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Sebastian Vettel, the flawless champion

2011-10-10T19:19:00.003+01:00

I have a cartoon character on my phone who greatly amuses young children. He is a dog called Ben who sits languidly in an armchair reading a newspaper with his feet up. If you say something to Ben, he pops his head from behind the newspaper, shakes his head and says "na, na, na, na" or, worse, blows you a raspberry. When I heard Christian Horner, the Red Bull team boss, coming on the radio to inform Sebastian Vettel that he had just won the Formula One Drivers' World Championship yesterday in Japan, my first instinct was to do a Ben and go "Na, na, na, na - we've known this since May!"

I hastily corrected that thought when the sheer scale of the young man's achievement sank in as I watched Vettel standing on the third step of the podium while God Save the Queen played in acknowledgment of Jenson Button's victory at Suzuka. Here was a back-to-back double world champion - only the ninth ever in the history of the sport - who had not even lived long enough to see his 25th birthday. At this tender age, Vettel has won nineteen Grands Prix. That is stupendous.

To put it in its appropriate context, at the same stage in the career of Michael Schumacher - the most successful driver ever - Schumacher had won only two races. Vettel makes winning seem so easy that it is well within the realm of possibility that Schumacher's impossible record of seven world championships could be beaten before very long. Vettel's strength lies in his consistency: not only has he been the only driver this season to finish every single race, he has finished all but one on the podium. He is now the world champion and there are four races left to go. He has got there having only failed to score pole position three times out of fifteen. Amazing.

So far, so supernatural. But I thought I should challenge myself and test my initial reaction to yesterday's news in this blog. Why did I react like I did? The more I think about it, the more I realise that, while facetious and perhaps silly, it smacks of something deeper. I am not usually that disrespectful of F1 drivers who have joined the ranks of Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jack Brabham, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen and Fernando Alonso. After all, I never felt any fondness for Fernando Alonso - I think he is a sod, frankly - but my first reaction when he got his back-to-back double championship in 2006 was to take a long swig of my drink and stand up and applaud. So what is going on?

I think the answer is simply this: Vettel is not a driver who provokes emotion in F1 fans. There is enormous respect felt for the young man but there is a vital ingredient missing: love. It is a crucial ingredient in the making of a sports fan. Think of a football fan who sits through a dismal game in the wind and rain at below zero temperatures while his team is receiving a walloping and you will understand what I am talking about. It is what causes me to get up before the crack of dawn to watch the Japanese Grand Prix when I can easily set Sky Plus to record everything and then watch it a few hours later in comfort.

People loved Ayrton Senna because he was a great driver but also because he was a flawed human being. The same can be said of Lewis Hamilton. When people express outrage and scream in frustration at Hamilton's antics on the race track, they do so out of love. Most of us can look back at youthful indiscretions because we are all flawed human beings in some respects. Vettel is a little too perfect. He swings his car into pole position with flawless efficiency and then, like a well oiled machine, leads each race from the front without making a single mistake. While you can certainly see Hamilton getting a caning for being caught smoking a sneaky fag behind the bike sheds, you think of Vettel as the prefect who did the catching. Vettel will always be respected, he will never be loved.

To understand the concept it helps to think back to the days before the Germans and the Japanese taught the world how to make motor cars so that they are now all uniformly reliable and safe. If you bought a Mercedes in the 1960s or 70s, everything fitted together perfectly and it purred along competently but it did not set the pulses thumping. A Ferrari 250 GTO or an E-type Jaguar would break down regularly and probably leak oil; but if you are lucky enough to see one of those beauties today and step back and admire each one you will probably see the Italian tears on the bodywork of the Ferrari and English ones in the alloy wheels of the Jag. They are probably the most beautiful motor vehicles ever made. This is because they were built with devotion that came from the heart.

That is the essential problem of Sebastian Vettel; he touches the head, not the heart.

Gitau
9 October 2011

Sober Singapore

2011-09-21T19:52:00.006+01:00

When Rupert Lim and I worked together as litigation trainees, conversation was never easy. He thought I was louche and indisciplined while I considered him prudish and boring. The trouble was that being stuck together in a room without windows sifting documents for more than ten hours each day required at least the odd moment of human interaction, but Rupert's truculence accompanied by his odd snobbery did not allow for much.

"How was the weekend, Rupert?" I would ask politely.
He would typically appear startled and then give me a withering look, before saying "I do not wish to discuss my leisure activities with you, but you can rest assured that my weekend was nothing like yours. I have more sensible ways of spending my time than boozing and bonking."
"Oh. That good, was it?"
"Do you mind getting on with your work, we haven't got all day."

Charming fellow, was Rupert.

I never took offence at Rupert's strange attitude - it amused me. I found him fascinating and took every opportunity I could to tease him. He wasn't an unpleasant chap; it was just that he was the product of a very conservative upbringing in Singapore, a terribly conservative country. Rupert felt an almost magnetic attachment to the obedience of rules and the strict observance of prescribed codes of conduct: we were in that room to sift through documents to be used in a court case and that, to Rupert's mind, was all that we were permitted to do.

Even the Rupert Lims of this world have vices and his was gambling. One evening, I secretly followed Rupert after work and found that he was in the habit of making surreptitious visits to a casino on Park Lane. This particular casino seemed a strange choice for him because it was popular for its topless waitresses who plied guests with free alcohol to encourage them to gamble. But these distractions were as nothing to Rupert - he would not touch anything stronger than Coca Cola and never even cast a sidelong glance at the chests on display. "He's a gambler," I thought to myself, "let's have a bit of fun with this."

Out of the blue one day, I asked Rupert if he fancied joining me one Saturday for a day of horse racing at Kempton Park. To my amazement, he readily accepted the invitation.

I half expected Rupert to fail to turn up on the agreed Saturday but there he was waiting for me at the entrance to Platform 10 at Waterloo Station impeccably clad, as ever, in a Burberry trench coat, well cut trousers and Crocket & Jones loafers. He looked disapprovingly at my flat cap and weathered leather jacket but didn't say anything - I suppose he didn't need to.

The races went very badly for me but not for Rupert. While I was all over the place and heroically unlucky, Rupert seemed to have a knack for selecting horses and betting sensibly. By late afternoon, I was almost cleaned out and had to decide on a new strategy: all or nothing. I looked at my copy of Racing Post and chose to put my last £20 on the horse with the most interesting name I could find. Sure enough, there was a horse called "James Hunt's Last Hurrah" with terrible odds. One of the bookies - unusually for the races - was a large lady of about six and a half feet of height and an enormous chest. I thought she would be lucky for me, so I gave her my last £20 at 18/1. The Gods were smiling down on me that day, for come the 4:30 race, James Hunt's Last Hurrah won by a nose. Sadly, Rupert had gone to the loo and was not there to see my triumph.

I raced down to the bookie waving my betting slip and screaming like a little girl. She unenthusiastically counted out the £360 and reluctantly handed me the wad of notes. Thrilled at my unbelievable luck, I threw my arms round her but, since she was so much taller and larger than me, my head only went as high as the middle of her humongous chest and promptly got swallowed up in the middle of it. Just at that moment, Rupert appeared and was presented with a snapshot of what appeared to be his colleague passionately embracing a much larger, considerably older woman. I disentangled myself just in time to see Rupert standing behind me, his face the perfect picture of abject horror.

"Rupert, old chap,” I said weakly, “don’t leap to conclusions, I...”
He interrupted me. “You are the most disreputable man I have ever had the misfortune to meet.”
“Come on, Rupert. Listen, come and have a glass of champagne with me. I won - I am rich!”
"I'd sooner drink a cup of warm vomit, you nauseating man," he said with a curled lip and, with that, turned on the heel of his expensive shoes and marched towards the exit, shaking his head in disgust.

Back at work, he asked to be transferred to a different team and never uttered a word to me again. Charming fellow, was Rupert.

I have often lamented the squeaky-clean, family-friendly image Formula One has sought to portray lately - almost as if it is embarrassed by its old reputation as the sport of rakes, like James Hunt (whose name my winning horse carried). It is this sanitisation that has seamlessly led the sport to Singapore, a place so sanitised that chewing gum is against the law.

It is probably no coincidence that the entire board of UBS is meeting in Singapore this week to discuss the fall-out of finding itself victim to a rogue trader, Kweku Adoboli, who was arrested last week after managing to rack up a bill of $2.3 billion. There can hardly be a better place to discuss how to make sure rules are enforced.

Singapore has its pluses, though. I never thought it could be done before but Singapore has demonstrated that it is possible to stage a night-time Grand Prix. This will be the fourth outing to Singapore but if the previous three are anything to go by, the race seems to have event-provoking characteristics. The bet to make, I think, would be how many safety car episodes there will be on Saturday because that is what has stuck in the memory from the last three Singapore Grands Prix.

As far as the world championship goes, the question is when, not if, Sebastian Vettel will be crowned world champion. If he wins, Fernando Alonso comes no better than fourth and neither Jenson Button nor Mark Webber are in the top two, he will be champion. I don't see this set of circumstances applying on Sunday, but you never know.

Lewis Hamilton's erratic driving this season has ruled him out of consideration completely but he won in Singapore quite impressively in 2009 and may just want another trophy for his cabinet.

Whatever happens, let's hope it is a fair (I use the word advisedly in the case of Singapore) race. A bit of rain would be fun, I think…

Enjoy Singapore

Gitau
21 September 2011

Memories of Monza

2011-09-07T19:44:00.005+01:00

Walking gloomily homeward along the Thames on a wet and windy day last week, I nearly fell over a slightly elderly lady bent over a pot of paint before an open doorway. As I apologised profusely for my recklessness, a bolt of lightning struck the lamppost behind us followed by the crashing sound of a huge clap of thunder.

The lady and I instinctively leapt through the open door into the safety of the room within and then, now that we were both out of harm's way, fell about laughing as if we had known each for years. Our laughter was interrupted by the anxious cry of "Elisa, va tutto bene?" and the sudden appearance of a little old man.

"Forgive me," I said, "I didn't mean to intrude upon you like that, it's just this awful weather."
"Bene," the man said. "Is-a okay," .

It was clearly a restaurant virtually ready for a beautiful opening. A quick look round revealed a charming little place with a rustic feel to it: large, cured hams hung from the ceiling; there were floor to ceiling wine racks on the right and rear walls filled with appealing-looking bottles of red wine; and the mirror behind the small bar to the left reflected glistening bottles of Amaro. The couple were Elisa and Luigi Cavalieri from Bologna. They were actively engaged in the process of applying the finishing touches to "Luigiano's" in time for a grand opening at the weekend and leaving nothing to chance. I promised to visit Luigiano's for a meal as soon as it was open and made as if to leave but Luigi would have none of it.

"No, no, no. Is-a raining," said Luigi, "maybe you sit-a down-a and we 'ave a little Sangiovese.""Why, Luigi, that is one of my favourites. I don't mind if I do," I said, unashamedly leaping at an offer of something exquisite for nothing.

Elisa grabbed one of the dangling hams and sliced up some prosciutto crudo while Luigi opened a bottle and poured out some glasses. It didn't take long before we were friends. The Cavalieris had seen the writing on the wall for the Euro project ("Big-a da mess!") and sought the relative safety of a country where people still walked about with purses and wallets stuffed with notes depicting Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

They were a lovely couple, filled to the brim with the milk of human kindness - which flows generously throughout Emilia Romagna - and as yet unspoiled by London's harshness. Luigi, like all red-blooded Italian males, was a Ferrari fan and had been to every Italian Grand Prix since his father took him to Monza at the age of seven in 1952 and he held particularly treasured memories of Alberto Ascari winning that race in a Ferrari.

Luigi had many memories of Monza with which to regale me but the best were of the 1971 Grand Prix. Monza is still the fastest circuit there is on the calendar but in those days it was even faster. There were no chicanes: it was an almost oval, free-flowing circuit with cars slip-streaming each other repeatedly down the long straights. It was magnificent.

In '71, the fastest ever race on record, four cars took the chequered flag almost exactly at the same time - the only ever real photo finish in F1 history. Peter Gethin beat François Cevert, Ronnie Peterson and Mike Hailwood by the slimmest of margins - impossible for the naked eye to pick up. I have seen footage from the race dozens of times and yet I am still amazed by that finish. Cevert and Peterson were more accomplished drivers than Gethin and went on to have more success in succeeding years while Gethin faded into insignificance after winning a championship race without ever having led a Grand Prix.

Cevert was killed tragically in a nasty crash at Watkins Glen, New York (a circuit that makes one wistful) in 1973 - just at the point in his career when he showed sufficient promise to have everyone expect him to be world champion in 1974 (his team-mate, Sir Jackie Stewart, was so moved by the awfulness of it that he never raced in F1 again). Ronnie Peterson also had a promising career cut short by tragedy. After a colossal pile-up soon after the start of the race in Monza in 1978 Peterson was rescued from a burning car but did not survive the incident.

These reminiscences made Luigi rather emotional - perhaps it was the Sangiovese, perhaps it was because he was Italian - in a bittersweet way. Now he would say "those were real-a men-a!", now, tearfully, "these were just-a da young-a boys." Nevertheless, I enjoyed his stories immensely.

Luigi got a bit animated on the subject of Lewis Hamilton. He is frustrated by what he sees as brilliance being misapplied. "Hamilton should be three times champion by now," he said. I found it difficult to disagree. As we saw at the brilliant race at Spa a couple of weeks ago, Hamilton gets frustrated by things, loses his head and does silly things. He deftly performed an overtaking manoeuvre against Kobayashi but then turned in too sharply in the braking zone at the top of the hill at Les Combes, tagged Kobayashi's nose and was hurtling into the tyre wall before he could say "oh bugger!" I agreed with Luigi's assessment that Hamilton needs to calm down - "a 'ot-a 'ead-a is no good for driving!"

It is too late for any advice to make a difference to Hamilton's title chances in 2011. After his superlative performance at Spa, it would be difficult for anyone to say legitimately that Sebastian Vettel has not got this championship pretty much sewn up.

The curious thing about this season is that now the championship is all but out of the way, the racing is becoming a lot more interesting. The race at Spa was the best Belgian Grand Prix I have seen in quite a few years.

But if Spa was anything to go by, I can hardly wait for Monza. Other than Silverstone and Spa, this is the last traditional circuit we are allowed to enjoy in Europe these days - thanks to Bernie Ecclestone and his mates - so make the most of it. I certainly will,

Enjoy Monza!

Gitau
7 September 2011

The liberated Brit

2011-07-27T19:42:00.007+01:00

If you amassed billions of pounds through skulduggery and lived long enough to celebrate your 80th birthday, would you:

A) Buy a large yacht and a private island in the Caribbean and enjoy the remainder of your life in luxury and comfort;

B) Get engaged to a 25 year old with a lithe curvaceous body worthy of a Playboy magazine centrefold; or

C) Raise the stakes on your skulduggery, convince yourself that you are immortal and attempt to take over the world.

The sensible choice would, of course, be A, but the abiding lesson of history is that crooked 80 year old men tend not to be terribly sensible. Two crooked Octogenarian gentlemen have recently found themselves in a spot of bother.

The first, a Californian chap called Hugh Hefner chose option B a few months ago. After handing over two luxury vehicles to his fiance and taken delivery of a few lorryloads of Viagra at his home, the Playboy Mansion, poor old Hef was jilted five days before his wedding. The experience came as a bit of a shock to the old man's heart and one must wonder how much longer he has left with us.

Hef may have suffered the effects of a badly bruised ego but at least he is safe in the knowledge that his billions and his reputation haven't taken a hammering.

The same cannot be said for the chap who catastrophically went for option C: Rupert Murdoch, the man who made a fortune peddling filth. For decades, Murdoch struck terror into the hearts of politicians in the English speaking world either by promising favours or threatening political assassination through his media empire.

Often it was through Murdoch's possession of compromising information that he was able to wield the most influence. If you were a minister who was married with children but secretly engaged the services of rent boys, a telephone call from Murdoch at 2:00 am with thinly veiled threats might just have been enough to persuade you that it was in your interests to approve the acquisition by a Murdoch company of a major broadcasting house. Alternatively, you could be campaigning in a very tight electoral contest and in desperate need of some powerful friends; if Murdoch threw the weight of his media empire behind you, your difficulties would be at an end. You would also be forever grateful to Mr Murdoch.

All that changed spectacularly just over a fortnight ago. It came to light that Murdoch's employees on the News of the World, a nasty tabloid, had been secretly listening to the voicemail messages of a teenage girl who had been abducted and murdered. Outrage turned to revulsion and horror when it emerged that this was far from an isolated incident; News of the World staff had been hacking into voice mailboxes on an industrial scale.

Rupert and James Murdoch were forced to close down the News of the World and suffer the humiliation of a grilling by British MPs. A man feared and loathed in equal measure was reduced to a shambling, decrepit old man mumbling, umming and erring and demonstrating spectacular illiteracy ("This is the most humble day of my life," he said. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, old Ru, but if you'd paid a little bit better attention at school you might have learned that days do not have feelings, people do)

As Murdoch's Gulfstream G550 took off from Luton Airport at the end of last week, a mood of euphoria swept over the land. From then on, Britain felt different. It felt much like a parting of rain clouds after a thunderstorm. The evil spectre of Rupert Murdoch had left our presence and we felt able to live sensibly as if for the first time.

At the weekend Amir Khan knocked out his opponent to become world light-welterweight champion, Mark Cavendish won the Tour de France, England beat India in the cricket at Lord's and Lewis Hamilton won the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.

The last of these triumphs was particularly satisfying for Hamilton. In a season of unprecedented domination by Sebastian Vettel in the flawless Red Bull designed by Adrian Newey, one could scarcely imagine him failing to win his home Grand Prix - but he did. Hamilton was imperious right from the start to the end. He never had more than a two second lead at any point in the race and any one of the top three - Hamilton, Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso - could have won the race but Hamilton had a touch more nerve and the biggest balls of the three. So confident was he in his ability that at one point he performed the ultimate mark of disrespect to a Formula One world champion: an outside overtaking manoeuvre.

Attempting to overtake an F1 car on the outside leaves a driver very vulnerable to a counter-attack and is so audacious that it is guaranteed to infuriate his opponent. It is the equivalent of a right hand lead in boxing - a punch which leaves the boxer's body completely exposed to a counter-punch. We did not have the benefit of live radio commentary from Alonso but I would bet that the choicest, frutiest epithets in the Spanish language were screamed into the helmet of the Ferrari driver. Hamilton's boyish grin on the podium said it all: "who be da man!"

Hamilton may not be everybody's cup of tea, but seeing him win the old fashioned way is good for the sport. I had told myself that I was going to give up on Formula One if all we ever saw was the same German chap qualifying at least a second ahead of everyone else on Saturday and then leading a procession on Sunday. That simply isn't racing.

Barring some sort of disaster - like Vettel having a nasty accident - the 2011 title is in the bag already, so the least we can hope for is some fun motor racing for the next nine races.

Gitau
27 July 2011

Bernie, Bahrain and Beelzebub

2011-06-06T21:49:00.004+01:00

The story of Faust is one that appeals greatly to the human imagination: a man does a deal with the devil whereby he enjoys fame, wealth and magical powers on earth in return for eternal damnation in hell. The trouble always is that the man is never terribly pleased about fulfilling his side of the bargain when the devil eventually comes to claim his soul.

A version of the story which I thoroughly enjoyed when it was released as a film in the late 1980s is Angel Heart. In it a private investigator in New York called Harry Angel – played by Mickey Rourke - is engaged by a mysterious, darkly dressed man called Louis Cyphre (Robert de Niro) to find a missing man called Johnny Favorite. According to Cyphre, Favorite owes him a debt which he is keen to have repaid. Angel then embarks upon a bizarre adventure to New Orleans involving voodoo, sex and much murder. At the end the awful truth emerges that Favorite had made a deal with the devil to achieve fame and fortune as a singer for his soul. To escape delivering his end of the bargain, Favorite changed his identity, moved from Louisiana and disappeared. But not quite. Angel was Favorite all along and Louis Cyphre (an unsubtle alias for “Lucifer”) knew it and had now come to claim what was rightfully his.

As I read with incredulity at the weekend that the Bahrain Grand Prix had been restored to the 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship Race Calendar, the scales fell from my eyes. Like Johnny Favorite and every other derivative of Faust, Bernard Charles Ecclestone has enjoyed a life of power and luxury like none other. Gnome-like, very ugly and now decrepit, Ecclestone moves from young statuesque blonde to young statuesque blonde as soon as the looks and allure of the former begin to fade. Each new and improved version is never older than 30 or shorter than six foot. In the meantime, he has kings, presidents and prime ministers on speed dial on his mobile phone. If Ecclestone demands “jump!” the invariable response is “how high, sir?”

But Ecclestone has always known that the remorseful day would come one day; the question was always when. Well, the question will soon be answered. Mephistopheles has sent Ecclestone a few messages to indicate that the day will soon be upon him.

Bernie Ecclestone has been in control of Formula One for eons, but it all nearly came to an end in the early part of this century when the company he controlled it through spectacularly hit the buffers. The banks which had lent money to the company quickly assumed control and began looking around for a buyer of the business. The banker in charge of doing the deal, a German gentleman called Gerhard Gribkowsky, got to know Ecclestone in the process of seeking out a buyer and came under his magic spell. When Gribkowsky eventually found a team of investors who were prepared to take F1 out of the hands of the banks – a private equity group called CVC Capital Partners – he insisted on including Eccelstone in the sale as part of the overall package. CVC did not mind too much because Eccelstone assured them that he would pay them a massive amount of money which was guaranteed to increase year on year by an eye-wateringly large percentage. To keep the cash flowing in and increasing, Ecclestone had to keep finding new people each year with deep enough pockets to satisfy his arrangement with CVC. The best way of doing so was to sell the rights to host Grands Prix in exotic locations around the world.

The first message from Mephistopheles came in January this year. Gribkowsky, the German banker was arrested by the Bavarian constabulary, allegedly for receiving €50 million from Ecclestone in 2005 as a present for having secured his continued stewardship of Formula One. Ecclestone denies all knowledge of any of this but poor old Gribkowsky has not been permitted to pound the immaculate streets of Munich ever since the beginning of the year.

