Slapstick at Silverstone

Alberto Bombassei crept back to the Pirelli hospitality suite at the Silverstone Circuit to be greeted by the sound of raucous laughter. Sometimes the responsibilities heaped upon a board member of one of the largest tyre manufacturers in the world were difficult to bear, and this was one such time. He had flown into England four days previously to partake of a series of hospitality events associated with the British Grand Prix and was feeling a little fragile as a result. Matters were not helped by the reactions in his digestive system to the culinary assault it had suffered in Burton-on-Trent on the previous evening – why his English colleagues thought it a good idea to poison themselves with ghastly things like “Chicken Jalfrezi” after sinking several pints of warm beer, when there were perfectly respectable alternatives like veal and seasonal vegetables, seemed far too bizarre for words. Merciful providence had placed the Pirelli suite within easy proximity of the lavatories, which Bombassei acknowledged with a fleeting flutter of the eyelids upwards.

Bombassei stood at the edge of the doorwayof the hospitality suite and peered in. The guests partaking of his company’s free-flowing Prosecco and Italian finger food had their rubicund faces thrown back in mirth and were laughing so much, some had tears pouring down their cheeks. It was lap 46 of the British Grand Prix and Sergio Perez had just suffered fatal tyre failure. Things like that don’t tend to make people laugh; but it was the fourth such failure in an afternoon from Hades for Pirelli, and the mood in the well accoutred suite had shifted from bemusement, through astonishment, to hilarity.

First, Lewis Hamilton, leading the race in his Mercedes from pole by a commanding margin suffered a massive blow-out of his rear left tyre at 180 mph on lap 8 while coming onto the Wellington straight; next came Ferrari’s Felipe Massa on lap 11 at almost exactly the same spot; then, Lucifer having got his rhythm going, the Toro Rosso of Jean- Éric Vergne disintegrated on lap 15 scattering bits of burning rubber onto the Lotus of an unamused Kimi Raikkonen.

Bombassei leant back against the wall and inhaled deeply. He felt as though he had been struck a deep blow in the solar plexus by Mike Tyson on a bad day. The guests of Pirelli in the hospitality suite – senior British executives vaguely involved in the motor vehicle industry – were not laughing because an over-zealous waiter had been too liberal when refilling their glasses; nor were they laughing because they were simply having a good time on the warmest day of the year in England yet; they were laughing at Pirelli. This was English xenophobia manifesting itself in the cruellest way possible: Schadenfreude.

Suddenly the meaning of a painting by William Hogarth he had seen at a reception at Tate Britain four days’ ago became clear. Bombassei had been wandering about the rooms of the gallery, champagne glass in hand, as he had been invited to do, when he was struck by the curiousness of Hogarth’s painting “O the Roast Beef of Old England”. Hogarth was not, as he had initially thought, praising simple but wholesome English cooking over that of the French, no; he was laughing at the French. He was cocking a snook at their attitudes and affectations: “Look at the scrawny frogs,” he seems to be saying, “can’t put together a decent meal but are bowled over by the mere sniff of a side of good, English roast beef!”

Hogarth, an unashamedly patriotic Englishman of the eighteenth century, was not terribly enamoured of the French and does his best to show his contempt in this painting. The French are scrawny and unhealthy-looking while the monk receiving the huge side of English beef from across the English Channel at Calais is clearly well fed on English delicacies such as this, and cannot wait to sink his teeth into some more of the toothsome stuff.

Bombassei looked with dismay from one face to the next and wished it were possible for him to escape and get on the first flight back to Milan. But duty called, so he did his best to affect an air of insouciance as he walked back into the suite to re-join the party. He couldn’t help feeling that the thoughts which occupied his mind were transparent on his face. The noisy race made things a little easier for him. His absence had not been noticed. Not, that is, until he felt a slap on his back and looked up at the glowing sweat-drenched face of one of his guests. “Look, Alberto, old man,” the Englishman said, “no offence, but do you mind leaving all this Italian slapstick stuff away from the home of motor racing, there’s a good chap!”

Bombassei’s ears burned. Still, there was no escaping it, Silverstone 2013 had been a catastrophe for Pirelli.

The Pirelli directors may have been an uncomfortable lot on Sunday afternoon, but where does that leave Formula One? Whatever it was that caused the mayhem in Silverstone, it cannot be permitted to happen again. Huge chunks of burning rubber hurtling towards drivers in open-topped racing cars at great speed simply isn’t what motor racing is supposed to be about.

 Felipe Massa has hinted at a possible boycott of next weekend’s German Grand Prix unless something is done – he should be more concerned than anyone else; he found himself in intensive care for an extended period a couple of years’ ago when a flying bit of debris flew off the car in front of his and pierced his helmet at great velocity.

But what is to be done? A week is hardly enough time for Pirelli to go back to the drawing board and produce new sets of tyres for all the teams – in fact it isn’t a week Pirelli has, but less: everything needs to be in Germany in time for the first test on Friday morning.

 Martin Whitmarsh, the McLaren boss has indicated that his team would be happy to race using last year’s tyres. Perhaps the other teams will find this to be an acceptable compromise. Problem: does Pirelli have enough of last year’s tyres for all the teams for an entire racing weekend? Time will tell.

If there was some consolation for most of the drivers to take away from Silverstone, it was this: Sebastian Vettel retired from the race with gearbox failure having scored nil points.

Gitau

1 July 2013