Subtlety doesn't work in Monza
The fact that again Ferrari have been kissed warmly on both cheeks by the FIA and told to go back to Italy and worry themselves no more about "the silly English Press" because of "this stupid business about team orders" should not be too surprising if one compares the furore over controversial team tactics to global corruption.
In the early part of this century, a team of lawyers, bankers, technical experts, insurance advisors and others were working in London on a major power project in a deprived part of Africa at the behest of a large European engineering company and a syndicate of banks. I was a member of the vast team and enjoyed being involved in it much more than many other projects I had worked on because it felt as if we were actively doing something that would make a difference to peoples' lives long after we were beyond the world of the living.
Projects like that take months and years of preparation and negotiation in stuffy meeting rooms before a single bulldozer begins work at the project site and this one was no exception. Typically, the project participants are so fed up with the deal after a few years' work that they do not even trouble themselves with learning about local reaction when earth movers eventually turn up and the landscape begins unalterably to be altered for the inhabitants of the area.
We enjoyed a celebratory dinner in London once all the documentation was agreed and every project participant then drew a line underneath Project Banana (these projects always have a silly code name) and moved on to Project Giraffe. In the meantime, the project got under way.
One morning many months' later, my boss walked into my room with devastating news: the European banks had pulled out of the project and it was to be abandoned. The reason was simple: it had been discovered that the minister in charge of the project in the country concerned had received a payment of £20,000 into a bank account in his name in London from the European engineering company which was sponsoring the project. The minister had demanded the bribe as payment for his approval of the bid by the European engineering company over that of other interested participants.
"Funny that," my boss said, "we break our backs over a few billion dollars and we get scuppered by a greedy minister whose sole desire in this colossal project was twenty thousand quid in his back pocket. What the fuck is it with these African ministers? Corruption is nothing new; it has been around since human beings invented money. Why can't these Africans be just a bit more sophisticated about it? The point is that there are ways of being corrupt without making yourself look like an idiot. We could have engineered a couple of million quid for the arsehole in a clever way - all he had to do was ask - but he only understands the old brown paper bag stuffed with readies. Pathetic fuck! Did he even spare a thought f0r all those poor Africans choking their lungs out through charcoal smoke because there's fuck-all else? I despair, I really do!"
And that was it. The project - despite our efforts over three years - was over. Dead. Kaput.
Since Hockenheim, I have read reactions to the Ferrari team orders from opposite ends of the spectrum. There are those like Eddie Jordan, a former team owner and now a BBC pundit, who are incensed by the behaviour of Ferrari; and there are others who fail to see what all the fuss is about.
The latter camp argues that Formula One has always been a team sport and, accordingly, just as you wouldn't argue about the Manchester United team-manager appointing Wayne Rooney as the preferred goal-scorer of the day, nor should you argue about an F1 team requiring one driver to move over for the other. There is some merit in this argument. After all the constructors' championship may not be of particular relevance to you and me but it is a matter of life and death for the teams as television viewership revenues are divided up according to the number of constructors' championship points earned in the season. The team with the most points at the end gets the most money - simple.
The alternative argument receives greater press coverage: the expression of outrage at a pure contest being sullied by nefarious manipulation. Only the best driver and team - in that order - should be allowed to prevail.
The pragamatic argument - and my preferred view of matters - is that teams must do whatever is expedient to get the job done but they must not be seen to be destroying the spectacle of a fiercely contested championship. In other words, like corruption, there are ways of doing dastardly deeds with sophistication. Rather than cack-handedly issuing "move-over" orders down an audible team radio, why not "accidentally" fail to fix a car's wheel nuts, or give the unfavoured driver the wrong set of tyres at his pit stop?
To be fair, most teams use the "sophisticated" approach with one notable exception: Ferrari. The team from Maranello have always seen themselves as being the true embodiment of Formula One. What they say or want goes. They have no truck with subtlety, sophistication or "the purity of the sport". "Stuff all of that," they say, "winning is all that matters to us." This trenchant attitude has been aided in no small measure by the chaps in Paris comprising Ferrari International Assistance, sorry, Federation Internationale de l'Automobile.
In the week of the Italian Grand Prix, was anyone prepared to bet that the FIA was going to punish Ferrari for its infingement of the rule against team orders at Hockenheim? Hardly. But, excepting miraculous circumastances, Monza does not look to me like being the redemptive race Ferrari are looking for.
