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
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
posted by Gitau at 4:56 pm
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