The second message from Mephistopheles came in February when the Arabs in North Africa and the Middle East decided enough was enough and they were going to get rid of the expensive and bothersome chaps who had been running their countries in a ghastly fashion and generally making miserable the lives of the Arab people. Once the revolution spread to Bahrain it became inconceivable that a race could be held there.

Suddenly there was a gaping hole in the pot of money Ecclestone was to deliver to CVC and he had somehow to plug it.

The final message to Ecclestone from Mephistopheles was delivered by…..none other than Bernie Ecclestone himself! At the end of last week, Ecclestone signed a deal to have the Bahrain Grand Prix held during the last weekend of October.

I said it on this blog on 8 March 2011 and I will say it again now: the Bahrain Grand Prix is dead. Bernie does not realise that his efforts at exhuming its coffin from its concrete grave deep in the Arabian desert will be the end of him as F1’s impresario and could well be the beginning of the end of Formula One itself.

Each racing team will have signed an agreement with Ecclestone’s company to participate in all of the races in the 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship Race Calendar. These agreements will almost certainly require the attendance of each team at the Bahrain Grand Prix within its new slot at the end of October but I can assure you of this: most of them will not go. The costs to each major team of attending the Bahrain Grand Prix vastly exceed any damages they may be forced to pay for breach of contract.

I will leave you with a mental image which will demonstrate the certainty of my argument. Imagine an advertising poster containing two images, one above the other and some text between the two. The top image is split into two halves: the first picture shows a cavalcade of Grosser Mercedes Benz Offener Tourenwagens travelling slowly through the Brandenburg Gate along the Kaiserdamm. In the lead Mercedes with the top and all the windows in a down position sits Adolph Hitler in the right rear seat. To his immediate left sits Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, Commander of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and President of the Prussian Council of State. Along the street are Nazi soldiers giving the Heil Hitler! Salute. Alongside this disturbing photograph is a picture of the two representative vehicles of the Mercedes 2011 Formula One team. Beneath it are the words: “The company which produced these beautiful cars....”
And then underneath is a picture of heavily armoured battle tanks bearing down on unarmed crowds in Manama, Bahrain...
and just above it are the words:
“...is also the company which happily condones this!

I will leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions.

Gitau
6 June 2011

It's gotta be the car!

2011-05-10T18:58:00.002+01:00

In the novel Trilby by George du Maurier, Trilby O’Farrell, a tone-deaf but stunningly beautiful girl comes under the influence of a magician called Svengali who decides to make her a star. While under Svengali’s hypnotic spell, Trilby sings like an angel. So sublime is her voice that she captivates critical audiences in the world’s eminent concert halls. She becomes famous. One day, before a performance in London, Svengali is afflicted by heart disease and drops dead. Without the power of Svengali’s hypnosis, Trilby attempts to sing but can only produce discordant noises. Without Svengali she is a laughing stock.

As Sebastian Vettel took the chequered flag for the fourth time this season, the television camera panned across to the Red Bull pit wall in time for us to see Christian Horner, the Red Bull team boss, turn to the man sitting on his left and envelop him in a big hug. The recipient of Horner’s warmth was none other than Adrian Newey, the man who designed the Red Bull RB7 which is currently causing such devastation in Formula One. Upon seeing Horner’s gesture, I immediately thought of Trilby. Newey is the Svengali of Formula One: he designs racing cars of such overwhelming brilliance that he transforms ordinary mortals into superstars.

In the 1980s Spike Lee made a series of advertisements for Nike featuring the legendary American basketball player, Michael Jordan. In one of them, Lee questioned Jordan’s brilliance by taunting him with “It can’t be just you, it’s gotta be the shoes!” Unlike basketball, however, Formula One is almost unique among sports in relying almost entirely on the equipment provided to each competitor by his team. The answer to the age old question “is it the car or is it the driver” is “it is a combination of both, but mostly the car”. A driver’s performance is to a massive extent – perhaps even 80% - dependent upon the car. That is why Adrian Newey at Red Bull is such a huge problem for all the other teams. The gap between the Red Bulls and the McLarens, Ferraris and Mercedes is so wide that it is difficult at this stage to visualise circumstances in which Red Bull will not win this year’s constructors’ championship and Sebastian Vettel, the drivers’ championship. Four consecutive pole positions and three flawless victories have put him so far ahead of everyone else (his nearest rival, Lewis Hamilton, is 34 points behind) that we seem destined to watch the rest of this season’s races to determine who will come second and third.

It would be easy to put everything down to Adrian Newey and let the matter rest there - but that would be dishonest. In qualifying on Saturday, Sebastian Vettel achieved pole position while his team-mate, Mark Webber, in an identical car, slotted himself in at second place. The difference between the two was half a second. The time gap between the pole-setter and the next three cars is typically a couple of hundredths of a second or, on a very good day, one tenth of a second. Half a second is like an entire day in F1 terms. To demonstrate the superiority of Vettel’s performance, the BBC showed both Red Bulls’ qualifying laps simultaneously on a split screen in slow motion. Vettel attacks the corners and uses the kerbs so expertly that he almost makes the car fly; his qualifying lap in Istanbul was the fastest lap ever recorded at the Istanbul Racing Circuit. He is able to do this despite being relatively inexperienced – he’s only 23. Just to put this in context, the minimum age for drinking alcohol in Turkey is 24, so Vettel would have been permitted to spray his magnum of winner’s champion on the podium on Sunday but it would have been against the law for him to take a swig of it!

If Newey isn’t hobbled by some Mafioso and Vettel sticks with Red Bull, we could be about to witness a period of unrelenting Grand Prix domination by a German driver more complete than the last one by Michael Schumacher. This is not good for the sport by any means but it is hardly Vettel’s or Red Bull’s fault. The other teams are going to have to raise their game, and do so quickly.

“Schumacher domination” is not a phrase you will hear mentioned very much in the Mercedes team’s motor home or Chez Schumacher in Switzerland. Since returning to Formula One at the start of last season, Michael Schumacher is proving right those of his detractors – including yours truly – who boldly said that it was a mistake for the seven times world champion to return to motor racing after three years in retirement. He is not able to hook his car up for a quick qualifying lap like he could in the old days and ends up in unfamiliar territory during races: the middle order where tangles with other drivers are almost inevitable. He drives petulantly and ungraciously. Schumacher behaves like an old man driving an old banger on the fast lane of the motorway, resentfully refusing to move over for faster vehicles. Eddie Jordan, Schumacher’s first ever F1 boss and now a BBC commentator, described watching Schumacher these days as akin to watching Muhammad Ali humiliating himself by coming out of retirement and taking on Larry Holmes. Never mind that he has a contract with Mercedes which runs out at the end of next season, it is time for Michael Schumacher to hang up his helmet and make way for younger talent.

I had a few chums flying the McLaren flag in Istanbul this past weekend but despite their best efforts, the team didn’t get its sums right. Lewis Hamilton might conceivably have battled with Fernando Alonso for third place but his race was compromised by the pit crew taking far too long to fix a wheel nut on front right tyre. Jenson Button’s race was wrecked by an even more fundamental error: in a race where the only viable strategy was four pit-stops for tyres, McLaren opted for three. By the closing laps of the race it was all Button could do to keep his car on the road. He could not even put up a pretence of a defence against Nico Rosberg for fifth place.

This baffled me. McLaren tell us that they have sophisticated telemetry in the pit wall and back at the factory in Woking and yet they cannot do a simple calculation like how many laps a set of tyres should last. We have seen this sort of schoolboy stuff from McLaren too many times in the recent past (remember Hamilton’s disastrous race in China in 2007 that did for his championship chances?). If the team carries on cocking up, don’t be surprised to see a star like Hamilton move elsewhere before long.

May is a good month for Grands Prix – it is like London buses, you wait for ages and then three come along. After Turkey, it is Spain in a fortnight and Monaco a week thereafter.

Gitau
10 May 2011

Is The Turkish Grand Prix European?

2011-05-04T20:17:00.006+01:00

The weekend which began on 29th April 2011 was a fairy tale weekend. At one end of it, a beautiful girl married a charming prince; at the other, an evil villain was captured and killed. While the world applauded, Mehmet Yildiz sucked his teeth nervously as he sat in his Ankara study watching the news on television. “We are not at war with Islam,” said Barack Obama after he had informed the world that he had ordered his soldiers to kill Osama bin Laden. Yildiz sighed. “If only they would believe him,” he thought to himself. With trembling hands, he unlocked a secret chamber at the back of his desk, extracted a bottle of 21 year old Balvenie whisky and a crystal tumbler, poured out a healthy quantity of the Scottish amber nectar and began to drink like a man who needed to be elsewhere.

Before his retirement, Yildiz had been one of the principal negotiators for Turkey’s accelerated accession to membership of the European Union. At a meeting in Brussels in the dying years of the 20th century convened to discuss Turkish membership of the EU, Yildiz had carefully observed the faces around the table and found most to be untroubled. One of the troubled few was a thin, white-haired gentleman from Austria. Yildiz detected the slightest shadow cross the man’s face when the matter of Turkish membership was raised. He made a mental note of the man’s name and button-holed him during a coffee break.

“Mr Wolfgang Kerzendorfer, I presume?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Please forgive me for interrupting you. I am Mehmet Yildiz, leader of the Turkish delegation.”
“No, no interruption at all. It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr Yildiz.”
“If I may be so presumptuous, Mr Kerzendorfer, have you ever been to Turkey?”
“I can’t say that I have, no.”
“That is a pity. Still, all is not lost. As part of our charm offensive, I am authorised to offer a few free holidays in Turkey to selected individuals and I am minded to offer one to you if you will do me the honour of accepting it.”
“Why, that is very decent of you, Mr Yildiz.”

Kerzendorfer travelled to Turkey and was shown as many of the more salubrious parts of the beautiful country as were possible in the time by Yildiz. After a few toothsome Turkish meals lubricated by excellent Turkish wines from the Caucasus region, Kerzendorfer began to think differently about Turkey. His views about the barbarous nature of Islam and its potentially deleterious effects on Western European civilisation – which he had kept to himself but were obvious to a seasoned people-watcher like Yildiz – began to soften. He seemed genuinely to be interested in the things he saw and even spoke of the architecture of Istanbul’s Blue Mosque with feeling. Not without enthusiasm, Kerzendorfer also allowed himself to be delighted by the ministrations of a "special" Turkish belly dancer assigned exclusively to him for a night.

Yildiz felt himself lose some of his anxiety about his government’s EU application.

One afternoon on a walk around Istanbul to work off the effects of a hearty lunch, Kerzendorfer felt so relaxed in the splendour of his surroundings and the company of Yildiz that he waxed lyrical about the brilliance of his nine year old granddaughter, Simone. Just as he was enthusing about how beautifully Simone played Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, the muezzin from a nearby mosque intoned the call for prayer from a tall minaret in a particularly compelling manner. Yildiz suspected from the look on his companion’s face that his bowels had suddenly loosened. His fears were confirmed when Kerzendorfer peremptorily demanded to be shown to the nearest toilet.

Weeks later, Yildiz and his delegation received the worst possible news. New applications for membership had to be put to the vote of every member of the European Union. A unanimous vote of approval was required for a successful application. Austria had made clear that it would exercise its right of veto.

Defeated and disheartened, Mehmet Yildiz decided to retire early from the Turkish civil service. His parting words to the Prime Minister were that a way had to be found for the Western Europeans to see the Turks as being “like them”. “As long as they see us as Muslim fanatics who will blow them up whenever we get a little upset, we are doomed. If we make them believe that we enjoy wine, women and song and think a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon is visit a race-track where motor cars are raced very fast, we may just get there.”

Yildiz hardly realised the prescience of his words, for only a few years later, the Turkish Grand Prix was born. It has been a feature of the Formula One Grand Prix circuit since 2005.

Since the last race in Shanghai nearly three weeks ago (yes, 3 weeks – F1 goes on holiday and returns to a changed world!), the 2011 season has come to life. After three successive wins from the front by Sebastian Vettel, F1 needed something different to keep us all interested. That something was supplied with sugar on top in Shanghai. Lewis Hamilton, a driver who believes in winning races the traditional way, provided more overtaking moves in one race than we have seen from the rest of the field put together this season.

Not since his outstanding rookie year in 2007 have I seen Hamilton quite so thrilled by an F1 victory: he flung himself at the McLaren team for a massive embrace, kissed the BBC TV camera and even hugged his rival, Vettel. We need more of this from Hamilton (the driving, I mean) and Turkey with its anti-clockwise track and high speed corners – including the now notorious turn 8 - is exactly the sort of place where he supplies it well.

Whenever one feels one’s eyelids dragged down by a dull race, Hamilton can be guaranteed to liven things up. He is, for my money at least, the most exciting driver we have at the moment.

If Australia, Malaysia and China constitute the early “fly-away” races before the start of F1’s home (i.e. European) season, where does Turkey fit in the picture? Half of the country is in Europe and the other half in Asia and Istanbul is plonked right between the two. The answer to the question depends upon whether or not you agree with Mr Mehmet Yildiz. Well, do you?

Enjoy Turkey!

Gitau

4 May 2011

Stunning Sepang - the last of the greats

2011-04-12T20:41:00.003+01:00

The denizens of the peninsular country once known as Malaya may recoil at the following suggestion but it contains more than a germ of truth: Malaysia and Singapore are perhaps the best examples of that often expressed oxymoron, “the enlightened dictatorship”. In each of the two countries, a charismatic chap (Dr Mahathir Mohammed in the case of Malaysia and Mr Lee Kuan Yew in that of Singapore) faced his people solemnly and declared “listen to me, for I know best. Do as I say and you will reach the promised land.” Messrs Mohammed and Lee were each then allowed a mostly unchallenged licence to do what was required to see that their vision was carried out. What has been achieved in the two countries makes many an aged African despot weep into his whisky as he contemplates the mess that his own legacy will represent while that of the Malayan leaders’ glitters ever more brightly. Without selfless enlightenment, though, nothing positive is to be gained from making one man the repository of limitless power. It is like giving the keys to your Rolls Royce to a nine year old boy and then standing back horrified as he promptly drives it into a ditch. By contrast, these South-East Asian gentlemen represented true enlightenment. For years the world of Formula One accepted that there were so many divergent interests in the manufacture and racing of top end cars that the only way of getting anything done sensibly was to allow the whole show to be run as a sort of enlightened dictatorship. A little bespectacled chap with a fondness for large cars and large women succeeded - by both fair means and foul – in becoming the enlightened dictator of this strange world. His name was Bernard Charles Ecclestone. He was assisted in no small part by a fiercely intelligent, Machiavellian lawyer called Max Rufus Mosley. The scheming of the two English gentlemen ensured that Ecclestone became the undisputed face of Formula One. A great deal of money was required to keep the show on the road and Ecclestone became adept at turning this way and then that for the requisite billions. Empires as complicated as Ecclestone’s never remain constant and face myriad threats from all manner of sources. In the early part of this century financial troubles threatened to destroy the whole edifice when three large banks moved in to recover their vast loans. Never one to be cornered by anyone, not even a triumvirate of angry banks, Ecclestone found ways and means of making friends with the lead banker appointed to recover the interests of the banks - a flamboyant German gentleman called Gerhard Gribkowsky – and survives as Formula One supremo to this day. He does so despite the fact that he is now 80 years old and his supportive old friend Mosley has retired from F1 and now spends his days fighting a battle to make British newspapers suffer for having dared publicly to disclose his fondness for le vice Anglais. Gribkowsky, meanwhile, is under arrest in a Munich jail allegedly for having received corrupt gifts from Ecclestone worth $50 million. It is believed that this was the price Ecclestone had to pay to guarantee his own survival in F1. Yes, it is rather a murky world. As the web weaved by Ecclestone became more tangled, he had to look further and harder for sources of the colossal sums he needed to keep things going. In the closing years of the twentieth century it became clear to him that Europe – the traditional home of Grand Prix racing – was not going to play the game by the rules of a changing world. The solution was to find places that would. In so doing, one of the first things Ecclestone did was engage the services of a German architect called Hermann Tilke. The architect’s job was to be part of a “package” presented to would be hosts of a Grand Prix race. The story goes something like this: Ecclestone would speak to a potentate in a place like, say, Bahrain. Said potentate would agree to provide the funds required to get the job done. Tilke would then design and build a circuit and – hey presto! - a new Grand Prix would be born. For this to work, though, Tilke had to be able to demonstrate remarkable prowess; his circuits had to sing, inspire, awe. The opportunity to provide a template for the new world of motor racing came when the Malaysians proved receptive to Ecclestone’s overtures. Tilke’s first ever F1 circuit in Sepang proved to be such a barnstormer, so “out there” that the question of his competence and prescience was settled. Sadly, after the first Malaysian Grand Prix in 1999, Tilke took his pot off the boil. Sepang was so good that there was nothing left for him to prove. It is the only one of his many arenas which I consider to be a great circuit. Consequently, approaching the Malaysian Grand Prix each year is always a bittersweet affair for me. It represents excellence in track design and racing purity while at the same time is a monument to a watershed moment; the moment when Formula One was changed forever. But what a race the Malaysian Grand Prix can be! Yesterday’s was surely one of the best ever. There was so much happening everywhere on the Sepang circuit that one could write reams about it but I think I’ll stick with the three things which stand out most clearly in my memory. First, in winning the race from pole position in such imperious style, Sebastian Vettel confirmed that he is the man to beat – if anybody can get close enough to try, that is. Secondly, notwithstanding Lewis Hamilton’s many tribulations in Malaysia – wrong tyre choices, lots of pit-stops occasioned by heavy tyre wear, a tangle with Fernando Alonso and a twenty second penalty – he still looks like the driver with the best chance of at least giving Vettel a bit of a fight. Finally, it is now emerging that the team to watch other than Red Bull and McLaren is not Ferrari (or even Mercedes) but Lotus Renault. We had a beautiful moment – for us, not the driver – when Vitaly Petrov managed to fly all four wheels of his Lotus Renault off the ground and then crash the car heavily with a broken steering column. But this did not dent the appreciation felt in the Lotus Renault garage that the other Lotus Renault - in the hands of Nick Heidfeld – still managed to get up to the third spot on the podium (two podiums in as many races is not bad for a new team). A week between races in Malaysia and China is hardly enough for the lesser teams to do anything about Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel, but they might as well at least try – a 24 point lead after just two races does not bode well for a competitive championship. Gitau 11 April 2011

Is Vettel the new face of German domination?

2011-03-28T15:06:00.005+01:00

If a heavyweight Mafioso desires something, his first approach may not necessarily involve violence or the threat of it. He may begin by offering money, lots of money, or a favour so appealing that the hardest of hearts is enticed. There are useful lessons to be learned from this technique. Lewis Hamilton stated somewhat rashly last week that Red Bull was not much more than “a drinks company”, an upstart which hadn’t earned the right to be mixing things at the top with the likes of the mighty McLaren an Ferrari; teams with reputations carefully forged over generations of racing tradition. Well, Red Bull appear to be reading from a different script from the McLaren one because the best that Hamilton could do against the imperious Sebastian Vettel at the Australian Grand prix was come within eight tenths of a second of the German’s gearbox. With that sort of lead over the man who eventually stood on the number two step of the podium, Vettel could just as easily have been driving his own race by himself. The best advice for Mr Hamilton is not to whinge about the symptoms but deal instead with the cause of the problem. Get a couple of lieutenants and put them on a plane to Sicily with a clear message firmly installed in their brains. “Find a couple of scary but discreet chaps. Tell them to get in touch with Adrian Newey in the manner only trained Mafia chaps can (I have no objections to severed horses heads in beds). The important thing to make sure of is that Newey is never again seen anywhere near an F1 garage or workshop.” The time for this sort of approach is ripe. Ferrari tried engaging the services of Mr Newey before the start of this season and offered tempting inducements: more money, a top of the range Ferrari and a beautiful Emiliano-Romagnolo villa with a well stocked wine cellar. Newey declined. He likes it at Red Bull, he said. The thought of moving to Italy did not particularly enthuse him either. This being the case, unless Hamilton or some other forward thinking person does as I suggest, I fear the die is cast. Red Bull might be a drinks company but Christian Horner, the man in charge of running its F1 team, has the foresight of a falcon. Horner made two far-reaching recruitment decisions that will haunt the world of F1 for years. The first and most important was to hire Adrian Newey, the unequalled expert of racing car design, as the chief designer of Red Bull’s F1 cars. Adrian Newey is an alchemist, a man who goes to sleep at night and dreams in binary code, a genius. In his hands Williams and then McLaren were the class of the field. Following his departure, first Williams and then McLaren faltered. The answer to the question “how does one put together a championship winning Formula One car” is invariably “get Newey!” The second Horner inspired initiative was to spot the potential in a young German called Sebastian Vettel and sign him to Red Bull early. We saw the promise of the Red Bull car and driver last year as Vettel managed ten pole positions and a world championship in a season filled to the brim with exceptional talent. From the evidence of Vettel’s complete domination of Saturday and Sunday in Melbourne, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I hope to goodness that this is not the case, but the evidence of the Australian Grand Prix is that we have entered a new era of unrelenting domination akin to the mind-numbingly boring Michael Schumacher years. Word on the street before Melbourne was that McLaren had produced a pig’s ear of a car and could pretty much be written off. I didn’t see anything to suggest that at all. Hamilton’s second place in both qualifying and the race was respectable. Jenson Button wasn’t too far back but, uncharacteristically, he allowed himself to fall for the oldest trick in the book. Felipe Massa’s Ferrari was clearly slower than Button’s McLaren but Massa held his nerve and wouldn’t allow himself to be harassed by an increasingly irritable Button. The trick worked: Button “lost it”; he made a mistake and found himself forced to use a run-off area to get ahead of Massa. The Ferrari came into the pits soon thereafter so there wasn’t sufficient time for Button to realise his mistake and give the place back to Massa. As he should have expected, he was promptly slapped with a drive-through penalty which cost him at least twenty seconds and any chance of a podium position. Thinking back to Australian Grands Prix over the years, I have seen many that were better. Apart from Button’s gullibility, the only other incident which sticks in the memory was the hot headed Brazilian driver, Rubens Barrichello, deciding to t-bone poor old Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes so cruelly that the German had to retire. The race was largely a dull affair. I am sure Vitaly Petrov will disagree with me, though. Consistency and determination enabled him to bag the third podium place in his Lotus Renault and he thereby became the first ever Russian to win a Formula One trophy. The lesson from Australia is that Ferrari and McLaren have to raise their game considerably if this season is going to be worthy of the description “championship”. That, or book that flight to Palermo… Gitau 28 March 2011

Now for the start we really wanted: Melbourne

2011-03-22T16:10:00.004Z

“Are you sitting down? the Australian accented female voice asked down the telephone with more than a hint of mischief.
“What do you want?” I demanded querulously.
“I represent Qantas Airways,” the voice continued unperturbed. “Have you heard of us?”
“You obviously did not ring to educate me about the world’s airlines and I am not particularly bothered about yours,” I said, “so if you have a point to make you’d best make it quickly.”
“Well, Mr Githinji, we discovered your interest in Formula One through reading your blog on the Internet and would like to offer you two free tickets to this year’s Australian Grand Prix and premier hospitality in the restricted corporate entertainment area at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne.”
I was at first nonplussed. Somebody reading my musings had decided to offer me a gift worth at least £1,000 simply because they liked what I wrote about. It seemed a little too slick, other-worldly even. I said “thank you very much for letting me know. You can send the tickets to me at my London address.”
“We would rather not do that for security reasons, sir. The tickets will be available for you to collect at the Albert Park any time from Wednesday 23 March. All you have to do is present some identification, such as your passport, to the Qantas representative at the Park and…”
I interrupted her: “you seem to be overlooking the slightly inconvenient fact that the distance between London and Melbourne is well in excess of 10,000 miles!”
“You did not allow me to finish, sir. You will need to provide evidence that you and the person accompanying you have flown to Melbourne in Business Class with Qantas Airways. Your boarding pass stub will do adequately.”
“We have come to the point of this phone call, I see. You chaps are struggling to fill your planes. Two business class tickets at over £3,000 apiece is well worth a few smarmy phone calls, isn’t it?”
“I think you’ll find that Qantas continues to be one of the world’s most profitable airlines.”
“I am sure it is! Why on earth wouldn’t it be? But for my piece of mind, I shall be delighted to accept your generous offer if you will be so kind as to send me your flight occupancy figures for the last three months.”
The line went dead.

