The Sheikhs' Sandwich

It was pleasing to acknowledge the arrival of a new Formula One world champion on Sunday afternoon. One could safely end this piece with the words “Congratulations, Sebastian Vettel “and be done with writing about F1 for 2010.

It was also pleasing to observe news reports this week about the forthcoming nuptials of Prince William of Wales to his girlfriend, Catherine Middleton. I would suffer no thrown brickbats if I also said “Congratulations, Prince William and Kate” and wrote no more words about the news of a royal wedding in England in 2011.

If I left well alone now, I would be guilty of humbug, for I am neither writing this while taking furtive sips at a glass of vintage champagne, nor smiling broadly. I am seething; for in each of the preceding paragraphs is an unwritten story of profound ugliness which reflects an underlying trend in British society that makes me very uncomfortable.

Let us take the second of the paragraphs on this page first. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, spent much of his time in opposition criticising the Labour administration of Tony Blair - and in particular the obsession Blair and his coterie seemed to have with spin. Cameron campaigned on a platform of “substance”, not spin. Well, blow at a man of straw and he topples over: weeks since assuming office, Cameron has come perilously close to coming unstuck by his own particular obsession with image.

The story about Cameron that was not written is easy to write. It goes something like this. Cameron’s rosy-pink visage and fleshy cheeks are the face of the Conservative party and the coalition government. The message drummed into the heads of the British electorate since last May has been that we are in such a parlous financial state as a nation, because of the waste and profligacy of the Labour years, that only the most savage of cuts in public spending can spare us from certain doom. Thousands of civil servants are to be sacked. But before the ink was dry on the last press release about more civil service job cuts, Downing Street announced that two new civil service appointments were to be made for 10 Downing Street. One was a full-time photographer to take photographs of the Prime Minister and his family while the other was an image consultant for the Prime Minister. I do not need to tell you that the howls of protest in the corridors of government up and down the land were such that even the tin-eared Cameron had to pay attention. The situation was so explosive that a swift u-turn was imperative. But how was Cameron to execute one without looking a prize twit and suffering a haemorrhaging of authority? Enter William Wales.

Unwittingly, the Queen’s grandson handed his grandmother’s Prime Minister the best political present of his short premiership. While the world’s press were cooing over the comely Miss Middleton and helicopters were hovering aimlessly over Buckingham Palace, Cameron emerged from 10 Downing Street with his cheeks flushed with joy at the “great news” of a royal wedding. Meanwhile a messenger was exiting No. 10 via the back entrance with a swiftly typed press release spelling out that both the photographer and the image consultant had been taken off the civil service payroll and would now be based at the Conservative party headquarters and remunerated out of Tory party coffers. A perfect day for burying unpleasant news; or, if you like, an early Christmas for cynics like Cameron.

Let us now consider the first story. Sebastian Vettel’s victory on Sunday revealed to me more dramatically than ever the cynicism with which Bernie Ecclestone has finally succeeded in making Formula One a circus for shady people with money to burn. I have no beef with the young German and consider him to be an excellent driver and a worthy champion. My complaint is about the nature of his victory. For the first time ever we had a world championship which could have gone any one of four ways at the last race. But there is the rub. Did we get a “race” in Abu Dhabi? What we all wanted to see was the four contenders and a few glory runners dicing with each other and having a ding-dong, back-and-forth, wheel-banging battle to the finish line. Did we see that?

Hardly. Barring the odd safety car episode and some television engineered excitement over tyre change stops, we were treated to yet another procession at another ridiculous Hermann Tilke designed circuit in the desert. When so much was at stake for Alonso and Webber, they at least deserved a chance to prove their worth on the circuit. We would have been allowed at least this had the last Grand Prix been held in Brazil or Japan. Instead we had a double world champion unable to get past a rookie called Vitaly Petrov because the circuit is designed (the Devil knows why) to make overtaking impossible. The frustration on the Ferrari pit wall was the story of the day. “Fernando,” said a mournful Ferrari boss, Stefano Domenicali, as he watched the race and the season being murdered before his eyes, “use all your skills, all your talents, God help you.”

