and then more insistent teasing…and so on. At length he decided simply to sulk and chew on some chicken.

Just then, a particularly loud journalist remembered an incident which he wished to share with the world. “Remember the time old Williams had to cover the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest?” he asked. “Well, for Williams, everything behind the old Iron Curtain is ten minutes apart, so he booked a flight to Bucharest – in completely the wrong country – because he said to himself ‘Budapest, Bucharest, Belgrade, it’s all the bloody same!’ and went to a city so far away from where he needed to be, he missed the Grand Prix and had to nick his copy from the Daily Telegraph’s report of the race!”

Making fun of a petulant journalist is one thing – he can just about live with it – but impugning his journalistic integrity by suggesting that he steals stories from rival newspapers is something of a different order; especially when the alleged target of his thieving is a nasty, Tory rag like the Telegraph! Williams was incensed. He got up and marched out of the restaurant at that point. I thought he was going home. I was wrong. After about a minute and a half, Williams marched back in, climbed onto the table where his colleagues were still sitting, unzipped his trousers and began pissing all over the dishes of Hungarian food. “Try some champagne with your goulash, you twats!” he declared.

With quick glances at each other, the Americans and I realised that this was the point at which to exit The Gay Hussar. As we walked down Greek Street, the sound of smashed plates, upturned tables and fists connecting with soft tissue and bone behind us assured us that our reasoning was sound. I have not been back to The Gay Hussar since that day but I am reminded of the events in that restaurant at the point each year when it is time for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

It is that point again this weekend and the Formula One watching world has its sights trained on a dusty circuit in Budapest. I readily admit that I have never considered the Hungaroring to be a great circuit. It so manifestly is not that I always ranked the Hungarian Grand Prix as my least favourite race before Bernie Ecclestone finally went insane and began introducing races in the ghastliest of places (you’ve probably read enough of my annoyance at circuits like Bahrain by now, so I think it is perhaps time to drop this point!). The race is traditionally a procession dependent on good qualifying and a clever pit strategy. So much so that losing interest in the proceedings is not unheard of.

Some years ago a friend with no more than a vague interest in motor racing found himself at the Hungaroring for the Hungarian Grand Prix as the recipient of corporate entertainment tickets. By the time the cars came round for the twenty third time, even the almighty din of Formula Cars being driven very fast (it is indescribably loud!) was insufficient to keep him awake. His host, embarrassed by a snoring fellow in the expensive seats, suggested that he took a walk. While on his walk he phoned me and asked how it was that I could sit through anything as excruciating when all he felt like doing was finding a long rope and a sturdy tree! I sheepishly had to concede that I understood the sentiment.

It is usually this bad in Hungary because the circuit is crap and the weather is always the same – sunny. Actually, that last sentence would have been true if I was writing this at any time before the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix. Then, during the first ever wet race at the Hungaroring (and, surprise surprise, the only race worth watching there), Jenson Button threw off his monkey and became a Grand Prix winner.

Far more is at stake this weekend. Buttons chances of winning a world championship appear to be slipping away from him. Brawn need to get their act together if they are going to stand a chance of being anything more than also-rans forever more. Red Bull are lapping furiously at their heels. Worse, the big boys – Ferrari and McLaren - appear at last to be waking from their slumber.

If you’re a Brawn fan, pray for a hot, dry, boring race. That could be Jenson Button’s best chance this weekend. If you belong to any other camp, who knows? This is one race where it pays to be squiffy, so knock back some Unicum (a particularly nasty Hungarian liquor) if you can find it – cheap vodka will do, if you can’t - and try and keep your eyes wide open enough to,

Enjoy Hungary!

Gitau
24 July 2009

Brawn feels the pressure of a charging Red Bull

Two things became clear yesterday. The first was the underscoring of the principal message of Formula One 2009: patience pays. After 130 Grand Prix starts, the amiable Australian, Mark Webber, emerged victorious after the somewhat chaotic beginning of yesterday’s German Grand Prix. It was the perfect end to his weekend after surprisingly outqualifying everybody to take pole position on Saturday and somewhat harsh drive through penalty demanded by the race stewards for overly aggressive driving at the start of the race. As Jenson Button has demonstrated with his early form this season, F1 has room for late developers as well as sensational rookies. Webber may yet be a championship contender in the future, if not this year.