This incident reflects the difficulties encountered in marketing goods and services in the age of multimedia. Twenty years ago, if you had a catchy enough but cleverly irritating advertising jingle like “Mr Sheen shines umpteen things clean!” you were pretty much assured that it would be ringing through the brains of at least half the country while they struggled to do something else. We have all been there: “what’s my daughter’s birthday, dash it!...Mr Sheen shines…is it 14 August, or is it…umpteen things clean! Blast!” Now you have to work very hard to get an entire country glued to its television sets at the same time on the same day.

But companies have to sell things or else they die. This is why I have lots of things handed to me for free at many street corners of London various times a week. One day it might be a new flavour of Coke, the next it might be a new laundry detergent, or a new cereal bar, or a new type of yogurt, and so on. Since the companies know there is little chance of catching my attention on television, radio or in a newspaper, they give me their product to try for free and hope that I will like it enough to buy more of it in the future

Sport, however, provides perhaps the last universal marketing point. If Arsenal are playing in the European Champions League semi-final, you know that there will be a global audience of one billion plus watching the game at the same time. That is why companies now offer large sums of money to football clubs to have their names included on the teams’ strips or to have naming rights at the teams’ grounds. Twenty years ago a large international bank sponsoring a football club was unimaginable; now Standard Chartered PLC has its logo prominently displayed on the shirts worn by Liverpool Football Club’s players. It’s a clever marketing ploy: instead of spending millions designing adverts for different parts of the world, now the bank can relax in the knowledge that every time Steven Gerrard runs across a football field when playing for Liverpool, the words “Standard Chartered” will be emblazoned across his chest for all the world to see. Similarly, a part of North London never previously known to have had anything to do with the United Arab Emirates is now the home of the Emirates Stadium (Arsenal FC’s ground).

But Formula One got in on this game well before football. Every last inch of a team’s car is worth lots of money, depending on how successful that team is. At the start of the 2009 season, the new team Brawn had virtually spotless white cars. Nobody knew how they were going to perform and it was difficult for the team boss, Ross Brawn, to persuade companies to give him some money and have their names on his cars. The situation quickly resolved itself. By the end of the season, when Brawn was heading inexorably towards winning the constructors’ championship, the team’s livery had a healthy peppering of useful brand names all over it. It is not that different for drivers either. During his Ferrari days, Michael Schumacher’s forehead was the most expensive advertising space in the world; for a company to earn the right to have its name on Schumacher’s cap a fat cheque had to be handed over.

For these reasons, a sensible suggestion by the new FIA boss, Jean Todt, that drivers’ numbers are displayed more prominently and in larger letters on cars (how many times have you observed a Ferrari or a McLaren spin out and had to wait for the slow motion replay to work out which of the team’s two drivers was involved in the incident?) has not been received with much enthusiasm. Unfortunately, placing number 1 more prominently on Sebastian Vettel’s car means that Red Bull has less advertising space to sell - stickers bearing car numbers are never accompanied by fat cheques!

Aside from these distractions, we have the minor matter of the start of a brand new Formula One season to deal with this weekend. Despite the best efforts of Bernie Ecclestone to kill the sport by taking money from dodgy people and handing race rights to places with no motor racing history and which cannot even rustle up a dozen genuine fans, the competitiveness of Formula One has got better, not worse, in the last few years. We are enjoying an unprecedented period in the history of the sport. For the first time ever five men who have held the tile of F1 world champion – Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel - will be battling for honours this season. Alongside them will be at least three others – Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber and Felipe Massa – who are just as capable of competing at the very top. A fourth very talented driver, Robert Kubica, would have added to the unpredictability of this season but, sadly, he was badly injured in a rallying accident earlier this year and will probably not be back before the end of the season, if ever.

The Bahraini Arabs may not have intended this when they began their protests but Melbourne is where the new season is to be launched. There should never have been any debate as to where the new F1 year ought properly to begin. No sportsman - not even a Premier League footballer - is as self-obsessed as a Formula One driver; particularly one who has ascended to the lofty heights of a world championship. It is far better for a chap like that to begin the racing year in a sun-drenched, beautiful city with a long tradition of hosting exciting motor races than in a dusty, poorly designed circuit in the middle of the Arabian desert. Doubtless, you will agree as you settle down to the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday. Pity it has to be at the crack of dawn, though.

Gitau
22 March 2011

Bahrain: an expensive folly is dead

2011-03-08T16:04:00.002Z

To say that I am disappointed that there will be no Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend would be akin to saying that I am not a fan of motor racing, or that I don’t like shagging, or that I hate Paris. Bahrain’s ghastly circuit in the desert – a plaything of the Persian Gulf state’s Crown Prince – is everything that an F1 circuit should not be: remote, uninspiring, slow, dusty and not designed for racing. Ever since the first race in 2004, one watched the Bahrain Grand Prix for reasons other than the enjoyment of motor racing action. In the course of a racing season one needs to be able to engage with the team dynamics in various teams, to understand the relative performance differentials from car to car and generally to keep abreast of the F1 championship as it progresses. Bahrain served that purpose annoyingly and inadequately.

Watching the desert race each year was, truth be told, mostly an ordeal. I could just about put up with the awful race when it was simply one of many in the F1 championship season. What got my goat was when the Bahrain Grand Prix was elevated to the status of season opener in 2010. This was a kick in the bollocks. It was Bernie Ecclestone sticking two fingers up at the F1 world. It was chutzpah on a shocking scale.

But as everybody who has had to pay for their sins will tell you, there is a great wheel of justice in this world. The wheel may turn slowly, but turn it certainly does. Here we were waiting to begin the 2011 season in the Middle East when – bang! – a revolution began in Tunisia and spread across Egypt and up the Persian Gulf to Bahrain. Suddenly, no comfortable Westerner, least of all any rich Formula One driver, wanted to place himself at risk of kidnap or worse by flying out to the Middle East to participate in something as trivial as a motor race in March 2011.

As soon as Ben Ali of Tunisia hightailled it out of his palace to a sanctuary in Saudi Arabia, it was obvious to anyone who spent more than five seconds thinking about the thing that the Bahrain Grand Prix was toast. Suddenly, Ecclestone’s enthusiasm at abandoning trusted old F1 circuits in Western Europe was revealed in all of its cynicism. Race organisers, tour operators, hotels, airlines and sundry business people have lost their shirts in the whole debacle. Companies are laying off staff and lawsuits have been launched. Anybody at the receiving end of court documents or bank demands will be loath ever to reconsider the circus in the desert. I would go as far as predicting the death of Bahrain as a Formula One destination. Not too many tears will be shed if that is the case.

From its less than impressive debut onto the world’s motor racing stage, it was easy to predict that the Bahrain Grand Prix was never going to be a long term prospect. Since there is not a lot else to draw a punter to the country, once the novelty of a race in the desert had worn off, it seemed clear that interest in attending live races there or switching on a television to watch the race each year would eventually become more of a chore than anything else. Contrast that with, say, Australia. Punters flock there in their thousands because the country has a great deal more to offer than an impressive F1 circuit in Melbourne’s Albert Park. I did not, however, foresee how Bahrain’s death would happen. What killed the Bahrain Grand Prix was not lack of interest from fans but a long oppressed Arabic population rising up as one and saying “hang on a bit, why does this sheikh bloke have his foot up our arse? Why is he swanning about the world in private jets and Rolls Royces with our cash? Why don’t we tell him where to get off?” And they marched to the town square in Manama, threw a few stones about and declared “oi, Sheikh, we’d like a word with you!” Nothing is more likely to put the wind up mollycoddled Westerners than the sight of angry Arabs throwing stones.

The race was swiftly erased from the 2011 F1 calendar. But while cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix may be good news for those who loathed the circuit, it is terrible news for Bernie Ecclestone. Each circuit has to pay Ecclestone an agreed amount of money every time it hosts a race. The details of these amounts are obscure but the fact that the rights to host new F1 races have only been granted to opaque, “no-questions-asked” places like Bahrain and Abu Dhabi gives you some idea of their size. The owner of the Sakhir circuit has not handed over the requisite fat cheque and will not do so if there is no race at his folly in the desert this year. Behind Ecclestone are a bunch of hungry Private Equity investors who will most certainly have made their displeasure known to him. “Where’s the money, Ecclestone?” rings through the man’s ears each day like tinnitus. It is for this reason that Ecclestone is talking about trying to slot the race into the calendar at the end of the year. “We'll try and have a look and see what we can do, how we can swap things round a bit,” Ecclestone said. “Maybe we can change with Brazil, something like that.” I would not advise anyone to hold their breath.

Meanwhile, the Arab revolution is gaining momentum. In the teeth of fierce and bloody resistance from an enraged Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyans are arming themselves. Tunisia’s fires are still burning. Rumblings are spoken about throughout the region and have been heard loudly in Oman recently. Everyone’s holding their breath about Saudi Arabia. If the Sheikhs in the biggest Arab country get a taste of the Ben Ali or Hosni Mubarack medicine, we will all soon be feeling the heat as the oil price climbs higher than it has already. If that happens, we won’t just be looking back at the death of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Formula One itself will be six feet under. Get out your prayer books.

Gitau
08 March 2011

The Sheikhs' Sandwich

2010-11-18T14:09:00.005Z

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

2010-11-18T14:09:00.000Z

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

2010-11-11T16:56:00.003Z

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

The Korean Grand Prix

2010-10-21T14:57:00.006+01:00

Writing while German bombs were raining down on England in 1941, George Orwell had this to say about the stechschritt or, as it is pejoratively known in English, the goose-step:

"The goose-step is one of the most horrible sights in the world, far more terrifying than a dive-bomber. It is simply an affirmation of naked power; contained in it, quite consciously and intentionally, is the vision of a boot crashing down on a face. Its ugliness is part of its essence, for what it is saying is ‘Yes, I am ugly, and you daren't laugh at me’, like the bully who makes faces at his victim."

Orwell was writing this in description of the parade step used by the German and Italian armies of the time. His words haunted me as I watched television images of military celebrations marking the 65th anniversary of the Workers party at which Korean soldiers were marching to salute Kim Jong-il and his chosen successor, the podgy youngster Kim Jong-un. If Orwell despised the German goose-step, its Korean version would have turned his blood to ice. Theirs has all the intimidating elements of the goose-step of earlier times but includes a curious bobbing step which looks designed to wreak havoc on the soldiers’ hamstrings. Most disquietingly, the jogging effect means that the soldier’s right boot comes crashing down with thunderous ferocity. One is left in no doubt that the bayonet at the end of the stiffly grasped rifle will be unhesitatingly applied towards skewering one’s guts.

“What in the name of anything sacred has Bernie Ecclestone gone and done now,” I asked myself. “It is bad enough that he allows Formula One to be the plaything of Arab potentates but this is of a different order of magnitude. A Grand Prix in as ghastly a place as this? He has surely gone mad!” I was about to write an angry letter of complaint when flooding back came long remembered scenes of a black chap in Canadian colours destroying the world record for the 100 metres dash and raising his right finger aloft as he crossed the finishing line. The pictures of a drug-infused Ben Johnson were shot in Seoul in 1988, not Pyongyang. Korea, after all, has been a divided country since the end of World War II.

The northern bit has goose-stepping soldiers reinforcing the most totalitarian regime in the world while the southern bit has all the ingredients of a top flight Formula One destination: fast cars, luxury yachts, glamorous women and designer shops. If anything, South Korea should have had its own F1 race many years before the Arabs were allowed to get in on the act. My failure to distinguish between the two conspicuously different Koreas is understandable when you consider that the powers that be chose to call this weekend’s motor racing event the Korean Grand Prix and not the South Korean Grand Prix. Or maybe Bernie Ecclestone knows something about politics that the rest of the world does not. Perhaps he has such faith in the unifying magnetism of Formula One that he expects the fact of there being a “Korean Grand Prix” will be a self fulfilling prophecy for the country itself.

I will leave that for others to consider while I consider this weekend’s Grand Prix and what it may do for the world championship. First, despite having previously demonstrated their skill at hosting a major international sporting event, South Korea have seemed woefully ill-prepared for the arrival of the F1 circus. The circuit is so brand new that the tarmac was laid only a fortnight ago. Tarmac of racing thickness needs at least three months to "bed in" properly, else oil rises to the top and makes the track dangerously slippery. Notwithstanding this, the FIA have approved the Yeongam circuit, so we have to accept that it is safe. Doubtless, though, it will be difficult to drive.

Add this to the obvious fact that none of the world championship contenders knows what Yeongam is like to drive and we have the perfect makings of an unpredictable race. Yeongam will result in one of three possibilities.

First, the two McLaren drivers getting back in the mix and reintroducing the five-way championship we have enjoyed for a good part of this season. This could easily happen if both Red Bulls take each other out and Ferrari have a bad day.

Second, one or both of the McLarens make a mess of things and the race is left to be fought between Red Bull and Ferrari and a three way championship results.

Third, Ferrari is eliminated and the championship comes down to a straight fight between the two Red Bull drivers.

Lots to think about as you contemplate how much to sacrifice in your wager at the bookies. A tip for you: Hamilton knows how to master a track through nothing more than simulators better than any other driver.

Enjoy Korea!

Gitau

22 October 2010

A seesaw in Suzuka

2010-10-06T11:46:00.008+01:00

Ever since the automobile was first invented by a big German chap with extravagant facial hair called Karl Benz, Europe has been the undisputed heavyweight champion of motor vehicle manufacturing. The Americans quickly recognised this fact a long time ago and chose not to step into the vehicle production ring with the Europeans but concentrated instead on designing and building cars which suited themselves and their big country comfortably.

The Japanese - perhaps taking their cue from their dainty, coquetish women who insidiously charm their way into the lives of men and cause them to risk being stabbed by their wives at night - did not follow the Americans but quietly chose to take on the Europeans by building small, reliable, efficient and, importantly, inexpensive cars. By the time the Europeans realised what was going on, the Japanese had graduated on to the full range of motor vehicles and were on equal terms with them as a global heavyweight car-producing entity in their own right.

You cannot make good cars without also wanting to have a bit of fun in them. The Japanese observed the European Formula One championship from afar and saw that it was good. To entitle themselves to a piece of the action forever and a day, they then proceeded to construct one of the best circuits in the world at a place called Suzuka.

I came to appreciate the significance of Suzuka to the serious F1 watching world from a friendship I struck up many years ago with a large Boer chap from a family of fishermen. The fisherman Boer knew a thing or two about cars generally and was a walking encyclopedia of Formula One. He could recall obscure facts about races that had happened even before he was born sooner than it took for him to draw breath. I once asked him which circuits he rated most highly and he smiled conspiratorially before whispering "the Ss". I quickly came to understand two things. First was that he was referring to Spa, Silverstone and Suzuka. Secondly, he was absolutely spot-on: these are by far and away the best circuits on the F1 calendar because of their interesting peculiariaties. Suzuka's peculiarity is that it is the only figure of eight circuit on the calendar.

The Japanese Grand Prix moved to a different circuit called Fuji a couple of years ago and was won during a monsoon-like downpour by British rookie, Lewis Hamilton. Fuji is owned by Toyota and Suzuka by Toyota’s arch rival Honda. It was agreed at about the time of Hamilton’s victory that the Japanese Grand Prix would alternate between the two circuits from year to year, but Toyota have since pulled out on account of cost and Suzuka, easily the more impressive of the two circuits, will now be the home of the Japanese Grand Prix for the foreseeable future. I for one am not complaining.

It is with some glee then that I anticipate the motor racing action this weekend at Suzuka. Like many of my betting friends, I have a strong suspicion that the five way battle that has so enthralled us thus far is on a seesaw. After Suzuka, the world championship will either still be a five way battle or two or more contenders will have been eliminated in all but vain hope. And this will be in keeping with the history of the Japanese Grand Prix as a championship decider.

Going by recent F1 history of the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, of the five championship contenders I would expect either Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel or Lewis Hamilton to be best placed for victory. Both Alonso and Vettel have achieved a win at Suzuka in the last few years and Hamilton made it to the podium in an uncompetitive car last year, so I am hard put to favour one driver over the other two. Button and Webber are not exactly going to be sitting on the sidelines smoking Cohibas while the other three battle things out on Saturday and Sunday and recent form suggests that they could not possibly be more fired up. I am not, therefore, betting anything on the result.

People have often attempted to engage me in debate as to the wisdom of an African eating raw fish while possessed of a constitution conditioned by years of eating dishes of steaming starch and piping hot flesh from grass-eating animals. I have always refused to be drawn on the subject but I suspect I may find myself musing on it this weekend as I tuck into some delicious sushi and sip some sake. I am looking forward to it and sincerely hope that you too will,

Enjoy Suzuka!

Gitau

6 October 2010

Hamilton makes life harder in Singapore

2010-09-27T14:36:00.006+01:00

I was watching a late evening news programme last week and was just about to switch off the television and retire for the night when something startling caught my eye. The main news item was the shambles in Delhi starkly demonstrated by collapsing bridges, glaring holes of muddy water swarming with dengue fever infested mosquitos and filthy toilets. All of this ghastliness only days before His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales was expected to declare the 19th Commonwealth Games open. BBC news cameras were showing pictures of hordes of miserable looking Indian workers carting wheelbarrows of cement and filling in holes as India rushed to show the world that it was equal to the challenge of hosting a major international sporting event notwithstanding the obvious ineptitude of the people tasked with the responsibility of organising it.

Nobody seemed to notice before it was too late but a little Indian chap dressed in rags had crept inside the huge stadium and scuttled across to where the cameras were positioned. Then he stood smartly at attention with his arms pressed firmly against his body and began singing a heavily accented rendition of the communist anthem The Internationale. This impressed me hugely. I was hoping he woud get away with singing more than he did but before he had even drawn breath to begin the second line of the first stanza ("Stand up, prisoners of hunger"), a policeman had sprinted across the field, clouted him across the back of the head and carted the poor chap away. I am sure all the policeman wanted was to offer the man a cup of tea and some biscuits but others may disagree.

The incident made me realise that if you want to use major international sporting events as showpieces of your country's progress, you need to instil a profound sense of order in the local populace first. If you look at the well-oiled efficiency of the organisers of the Singapore Grand Prix we saw this past weekend, you will know deep within your bone marrow that there is no conceivable way some shabby slum dwelling chap is going to emerge from the darkness beyond the street circuit of Marina Bay and begin belting out revolutionary songs. You will know that when the Singaporeans are charged with the responsibility of delivering something they do so with a minimum of fuss and with an abundance of competence.

Efficiency is a word that might well haunt Lewis Hamilton for a long time to come. Championships are seldom won by the banzai! approach to driving which he has seen fit to employ - disastrously - at two races in a row. At the first corner of the Italian Grand Prix, an ill judged overtaking manoeuvre resulted in his McLaren lying beached in the gravel. A similarly impetuous move on Mark Webber yesterday resulted in a collision and another retirement for Hamilton. Both times, if Hamilton had kept his head, he would have banked some useful world championship points by finishing in fourth place. Now, three DNFs ("Did Not Finish") in four races have thrown Hamilton 20 points adrift of championship leader, Mark Webber. With only four races to go, Hamilton - like the numbskulls putting together the Commonwealth Games in Delhi - now needs a miracle. Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton, you have been here before and yet you still haven't learned. Remember 2007?

In contrast to the tribulations of the McLaren driver, Hamilton's sworn enemy Fernando Alonso seems to have got his rythm going and is looking very good. Two race wins from pole position in a row have brought the Spaniard surging back into contention. Best of all for him, the momentum seems to be well and truly with him and the men from Maranello.