These sheikh-fests just depress me. Why oh why do we have them when there are so many decent circuits going begging? If this is the future of F1 why not simply cancel Sunday and make the bally thing exclusively a qualifying event? On Saturday, at fifth place on the grid, Mark Webber knew his championship challenge was over. How can that be reasonable when he only had four cars in front of him? Races have been won from much farther back than that at racing circuits like Monza, Spa, Silverstone, Suzuka and others.

A season with so much talent, so much potential and such youthful vim was reduced to a sheikh-fest sandwich. We started in blasted Bahrain and ended in awful Abu Dhabi. Shame on Ecclestone and his minions. Or, as William’s father tends to say a lot, it really is appalling.

I think you can now begin to see my point about the cynicism infecting important aspects of British life. Formula One, a British show - which has traditionally been a good window into the British attributes of fun and fair play - has been cynically manipulated to provide a circus for egomaniacal billionaires. It is cynicism too which allows a royal wedding announcement – a good reason to lift a surly British mood – to be used as a means by which a corrupt politician can evade public scrutiny.

Sometimes cynicism and hypocrisy are so plain one wants to laugh. The drivers on the podium in Abu Dhabi were emptying bottles of sparkling rose water onto the new world champion for the benefit of the watching sheikh who in all probability would be quaffing the real stuff moments later when safely away from the glare of the television cameras. Contrast that with the behaviour of William’s grandmother on Tuesday. When the royal engagement was announced, HM The Queen let it be known that she had ordered 300 bottles of vintage champagne to be consumed in the palace in a “small” celebration with her staff. She is loaded and knows that everyone knows that she is loaded, so she does not pretend that she isn’t. She is also partial to a drop of the good stuff but doesn’t tell her butler “Right, Smithers, pass round the rose water but make sure every drop in my glass is vintage Krug, there’s a good chap!”

It is not too late for Formula One to redeem itself – but we might have to wait a little while.

Gitau
18 November 2010

The Sheikh's Sandwich

It was pleasing to acknowledge the arrival of a new Formula One world champion on Sunday afternoon. One could safely end this piece with the words “Congratulations, Sebastian Vettel “and be done with writing about F1 for 2010.

It was also pleasing to observe news reports this week about the forthcoming nuptials of Prince William of Wales to his girlfriend, Catherine Middleton. I would suffer no thrown brickbats if I also said “Congratulations, Prince William and Kate” and wrote no more words about the news of a royal wedding in England in 2011.

If I was left well alone now, I would be guilty of humbug, for I am neither writing this while taking furtive sips at a glass of vintage champagne, nor smiling broadly. I am seething; for in each of the preceding paragraphs is an unwritten story of profound ugliness which reflects an underlying trend in British society that makes me very uncomfortable.

Let us take the second of the paragraphs on this page first. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, spent much of his time in opposition criticising the Labour administration of Tony Blair - and in particular the obsession Blair and his coterie seemed to have with spin. Cameron campaigned on a platform of “substance”, not spin. Well, blow at a man of straw and he topples over: weeks since assuming office, Cameron has come perilously close to coming unstuck by his own particular obsession with image.

The story about Cameron that was not written is easy to write. It goes something like this. Cameron’s rosy-pink visage and fleshy cheeks are the face of the Conservative party and the coalition government. The message drummed into the heads of the British electorate since last May has been that we are in such a parlous financial state as a nation, because of the waste and profligacy of the Labour years, that only the most savage of cuts in public spending can spare us from certain doom. Thousands of civil servants are to be sacked. But before the ink was dry on the last press release about more civil service jobs, Downing Street announced that two new civil service appointments were to be made. One was a full-time photographer to take photographs of the Prime Minister and his family while the other was an image consultant for the Prime Minister. I do not need to tell you that the howls of protest in the corridors of government up and down the land were such that even the tin-eared Cameron had to pay attention. The situation was so explosive that a swift u-turn was imperative. But how was Cameron to execute one without looking a prize twit and suffering a haemorrhaging of authority? Enter William Wales.