I am neither a Fernando Alonso nor a Ferrari fan, so I expect that, along with many like me, I will,
Enjoy Monza!
Gitau
10 September 2010
In the early part of this century, a team of lawyers, bankers, technical experts, insurance advisors and others were working in London on a major power project in a deprived part of Africa at the behest of a large European engineering company and a syndicate of banks. I was a member of the vast team and enjoyed being involved in it much more than many other projects I had worked on because it felt as if we were actively doing something that would make a difference to peoples' lives long after we were beyond the world of the living.
Projects like that take months and years of preparation and negotiation in stuffy meeting rooms before a single bulldozer begins work at the project site and this one was no exception. Typically, the project participants are so fed up with the deal after a few years' work that they do not even trouble themselves with learning about local reaction when earth movers eventually turn up and the landscape begins unalterably to be altered for the inhabitants of the area.
We enjoyed a celebratory dinner in London once all the documentation was agreed and every project participant then drew a line underneath Project Banana (these projects always have a silly code name) and moved on to Project Giraffe. In the meantime, the project got under way.
One morning many months' later, my boss walked into my room with devastating news: the European banks had pulled out of the project and it was to be abandoned. The reason was simple: it had been discovered that the minister in charge of the project in the country concerned had received a payment of £20,000 into a bank account in his name in London from the European engineering company which was sponsoring the project. The minister had demanded the bribe as payment for his approval of the bid by the European engineering company over that of other interested participants.
"Funny that," my boss said, "we break our backs over a few billion dollars and we get scuppered by a greedy minister whose sole desire in this colossal project was twenty thousand quid in his back pocket. What the fuck is it with these African ministers? Corruption is nothing new; it has been around since human beings invented money. Why can't these Africans be just a bit more sophisticated about it? The point is that there are ways of being corrupt without making yourself look like an idiot. We could have engineered a couple of million quid for the arsehole in a clever way - all he had to do was ask - but he only understands the old brown paper bag stuffed with readies. Pathetic fuck! Did he even spare a thought f0r all those poor Africans choking their lungs out through charcoal smoke because there's fuck-all else? I despair, I really do!"
And that was it. The project - despite our efforts over three years - was over. Dead. Kaput.
Since Hockenheim, I have read reactions to the Ferrari team orders from opposite ends of the spectrum. There are those like Eddie Jordan, a former team owner and now a BBC pundit, who are incensed by the behaviour of Ferrari; and there are others who fail to see what all the fuss is about.
The latter camp argues that Formula One has always been a team sport and, accordingly, just as you wouldn't argue about the Manchester United team-manager appointing Wayne Rooney as the preferred goal-scorer of the day, nor should you argue about an F1 team requiring one driver to move over for the other. There is some merit in this argument. After all the constructors' championship may not be of particular relevance to you and me but it is a matter of life and death for the teams as television viewership revenues are divided up according to the number of constructors' championship points earned in the season. The team with the most points at the end gets the most money - simple.
The alternative argument receives greater press coverage: the expression of outrage at a pure contest being sullied by nefarious manipulation. Only the best driver and team - in that order - should be allowed to prevail.
The pragamatic argument - and my preferred view of matters - is that teams must do whatever is expedient to get the job done but they must not be seen to be destroying the spectacle of a fiercely contested championship. In other words, like corruption, there are ways of doing dastardly deeds with sophistication. Rather than cack-handedly issuing "move-over" orders down an audible team radio, why not "accidentally" fail to fix a car's wheel nuts, or give the unfavoured driver the wrong set of tyres at his pit stop?
To be fair, most teams use the "sophisticated" approach with one notable exception: Ferrari. The team from Maranello have always seen themselves as being the true embodiment of Formula One. What they say or want goes. They have no truck with subtlety, sophistication or "the purity of the sport". "Stuff all of that," they say, "winning is all that matters to us." This trenchant attitude has been aided in no small measure by the chaps in Paris comprising Ferrari International Assistance, sorry, Federation Internationale de l'Automobile.
In the week of the Italian Grand Prix, was anyone prepared to bet that the FIA was going to punish Ferrari for its infingement of the rule against team orders at Hockenheim? Hardly. But, excepting miraculous circumastances, Monza does not look to me like being the redemptive race Ferrari are looking for.
I am neither a Fernando Alonso nor a Ferrari fan, so I expect that, along with many like me, I will,
Enjoy Monza!
Gitau
10 September 2010
posted by Gitau at 5:49 pm
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