Nothing has changed the fascinating reality of a five man championship - it is still mathematically possible for any of the leading contenders to win - but something about Mark Webber's calm self-assuredness and Alonso's swagger suggests to me that the competition may just be down to the two of them as we come towards the end of the 2010 season. This is the time to get out a bunch of fivers and pop down to the bookies. Much as it sticks in my craw to acknowledge this, I think the smart money is on the arrogant little chap from Oviedo.

Here's how the drivers stand after Singapore:

1. Mark Webber 202 points.

2. Fernando Alonso 191.

3. Lewis Hamilton 182.

4. Sebastian Vettel 181.

5. Jenson Button 177.

The next race is supposed to be in Korea but the organisers seem to have gone to the same school as the chaps in Delhi and there is now no certainty that the circuit will be ready in time. As if there wasn't enough to give these drivers the heebie-jeebies!

Gitau
27 September 2010

Subtlety doesn't work in Monza

2010-09-08T17:49:00.018+01:00

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

Spa now safely off Hamilton's list

2010-08-30T11:34:00.018+01:00

You know you have witnessed a historic moment when you begin searching the recesses of your brain for lessons you learned from tales you read or were told as a boy. As I watched a barely credible, entirely avoidable accident at lap 17 of an already dramatic Belgian Grand yesterday, I was reminded of the tale of Daedalus and Icarus from Greek mythology. In order to escape the island of Crete with his son Icarus before being captured by King Minos, Daedalus builds wings for himself and his son out of feathers and wax. He teaches Icarus not to fly too close to the sun so as not to melt the wax in his wings or too close to the sea so as not to soak his feathers and make it impossible to fly. Icarus at first obeys his father's warnings but in his youthful way, he gets excited by the thrill of flying, flies way too high and loses the wax in his wings to the blazing sun. Icarus then falls to his death in the sea.

In a typical Sunday afternoon at Spa, the only consistent thing was the unpredictability of the weather. In wet then dry then wet conditions, the drivers who seemed most able to condition their driving to the micro-climate of the Ardennes stood most to gain from an event-filled Belgian Grand Prix. At lap 17 - after spending several frustrating laps trying to get past second-placed man, reigning world champion Jenson Button, and being thwarted by the Englishman's mastery of his craft - Sebastian Vettel attempted an overtaking manoeuvre at a point and in conditions which would have given a wiser, more experienced head pause. Suddenly Vettel lost control of his car and found himself powerless to prevent his Red Bull from T-boning a clearly surprised Jenson Button.

This is not the first time we have seen Vettel's inexperience and impetuosity end in disaster for himself and another driver. The move on Button was almost identical to one he performed on his team-mate, Mark Webber, in Turkey this year. It is indicative of what is now certain to me: Vettel will not be world champion this year because he is too hot-headed in tense situations. Worse, if he carries on failing to listen to older and wiser heads, he may find himself consigned forever to the club of drivers who showed phenomenal potential but, like Icarus, failed to tame their baser instincts and crashed out of the upper reaches of Formula One all together.

For Button, the end to his Belgian Grand Prix may well also mean a premature cessation of his campaign for the 2010 drivers' championship. Vettel was remorseful and gave a sincere apology for the incident after the race but it is difficult to envision much charity and good will emanating from the Englishman to the German for a little while yet.

I doubt that his team-mate minds Vettel's discomfort terribly much. Second place at Spa keeps Webber within three points of the championship leader and almost at the stage where he can justifiably demand that the team's resources are devoted primarily towards his own championship campaign.

If Belgium 2010 was a race which one McLaren driver would rather forget, it must surely rank very high in the estimation of the other McLaren driver, Lewis Hamilton. There was a cheeky grin playing about his lips as he faced the press after qualifying second in a tricky, rain-affected qualifying session on Saturday. I felt certain then that he had the better of pole-setter, Mark Webber. Sure enough, once the lights went out for the start of the race, he powered past Webber up the hill to the first corner and, despite rain, collisions and safety car episodes, never once looked in danger of failing to achieve his first ever F1 win at Spa.

The imperious manner in which he conquered Spa made me think back to when Lewis Hamilton entered Formula One. It was as though a whirlwind was blowing through its world of history-drenched circuits and flattening them one by one. In his first year, Hamilton achieved wins in Canada, USA, Hungary and Japan. Like a man going through a list of items of unfinished business, he followed this impressive record in the following year with wins in Australia, Monaco, England and Germany. As he lay himself to sleep on Saturday night, only two items were missing from the list before he could sit back and declare himself a Formula One supremo: Belgium and Italy. Well, after his calm, assured performance at Spa yesterday, who would bet on him not consigning the list to the dustbin at Monza in a fortnight?

None of this is pleasing to the highest paid driver in Formula One. For if there is one person who does not like Lewis Hamilton it is Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard's record is at least as impressive as Hamilton's save for one respect: he has not got a winner's trophy from Spa in his cabinet in Switzerland, where both he and Hamilton reside as tax exiles. The fact that he retired from the Grand Prix yesterday after spinning out and damaging his car's chassis and then had to stew in his motor home as God Save the Queen rang out for Hamilton across the Belgian mountains must rankle. If Hamilton wins the world championship - which, with three points ahead of anyone else, he might just - Alonso will be an unsettled man for some time to come.

With six races to go it is beginning to look like it is going to be a straight race between Hamilton and Webber. This is by no means certain, though. Stranger things have happened in Formula One.

Gitau
30 August 2010

Baffling Belgium

2010-08-27T12:38:00.009+01:00

Since its creation in the nineteenth century, Belgium has sought to distinguish itself in curious ways from its grander European neighbours with footprints stretching across the world. It all began with King Leopold II. Uncomfortable about his standing among the ranks of imperial European rulers, Belgium's second monarch, a greedy, scheming man, found a very handy outlet for his ambitions in the vast area of central Africa that is the Congo. Through guile and chicanery, King Leopold II succeeded in having the Congo declared as his personal possession and he used his status as its owner and ruler to maximum effect. The many headed monster that Leopold conceived in the process continues to ravage the Congo to this day and ensures that the very name of Leopold's own country sticks in the craw of many an African.

I have often thought that King Leopold's success in sneaking in under the radar of the British, the French and the Germans to steal Africa's biggest prize, is perhaps symptomatic of the manner in which Belgium has succeeded in capturing the hearts of the world's motor racing fans in spite of itself. One does not think "Belgium" when one contemplates the provenance of super cars like Aston Martin, Ferrari or Porsche. Nor does one plan a trip to, say, Liege to visit a museum dedicated to the motor vehicle. The fast motor car has its roots in familiar places like Germany, England, France and Italy, so it is hardly surprising that these are the countries which have historically produced motor racing talent. Just as I do not know of any Belgian motor car, I also have never seen any Belgian driver make a name for himself in Formula One.

And yet Belgium has one of the most impressive, most celebrated and most historic racing circuits in the world: Spa-Francorchamps. It is a remarkable achievement when one thinks about it; and Spa is a pretty remarkable place. High speed corners like the nerve-jangling Eau Rouge and very changeable weather conditions in the Ardenne mountains have always made the Belgian Grand Prix an irresistible draw for drivers and fans alike. I have always loved it.

If you look closely at the list of drivers who have managed to conquer Spa in recent years, you will observe two things, each of which is interesting in its own right. The first is that Spa is loved by the sort of hard-boiled, uncompromising driver who receives no pleasure from life unless he is driving very fast and treating everybody else like they have leprosy. No surprise, then, that the two most successful drivers at Spa have been Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. The second and more surprising thing about the list is the absence from it of any of the current crop of title challengers. I ougt to qualify that last sentence: Lewis Hamilton won at Spa in 2008 but the FIA (Ferrari International Assistance) took his win away from him and gifted it to Ferrari's Felipe Massa. But the name that stands out in Spa's recent history is that of the Finnish rake, Kimi Raikkonen. Raikkonen managed to win every single Belgian Grand Prix from 2004 to 2009, his last year in Formula One. This, for me, is all the evidence I need to confirm my view that Hamilton and Raikkonen are the most complete F1 drivers of the 21st century.

But, excepting his love of Spa, Raikkonen was never about doing more than just enough to get by. Once he had attained all of F1's big prizes - a Monaco win, a World Championship and a Ferrari drive - he did not feel motivated to do much else than enjoy himself. Nevertheless, in his inimitable laconic way, Raikkonen secured his place in the memory of F1 addicts like myself forever and a day and is sorely missed. This is not a universally shared sentiment. The mood in Maranello is definitely not pro-Raikkonen. Ferrari cut a bad deal with him when they signed him up and are still paying Raikkonen a great deal of money even though he doesn't drive for them. He was contracted to drive for Ferrari until the end of 2010 and is therefore still entitled to draw a salary of €16 million this year. This puts him at joint second place - with Hamilton - in the F1 drivers' pay league after Fernando Alonso at €30 million. Not bad for a chap who spends his days mooching about Helsinki chasing skirts and getting pissed, is it?

Spa's fearsome reputation raises obvious questions about all of F1's glitterati but mostly about double world champion and major league arsehole, Fernando Alonso. When accused of having a contemptuous attitude towards people, all Alonso has to do is point to his meritorious achievements since joining Formula One, not least winning back-to-back world championships. But the Belgian Grand Prix is the chink in his armour of arrogance. When I think about Alonso and Spa, I am reminded of a lecture I attended a little while ago by an arrogant American who ran a Hedge Fund in London. When I asked him a searching question about his business, he took umbrage and angrily said "If you think you're so damned smart, why aren't you rich yourself?" Well, the question for Mr Alonso is this: "If you are as good as you say you are, why haven't you won at Spa?"

I have no doubt that this is something that niggles the prickly Spaniard and, doubtless, he will be looking to change the position this weekend. A win will be useful for him if he is to arrest the momentum of the Red Bull cars but I think it may be a tall order if the weather stays dry.

Did I say dry? There is the rub. It will not be.

Put a few bob on Lewis Hamilton for the win and do,

Enjoy Spa!

Gitau
27 August 2010

A spent force

2010-08-02T16:33:00.004+01:00

Michael Schumacher cantered along the beach of Lake Geneva on his horse as he allowed his mind to wander. Above him were the peaks of the Swiss Alps reflected in the azure waters of Lake Geneva. To his right was his sprawling estate with a mansion so large that a walk from one end to the other was a work-out in itself. An adjoining set of rooms had been converted into a vast gallery in which were housed all the trophies he earned during his years as a racing driver as well as a replica of each one of his Formula One world championship winning cars. But Schumacher was not happy. He had it all but gained no satisfaction from any of it. He felt as burdened as if he and the horse had swapped roles and he, rather than the animal, was doing the carrying.

He stopped for a moment and fished out his telephone. He needed to speak to somebody who would understand exactly what he felt like. He had tried unburdening himself to Corinna but had been stung by her dismissal of his concerns as nothing more than megalomania. “I feel emasculated, Corinna,” he had said, “it’s almost as though someone’s snipped my bollocks off with a pair of scissors!” “You need to get over yourself, Michael,” his wife had remarked, “it’s not as though you are Alexander the Great weeping because you have no more worlds left to conquer.” He dialled a number in Helsinki. “Haloo,” came the voice of his old rival, Mika Hakkinen.

Schumacher: “Mika, I am bored out of my skull, old man. This retirement lark at 40 is driving me round the twist. How are you finding it?”
Hakkinen: “Life couldn’t be better. I just wish there were more hours in the day for me to enjoy it. I am eating what I like, drinking what I like and spending my nights with whomever I like, wherever I like. What’s not to like?”
Schumacher: “You Finns know a bit about partying that’s for sure, but that was never my scene, Mika. I need a new challenge.”
Hakkinen: “I see. You’ve come to the right guy, my old friend. Here’s what I’ll do for you. I’ll put a few well trained birds in my Gulf Stream and fly them down to you with detailed instructions. Trust me, man, once you’ve got through the blonde, the brunette, the Turk and the Eurasian, it’ll be a challenge to haul yourself out of bed!”

Schumacher sighed and ended the call. It was hopeless. Nobody understood that the only way he could feel alive was when roaring up to lesser men in a super F1 car and scaring the wits out of them. He was Schumacher the great. The man nobody messed with. The man they all feared. There was nothing else for it, he would have to arrange a trip to London to meet Ross Brawn. If there was a man who could make things happen for him, that man was Brawn.

All the events described above took place during the course of the autumn of 2009. They must seem like a bad dream to Michael Schumacher in mid-summer 2010 because his comeback has been nothing short of a disaster. Not only is he nowhere near as fast the young whippersnappers he derided in earlier conversations, he is treated with nothing like the deference on the circuit that he had grown to expect as his right. After the events of the Hungarian Grand Prix, it is clear that the myth of a super-skilled fearless racing animal has been shown to have been just that: a myth. Schumacher was very fast and very skilled in his heyday but he was also a bully. Yesterday, his crass attempt at proving his superiority over his former team-mate, Rubens Barrichello nearly resulted in Barrichello losing his life. A clearly faster Barrichello attempted an overtaking manoeuvre on Schumacher’s Mercedes and Schumacher felt slighted. To show who was boss, he came close to squeezing Barrichello into a brick wall. For this he earned a ten place grid penalty at the next Grand Prix but I think it is the clearest sign yet that Schumacher is a spent force rapidly in danger of becoming a laughing stock.

To see how potentially ghastly such a move can be take a look at this link to a Superleague Formula 2010 race yesterday at Brands Hatch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je71qzTdzx0&feature=related

Other than the Barrichello incident, it was an eventful race which demonstrated to the watching world that Red Bull is the team to beat this season. For the sixth time, Sebastian Vettel failed to convert a brilliant pole position into a win and was furious with everyone, himself included. Canny race strategy and masterful race control gave Mark Webber his fourth win of the season. The fact that he now leads the championship table could explain why he looked like a cat that has got away with the cream in the drivers’ post-race press conference. A few more races like this and he could be the first Australian world champion since Alan Jones in 1980.

McLaren, meanwhile, had a dismal day. Lewis Hamilton’s gearbox gave up the ghost and he was forced to retire quarter of the way into the race. Jenson Button could do no better than eighth place. Their team boss was heard muttering darkly about the possibility that Red Bull are using an illegal front wing but this could be no more than sour grapes that a team with as much experience as McLaren is being outperformed by a relative newcomer.

Fernando Alonso did a lot better for Ferrari by coming second but we have to wait until the decision of the World Motor Sports Council in the team-orders fiasco before we can tell how things will eventually pan out.

What is still fascinating this late into the season is that the championship could still go any one of five ways. The table is as follows:

Mark Webber 161 points
Lewis Hamilton 157
Sebastian Vettel 151
Jenson Button 147
Fernando Alonso 141
Felipe Massa 97
Nico Rosberg 94
Robert Kubica 89
Michael Schumacher 38
Adrian Sutil 35

The teams will now have their three week summer break to think what to do about the phenomenal pace of the Red Bull cars.

Gitau
2 August 2010

The incorrigible Italians

2010-07-26T15:10:00.002+01:00

The penny dropped when Stefano Domenicali, the Ferrari team boss, dragged his two drivers back to the podium to take a bow as boos and hisses rang out across Hockenheim yesterday after the German Grand Prix. Until then, I had thought that the essential quality required for a job in Ferrari team management was skin with the thickness of rhino hide. I now realise that I was wrong: it is masochism. What else could explain the actions of a team which had received death threats as recently as 2002?

In 2002, at the A-1 Ring in Austria, Brazilian driver Rubens Barrichello was comfortably going round the last corner of the last lap to take the chequered flag and win the Grand Prix when he was ordered by his Ferrari bosses to wait until Michael Schumacher – who was several seconds behind – had caught up with him and then let him through to take the chequered flag. It was such a flagrant example of race manipulation that the Formula One world was rocked by turmoil. Millions, including yours truly, threatened to cease watching races unless something was done. Something was indeed done. The FIA banned team orders that interfere with a race result. I heaved a sigh of relief for Formula One but nothing was ever going to make me support Ferrari again after the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix.

Eight years on and it is clear that Ferrari learned nothing at all from the experience. Starting from third place on the grid on the anniversary of his life-threatening accident in Hungary last year, Brazilian driver Felipe Massa took advantage of a clumsy attempt by Sebastian Vettel to defend himself from being overtaken on the right by Fernando Alonso. Seeing perfectly clear air ahead of him, Massa launched his Ferrari into the lead of the Grand Prix and never looked in danger of losing it until lap 48 when his racing engineer, Rob Smedley, came on the radio. The message Smedley had to deliver was clear and unmistakable: “Okay, so Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand that message?” We did not hear Massa’s reaction but as soon as the sister Ferrari of Fernando Alonso hove into the view of his wing mirror, he veered to the left and let it through. Smedley came back on the radio straight away to rub salt into the wound. “Good lad,” he said, “just stick with it now, sorry.”

“These deluded arseholes,” I thought, “now they are really going to get it with both barrels.” As the drivers mounted the podium for the prize-giving ceremony, you could see from the dejected expressions of both Ferrari drivers that they were not happy. Their team had landed them neck deep in the mulligatawny. Former team boss and BBC television pundit, Eddie Jordan, called it cheating and demanded that both cars were disqualified.

Journalists in the press conference afterwards abandoned any pretence of subtlety and laid the boot hard into the Ferrari drivers. “Fernando, you said after Valencia that the race had been manipulated in favour of Lewis,” said one British journalist. “Those words seem a bit hollow now. Where will this victory rank in your career, is it up there with Singapore 2008?” [Remember, in Singapore 2008, Nelson Piquet Jr was ordered to crash his Renault into a wall to help Alonso win.] “Fernando, I think we all know what happened on lap 48,” said a German hack, “and we don't need any fairy tales about tyres or anything to be clear of that. I just want to ask you, because in 2006 in Monza you said that Formula One is not a sport any more for you but was that which we saw today a sport?” On and on it went and there was nothing the hapless pair could do to calm the seething mob of furious reporters.

Team orders in F1, like corruption in the world, are a disease of the sport. Corruption is a global disease but in first world countries it is usually practiced with subtlety. Similarly, team orders are given in clever, difficult to detect circumstances by experienced operators like, say, McLaren. Unfortunately, Ferrari, like your average Kenyan politician, are none-too-subtle when engaging in dastardly acts. The Kenyan politician will ask you to turn up at his office with a Rolex watch and a briefcase stuffed with money regardless of who else might know this or that you may have a camera hidden in your clothing. Equally oblivious to the reaction of the watching world, Ferrari will audibly tell a driver to move over by a radio transmission in plain English.

The problem at Ferrari is that the masochistic Italians in charge – Luca de Montezemolo as overall boss and Domenicali as team principal – are head-over-heels in love with Fernando Alonso. An Italian in love is a dangerous thing. I once advised a friend contemplating suicide by swallowing a handful of paracetamol tablets with a bottle of vodka to do something more exciting. “Go out with a bang,” I said, “go to Italy and try and chat up a bride on her wedding day.”

The sentiment that runs through Alonso’s brain at every waking moment is this: I did the impossible. Twice. I dethroned the invincible Michael Schumacher and then came back and did it again in the following year. I am like God. This worthy feeling does not sit comfortably with the English stiff upper lip – generally speaking, prima donnas are an unloved species in England – and Alonso found it hard going at McLaren; a team he had joined as a double world champion. He stormed out of Mclaren back into the arms of the Italian boss of the Renault team, Flavio Briatore. Old Flav – serial shagger of super models – knew exactly how to soothe bruised egos. Accordingly, he did everything in his power to keep Alonso happy. It cost him his right to run a Formula One team after the Singaporean fiasco, but at least Alonso was happy.

Next came the men from Maranello. In full knowledge of the risks they ran, the Italians thought with their hearts and not their heads. At one point during yesterday’s race, Alonso was trying hard to overtake Massa but couldn’t get past. “This is ridiculous” he cried. The team complied. Domenicali got Massa’s race engineer to do the dirty job – perhaps to give the impression that he was not involved in the decision - but everybody knew the truth. The truth is that de Montezemolo got on the phone to Domenicali and gave clear instructions. An imperious man, de Montezemolo would have been unimpressed by Domenicali reminding him of the risks they ran in assisting Alonso. He probably said something like “Non mi importa niente, sei un rompi balle!” [I don’t care at all, arsehole!]

Ferrari’s punishment will be known when the FIA meets to decide it in a few weeks time. I hope they do the right thing.

The irony of all of this is nobody is paying any attention to how far Ferrari have come in terms of car development. They are now up at the top with Red Bull and McLaren are a long way down – at least half a second. Wouldn’t it be better to have been discussing this staggering achievement than yet another tawdry episode of Ferrari dishonesty?

Gitau
26 July 2010

Germany offers an opportunity to neutralise notoriety

2010-07-22T17:16:00.002+01:00

Some stories sit comfortably under the heading “the universal story” because wherever you are in the world, you will find a version of them told with slight cultural nuances. There is a version of the universal story told in Italy about a visitor to a small Tuscan town who wanted to see what the town had to offer. A knowledgeable young man agreed to take him on a little walk around the town and show him its prominent features.

As the pair approached a magnificent cathedral, the guide asked rhetorically “Do you see that cathedral? My father, Giuseppe, built it with his own hands brick by brick. Do they call him Giuseppe the great builder of cathedrals? Never!” They walked on a little further and the guide pointed out a bridge. “Do you see that bridge? My father designed and built that bridge by himself. Do they call him Giuseppe the great builder of bridges? Never!” The guide grew more doleful as they walked. After a little while he pointed out a school wearily. “Do you see that school? My father, Giuseppe, built that school with his own hands. Then he found people and trained them to be teachers. Do they call him Giuseppe the great educator? No. Do they call him Giuseppe the greatest man ever to have been born in this town? Never!” There was a long pause and then the guide said “He shagged one chicken.”