Unwittingly, the Queen’s grandson handed his grandmother’s Prime Minister the best political present of his short premiership. While the world’s press were cooing over the comely Miss Middleton and helicopters were hovering aimlessly over Buckingham Palace, Cameron emerged from 10 Downing Street with his cheeks flushed with joy at the “great news” of a royal wedding. Meanwhile a messenger was exiting No. 10 via the back entrance with a swiftly typed press release spelling out that both the photographer and the image consultant had been taken off the civil service payroll and would now be based at the Conservative party headquarters and remunerated out of Tory party coffers. A perfect day for burying unpleasant news; or, if you like, an early Christmas for cynics like Cameron.

Let us now consider the first story. Sebastian Vettel’s victory on Sunday revealed to me more dramatically than ever the cynicism with which Bernie Ecclestone has finally succeeded in making Formula One a circus for shady people with money to burn. I have no beef with the young German and consider him to be an excellent driver and a worthy champion. My complaint is about the nature of his victory. For the first time ever we had a world championship which could have gone any one of four ways at the last race. But there is the rub. Did we get a “race” in Abu Dhabi? What we all wanted to see was the four contenders and a few glory runners dicing with each other and having a ding-dong, back-and-forth, wheel-banging battle to the finish line. Did we see that?

Hardly. Barring the odd safety car episode and some television engineered excitement over tyre change stops, we were treated to yet another procession at another ridiculous Hermann Tilke designed circuit in the desert. When so much was at stake for Alonso and Webber, they at least deserved a chance to prove their worth on the circuit. We would have been allowed at least this had the last Grand Prix been held in Brazil or Japan. Instead we had a double world champion unable to get past a rookie called Vitaly Petrov because the circuit is designed (the Devil knows why) to make overtaking impossible. The frustration on the Ferrari pit wall was the story of the day. “Fernando,” said a mournful Ferrari boss, Stefano Domenicali, as he watched the race and the season being murdered before his eyes, “use all your skills, all your talents, God help you.”

These sheikh-fests just depress me. Why oh why do we have them when there are so many decent circuits going begging? If this is the future of F1 why not simply cancel Sunday and make the bally thing exclusively a qualifying event? On Saturday, at fifth place on the grid, Mark Webber knew his championship challenge was over. How can that be reasonable when he only had four cars in front of him? Races have been won from much farther back than that at racing circuits like Monza, Spa, Silverstone, Suzuka and others.

A season with so much talent, so much potential and such youthful vim was reduced to a sheikh-fest sandwich. We started in blasted Bahrain and ended in awful Abu Dhabi. Shame on Ecclestone and his minions. Or, as William’s father tends to say a lot, it really is appalling.

I think you can now begin to see my point about the cynicism infecting important aspects of British life. Formula One, a British show - which has traditionally been a good window into the British attributes of fun and fair play - has been cynically manipulated to provide a circus for egomaniacal billionaires. It is cynicism too which allows a royal wedding announcement – a good reason to lift a surly British mood – to be used as a means by which a corrupt politician can evade public scrutiny.

Sometimes cynicism and hypocrisy are so plain one wants to laugh. The drivers on the podium in Abu Dhabi were emptying bottles of sparkling rose water onto the new world champion for the benefit of the watching sheikh who in all probability would be quaffing the real stuff moments later when safely away from the glare of the television cameras. Contrast that with the behaviour of William’s grandmother on Tuesday. When the royal engagement was announced, HM the Queen let it be known that she had ordered 300 bottles of vintage champagne to be consumed in the palace in a “small” celebration with her staff. She is loaded and knows that everyone knows that she is loaded, so she does not pretend that she isn’t. She is also partial to a drop of the good stuff but doesn’t tell her butler “Right, Smithers, pass round the rose water but make sure every drop in my glass is vintage Krug, there’s a good chap!”