The second lesson learned at the Nürburgring ring was that the Latin temperament is never tamed, no matter how much influence of a less excitable nature you expose it to. Rubens Barrichello finished yesterday’s race exhaling fire and ash. As a Brazilian driving in an English team with an English team-mate leading the world championship, Barrichello was convinced he had been set up when he finished sixth and Jenson Button finished fifth. After outqualifying Button and taking the lead at the start of yesterday’s race, Barrichello could think of nothing but skulduggery when speaking to the press after the race was over. As far as he was concerned, the perfidious English were saying one thing to his face while doing the opposite when he was not looking. “I am terribly upset with the way things have gone today,” he said, “because it was a very good show of how to lose a race…they made me lose the race basically.”

We have been here before. Spanish driver Fernando Alonso left McLaren because he was convinced the team was favouring his English team-mate, Lewis Hamilton. Before that Juan Pablo Montoya had bitter disputes with the McLaren management because he couldn’t stand the favouritism of his team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen. Probably the most mercurial man F1 has ever seen, Ayrton Senna da Silva, spent his racing career flying into fits of rage at the slightest provocation.

The facts do not bear out Barrichello’s version of events. He was convinced that an alteration in pit-stop strategy was required after he emerged from his second of three scheduled stops in an awkward position and could be overheard demanding this on the radio to his team. What he was not aware of at the time and during his press interview was that no fuel had gone into his car during his pit-stop because of a faulty fuel rig which forced the team to call him back to the pits (he thought at the time that this was deliberate sabotage for the benefit of Jenson Button). Barrichello really ought to know better. At 37 and having raced in F1since 1993, he is the oldest and by far the most experienced F1 driver in this year’s paddock. He knows – or should know – that Ross Brawn will not sacrifice valuable team points in a shabby favouritism exercise, especially with so much of the season still to go. He also knows his age is a massive disadvantage – there are lots of young, eager drivers who would kill for his seat at Brawn. Barrichello should count his lucky stars that he works for Ross Brawn – a man with whom he worked for many years while Michael Schumacher’s sidekick at Ferrari – and not a more irascible team principal like, say, Sir Frank Williams. True to form, Williams described Barrichello’s outburst as a “red card offence”.

Sometimes these excitable Latins accept their punishments – for, surely, Barrichello is in for one even if it is just a severe bollocking - and correct their behaviour. Other times the Latin blood is at too high a temperature to be cooled. A good recent example is Juan Pablo Montoya who got himself sacked by two English teams – Williams and McLaren – and eventually had to leave the pinnacle of motor racing for a much less dignified existence as a stock car racing driver in the redneck American NASCAR series.

What is now clear from the last two races is that the world championship is not going to be an easy waltz for Button and Brawn. Red Bull Racing has turned the corner and means business. Button’s championship lead over Sebastian Vettel is now 21 points but the advantage the Red Bull cars seem to be enjoying could see dwindling to nothing.

With eight races still to go, one can begin to see that the bookmakers who paid out early on a wager on Button for the championship must now be contemplating defenestrating themselves.

Meanwhile, Bernie Ecclestone spent the weekend denying allegations that the Jewish chairman of CVC wants his scalp. However much he may protest in public, I am sure the 78 year old trickster knows that he has finally run out of road.

Gitau
13 July 2009

The Nürburgring and the end of the affair

Remember the wizard in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz? He was supposed to be this magical being who could perform impressive sorcery. Such was his mystique that Dorothy, the heroine of the story, was convinced the wizard could give the Scarecrow a brain, the Tin Woodman a heart and the Cowardly Lion courage. Like many an impressionable child around the world, as a boy I was at first bitterly disappointed and then angry when it all turned out to be a big con. The powerful wizard was just a little old man hiding behind a screen. He had no power and we all felt terribly cheated. Any parent will happily tell you this for free: children don’t like to be cheated; it upsets them a lot.

Well, the world of Formula One has been childlike in its ignorance for many years. Two charlatans decided to form a double headed wizard and have a little fun. The screen they hid behind has now fallen away and their wicked world is laid bare.

Max Mosley, the first of the wizard’s heads, is a British aristocrat and classically trained Barrister. By sheer force of his imperious personality and a little help from his mate, Bernie Ecclestone, the other of the two heads, he managed to seize control of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's (FIA), the world motor sport governing body, nearly two decades ago. As president of the FIA, Mosley enjoys tremendous power. His organisation determines who can participate in motor races, sets the racing and car design rules and even adjudicates when disputes arise.