A Formula One version of the universal story is told in the career of Michael Schumacher. At the beginning of the final race of the 1997 season, Schumacher had done enough to win the world championship by one point. His nearest opponent, Williams’ driver Jacques Villeneuve, was within a win of overhauling him. Schumacher did a hasty mental calculation and worked out that there was more to be gained by taking both cars out of the race than racing to the finish line. Halfway into the race, when Villeneuve attempted an overtaking move on Schumacher, who was leading, Schumacher suddenly turned his car viciously left into the Williams of Villeneuve.

Unfortunately the move did not work for Schumacher because only his car retired from the Grand Prix while Villeneuve was able to limp along in an injured car to finish in third place and become world champion. The move was so cynical, so blatant and so unsportsmanlike that the rest of Schumacher’s career was blighted by it. From then on, no matter how many pole positions, wins, or championships he earned, to many watchers of the sport, Schumacher was never “Schumacher the great champion”; he was and will forever remain “Schumacher the cheat”.

It must be said, though, that Schumacher went on to do a lot more to reinforce the epithet: requiring preferential status over team-mates; expecting team-mates to move over and let him win no matter what; and illegally blocking other drivers (egregiously so at Monaco in 2006 when he parked his Ferrari at the edge of a corner so as deliberately to block Fernando Alonso from performing a quick qualifying lap).

When Sebastian Vettel came into F1, he was such a prodigious talent that comparisons were instantly made with Michael Schumacher. The German Press at first called him “Little Schumi” – probably in recognition of the fact that Vettel offered the best chance Germany had of ever seeing another of her sons as F1 world champion (Schumacher was the first and only one). Vettel refused to recognise it as an accolade and insisted on being judged on his own merits.

But as we saw at Silverstone, life can be cruel. Vettel now runs the risk of forever being viewed as unsportsmanlike through no fault of his own but because of the behaviour of his Red Bull paymasters. The Austrian owners of the Red Bull seem to prefer young Vettel over Mark Webber as the face of the team for marketing purposes. I think this goes beyond the suspicion that there is some “tribal” loyalty felt by the Austrians to a German. Vettel has boyish good looks and an easy charm about him which lends itself well to, say, underwear adverts in the pages of GQ or Esquire. Webber’s more square-jawed, chiselled features, by contrast, give one the impression of a chap at ease wielding an axe at 40° Centigrade in the Australian outback. Webber is more the Marlboro man riding through the desert towards the sunset than the Calvin Klein perfumed pants Vettel.

Much has been said about the air having been cleared at Red Bull but I suspect that the team may have lost a crucial ingredient which, once lost, is almost impossible to regain. I fear that, like my hearty breakfast last Sunday, Mark Webber’s trust in the Red Bull team may have disappeared for ever and a day. In indicating a clear preference for one driver over the other the Red Bull people have shown that while they are involved with Mark Webber, they are committed to Sebastian Vettel. The difference between the two was immortalised in the words of the tennis legend, Martina Navratilova: “Think of bacon and eggs,” she said. “The chicken was involved; the pig was committed.”

There is more than enough time for Vettel to do some urgent repair work to the damage his team has inflicted on his hitherto unsullied reputation. A good start would be to put in a strong performance at his home Grand Prix at Hockenheim this weekend. The Red Bull car offers the best chance of a win at this unremarkable circuit and he should be in with a very good chance.

That is not to say that anybody else wants to make things easy for him. First of all there is the sinned-against Australian who received immense satisfaction when he won at Silverstone despite his team’s best sabotaging efforts. To stick the boot further in would feel very satisfying, I am sure. Then there is the McLaren pair who are never too far away from picking up any scraps the Red Bull drivers leave off the table. But most important are the Mercedes boys.

This will be Mercedes GP’s first home Grand prix. Nico Rosberg has done his best to keep the team respectable but Michael Schumacher has been shocking. If past behaviour of Mercedes team principal, Ross Brawn, is anything to go by, I think this is the last chance they have of getting ahead this season. If things do not work out at Hockenheim, I would not be surprised if Brawn does what he did at Honda in 2008 and halts development of the 2010 car while at the same time starting development of the 2011 one. This worked outrageously well for Brawn GP (the re-badged Honda) as we saw last year.

As ever, there is as much intrigue off track as there is racing on it. I am sure, therefore, that you will,

Enjoy Hockenheim!

Gitau
22 July 2010

Warfare at Red Bull

2010-07-12T16:31:00.001+01:00

At the drivers’ press conference after the Japanese Grand Prix of 1997, Eddie Irvine was asked about the race in a room packed with perplexed journalists. He had driven spectacularly well, at one point overtaking two cars in the same manoeuvre, and looked every bit the driver of the day. Then he had, bizarrely, moved aside to let his Ferrari team-mate, Michael Schumacher, take the lead of the Grand Prix and then spent the rest of the race defending Schumacher from being challenged by Jacques Villeneuve. It was difficult for anyone to understand this behaviour and the journalists wanted an explanation. “Well,” said Irvine, “as soon as I had got the lead it was simply a matter of waiting for the phone call. Once it came I knew what to do.”

Irvine was this blasé about Ferrari’s blatant favouritism of his team-mate because there was no misunderstanding about his role at Ferrari. He had signed a contract which clearly stipulated that he was the number two driver; and he was paid handsomely for his trouble. In other words, Irvine was happy with his lot. In racing terms, he had signed a bum deal but in everything else he was content. He drove the best car for the richest team and earned lots of money. The fame of being associated with as illustrious a racing history as Ferrari meant that he was never lacking in opportunities for wide ranging Ugandan discussions with an endless stream of nubile lasses.

Fast forward to 2010 and we have an almost identical situation at Red Bull. But, as was made clear yesterday, the crucial difference is that Red Bull are not as fastidious about contracts as Ferrari were in Schumacher’s days. We did not know anything definite (but had good grounds for suspicion) about the team’s preferences until yesterday when Mark Webber screamed “not bad for a number two driver!” as he took the chequered flag to win the British Grand Prix.

Red Bull arrived at Silverstone with a specially designed front wing which was installed on Mark Webber’s car for qualifying on Saturday. When it became clear that the new front wing on Webber’s car worked better than the inferior one on Sebastian Vettel’s car, the powers that be ordered the mechanics to take Webber’s wing off his car and fix it onto Vettel’s. Webber still managed to qualify in second place but he was seething with fury after it. Even his father was concerned about the Australian’s state of mind. When they sat down to breakfast on Sunday, the younger Webber could hardly eat because he was so angry.

Come the afternoon and Webber translated the anger he was feeling into driving brilliance. As soon as the lights went out to indicate the start of the Grand Prix, Webber elbowed his team-mate aside at the first corner and knew then that he was going to receive his first ever British Grand Prix trophy less than two hours later. Despite the best efforts of second-placed man, Lewis Hamilton, Webber never once looked in danger of losing his lead, such was his determination.

Vettel, meanwhile, suffered a puncture in the melee and dropped to the back of the grid. Such was his courage and brilliance, though, that he never gave up and fought his way through the field to seventh place. But despite the respectable haul of constructors’ championship points the team earned yesterday, there is no disguising the poisonous situation at Red Bull. Civil war has erupted within the team. Mark Webber’s mechanics were openly taunting Sebastian Vettel’s lot after the race and mischievously waving a front wing at them. Webber himself won a crucial race but nevertheless felt it necessary to say in the press conference thereafter that he would never have agreed to extend his contract with Red Bull if he had known the team would treat him like it did on Saturday.

Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal seems to have failed to realise two crucial and related factors. First, if you are going to have a ranking of drivers in your team, it is helpful if you notify the concerned players in advance. Secondly, the only effective way to have a number one, number two driver relationship in a team is to have both drivers sign contracts clearly specifying this. Instead of receiving the congratulatory chats with the media which team principals usually enjoy after winning a Grand Prix, Horner spent all of his time after the race defending his curious thinking during qualifying on the previous day. At one point he needed to remind everyone what had just happened. “By the way,” he said, “we’ve just won the f***ing British Grand Prix!”

Formula One drivers have massive egos – it goes with the territory. Red Bull need to massage Mark Webber’s ego rather a lot now if they are to retain any sense of team harmony for the remainder of the season.

If F1 drivers are sensitive souls, none come anywhere close to the self-importance routinely displayed by Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso. I have lost count of the number of times I have yelled “get over yourself, you Spanish twit!” at the television over the years. Yesterday was perhaps the best example I have yet seen of vintage “Alonso the prima donna” behaviour. He had a poor start to the race and tangled with Robert Kubica in an over-enthusiastic overtaking manoeuvre. When he received a drive-through penalty for this the red mists descended in the Spaniards helmet. “No more radio for the rest of the race,” he hissed at his team. The Ferrari recipient of this command understands how to manage prima donnas in high dudgeon. “Okay mate,” he said meekly. And Alonso fumed his way to finish out of the points without radio contact with his team. He needs to calm down as he will soon run out of time to reduce the deficit between himself and the championship leaders.

Contrast Alonso’s behaviour with that of Jenson Button. McLaren’s upgrades to their car have not really worked well and both he and Lewis Hamilton struggled in qualifying. Hamilton squeezed pace out of the car and managed to qualify in fourth position, but Button could do no better than fourteenth. Still, Button was able calmly to fight his way up to fourth place on Sunday. Second and fourth places at their home Grand Prix does not look like a bad afternoon’s work for McLaren, whichever way you choose to look at things. With Red Bull’s internal problems and Ferrari’s non-performance, McLaren are increasingly looking like the team to beat.

With ten races gone, the top ten drivers in the championship now stand as follows:

1. Lewis Hamilton 145 points
2. Jenson Button 133
3. Mark Webber 128
4. Sebastian Vettel 121
5. Fernando Alonso 98
6. Nico Rosberg 90
7. Robert Kubica 83
8. Felipe Massa 67
9. Michael Schumacher 36
10. Adrian Sutil 35

It is still tight at the top but the gaps are now widening. Watch this space…

Gitau
12 July 2010

British success

2010-07-08T11:59:00.002+01:00

If you are a people living in the wettest country in Western Europe, you inevitably find that you have a lot of time indoors with which to plan what to do in the limited time you have outdoors. My pet theory is that the miserable weather the British population suffers for most of the time has been responsible for allowing it the time to invent a great many of the sports known and enjoyed throughout the world today. Without the British we would not have football, rugby, cricket, golf, field hockey, tennis and several others. But, as we have seen at each football world cup since 1966, each Wimbledon tennis championship since 1936, numerous cricket test matches, hundreds of golf tournaments and lots more, inventiveness is not the same thing as ability.

Up and down the country, during the first decent summer in three years, Brits are not walking about with puffed-out chests but instead crying into their beers at the laughable performance of Wayne Rooney and the rest of England 2010 in South Africa and the annihilation of Andy Murray by Rafael Nadal in the Wimbledon semi-finals. When hopes are raised as high as they were (cars everywhere flying the flag of St George, ad nauseum media build-up, the Queen appearing at Wimbledon for the first time since 1977 etc), it is understandable that a proud nation feels crushed by defeat.

There is, however, reason for the Brits to raise their chins a little. In the field of motor racing Britain is a world leader in the design and manufacture of outstanding cars, home to one of the best circuits on the Grand Prix calendar and possessed of a Grand Prix driving heritage going back to the very beginning of motor racing. As we return to Silverstone for the 2010 British Grand Prix, we do so for the first time since the 1960s when two British world champions are competing against each other for the drivers’ world championship in competitive cars. Since this also happens to be the halfway point of the 2010 season and, potentially, one of its highlights, it is worth taking a step back and re-examining the relative merits of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

Jenson Button was brought into Formula One at the age of 20 by Sir Frank Williams, one of the best talent spotters in the business. Early success went straight to his head. In an earnest attempt at emulating renowned F1 playboys of the past like James Hunt, Button got himself a yacht called Little Missy and dated a string of models. What Button failed to realise was that while rakish Hunt was never known willingly to spurn an opportunity to articulate enthusiastically and at length on the subject of Uganda, he did so having proved his prowess on the racing track and earned a world championship. Button was attempting to “do a Hunt” without ever having stepped onto a Grand Prix podium in his life! His lacklustre performance at the Grand Prix circuits suggested to one and all that the young lad’s mind was elsewhere. This inattention to the things that really mattered came very close to bringing his F1 career to an early end.

Not a man known to suffer fools gladly, Sir Frank Williams dispensed with the services of Jenson Button with great haste. After just one season in Formula One, Button lost his Williams drive at the end of his rookie season in 2000 to a Colombian maverick called Juan Pablo Montoya. (Montoya had the makings of a world champion but not quite the temperament and he eventually left a potential F1 championship drive with McLaren for a career in the nether depths of stock car racing in America.) Button then moved to Renault but was elbowed out after a year to make way for a chap about whom you might have heard called Fernando Alonso. Alonso, as we now know, went on to win back-to-back world championships at Renault. Button then had to languish in the inferior world of also-ran F1 teams for six years until he was mercifully rescued by Ross Brawn at the beginning of 2009.

By the middle of the 2009 season, all the naysayers, myself included, found that there had been ruthless ambition and ample raw talent lurking underneath the blokey exterior of Jenson Button all along. Delivering a world championship for a brand new team was never on anybody’s list of potential achievements for Button in 2000. Again, virtually every commentator did not rate his chances against Lewis Hamilton and thought it was unwise of him to move to McLaren. “Hamilton will make mincemeat of him,” said the Press. Well, after nine races, Button has achieved two wins and five podium positions and is now second in the championship standings with only six points difference between him and the leader. Button is hardly mincemeat! He had some growing up to do over nine years but there is no doubt that he is a worthy world championship contender.

The entry of Lewis Hamilton into Formula One was unlike that of any other driver in the sport’s history. He had been a McLaren protégé since his early teens and was so well prepared for the big stage, that he was a world championship challenger from the first qualifying session for his first Grand Prix in Australia in 2007. Bad luck and a few unforced errors of inexperience denied him the championship by one point in that year but he came back in 2008 to become the youngest world champion in F1 history.

Throughout his pre-F1 days and for the first three years at McLaren, Hamilton had the benefit of the guiding hand of his doting father, Anthony, as his manager. Some feared that the sudden onset of celebrity - which, as night followed day, produced top-end totty in the shape of an American pop star girlfriend – would derail the youngster even more profoundly than it had Button; but it did not. A combination of the militaristic regime at McLaren, Anthony Hamilton’s guidance and Lewis’s own focused ambition ensured that this was never at risk of happening.

2009 was a difficult year for Hamilton, mostly because McLaren had failed to engineer a competitive car with which he could take the fight to Brawn and Red Bull. He did his best, though, and succeeded in getting on the podium five times, twice as the winner. His performance this year suggests that he did not suffer a drop in confidence as a result of the bad season. He is now clearly mentally stronger than he was, as he does not seem to have suffered for ditching his father as manager at the end of last year – perhaps this is just because he is older.

Head to head, I now find it more difficult than ever to decide between Hamilton and Button. I think Hamilton has more raw talent but he is given to bursts of impetuousness. He sometimes finds it difficult to play the long game and maximise points. If there is a chance of an overtaking manoeuvre, Hamilton will almost always take it even if it means an end to his race. This makes him the more entertaining of the two. Button is a more measured, methodical driver who understands the merit to be had in nursing ones car to the chequered flag.

Which is the better approach? We will know the answer in November.

In the meantime, the Red Bull drivers and Fernando Alonso at Ferrari do not intend to make it easy for either Englishman.

Who would I bet on for Silverstone success on Sunday? A Spaniard won the men’s championship at Wimbledon and Spain is almost certainly going to win the football world cup on Sunday, so you could do a lot worse than put a bet on Alonso, couldn’t you?

Enjoy Silverstone!

Gitau
8 July 2010

Vettel wins in Valencia as Webber comes close to meeting his maker

2010-06-29T16:54:00.003+01:00

I would like to say that I was so distraught after England’s embarrassing defeat by Germany in Bloemfontein on Sunday that I was unable to bring myself to comment on Sunday’s race in Valencia; but I know that anybody reading this will readily see through the lie. The truth is that I was too busy laughing at how a football association in a clever country could, yet again, be swindled with such ease. Like Sven Goran Eriksson before him, Fabio Capello must be tightly hugging himself and shaking with mirth as he goes to sleep each night. He realised pretty quickly that the English FA are about the only people in the world who do not know that England are crap at football. So, he took on an impossible job knowing fully well that he wouldn’t have to do it for very long. Before setting off for South Africa, he made sure he had signed a long term employment contract from which he could not be sacked without a payment of £12 million. Thereafter, banking his £12 million without doing any more work after June 2010 was simply a matter of waiting to see how many games into the tournament he would have to wait before England were booted out of the world cup.

Before my laughing fit, though, I watched the race in Valencia and was delighted to find myself proved wrong by events. Far from being mind-numbingly tedious, the race was quite exciting. Red Bull driver, Mark Webber, had probably the most spectacular car crash we have seen in years. Charging down the straight, he came up behind the much slower Lotus of Heikki Kovaleinen and, inexplicably decided to mount the rear of the Lotus at 180 mph. The Red Bull was flipped into the air scattering body parts and carbon fibre as it reached for the clouds, tossed around a few times, landed upside down (where the driver’s unenclosed body sits) and into the tyre wall with extreme violence. Seeing Webber climb out of that in one piece probably persuaded a few agnostics that there is a God somewhere and he is probably Australian.

Webber had started the race frustrated at himself for having failed to beat his team-mate, Sebastien Vettel, to pole position. In his mind what seemed to matter most was getting ahead of Vettel as soon as the lights went out. What he forgot was that it is sometimes more important to protect yourself from being overtaken than it is to overtake. In less time than it takes to say “what the ….!” Webber was eight cars down and fighting to remain within a point scoring position. This cannot have improved his state of mind and probably had a lot to do with the crash.

The resultant safety car episode produced the next big bit of drama. In a touch-and-go incident, Lewis Hamilton inadvertently overtook the safety car. For this he was penalised but McLaren were able to use the time allowed for serving penalties so that Hamilton came in seven laps later when the penalty made no difference to his final second position. All the teams exploit the ambiguity of the FIA rule book from time to time but none more so than the scarlet boys from Maranello. Imagine everyone’s disbelief, then when Ferrari driver, Fernando Alonso, took great exception to the Hamilton incident.

"It's a shame, not for us because this is racing, but for all the fans who came here to watch a manipulated race. It is the first time I have seen someone overtake the safety car," Alonso said, and repeated it for emphasis. All the kids that were in the stands know that you cannot pass [the safety car]…. I do not know what the penalty should be. I only know that when the safety car came out I was one metre behind Hamilton. I finished ninth, he finished second. I respected the rule, he didn't…I feel sorry for the public who have come here to watch this race – 70,000 fans came here to see the spectacle of Formula One and they have seen a race decided by the decisions…The attitude of the public is understandable – they were disgusted by what they were seeing and the injustices that were happening. There was a bottle on the track which is reaction that is not normal and it should not have happened."

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Ferrari complaining about manipulated races? Give me strength…As I mentioned previously, there is bad blood between the two former world champions.

That attack of verbal diarrhoea was really Alonso-speak for: “That little English bastard cheated me out of second place at my home Grand Prix and is now further ahead in the world championship. How dare he, the slimy, worthless toad!”

I enjoy these spats – they make for a more interesting championship.

The tope five after Sunday are as follows:

1. Lewis Hamilton 127

2. Jenson Button 121

3. Sebastian Vettel 115

4. Mark Webber 103

5. Fernando Alonso 98

The gap remains frighteningly close. So, if you have had enough of football or are English, at least there is something else to think about.

Gitau
29 June 2010

Get out your vuvuzelas for Valencia

2010-06-24T10:11:00.007+01:00

The dying thoughts of Leon Trotsky, Vladimir Lenin’s compatriot in the Russian October Revolution, were “Life is beautiful…enjoy it to the full”. I listened to a conversation on BBC radio this past weekend that made me realise that, for lovers of televised sport, this is the sort of month which exemplifies what Trotsky was attempting to convey before some bastard decided to split his skull open with an ice axe and permanently put to an end the Bolshevik’s enjoyment of life.

A BBC journalist had presented himself at the grounds of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on the day before the start of the annual Wimbledon fortnight and was speaking to a senior official of the Club.
“I’m in a bit of a quandary,” said the journalist, “I’d like to watch the tennis at Wimbledon – love it! – but I can’t bear to miss the football World Cup. Now, are you chaps going to do the decent thing and have large screens around the tennis courts so that fans like me can watch both?”
The official gasped as if he had been stung by a wasp. “What?” he exclaimed. “I beg your pardon. This is Wimbledon. What we show here is tennis. If you wish to see anything else, I suggest you go somewhere else.”
“But it’s the World Cup for God’s sake,” remonstrated the journalist, “be reasonable!”
There was a long pause which suggested that the official was attempting to compose himself. At length he spoke. “I reckon there is sufficient time for you to get on a plane to South Africa,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
“Oh well,” sighed the journalist, “England aren’t likely to get terribly far in the World Cup, so I won’t really be missing anything by staying here. I’ll just have to liven things up with this.” At this he reached into the recesses of his coat and extracted something. A very loud, rasping sound followed in short order.
“Good God!” exclaimed the official. “What in the name of anything sacred is that ghastly thing!”
“It’s my vuvuzela,” came the reply.
“Your what?”
“Vuvuzela.”
“And you intend to blow that vuvuwhatsit thing in here during the tennis?”
“But of course!”
“Right. We shall have to see about that!” Silence thereafter indicated that the official had then turned on his heel and left and we were left wondering what on earth he intended to do but felt safely reassured that it was not going to be mild.

The point is that there are currently several sound reasons for keeping your fridge stocked up with chilled lager. Apart from the World Cup and Wimbledon, the Australian cricket team is currently on tour in England, the English rugby team are playing a series of big games in the southern hemisphere and there is, of course, a Formula One race on in a few days. We are spoiled. Life is indeed beautiful.