It is not too late for Formula One to redeem itself – but we might have to wait a little while.

Gitau
18 November 2010

The Season Finale

A few months after Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva first assumed office as president of Brazil, I was in the northern Italian town of Imola for that year’s San Marino Grand Prix. While sitting in the town square quietly sipping a pleasurable glass of Prosecco before the Saturday qualifying session, I heard the distinctive sound of a rhythmic African drumbeat accompanied by whistles and bells travelling ever closer to the town centre. I was alive to the fact that there had been waves of immigration from Africa into every western European country but I had never before encountered anything quite like that. As the drumbeats came closer to where I was sitting, I looked around me and eventually caught sight of a snake of motley people dressed in green and yellow processing its way through the streets of Imola loudly proclaiming the name of their hero as they danced. Boom, boom boom “Lula!” Jingle, jingle, jingle “Lula!” Whistle, whistle, whistle “Lula!” This puzzled me. I knew Lula was the new president of Brazil and I knew too that he was something of a working man’s hero but what the devil did he have to do with a Formula One race?

I managed to take one of the Brazilians aside a little later – a muscular looking woman with a tight little face drenched in sweat – and asked what was going on. “Lula inspires every Brazilian,” she said. “We want Rubens Barrichello to see us and hear us and be inspired to win!” “Well I never,” I thought, “now that is really something. Tony Blair would give his left bollock to be even half as popular as this Lula bloke.” Lula continued to be as popular for the remainder of his presidency until this year when he chose to smile on one of the candidates looking to succeed him and she, with the massive boost of a Lula endorsement went on to be elected as Brazil’s first female president. This year’s Brazilian Grand Prix was the first major international sporting event to take place during the presidency of Dilma Rousseff but, from the carnival atmosphere at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace in Interlagos on Sunday afternoon, nothing has changed or looks likely to change any time soon. Shrugging off reports that 2009 world champion, Jenson Button had very nearly been kidnapped by gun-toting thugs on Saturday as he and his entourage left the circuit, the top three drivers stepped off their steps on the podium yesterday to spray champagne through a blizzard of green and gold confetti. Never mind Manhattan’s ticker-tape parades, the Sao Paulo idea of a paper strewn celebration is about making it impossible for anything to be seen through the swirling paper.

If there is one thing you cannot say about Brazilians it is that are stinting when it comes to celebration. Interlagos may be the home of an international racing circuit but it also has a sprawling slum filled with poor people heavily infused the carnival spirit, penury notwithstanding, and are visible to any motor racing enthusiasts who wishes to visit the Autódromo José Carlos Pace.

The result of Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix has set things up beautifully for the season’s finale in Abu Dhabi. But I have this sneaking suspicion that it was a mistake to grant Abu Dhabi the right to host the last race of the most exciting season in Formula One in a generation. Granted Sao Paulo may be a little grubby and not entirely in keeping with the pizzazz of the modern F1 fan who shops on Bond Street in London and Boulevard Haussman in Paris but whereas Interlagos lives and breathes motor racing history and art, Abu Dhabi has something manufactured about it. They should have done things the other way round and had the cars in the desert last weekend. The race to come has all the hallmarks of a concert where the supporting act vastly outshines the main show.

I have seen this on many an occasion but none more starkly than a Luther Vandross concert I attended in London in the late eighties. I was a poor student at the time and had struggled to put aside thirty quid for the big show at the Wembley Arena. Regina Belle turned up as the opening performer and was spellbinding. I still think back nostalgically to her singing on that night and remember how beautifully she belted out songs like This is Love. When Vandross finally turned up, he was so fat he could hardly walk from one end of the stage to the other without panting heavily and wiping his brow with a large handkerchief. The sequins on his huge coat served to exaggerate the width of his girth to such an extent that each he time he inhaled before shouting out “badeebabedebabooo!” it looked like a giant dance floor mirror ball was rising up and down. I kept yelling “get the fat bloke off and bring back the babe!” but, unfortunately, the organisers chose to ignore me.