Last year Mosley, by his own hand, destroyed his position of authority. Actually, that last sentence is not quite accurate. It was not Mosley’s hands that destroyed him but those of four professional whip-wielding dominatrices (who had been generously paid for the privilege). When a video film of the proceedings was made available to the world, Mosley’s life was, in his own words, completely ruined. You can scarcely be a figure of commanding authority and the recipient of great respect when the whole world has seen a film of you bollock-naked with your bum being mercilessly whipped by some tart in a Nazi uniform. Notwithstanding Mosley’s protestations during his subsequent (successful) court case, that just isn’t the way the world works.

Mosley’s detractors within the F1 paddock – a very significant majority as things turned out - smelled blood and chose 2009 as their moment to strike. Mosley arbitrarily attempted to impose tight budget caps on the F1 teams which the team leaders considered to be impudent. It was, so they thought, an attempt to tell them how they could spend their own money. Damned cheek! When Mosley tried to brow-beat them into agreement in his dictatorial manner, they did not feel intimidated in the slightest. To show how much they thought of Mosley’s tough talking, they despatched the flamboyant Flavio Briatore to the television cameras to remind the world that this was a man who liked paying hookers to whip his arse. Mosley was defeated. At the end of June he accepted that the world had changed for ever for him and agreed to leave the FIA at the end of his current term in October this year.

Bernie Ecclestone never had the eloquence or presence of his friend. On a good day he looks like the evil, scheming dwarf in Rumpelstilstkin. Ecclestone’s method of achieving success was through money; he had sackloads of it. It earned him the ownership of Formula One, unimaginable global influence and even a 6’2” blonde model for a wife. Even sackloads of wonga is never enough for a greedy man. In time honoured fashion, greed proved to be Eccelstone’s undoing and the factor that led to his screen falling away.

When one by one the traditional Grand Prix circuits in Europe and North America began to grow tired of being fleeced by Ecclestone, he dropped them and found less scrupulous people in shady places who were prepared to fill his pockets with more and more gold. But this was not enough for Ecclestone as life was getting personally complicated for him. As he grew older and more devilish looking, his trophy wife, Slavica, became more and more demanding. To keep a lid on things, Ecclestone sold Formula One to a strictly business private equity venture called CVC but negotiated a deal whereby he would be allowed to continue to run the show. Unlike Ecclestone’s shady friends in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, CVC were not in the game for the glamour and prestige of Formula One. Hardly; what they wanted were huge dollops of wonga regularly. Ecclestone’s continued presence was, therefore, agreeable to CVC for as long as the money rolled in.

Such money could only come from ticket sales to the vast edifices Ecclestone’s shady friends had built in the least likely of places. This, unfortunately, was not forthcoming. F1 fans are picky about where they choose to spend weekends watching cars being driven very fast – especially during a recession. They don’t particularly care for far away places where their girlfriends’ expensive hairdos will be sullied by swirling sand. This was demonstrated all too clearly in two consecutive races this year. The contrasting television pictures from the Turkish and British Grands Prix were laughable. While at the first in sunny Istanbul, yawning gaps were to be seen around the stands in the circuit, at the second in windy Northhamptonshire, chaps had to find accommodation for their girlfriends on their laps. Fans were voting against Ecclestone’s machinations with their feet. Inevitably, the gentlemen at CVC got on the phone to Ecclestone and gave him the bollocking of his life.

Without Slavica’s bosom to cry into (she left him last year and took most of his cash away with her), Ecclestone snapped. A week before this weekend’s German Grand Prix, Ecclestone gave a press interview in which he put the boot into Jews in general and professed his love for Adolf Hitler as a man who “got things done”. My first thoughts on reading about this were, “Oh my God, Bernie you stupid old goat, what have you gone and done now?”

Germany is a country only now learning to feel some pride about itself after more than sixty years of offering apologies for its behaviour during the Second World War. Uttering words like “Hitler” or “Führer” in Germany is almost guaranteed to get you lynched. To do so when the F1 teams – including two prominent German ones (Mercedes and BMW) - are limbering up for a race at the Nürburgring is, therefore, an act of suicide. Ecclestone, dear Ecclestone….

The sum total of all of the above is simply this: Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone are f***ed.

The future of Formula One is very uncertain. Mull these things over as you sink back into your chairs with your Becks lager and,

Enjoy the Nürburgring!

Gitau
9 July 2009