The European Grand Prix will be held in Valencia this weekend. The word “European” is a clever ruse to disguise the fact that Spain is currently allowed to host two races on the Formula One calendar (the other being the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona). Spain is simply the latest one of a series of Western European countries to play this game. I was at first thrilled when it was announced that there was going to be a race in Valencia. My mind was filled with the possibility of a seaside track with the charm of Monaco or the beauty of the Albert Park in Melbourne. My enthusiasm turned to feelings of having been swindled when what eventually emerged was a Mickey Mouse circuit around an old dockyard that is so boring and unimaginative that it makes even awful Bahrain look as riveting as Silverstone. My frustration with the new track at Valencia was in no small part enhanced by the knowledge that Jerez in the south of Spain has a magnificent circuit which has been home to many superb races in the past and would have been a far worthier host of the European Grand Prix.

Still, the Valencia dockyard is the site of a race in the Formula One world championship in 2010. Given the nail-biting closeness and changeability of this season, one misses any race at one’s peril.

Having observed the progress made by individual drivers this and last season, it is now clear to me that the two best all round racers currently in Formula One are Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. The performance of the latter has been somewhat hampered by the fact that Ferrari have been labouring under a speed disadvantage to Red Bull and McLaren for most of this season. The evidence of the last race is that this is now beginning to be addressed by the engineers in Maranello. More power to the Italians I say! For nothing would be more thrilling than to have the Ferraris on equal terms with the other two leading teams.

This is of particular interest because Hamilton and Alonso have – in criminal courtroom parlance – “previous”. In Hamilton’s rookie year, Alonso joined McLaren in 2007 as a back-to-back double world champion and felt he deserved the kind of respect a powerful man is entitled to as of right. He did not receive respect from the perfidious English scoundrels who ran McLaren. What he instead had to endure was blatant favouritism of a young, undisciplined puppy. Alonso was deeply offended and chose to leave the team before the season was over.

If you have ever seen The Godfather, you will understand why it is so important to give respect. An undertaker called Amerigo Bonasera goes to see Don Corleone and asks for hoodlums who brutalised his daughter to be brought to justice through Corleone’s “system”. Corleone does not react with enthusiasm to the request:

You found paradise in America. You had a good trade, you made a good living. The police protected you and there were courts of law. So you didn't need a friend like me. Now you come and say "Don Corleone, give me justice." But you don't ask with respect. You don't offer friendship. You don't even think to call me "Godfather." You come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married and you ask me to do murder - for money….Bonasera, Bonasera, what have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you'd come to me in friendship, this scum who ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by some chance an honest man like yourself made enemies they would become my enemies. And then, they would fear you.

Think of it, an aggrieved Spaniard in equipment as good as or better than that of the Englishman who disobeyed all the rules of respect and you have an epic battle to witness.

Now, isn’t that worth setting aside a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon for?

Enjoy Valencia!

Gitau
24 June 2010

Lewis Hamilton, master of Montreal

2010-06-14T16:31:00.000+01:00

There is a spring in the step of Lewis Hamilton that suggests a surge in his self-confidence; an assuredness of manner that should strike fear into the hearts of his competitors. Having won the world championship by the skin of his teeth in 2008, Hamilton then had a woeful 2009 season. Before the beginning of the current season there was reason to feel concern as to whether the young man’s state of mind was up to the challenges of another world championship campaign. He had severed professional ties with his father – a man who had moulded him from a tender-aged go-karting boy to a Formula One world championship – which seemed to suggest that something wasn’t entirely right with the lad. As if that was not unsettling enough, Hamilton had also split up with his girlfriend, Nicole, which added to the speculation about his frame of mind.

But Hamilton is clearly made of sterner stuff than the pundits believed. His performance in Canada this past weekend was faultless, extraordinary even. He qualified on Saturday - in a manner made famous by Ayrton Senna – by squeezing out a super-quick lap at the very last minute and nailing pole-position. He then drove a race on Sunday that demonstrated his superlative skill. If Hamilton has been accused of having a flaw it has been an inability to conserve his tyres and, by so doing, stay out of trouble. Whatever the gremlins were in Hamilton’s driving style which attacked tyres with alacrity, they have been despatched to the outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. A gamble by Red Bull that Hamilton would have to stop early for tyres was proved to be hopeless by a tyre conserving Hamilton who stayed out until well past the twentieth lap. Again as the race wound down, Hamilton cleverly managed rapidly graining tyres for twenty odd laps to the end. This is the sort of stuff we have previously seen from Jenson Button and it was feared by Hamilton fans to be the thing that would give Button the edge between the two. Not any more.

Perhaps some of this can be explained by the re-emergence of Hamilton’s Pussycat Doll. She was in Montreal after yesterday’s race looking radiant and brandishing a fan’s baby (a clever hint perchance?) as she watched her man squirt the podium with expensive champagne.

Button, meanwhile, drove as smooth a race as ever and we were treated to another all Brit McLaren one-two. In the post race interviews, the McLaren boys were giving every appearance of belonging to a mutual admiration club:

Hamilton: “Jenson did a great job and another one-two for us, so I am very happy and proud of the team.”

Button: “Another one-two for the team. Another one to this guy. I’d rather it was the other way around but I must say the team did a great job this weekend. Lewis put in a phenomenal lap yesterday which I couldn’t touch. But it is great to be here.”

The gap between the two is now so razor thin that either McLaren driver could emerge on top in November. What emerged from Canada, though, is that McLaren have now caught up with Red Bull.

Where this leaves the championship now is that any one of the top five could win it, methinks. We have had five different championship leaders thus far this season and it surely counts as one of the most challenging and difficult to predict ever. The momentum seems to be with Red Bull and McLaren for the moment, so unless Ferrari get their act sorted pretty quickly, it will be their third year in a row without winning a world championship.

The top 10 table looks like this:

1. Lewis Hamilton 109pts
2. Jenson Button 106
3. Mark Webber 103
4. Fernando Alonso 94
5. Sebastian Vettel 90
6. Nico Rosberg 74
7. Robert Kubica 73
8. Felipe Massa 67
9. Michael Schumacher 34
10. Adrian Sutil 23

From this it is becoming ever clearer that Michael Schumacher should hang up his helmet for good without further delay. Whatever it was that persuaded him to come out of retirement to mix it with the youngsters, it was a mistake. His performance yesterday was embarrassing. He did not even finish in the points while his Mercedes team-mate, Nico Rosberg, came a worthy sixth. Spare us any further misery, Mr Schumacher, and enjoy your millions quietly and in peace.

If you’re a Hamilton fan, send an urgent letter to Nicole Scherzinger imploring her not to miss any of the remaining races this year. Whatever magic Hamilton is getting from her, it is clearly working!

Gitau
14 June 2010

Challenging Canada

2010-06-10T10:30:00.002+01:00

While living the bohemian existence of a Parisian Left Bank intellectual, I was often drawn to a seedy old bistro called Mélac where one had to walk through kitchens with boiling vats of French onion soup before one got to one’s table. After a few visits, I struck up a friendship with one of the waiters there. His name was Silvestre and he looked bad. He was tall and skinny, had bulbous eyes, buck teeth and badly pock-marked skin. His French was not particularly good either but I later learned that this was because he was not French but Québécois.

On days when Mélac wasn’t particularly busy, I explored a range of subjects with Silvestre as I tucked into my grilled pigs feet with béarnaise sauce and sipped at my Pastis. He was extremely worldly-wise and had an engaging sensitivity to human feelings that was refreshing in a city renowned for rudeness to foreigners – especially among the community of persons who wear black waistcoats and aprons and irritably wait on tables.

It transpired that Silvestre and I shared an interest in Formula One racing. One day, he very kindly invited me to his flat a couple of blocks away from the bistro to watch the Canadian Grand Prix, where we could imagine we were not in Paris but on the Île Notre-Dame in his home city of Montreal, as we downed Quebec beer.

Arriving at and being welcomed into Silvestre’s flat gave me a never-to-be-forgotten understanding of the expression “never judge a book by its cover”. Silvestre’s domestic arrangements were totally incongruous with the character of a city in Western Europe in the 1990s. He lived in cosy cohabitation with three women; happily sharing his bed with all of them. You might be forgiven for assuming that an ugly waiter with three girlfriends probably did not have the pick of the bunch. You are perhaps thinking that the three women were ugly, desperate people with low self-esteem and an aching desire for a little tenderness, albeit not on an exclusive basis. If you are, you are mistaken. All three women were stunningly beautiful, confident and intelligent.

I am not usually one to be at a loss for words – especially while enjoying as thrilling a motor race as the Canadian Grand Prix – but I was so staggered to discover my friend enjoying a lifestyle worthy of King Mswati III or Jacob Zuma in Paris that I was rendered speechless for the remainder of my time on the rue Léon-Frot. I ached to know how Silvestre did it but since everyone behaved as though there was nothing at all unusual in their arrangements, I neither requested nor received any explanation. On speculative whims since, I have tested various scenarios in my head but they have never amounted to any more than just that, speculation.

Speculation is rife as to which country’s football team may eventually win the world cup final in South Africa in a month’s time but before then we have the pleasure of lots of football matches and two races at classic circuits; the first being this weekend at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal - a welcome return to Canada after a year’s absence. I have never been physically in North America during this particular race, so one of its attractions for me has always been that it is always on television at the convenient hours of early evening – it is not always easy to block off two hours in the middle of a Sunday.

This may be evidence of a sadistic streak but I have always enjoyed a good F1 crash and Montreal is a place which almost guarantees you a corker. The circuit is tight with a particularly devilish final chicane which has a wall seemingly designed to cause accidents. Coming round the corner at speed with no run-off room usually means slamming your car into the wall if you are not careful. Even the most successful driver at this circuit, seven times winner Michael Schumacher, has smashed his car into that wall in a rare moment of lapsed concentration.

As the season revs up towards its halfway point the intrigues between teams and drivers is getting interesting. Any unbiased person watching the Turkish Grand Prix could see that the crash between the two Red Bull drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, was entirely the result of young Vettel’s impetuousness. His bosses, however, seem to value him so highly that they worry that giving him a bollocking for a mistake, or even suggesting that one was indeed made, might upset him so much that he chooses to leave the team. Christian Horner (the Red Bull team boss) and his cohorts mollycoddle the young German and hug him like a little girl even when he has manifestly cocked up. This is pathetic. Red Bull ought to take a leaf from the Frank Williams book on F1 driver management. Williams has less than zero time for prima donnas. If you drive for him, you do as you are told, accept responsibility for your mistakes and hang your head in shame while being bollocked. Anything less is sufficient to ensure marching orders out of his team. The list of drivers who have “enjoyed” this treatment is long. It includes illustrious names like Damon Hill and Juan Pablo Montoya. Because its management is so lily-livered, Red Bull now has to deal with the twin problem of a puffed-up Vettel and a disgruntled Webber.

But Red Bull is by no means alone in its troubles. Things do not look all-together rosy at McLaren or Mercedes. The two McLaren drivers are uncertain as to what exactly constitutes team orders. Lewis Hamilton was comfortably cruising towards the chequered flag in Turkey and had switched to fuel-saving mode when he saw the unwelcome sight of his team-mate, Jenson Button, coming up to overtake him. As far as Button was concerned, the race was still on and there was no need to conserve fuel yet. Neither driver is pleased.

Meanwhile at Mercedes, Michael Schumacher, has managed to push through design changes on the Mercedes car which suit his driving style over that of his team-mate, Nico Rosberg. Given that Rosberg was consistently kicking Schumacher’s arse until the changes were forced through, Rosberg is, understandably, furious!

Gentlemen, gentlemen, please do not lose sight of the fact that despite all appearances to the contrary, Formula One is and always has been a team sport.

While you enjoy the other team sporting event in South Africa, do allow yourself a little time to,

Enjoy Montreal!

Gitau
10 June 2010

Black studs, a doll and the Devil's own luck

2010-05-31T18:42:00.006+01:00

Before yesterday's eventful race, the BBC chose to offer us a little taste of what it is like to be a Formula One superstar. We saw a camera shot from behind Lewis Hamilton while he was surrounded by adoring fans presenting him with copies of photographs of himself to sign. As he took a photograph from one fan, she was overcome with extreme emotion. Her mouth drooled, her nostrils flared, her eyes gushed with tears and it was all she could do to mouth the words "Lewis, I love you soooo much!" Meanwhile, above him equally overwrought females were standing on the shoulders of men who themselves were standing on the shoulders of other men. The women were crying and screaming "Lewis, Lewis, Lewis!" Sadly for them, Hamilton couldn't linger and had to go. When he turned his head to move along, we were treated to part of the reason for the fever-pitch adulation. Hamilton was sporting a brand new look: a pair of black studs in his ears and a very cheeky grin.

The camera then panned across to the radiant features of yet another reverent fan and the reason for a rejuvenated Mr Hamilton became clear: his Pussycat Doll, Nicole Scherzinger, was back; the first time we have seen her at a Formula One circuit since last year. I felt certain that Hamilton had struck a bargain with Mephistopheles. One side of it was that the devil was to deliver a race win; the other side is yet to become apparent.

Mephistopheles did not disappoint. With more than a third of the race run and the Red Bull cars cruising towards an easy one-two wipe-out of their opposition, the forces of hell were unleashed on the brain of Sebastian Vettel (and, depending on your point view, that of Mark Webber). Seeing an opportunity to usurp race-leader and team-mate, Mark Webber, Vettel dived in on the inside of Webber's car. We were then accorded the rare privilege of seeing top-end drivers breaching the most unbreakable rule there is. Crash your car, if you must, incur penalties if you're having a bad day, but whatever you do, what you must never even dream about is causing a collision with your team-mate. Superstar, hungry to be world champion, impatient, adrenaline-filled you may be, that is understood. But you must - on pain of death - always remember who pays your salary. Red Bull would like to have their first Formula One Driver's Championship trophy more than they care about the face of the man who wins it for them. Worse, if either or both of their drivers put in jeopardy their chance to win that title or, more importantly, the Constructors' World Championship, either or both of those drivers are a liability.

Conveniently, then, third and fourth placed drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button found themselves promoted to first and second. Button came close to reversing the order of proceedings ten laps from the end by sneakily getting past Hamilton, but the Mephistophelean bargain proved itself reliable a lap later as Hamilton effortlessly took the place back and steered himself to his first ever Turkish Grand Prix victory.

When asked if, given the extraordinary circumstances of his win, Nicole had brought him a little luck, Hamilton was magnanimous. "Every time she [Nicole] comes, I seem to win," he said. "I think it was Monaco 2008 she came, then Hungary last year which I won and Singapore, so she is definitely a bit lucky for me." Nicole has been present at many more of his wins than he was relating, so I think it must be safe to surmise that Hamilton was talking about races which he won where he stood the least chance of success. He could have gone further and added that her lucky presence secured him the world championship in the least likely of circumstances at Interlagos at the end of the 2008 season.

If Hades was smiling upon Hamilton, all the prayers in Italy, Spain and Brazil could do nothing for the scarlet cars in Ferrari's 800th Grand Prix. Both cars - worst of all the one driven by double world champion, Fernando Alonso - performed way below the standards expected of as illustrious a marque as the Prancing Horse. Frustration cannot be very far away from the surface for Ferrari, for the evidence of Turkey is that McLaren are currently the only team with a fighting chance of taking on the Red Bulls.

It would be naive to expect this situation to last for very long. But in a few races time the maths will suggest to struggling team owners that 2010 is a write-off. I have a strong feeling that Ross Brawn of Mercedes is only three or four races away from making that calculation and turning his attention instead to 2011. Watch this space.

The top ten drivers in the championship after Turkey look like this:

1 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 93
2 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 88
3 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 84
4 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 79
5 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 78
6 Robert Kubica Renault 67
7 Felipe Massa Ferrari 67
8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 66
9 Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP 34
10 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 22

What we are left with now is a wide open world championship. Any one of at least four drivers could concievably be world champion. Take courage and go down to the bookies now - it's your best possible chance of making a few pennies out of this stew.

Gitau
31 May 2010

Guilty pleasures in Istanbul

2010-05-27T14:48:00.002+01:00

Each morning for the past few weeks I have woken up to the horrifying sight of a huge flotilla of ships anchored in what looks like an entire ocean of oil. The ships are part of a massive, expensive and intense effort by oil giant BP to stop a leak from an oil rig a mile deep in the Gulf of Mexico and avert an environmental catastrophe. The eastern towns of Mexico and the southern coastal states of the United States of America are watching with unrestrained apprehension as the spread of the leak widens by the hour and millions of gallons of more oil are spewed into the Gulf. All this because mankind’s unquenchable thirst for oil has driven big oil companies like BP to take greater and bolder risks. Was drilling for oil at such significant depths in the middle of the ocean a risk too far? Probably.

I observe events like these and am ashamed at the folly of the human race. Because we want to drive cars, fly in aeroplanes, sail on ships and have goods manufactured and delivered to us from every corner of the earth, companies like BP have to look harder and wider for a rapidly diminishing resource: oil. We must be mad, mad, mad.

No, you haven’t accidentally logged on to the website of Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. That last paragraph was indeed written by a self-confessed Formula One fanatic; a devotee of a sport so ruinous, so dissipative and so unnecessary that it ought to be banned. That surely must be the sane and rational thing to do. And yet it has not been banned and, like millions of others, I am drawn remorselessly to it year after year. Why? The answer lies in the final word of the preceding paragraph.

Allow me to explain. You may recall our old friend Max Mosley and his travails with a mean-spirited British tabloid called the News of the World two years ago (see, for example, “Germany and Le Vice Anglais” from 17 July 2008 on this blog). In his legal challenge against the News of the World, Mosley insisted that he “fundamentally disagreed” that his leisure preferences were depraved or immoral and was able to persuade the High Court that he should be left alone in his enjoyment of them. Mosley, in my humble opinion, was being disingenuous. If he felt like he claimed, he would not have gone to the lengths he did to keep his activities secret, even from his wife of many years. Arguing like he did was legal artifice. And it worked.

A more honest appraisal of the situation was offered many years before by Kenneth Tynan, perhaps the greatest theatre critic ever to grace the planet. Tynan achieved fame and wealth and enjoyed the company of a beautiful and loving wife but he still regularly sought after women to indulge in his desire for sadomasochism. Unlike Mosley, Tynan never hid this from his wife but instead had nasty arguments with her when she tried to persuade him to change. “I intend to continue with the sessions weekly,” said Tynan, "although all common sense and reason and kindness and even camaraderie are against it. It is my choice, my thing, my need. It is fairly comic and slightly nasty. But it is shaking me like an infection and I cannot do anything but be shaken until the fit has passed.”

Tynan’s views about his “thing” are similar to mine about Formula One. It is an affliction I cannot shake off, no matter how many oil rigs pollute the world’s oceans and needlessly murder innocent marine creatures and birds. I submit to it out of need, you must understand, not insouciance. I must, therefore, gird my lions as the fever is to re-announce its presence in a couple of days as – once again – the Formula One circus makes its way to the Istanbul Park circuit in Turkey.

I have consistently been unstinting in my criticism of the cartel which runs Formula One. It was led for many years by the double-headed monster of Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley who recruited a team of spanner boys, including a German architect called Hermann Tilke. As the rights to host races were delivered to new countries around the world for the price of a few million shekels, Tilke was awarded the contract to design each new circuit. It seems that part of his brief was to make the tracks as unexciting as he possibly could: “Go out there, Tilke, and produce tracks which your grandmother would be pleased to be driven around on.” Tilke did as he was bid and Formula One has since had a cucumber halfway up its arse.

As it happens, though, there is an exception. Probably under the influence of some super-strong Turkish hashish or after a pleasing night in a seedy Istanbul house with red doors, Tilke had an epiphany. The circuit he designed for the Turkish Grand Prix is an absolute corker. It follows the lay of the land and rises and dips at unusual points. I remember sitting with friends for the first Turkish Grand Prix in 2005 and experiencing a collective moment of beer going down wind pipes as we saw the effect of the legendary “Turn 8” (a complex series of corners) for the first time. Car after car was caught out by the corner’s speed and complexity and spun out. It was and has since been exhilarating.

Following their one-two success at the historic Monaco circuit a fortnight ago, the Red Bull team is fired up and raring to go in Istanbul. I think they may find the going a little more difficult this time. But I still expect either Sebastian Vettel or Mark Webber – evenly matched thus far – to win on Sunday. The big boys at Ferrari and McLaren are desperate to get on terms with them and Istanbul gives the best opportunity yet of doing so.

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa won this race three times in a row in 2006, 2007 and 2008. He has been somewhat overshadowed by his new team-mate, Fernando Alonso this season, and needs to prove that he is still good enough to be worthy of the highly prized red overalls. Besides, there are rumours afoot that the Ferrari tailors are measuring up Renault driver Robert Kubica, as a Massa replacement for next season. A win here would, therefore, not do the little Brazilian too much harm.

Over at McLaren, notwithstanding Lewis Hamilton’s superior driving performance, he is yet to win a race in 2010 while his new team-mate, Jenson Button has two wins under his belt already. Button won this race for Brawn last year, so going by that fact alone, he has a better than evens chance of overhauling his team-mate again.

Try and put thoughts of oil leaks, marine pollution and global warming to one side and,

Enjoy Turkey!

Gitau
27 May 2010

Monaco's magnetic appeal

2010-05-13T10:55:00.002+01:00

If you make a lot of money very quickly, there are two ways to behave. The first is to acquire the creature comforts of wealth in one’s home and then lead a virtuous and unassuming lifestyle. This is the approach favoured by Sir Jackie Stewart, three times Formula One world champion, perennial member of the Sunday Times Rich List and all round good egg.

The second approach is to give the world and your country the middle-fingered salute and seek out places in which to launch yourself irredeemably into a purely hedonistic existence; a life fuelled by caviar, lobster and champagne, frittered away on immoderate yachts and in casinos and entertained by harems of the world’s beauties in uplifting discussions about Uganda.

Enthusiasts of the second of these two radically different approaches – a fair number of ex-F1 drivers like David Coulthard among their number – find themselves drawn magnetically to a tiny principality in the Mediterranean called Monaco which, conveniently, happens to be a tax haven. Unsurprisingly, then, it was described by William Somerset Maugham, a renowned English author, as “a sunny place for shady people.” Because of the vast wealth and extravagance of its inhabitants, Monaco has earned a reputation for glamour.