I may be proved wrong about the risk of a damp squib because far more is at stake than a poor student’s thirty quid. Any one of four men will be world champion on Sunday evening in Abu Dhabi. It is perhaps worth considering the prospects of each one.

Mark Webber has been in Formula One for the longest of any the championship contenders. He is a straight talking Australian who never dissembles; if he thinks you are an arsehole he will tell you. People respect him for this and no driver has an unkind word to say about Webber. This year is probably his best and only chance of being world champion and few people would begrudge him a victory. One gets the impression – mostly from the fact that Webber himself shouts it from the rooftops! – that he is not the number one driver of the Red Bull team. Had his team chosen to treat him as their title favourite, they would have required Sebastian Vettel to let him win the race in Brazil and bring him within one point of the championship leader, Fernando Alonso. Nevertheless, if he can win this race and have somebody other than Alonso come second, Webber will be the first Australian to win the world championship since Alan Jones in 1980.

It is said that the most effective hunting animal in the African savanna is the hyena. Low down, filthy and unpleasant it may be, but once it clamps its jaws onto an antelope's flank, it does not let go no matter what. I often think of a hyena when I look at Fernando Alonso He is a vile creature and has a cloud of flies dancing about his head wherever he goes but he has a tenacity that is truly impressive to observe. When he declared after a woeful performance at Silverstone in July that he was going to be the world champion this year everybody thought he had had a little too much sun and sangria in Spain. And yet here we are in November with him leading the world championship. We should not doubt him – he has the ability and has proved it by winning the world championships in two consecutive years when Michael Schumacher bestrode the F1 world like a colossus. He will not be a popular champion – at least not in England he won’t – but there is no doubt that he will richly deserve the title if he wins it.

Youngsters up and down the world and particularly in Germany will raise a thunderous cheer if boy-wonder Sebastian Vettel ends up the recipient of the coveted trophy. He has consistently been the best qualifier this year by far and would be ahead of his team-mate had he not suffered a few misfortunes such as a crash caused by impetuosity in Istanbul and a soul destroying engine failure in Korea. He has a suave manner and an easy charm in interviews which is in sharp contrast to the stereotypically Teutonic Michael Schumacher, the only German ever to have won the F1 drivers’ championship (it is no surprise that he resents being described as “Baby Schumi”). The question everybody is asking which he has thus far refused to answer is this: if he is leading the race and Webber is second, will he let Webber through or will he go on to win the race and by so doing allow Alonso to become world champion? There is no love lost between the two Red Bull drivers but Vettel is fiercely intelligent and he will know better than anyone that history will judge him harshly if he allows personal animus to gift yet another world championship to the cheating Red Devils from Maranello.

If you are a motor racing purist you cannot help but adore Lewis Hamilton. As we saw in Monza and Singapore - disastrously for him on both occasions – if there is a chance at gaining an advantage, however slim, Hamilton will take it. I have often fulminated in frustration on this blog about Hamilton’s inability to take the long view and bag points wherever he can but Hamilton is hardly the chap to be swayed by sensible reasoning when he has his mustard-yellow helmet on. For him a race is entered for one purpose only: winning. The only way he can now become world champion is by winning the Abu Dhabi race and hoping something disastrous happens to the other three contenders. It is not an impossible scenario but even with bucketloads of charity one has to admit that it is highly improbable. Hamilton was super-lucky to become world champion at Interlagos in 2008 at the last corner of the last lap but miracles like that seem well beyond him now. The romantics may keep on hoping and the Pussycat Doll will be having kittens all day Sunday but I expect the best that can be hoped for is a second Hamilton championship in 2011.

It may not be the most exciting of race tracks but the lorryloads of money the sheikhs doled out a couple of years ago have made it a very glitzy F1 location. This and the fact that there is the slight matter of a world championship at stake should be sufficient reason for you to get out a cold one, put your feet up and,

Enjoy Abu Dhabi!

Gitau
11 November 2012