Most people, if they are honest, would love a taste of the Monegasque lifestyle; most, sadly, will never come within a sniff of it. The character of the place is such that even its royal rulers are not immune to its pizzaz. Prince Rainer III, ruler of the principality until 2005, was married to an American film star, Grace Kelly. Their son the current ruler, Prince Albert II, so enjoys the company of alluring models that he has never troubled himself with the inopportuneness of a wife (besides, if the chap knows that he will have repeatedly to trade in his missus for a new and improved version, a marriage is guaranteed to be awkward).

Since Formula One has always been associated with glamour and lavishness, it is perhaps unsurprising that the sport has maintained such a close link with Monaco that it is inconceivable that the Monaco Grand Prix could ever be dropped from the Formula One calendar.

The race itself is thrilling not so much because of the wheel-to-wheel adrenaline charged manoeuvres one sees in races at Spa or Silverstone but because of the extraordinary character of the circuit. Racing around a circuit crafted through the streets of picturesque Monte Carlo is about tight, low speed corners, no run-off areas and a crowded track requiring intense concentration. Mistakes are punished heavily by the ever present, all-too-close circuit barriers. Big crashes are almost a certainty here. A win at Monaco is difficult to achieve but is every driver’s dream. Ask any driver the question “if you could only ever win one Grand Prix in your life, which would that be?” and the answer will be the same in every case: “Monaco”. To my eternal regret I am yet to visit Monte Carlo. But I have never missed a Monaco Grand Prix on television – it is far too important.

I met a disreputable French chap called Francois in Paris once who had been to Monte Carlo and honed his pick-pocketing trade to perfection. Unfortunately, his fondness for the casino almost proved to be his undoing. After one successful afternoon’s business, he decided to attempt multiplying his ill-gotten gains on the roulette wheel but, as he was doing so, his cleverly honed intuition picked up that he was being closely observed from the blackjack table.

By stealthily moving to a different position at his table, he was able to discern that the person watching him was the girlfriend of a very drunk fellow with his right arm round the lass and his body slumped against hers like a slaughtered carcass. The wasted chap had probably overdone it in seeking to numb his mind so as to forget about losing his generously stuffed wallet that afternoon. The woman, rightly suspicious that Francois had something to do with the missing wallet, was giving him a look which said nothing at all akin to “ooh, big boy, what’s your room number?” Francois’s instinct for self-preservation kicked in so fast that he was out of Monte Carlo and on a train to Nice before the suspicious lady could find a place to deposit the dead weight she was carrying and raise the alarm.

If the big beasts of Formula One have any instincts for self-preservation, the time for radical action is now if they are going to be able to prevent Red Bull running away with both championships this year. Red Bull has been on pole for every single one of the five races this year so far. Ill luck and erratic reliability have only translated these outstanding qualifying achievements into two race wins but they have consistently been at least one second faster than the opposition. One second is a lifetime in Formula One terms.

If you recall Fernando Alonso’s torrid few months at McLaren in 2007, you may remember that his chief complaint was that he was not receiving sufficient respect after, he claimed, single-handedly finding an extra six tenths of a second of speed in the McLaren car– a gargantuan achievement. This just shows you the mountain Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and the others have to climb. I do not think any of them can find a second in a week. This and the virtual impossibility of overtaking at this circuit would suggest that the Monaco trophy is either Sebastian Vettel or Mark Webber’s to lose on Sunday. Whichever one of the two is able to nail pole position on Saturday should be able to go to sleep that night safe in the knowledge that, barring events, they will be receiving a gilded trophy from Prince Albert on Sunday afternoon.

But there is the rub: events. Monaco is a strange race and has been known to produce incredible results. Do not be surprised to see somebody you least expect sweeping past the chequered flag on Sunday.

The good news for fans of Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton is that the championship standings have not been unduly affected by the domination of Red Bull. Here they are:

Jenson Button (McLaren) – 70 points
Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) – 67
Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) – 60
Mark Webber (Red Bull) – 53
Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) – 50
Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) – 49
Felipe Masss (Ferrari) – 49
Robert Kubica (Renault) – 44
Michael Schumacher – 22
Adrian Sutil (Force India) – 16

It has been suggested that I have something against Lewis Hamilton. Thinking about it, this is a reasonable conclusion to draw from my reporting of incidents which have affected the McLaren driver. I must deny the assertion, though. I think Hamilton is probably one of the most accomplished Formula One drivers we have seen in a generation. Nobody else overtakes cars lap after lap so effortlessly and with such panache. But Hamilton has lately been plagued by rotten luck. That is the problem. I have no doubt we will see him back at the top before long but we have to hope that he begins to enjoy better luck if we are to see it any time soon.

If your television is on the blink, go to a pub or a friend’s house. If your wife or girlfriend is unhappy, give her a wad of notes and tell her to go treat herself. If you are worried about your baby crying, get a babysitter. If the dog barks, throttle it. If a mate phones you, cancel his name from your Christmas card list. Just make sure you are on hand at the weekend to,

Enjoy Monaco!

Gitau
13 May 2010

Barcelona, not Hamilton's ideal place

2010-05-10T12:25:00.000+01:00

Most people who have taken the trouble to go there will readily admit to having fallen in love with Barcelona. It is one of those beautiful cities by the sea where you can have a delightful lunch while staring away into ripples of nothingness in the sea and feeling mightily contended with life. Perhaps I am being a little hasty here. “Most people” does not, without a doubt, include a young English chap who goes by the name of Lewis Hamilton. If you asked him to decide which of this year’s nineteen Grands Prix he would like to see axed from the Formula One calendar forever and a day, I am sure he would have little hesitation in hissing out “the Spanish one” through gritted teeth.

Hamilton began the race in third place behind the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel – both of whom had demonstrated on Saturday that the Red Bull car is easily the fastest of the lot – and was unable to do very much to improve his position. A cleverly selected pit-stop for tyres and a bit of muscling of Sebastian Vettel had promoted him to second place and he looked certain to secure eighteen points when, one lap from the end of the Spanish Grand Prix, his front left tyre suddenly deflated and he found himself careering off the circuit into a tyre wall, his McLaren wrecked. Events like this usually produce gasps, sharp intakes of breath and anguished groans or sobs. Not in Spain. Hamilton’s duels with Fernando Alonso – a man who is revered more highly in Spain than the King – in 2007 have meant that he is hated there. By being a brilliant rookie who dared to make Alonso look, well, mortal, he earned the enduring hatred of the entire Spanish kingdom.

As Hamilton stepped out of his stricken car, the pain of missing out on eighteen points was as nothing compared to the ecstatic cheers that rang out around the Circuit de Catalunya. To a man the locals leapt up, waved their flags and hooted with joy. Hamilton’s mind would probably have gone back to the racial insults he received a couple of years ago from blacked-up Spaniards in golliwog wigs and rued the day he first set foot on Spanish soil. If Spain goes the way of Greece and has to be rescued by its European Union partners, I bet you £100 that Mr Hamilton will probably extract a nicely chilled bottle of Veuve Clicquot from his fridge and quietly drink a toast.

If the Englishman had good reason to put the memory of yesterday behind him, his Australian opponent in the Red Bull will probably count his win yesterday as the best drive of his career. From pole-position to the chequered flag, Mark Webber was so imperiously in control of events that nearly a whole minute separated him from Fernando Alonso who inherited second place after Hamilton’s retirement. The only thing Webber would have had to worry about was lack of reliability – the thing that has proved to be the Achille’s heel of the Red Bull team. Sure enough, poor reliability dogged Sebastian Vettel for the last third of the race and it was only the fact that he was so far ahead a resurgent Michael Schumacher in fourth place that he was still able – just – to finish on the third step of the podium.

Truth be told, in the absence of rain to spice things up, the race was a dull affair. Barcelona may be a vibrant city bursting with life and beautiful people but the Circuit de Catalunya just doesn’t cut it. The good news is that we only have a week to go before the most glamorous and prestigious race in the entire world: the Monaco Grand Prix.

Ferrrari and McLaren need to get their thinking caps on fast because Red Bull are increasingly looking to be as much of a problem for everyone as Brawn GP were in 2009. How quickly things change in Formula One…

Gitau
10 May 2010

A race in mighty Spain

2010-05-07T17:21:00.000+01:00

While a cash-strapped student a couple of decades ago I found myself in Brussels one evening after a long and exhausting train journey from Amsterdam. My intention was to travel further south to France but was too hungry and fatigued to contemplate much more than a meal and a bed for the night. Luckily I stumbled upon a Greek hostel of sorts which offered cheap lodgings and inexpensive food.

Either Brussels was not the place to be on that particular evening or my guest house had a repellent character which I failed to observe but I found a curious absence of guests at the Greek establishment. Untroubled, I checked in and was soon sitting in the hostel’s tiny dining room examining a rather meagre menu which offered little more than moussaka and Greek salad. The mousakka turned out to be rather toothsome and I was wholeheartedly tucking into my generous portion of the stuff when I was joined at my table by the fat proprietor of the enterprise, Mr Stavros Constantinides. He seemed eager to talk to and had brought along a couple of bottles of red wine from which he constantly replenished my glass and his (mercifully at no cost to me). Stavros seemed a pleasant enough chap and, well lubricated by the wine, I found we shared similar views on a variety of things.

“You see that cluster of huge buildings to your right?” asked Stavros. “That is the headquarters of the European Commission. We love the European Commission in Greece. It is full of wonderful people.
“Really? Why is that?” I asked. “My experience of the British is that they are deeply suspicious of the EC and everything it stands for.”
Stavros laughed a long belly-laugh. ”The British are too honest for their own good,” he said. “They should speak to us. We are the experts! When we cry the EC wipes our tears. When we are hungry, the EC feeds us. When we shit the EC licks our arse clean for us. Nobody can play the EC better than the Greeks, my friend, nobody. Ha ha ha!

Well, since that fateful conversation, Stavros’s mates in Athens have been spending money liken drunken sailors and are now in such desperate trouble that the rest of the European Union is urgently cobbling together a bail-out package. Portugal and Ireland are expected soon to follow Greece but the thing that is keeping Europeans awake at night is the fear that mighty Spain may follow suit. In the words of the most articulate speaker since Cicero, Mr George Walker Bush, spoken as banks self-combusted in September 2009, “if money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down!” I have little doubt that many Spaniards are watching the events in Greece and thinking “there but for the grace of God go we.”

While the Greeks may have few qualms about accepting European largesse (but seem violently unwilling to suffer for doing so), the Spaniards a proud people. You need look no further than the grandiosity of their names for evidence of this. Take the names of three famous Spanish artists, for instance. Names like Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes or Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez are jolly impressive aren’t they? Well, they look like mere pretenders when you consider the names given to Spain’s most famous painter. Can you really do better than Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso?

The Spaniards also have something the other basket case European countries do not: the Spanish Grand Prix. In addition, they have a double world champion and arguably the best all round Formula One driver in Fernando Alonso. Having arrived at Ferrari, he seems determined to win another world championship in his first year at Ferrari. In doing so he is prepared to employ as much ruthlessness as may be required to get the job done. We saw this during the last Grand Prix when he committed the ultimate act of disrespect to his Ferrari stable-mate, Felipe Massa: overtaking in the pit lane entrance. Massa was furious but Alonso was less than concerned. He was making a statement: “I am a double world champion, so get used to it, matey!” I expect more of the same from the Spaniard. He won’t win friends and influence people by behaving like this but he knows that it matters little, for he is a semi-god at home. The Spanish love Alonso more adoringly than I have ever seen in Formula One.

The Spanish Grand Prix is not usually a stellar race unfortunately. The track tends to produce processional racing not too dissimilar to the shambles we witnessed in Bahrain, so I am not overly optimistic about this weekend’s racing. Admittedly, as we have seen at the last three races, rain would shake things up a great deal but I fear it may be too much to ask of the Gods to allow us four rain affected races in a row. Still, there is nothing lost by hoping.

I suppose the best way to approach the race in Barcelona is to expect nothing spectacular and then be pleasantly surprised if you get fireworks. Nevertheless, it is a Formula One race and these are always good fun, so crack open the Cruzcampo and,

Enjoy Barcelona!

Gitau
07 May 2010

Smooth driving delivers a Shanghai victory for Jenson Button

2010-04-19T13:53:00.002+01:00

There was a time not very long ago when the denizens of a kingdom comprising a cluster of small, rain soaked islands in the north Atlantic were allowed to forget their miserable geographical lot by the simple expedient of unfurling a map of the world. Blindfolded, they could point at almost any point on said map and thereby demonstrate the global reach of Britannia. In those days, wintry conditions in Scotland or an absence of fresh bananas in England could be forgotten about quite easily if sufficiently large numbers of the islands’ natives were located in happier places.

The exact same effect cannot be achieved today but an approximation of it is rendered possible by one of mankind’s greatest inventions: the jet aircraft. The British may not enjoy the same global reach they once did but money in the pockets of any of their number and the availability of affordable airline transportation to any part of the world has made it possible for them sometimes to believe that they still lord it over the world.

In the year 2010 an event as old as the planet itself has thrown all these grand ideas up in the air. A volcano called Eyjafjallajökull on an island in the cursed country of Iceland in the north Atlantic has erupted and produced so much steam and ash that it is now unsafe for jet aircraft to enter northern European airspace. Suddenly, Brits holidaying in far flung places like Fiji are forced to accept the bitter fact that home is an island in the north Atlantic, very far away, and there is now no way of getting to it quickly. Slower alternatives are now being considered by emergency teams at the offices of Her Majesty’s Government and the Royal Navy. Meanwhile, the rest of us are paralysed by a general election campaign during which each political party seems only to want to offer pain and suffering in the years ahead. At a time like this, it is understandable if the Brits are very down in the mouth.

This may be the case but it is far from the impression I got when I watched television pictures being beamed into my living room yesterday from a far away place called Shanghai. Union flags were being waved about, champagne corks were popping everywhere and a craggy old man called John Button had himself and a luscious, young female wrapped in a massive Union Jack as the latter kissed any camera lens which came within twenty yards of her. It was the end of an incident-packed Chinese Grand Prix which had produced a British rarity, an English one-two in the guise of McLaren drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton and injected hysteria into the hearts of Jenson Button’s father, his girlfriend and the entire McLaren team. The fact that they and every other Formula One team are stuck in China until the Icelandic volcano starts behaving itself was completely irrelevant yesterday afternoon.

In a spectator’s dream race, the weather conditions – dry, then slightly wet, then dry, then wet – and the stop-start effect of crash-provoked safety car periods, the McLaren drivers demonstrated very clearly the gulf of difference between their approaches to being at the top end of Formula One. A crude but perhaps ideal summary was suggested by a television pundit yesterday: “while Button is a driver, Hamilton is a racer”. I think that is a little unfair to Button. What we saw yesterday was that an ability to gain a feel for the grip of a race track and predict the optimum points at which to come in for tyres can produce a second and a half advantage over a raw racer who overtakes everyone, does it all again and again but chews up his tyres in the process. Button had only two stops for tyre changes while Hamilton had four – and yet they ended up a second and a half apart with Hamilton closing on his team-mate in the final stages.

In terms of entertainment value, nobody produces more than Hamilton. Who will ever forget him twice humiliating seven times world champion, Michael Schumacher? In terms of cerebral, smooth, assured driving, however, Button is clearly ahead. So far it has produced two race victories for him while Hamilton hasn’t had any yet. One of the two driving styles could be the factor that decides the championship at the end of the year. It is too early to predict which.

What was surprising about yesterday was the number of drivers who got caught out by the first drops of rain. Whereas Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg (who finished third) felt confident enough to stay out on slick tyres, every other one of the big guns – including previous rain master, Michael Schumacher – chose to come in for intermediate tyres that all too quickly proved to be ill-suited to a rapidly drying track.

As we turn our minds to the European leg of the 2010 season (if the teams ever get to fly back home!), a look at the world championship points table shows just how unexpected the ultimate result may be:

Jenson Button – 60
Nico Rosberg – 50
Fernando Alonso – 49
Lewis Hamilton – 49
Sebastian Vettel – 45
Felipe Massa – 41

After four races and this set of figures, do you feel confident enough to run off to the bookies yet?

Gitau
19 April 2010

Someone in Shanghai has it in for Sebastien!

2010-04-16T10:56:00.003+01:00

Look at this. Poor old Sebastien Buemi, the young Swiss driver, was speeding round the Shanghai circuit at 200 mph when - whoops! - both his front wheels flew off. What the devil is going on?

Do you think perhaps that someone in the Toro Rosso garage has it in for the Swiss? The Swiss after all have quietly hoovered up confict monies over many years, built up an enviable banking industry and a jolly comfortable country with the cash while not doing terribly much else at all.

Meanwhile, a volcano has blown its top in Iceland and crippled aviation in the United Kingdom, the country which was almost single handedly responsible for bankrupting Iceland a year ago.

This, it seems, is the weekend of the reckoning. My advice is stay indoors if you have reason to fear having upset anyone in the past.

Gitau

16 April 2010

Seeing the future in Shanghai

2010-04-15T15:15:00.003+01:00

A little while ago on an abnormally sunny summer’s day in London, I was standing outside the Wellington pub in Strand, London having a few beers with my old friend Peter. A usually animated speaker, Peter suddenly went quiet and stared somewhat vacantly at the buildings in Aldwych behind me.
“Marvellous idea,” he said.
“Yes,” I agreed, “nothing like a drop of London Pride on a warm summer’s day.”
“No, you twit,” exclaimed Peter irritably, “not the beer, Australia!”
“Australia?”
“Yes,” he said, “some clever clogs had a brainwave a few centuries ago. Ship out all the riff-raff from these shores to the colonies! Pity we couldn’t carry on doing it.”

Peter’s reverie had been triggered by the sight of the Australian flag flying from the rafters of Australia House in Aldwych. I was reminded of this last week when I read a newspaper article about the vast armies of Chinese manual labourers to be found in various pockets in Africa working on roads and railways. The article was written from the perspective of African ladies of the night who are none too pleased about these recent arrivals. Typically, foreign tourists and expatriate workers have proved easy pickings for hard working prostitutes in places like Mombasa but not the Chinese. Ascetic to a fault, these chaps are diligent and very well disciplined in all matters. But the article demonstrated to me that the Chinese have applied the logic of the eighteenth century Brits but sharpened it with a Chinese edge.

Offering African potentates development assistance in exchange for rights to extract much needed natural resources like base metals and oil is by no means a new game; the Europeans have been at it with varying degrees of intensity for centuries. It is also not new for Country A to lend money to Country B and then require that Country B use the same money to buy machinery and equipment from Country A and pay for professionals (architects, engineers, lawyers etc) from Country A. The money, in effect, never leaves Country A. The Chinese play this game applying the age old rules but with an added new twist: the money is also used in importing manual labourers – pick-axe wielders, bricklayers, stevedores, drivers, even spanner-boys – from the People’s Republic. This way, China gets the natural resources it needs but also solves any unemployment problems it may have while giving China its own “Australia solution”. Quite clever when you think about it.

The world is slowly waking up to the fact that these chaps from the east could just about be the cleverest on the planet. They look at things using a long telescope. The decision to invest in a grand prix circuit capable of hosting Formula One races was taken with a view to the future. Want to create a diversion from your nasty habit of sending in battle tanks to disrupt peaceful student demonstrations? Why, invite the glamour kids of the world to your largest city to drink champagne and watch cars being driven very fast round an expensive circuit! That should do it.

For simple chaps like me, it does. When I think of Shanghai I don’t think of unhappy looking people wearing green collarless jackets and waving little red books. I think instead of the 2008 Chinese Grand Prix which was so decisively won by Lewis Hamilton that the best efforts of the FIA and Ferrari to deny him any chance of winning the world championship were as nought (you may recall that he was gifted a heavy penalty of docked points after the preceding Japanese Grand Prix for a driving incident). Although it is still very early in the season, things are looking less rosy for Hamilton now than they did then but I would not put it past him.

Hamilton is one of five drivers – the others being Rubens Barrichello, Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel - who could be the first to win the Chinese Grand Prix twice. For some reason – perhaps Chinese juju – nobody has stepped on the top step of the podium more than once since Rubens Barrichello won the first ever Chinese Grand Prix in 2004. Barrichello doesn’t stand much of a chance this year but any of the others could do it. If the track favours a particular manufacture that manufacturer would have to be Ferrari. With their three wins – 2004, 2006 and 2007 - they are the only team to have won in China more than once. By this reckoning the race should belong to either Fernando Alonso or Felipe Massa. The latter of the two Ferrari men looks the most comfortable in the 2010 Ferrari and could just be in the running for his first win of the season.

There is, however, a chap itching to settle an argument. Ever since Michael Schumacher announced his return to Formula One, writers on the subject – including this one – have argued that it was a mistake. I have always thought that Schumacher was not ready to retire at the end of 2006 and should have kept going even if it meant driving for another team. Heavy pressure to leave the team was exerted upon him by the Ferrari bosses, though, and, feeling that it would be an act of extreme disloyalty to drive for the opposition, Schumacher opted to retire early.

Three years later, the driving itch proved stronger than the guilt provoked by disloyalty to a team which had given him five successive world championships and he agreed to sign up with the new Mercedes team. But three years away was three years too many. Too much technological development happens in three years. Worse, too much deterioration happens to the human body each year after the magic figure of 35. Still, Schumacher’s last win was in China in 2006 and it would give him enormous personal satisfaction if he was able to get the press off his back by a win on Sunday.

This is the last of the early morning races before Formula One comes home to Europe, so I presume you will be wolfing down bacon and eggs as you settle down to,

Enjoy Shanghai!

Gitau
15 April 2010

Malaysia sets things up nicely

2010-04-05T16:58:00.003+01:00

A couple of decades ago, Rolls Royce, a British manufacturer of luxury automobiles, was able to get away with supercilious statements like “a Rolls Royce does not break down; it fails to proceed.” If you asked Rolls Royce to provide you with performance figures, the withering response you would get would be “adequate plus 10%.”

Taking these things literally, a successful Afrikaner farmer in South Africa in the 1970s, Mr Piet van der Merwe, decided to reward himself by applying part of the proceeds of a bumper harvest towards the purchase of a brand new Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. He loved driving the car so much and, confident that the car was incapable of breaking down, chose to use it for all purposes - even ploughing his farm. The manufacturer’s boast proved to be exaggerated when the car seized up in the middle of a maize field. Mr van der Merwe was, understandably, incensed and telephoned his local Rolls Royce dealership in high dudgeon. It took the intervention of a team of mechanics specially flown in from the Rolls Royce factory in Crewe, England for Mr van der Merwe’s temperament to be restored to equilibrium. Having enabled the car to resume its ability to proceed, the Englishmen were, at length, able to persuade van der Merwe that what he owned was not merely a means of conveyance from A to B but one that did so in some style.

In yet another dramatic Grand Prix (one that surely demonstrates the ridiculousness of the season’s opener in ghastly Bahrain), my thoughts turned to Rolls Royce during the penultimate lap. Fernando Alonso found himself stuck in ninth place behind the McLaren of Jenson Button whose tyres were progressively fading after a perhaps premature tyre change on the ninth lap. No matter how hard he tried, Alonso found it impossible to get past Button lap after lap. In a sign of probable frustration, in the last but one lap, Alonso lunged at the Mclaren and slipped past Button. His joy was short lived as Button promptly took the place back and then saw a sight in his rear view mirrors which we all thought had been consigned to the Formula One history books: a puff of blue smoke blowing out of the Ferrari’s exhaust followed by huge clouds of smoke. Ferrari engines have been bullet-proof for so long that this for me was one of the significant moments of yesterday. According to received wisdom, Ferraris like Rolls Royce cars do not break down. Apparently, not so.

If Alonso was struggling in ninth place and Button was no more than eighth in the dying laps of the Malaysian Grand prix yesterday it was because both McLaren and Ferrari had made identical qualifying errors on Saturday. As the first qualifying session began, the rain was pouring down all over Sepang. Every team but the big two chose to come out and “bank” a lap so as not to find themselves having failed to set any qualifying time at all in the event that the rain became heavier before the end of the session. Both teams were relying on their state of the art gadgetry to tell them what everyone could see by stepping outside their garages and looking up. All four drivers were badly caught out and ended up forced to start Sunday’s race at the back of the grid.

If you are looking for a man who will make the most of a bad situation these days then you need look no further than Lewis Hamilton. By the end of the first lap he had overtaken eight cars and was storming his way down the field putting the fear of god in every driver who caught sight of his mustard yellow helmet in their mirrors. Hamilton had some difficulty getting past the Force India of Adrian Sutil and ultimately had to give it up and settle for sixth place.

Notwithstanding all the excitement in the absence of the rain we had all but been guaranteed, the weekend belonged to the Red Bull team. Mark Webber produced the most efficient qualifying lap on Saturday followed closely by Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel in that order. Vettel showed how much this order meant to him on Sunday when he sped past Rosberg and dived on the inside of his team-mate to take the lead. A lead he never looked in danger of giving up until the chequered flag fell to award him a much deserved win after two consecutive failures occasioned by reliability glitches in Bahrain and Australia. Vettel always looked like a future champion last season and, assuming his Red Bull stays reliable, may well be one in November 2010. His excitement as he stepped out of his car in parc ferme showed a curious mix of excitement and relief. It was a well deserved win.

If you look at the points table after Malaysia, you won’t be surprised to see that the chap at the top is a Ferrari driver but what will probably be surprising is that his name is not Fernando Alonso.

1 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 39pts
2 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 37
3 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 37
4 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren 35
5 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP 35
6 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren 31

[I will publish the championship standings at the end of each post-race commentary in the future.]

The top six are nicely bunched up now and it is impossible to predict which one will be world champion in November. Time will tell.

I am very impressed by the tenacity and consistency of Felipe Massa. When it comes to proving his mettle, he seems the more accomplished of the two latinos in scarlet overalls. Paying for the qualifying mistakes of their team bosses, both drivers had to carve their way up through the field but Massa had less difficulty getting past than Alonso. Button was an easy target for Massa but an impossible one for Alonso. I look forward to observing how the chemistry between the pair develops as the season progresses.

I am beginning to wonder how much longer Michael Schumacher will carry on in Formula One . Being consistently outperformed by his young German team-mate must be bad enough, but to have to sit through a race after being forced to retire because his team couldn’t be bothered to screw in his wheel nuts properly must be soul-destroying. It is worth a small bet that Schumacher may do what Nigel Mansell did - after coming back to F1 as a retired ex champion in 1995- and simply walk away after a few races. He certainly does not need the money.

Shanghai in two weeks time – does anyone still want to talk about Bahrain?

Gitau
5 April 2010

World championship table:

1 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 39pts
2 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 37
3 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 37
4 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren 35
5 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP 35
6 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren 31
7 Robert Kubica (Pol) Renault 30
8 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 24
9 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India 10
10 Michael Schumacher (Ger) Mercedes GP 9
11 Vitantonio Liuzzi (Ita) Force India 8
12 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Williams 5
13 Jaime Alguersuari (Spa) Scuderia Toro Rosso 2
14 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Williams 1
15 Sebastien Buemi (Swi) Scuderia Toro Rosso 0
16 Pedro de la Rosa (Spa) BMW Sauber 0
17 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Lotus F1 0
18 Karun Chandhok (Ind) HRT-F1 0
19 Lucas di Grassi (Bra) Virgin Racing 0
20 Bruno Senna (Bra) HRT-F1 0
21 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Lotus F1 0
22 Timo Glock (Ger) Virgin Racing 0
23 Vitaly Petrov (Rus) Renault 0
24 Kamui Kobayashi (Jpn) BMW Sauber 0

Malaysia, land of conservativism and wonder

2010-04-02T11:37:00.004+01:00

When I was at university in the dying years of the eighties, by far the largest group of foreign students was from Malaysia, a country I had heard relatively little about. The Malaysian students were very cliquey and unprepared to socialise outside their own community. They huddled together in little groups in lectures, never visited any of the university bars (like the popular Students’ Union bar where a pint of beer cost about fifty pence!) and conversed with each other in Chinese or Malay.

I managed partially to befriend one Malaysian Chinese chap called Tee Chock Wan by default because he happened to be in the same tutorial group as me. Tee was very guarded in his conversations with me and liked to stick to talking about improving things like the appropriateness of the use of the subjunctive in a sentence, or the importance of not splitting infinitives; an enthralling chap, Tee.

To draw him out of his shell somewhat, I once invited Tee to join me for a drink at the Students’ Union. His reaction was curious. “Oh no,” he said, “people who go there do all sorts of bad things like bonking!” I still struggle to make sense of Tee’s views. Bonking was a “bad thing”?

The only time since then that I have heard something so bizarre that it knocked me sideways was the Seinfeld episode where Jerry Seinfeld asks two super-fit babes to have a threesome with him in the expectation that they will refuse but is shocked to find them both to be enthusiastically keen on the idea. What is staggering is that Jerry then turns them down. On hearing about this, his friend, George, is convinced that Jerry has taken leave of his senses. “You said no?” George exclaims, utterly perplexed, “have you lost your mind? That’s like discovering plutonium!” Jerry, like Tee, can see nothing wrong with his attitude. “I’m not an orgy guy,” he says, “I’d have to buy new clothes and get new friends!”

I soon came to learn that Tee’s perspective was common currency among Malaysians. Even when abroad as students in as licentious a country as England, they are very deeply conservative people. Religion goes some way towards explaining this but not enough; I have known religious Islamic chaps fold up their prayer mats after their evening supplication and then head out to the nearest brothel. I think the conservatism of the people is because Malaysia is one of the best examples of that delightful oxymoron: an enlightened dictatorship.

Under the long leadership of hard man Mahathir Mohammed, Malaysia’s economy prospered and its people venerated him. Mahathir understood that near blind obedience was the most efficient means by which to achieve his far-sighted aims and that conservatism was a useful tool to be employed in inculcating obedience. It worked handsomely. When Mahathir took the reins, Malaysia was categorised as a developing country. By the time of his retirement in 2003 it was a kick-ass industrialised economy. No mean feat that. Apart from an obliging populace, Mahathir also needed an absence of troublesome opposition politicians so as to be able to get on with things. In this he was mostly successful – there are ways and means of keeping troublesome fellows out of your hair – but he found a former finance minister called Anwar Ibrahim to be particularly irksome.

As they say, fortune favours the brave and Mahathir chanced upon the knowledge that, although married, Mr Ibrahim was partial to amorous encounters with humans with a full quotient of testosterone. All he then had to do was organise a few honey traps for Mr Ibrahim. Poor old Anwar, happy in the knowledge that there were young men of similar inclinations to his, found to his horror that these self same chaps were also predisposed to singing like canaries. Before Mr Ibrahim could get on the first flight to San Francisco, London, Johannesburg or any other gay-friendly city, he found himself hauled before a court to hear toe-curlingly detailed statements by several young men of his amatory encounters with them. Sodomy being a criminal offence in Malaysia, Mahathir was, thus, able to have Anwar hauled off to chokey. An inconvenient problem was thereby solved.

But Mahathir is by no means a one-trick pony. He planned the timing of his removal of the troublesome Anwar – a messy business which could have earned him loads of international opprobrium and consequently a tarnishing of his country’s hard earned reputation as a decent investment location - to coincide with showcase events that would put Malaysia on the global map as a country that had arrived. One such event was the opening of the world’s then tallest buildings, the Petronas twin towers. The other was the completion of the magnificent Sepang motor racing circuit and its hosting of the first ever Malaysian Grand Prix in 1999. The world gasped in wonder and was thereby rendered deaf to the cries of the hapless Anwar.

The Sepang circuit – unlike most of the other identikit circuits designed by Hermann Tilke – is, as it happens, a rather good circuit. It has very fast corners, a sweeping straight and some superb overtaking points. Perhaps it was because Tilke did so well at Malaysia that he was awarded the right to build every other new Formula One circuit since the turn of the century. This is where Bernie Ecclestone and his mates just don’t get it. Just because a guy has once done a good job doesn’t make him the only person who can do one. How challenging would, say, international championship golf be if every single golf course was designed by Greg Norman or Jack Nicklaus?

I don’t think there is any Malaysian Grand Prix I have not enjoyed. Last year’s race could have been a corker had its organisers not thought themselves cleverer than the weathermen. Thunderstorms were predicted for late afternoon in Sepang but the race was still started in the late afternoon to make television viewing more convenient for us cosseted television viewers in Europe. As predicted, an almighty deluge began as the race kicked off and got progressively worse lap after lap. Inevitably, the race was abandoned at about halfway distance. A little water on a race track makes a race interesting. Raging, frothy rivers do not. It would be a shame to have another washed out Malaysian Grand Prix but, as we saw in Australia, a little rain can spice up a race considerably.

Ever since the first ever Grand prix at Sepang, no man has claimed the circuit for his own quite like Michael Schumacher. This year’s race may be the opportunity Schumacher needs to vindicate himself after two lacklustre races. For a man with as colossal a reputation as Schumacher, coming back to Formula One in his forties after three years absence was always going to be risky. He will be the first to admit that questions are already being asked rather more loudly than he might like.

Still, it is not going to be easy. Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa are each determined to light up this season with their first win. There is a lot to look forward to and it doesn’t really matter too much if you get carried away in your appreciation of the action in Malaysia because Monday is a day off. It behoves me then to wish you a very happy Easter and hope that you will,

Enjoy Malaysia!

Gitau
2 April 2010

Rain and tyre choices - Awesome Australia!

2010-03-29T12:11:00.002+01:00

I looked at my notepad yesterday afternoon and observed that it had two identical pages. The first, headed “Bahrain”, had nothing on it; the second, headed “Australia” was similarly blank. If you didn’t watch yesterday’s race in Melbourne and had read my harsh words about the sleep-fest in Bahrain a fortnight ago or any of the damning press comment about Formula One in 2010 since Bahrain, you would probably feel vindicated after reading the first sentence of this paragraph. You would feel reassured at not having wasted valuable sleeping time on a Sunday morning to sit through two hours of tedium. You would be hopelessly wrong.

The second page of my notepad is blank because I was unable to tear my eyes away form the television screen for long enough to jot anything down. There was so much intrigue and so much excitement in Melbourne yesterday morning that even the BBC commentary team were taken aback. Seasoned F1 commentator, Martin Brundle, exhaled hard at a manoeuvre where Lewis Hamilton dived on the inside and overtook not one but two cars. “Formula One is really, really boring,” he said sarcastically, “I hate it!”

In the absence of rain, perhaps there is something to be said for installing sprinklers around racing tracks and turning them on without warning to the teams or drivers. As the cars began their preparations at the start of yesterday’s race, the skies over Melbourne opened slightly and mixed everything up. Predictably, a crash at the first corner forced a safety car episode for the first four laps and tip-toe driving until the rain stopped.

Suddenly tyre strategy became absolutely fundamental. Everyone began the race on intermediate tyres – tyres with shallow grooves – but because the light rain only lasted a couple of laps, it then became imperative to select the optimum point at which to switch to slick tyres. Jenson Button came in earlier than most on lap six, taking a chance of a spin-out incident on a still wet track. He, not the team, made the decision to do this with 52 laps remaining and knowing fully well that he would have to make his tyres last for more than three quarters of the race distance until the finish. He did so expertly and, finding himself in second place behind pole-setter Sebastian Vettel, smoothly cruised his way round the circuit. The Gods were smiling on Button because, once again, Vettel suffered a mechanical failure and spun out into retirement. All Button had to do then was keep things steady until the chequered flag and, thus, achieve his second ever win in Australia in only his second racing outing as a McLaren driver. This was an emphatic Button-esque victory and he was delighted by it.

Lewis Hamilton in the second McLaren had a different sort of weekend in Melbourne. He started out having his collar felt by the Victoria police for “hooning” (Australia-speak for raising smoke from one’s back wheels by doing boy-racer spins) in his street Mercedes; a practice which is frowned upon by the cops down there. They impounded his vehicle and will probably charge him with dangerous driving. This would be understandable for any young man sitting in a sports car for the first time but for a Formula One world champion it goes beyond embarrassment. The incident and the subsequent opprobrium in the Aussie media probably upset Hamilton because his performance at qualifying on Saturday was mediocre at best as all he could manage was eleventh place.

Come race day on Sunday, in conditions which suited his driving technique perfectly, Hamilton drove like a man possessed. After a series of daredevil overtaking gambits performed on well nigh everyone who mattered – including world championship leader and arch enemy, Fernando Alonso – Hamilton found himself in a position to win the race by a couple more daredevil moves but was, puzzlingly, called in by his team for a change of tyres. Any chance of victory or even second or third place was thus stymied. Hamilton was furious after the race. He could not understand why the team had made the tyre change call at the time they did. His body language suggested that he wanted to say a lot more than “the team chose the wrong strategy”.

I think at times like these, Hamilton misses the calm guiding influence of his father, Anthony, with whom he has parted ways professionally in 2010. Anthony Hamilton would probably have put an arm round his son and reminded him of two things. First, there is a long way to go this season, so a cool head is better than a hot one. Secondly, Hamilton has bad history with tyre choices. Staying out too long on the wrong tyres cost him the championship in 2007. His team could well have had this in mind when they made the call. At the end of the day, Button made the right tyre call for himself and the team the wrong one for Hamilton. Button emerged victorious and that is all that has to be said about the matter.

We now have the makings of a championship battle-royal between two English team-mates. Button’s confidence will be significantly improved at having got a win under his belt so early while driving for McLaren - a team which he was accused of being insane for having joined as world champion. Hamilton now knows he has a real challenger in the garage adjacent to his.

There is a lot more to come this year. One can only hope that Australia and not Bahrain is indicative of what to expect.

Gitau
29 March 2010

From Hades to the Antipodes

2010-03-23T12:05:00.001Z

There is a mecca of female beauty somewhere in Latin America. The Gods were in blithe spirits when they created the women there. They spoke among themselves and agreed on an approach which would surpass everything they had achieved everywhere else. Their method was novel: take the best attributes from each continent, slowly mix them up with a little spice and then steam-cook the mix over a few centuries. The result is hypnotic.

I chanced upon one such specimen in London many years ago in the form of the Venezuelan Venus, Paulina. She worked as a waitress in my local branch of Café Rouge in west London. I often went there for a light evening meal after work if I was hungry and couldn’t bear the thought of stepping into my insalubrious kitchen. One evening, while sinking my chops into a steak sandwich, the door to the kitchens opened and a waitress whom I had never laid eyes on before emerged into the restaurant area. She was so bewitchingly beautiful that, without my realising it, the sandwich fell to the floor and I found my shirt and tie suddenly soaked with red wine.

From that moment on I embarked upon a steady process of wearing the poor girl down. Not an evening would go by without me dropping in at the Café Rouge and offering my soul to Paulina. When I swore – with unsmiling conviction - to sever my large left toe, pickle it and give it to her as a gift, Paulina finally agreed to go for an evening out on the town with me. Things went rather better than I could have dreamed, for Paulina soon became a regular fixture of my Hammersmith flat.

One Saturday morning, after a late night of discussions with Paulina about the six main Ugandan kingdoms, a courier turned up at the flat to deliver a case of wine. He offered to help me carry the case into my room where, unbeknownst to the courier, Paulina lay sleeping with nothing covering her but her skin. Thankfully, Paulina slept like a log, so she remained undisturbed when the courier fell to the floor gasping at the sight of her. I dragged him to the main door and ordered him out but he wouldn’t leave. He instead stayed on his knees hugging my legs and tearfully begging to be permitted one more glance, however fleeting, of the sleeping Venezuelan beauty. He implored me to accept £5 for the privilege. I considered this briefly and accepted it.

It was then that the forces of Hades engulfed my will. I became a peep-show pimp. Every Saturday morning after that, I could be found outside my front door selling tickets to “a glimpse at paradise” at a fiver apiece. Word spread like wild fire. Soon queues of salivating blokes could be seen several times round the block and my pockets began to bulge with Beelzebub’s begrimed bounty.

The inevitable happened. One day, a ticket-holder was so overcome by what lay before his eyes that he dropped to his knees exclaiming “from this day I believe there is a God!” To my horror, Paulina chose that precise moment as her cue to awake. Her reaction was sufficient to cause me to be found, sozzled and swaying, on Hammersmith Bridge at 03:00 am on Sunday morning while contemplating intimate acquaintance with the icy, swirling waters of the mighty Thames below. As I wrestled with my thoughts, I felt a sharp tap on my shoulder and turned to face the snarling visage of an enraged local bobby.
“Listen son,” said the copper, “either leap into the river or go home but I am not missing the start of the Australian Grand Prix while you decide whether to kill yourself or not!”

The Australian Grand Prix has since occupied a special part of my brain that is awakened in March of every year. I can feel it twitching as I write this, for this weekend marks the silver jubilee of the Formula One Australian Grand Prix.

After the deflation of the stultifying, limpid excuse for a motor race in Bahrain, there is understandable anxiety felt in the hearts of many that the FIA got things wrong when they re-jigged the rule book. Like a cook who over-seasons his soup, the rule makers – justifiably – now stand accused of taking things a little extra bit that has proved too far.

As Paulina would, I am sure, testify, I am a generous fellow. I have, therefore, chosen to wait a little before drawing too many conclusions about 2010. Melbourne is too popular a destination and the Albert Park too stunning a racing venue to warrant unfavourable comparisons with the hellhole that is Bahrain. I am on record for being consistent in my loathing of the desert sand-bowl and fawning in my admiration of the sunny seaside track down under, so I am optimistic.

Australia should be a good race. The fast corners and near inevitably of an accident usually make for an exciting afternoon of racing. The thing to be remembered at this stage is that we do not yet have a clear picture of the relative competitiveness of the teams and the drivers. Testing was not done in identical conditions, so all we have seen thus far is one open event at which everybody could participate.

Applying the same reasoning, I would argue that, unless Fernando Alonso and Ferrari are extraordinarily lucky and manage to clinch three big wins in a row, things will shake down soon enough and drivers will begin to feel more comfortable. It is too early to predict how some of the big names will fare. Michael Schumacher will take at least a couple of races before he regains his rhythm after three years absence from Formula One. Similarly, Jenson Button will also need a little time to feel as relaxed as his McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

What we haven’t seen any evidence of yet is the rekindling of the pit-babe battles of 2009. Just before the start of the season Hamilton announced that he was back together with his Pussycat Doll – cynical career manipulation by Nicole to maximise global television exposure, I wonder? I haven’t heard anything of a split between Button and his lingerie model, so things look set for a resumption of hostilities. Bahrain wasn’t a sufficiently alluring location for the likes of the two glamour girls but I bet you they’ll have their designer frocks and sunglasses on track-side in Melbourne on Sunday.

It’s too early to give up on Formula One racing, so I think it reasonable to expect that you will,

Enjoy Melbourne!

Gitau
23 March 2010

Boring Bahrain 2010

2010-03-15T14:04:00.003Z

While a trainee in the early nineties, my superiors introduced me to the world of haute cuisine to celebrate the successful conclusion of a large transaction. Dinner was arranged at Chez Nico, a posh French restaurant on Park Lane run by a bad-tempered Greek chef called Nico Ladenis. He had earned himself three Michelin stars but was more famous for ejecting people from his restaurant if he saw anyone attempt to season one of his expertly created dishes without first tasting the food.

I had heard about places like Chez Nico before but prior to then neither had the wallet nor the rarefied taste buds for fine dining. The thought of eating there was so exciting for me that I spent most nights of the preceding week smacking my lips and dreaming of untold pleasures. When the great day arrived, I imagined this burly, bearded fellow hovering over me with a meat cleaver and kept well away from the salt and pepper as I stuck my fork into my L’ouef au Boeuf et Fromage au Cognac. Perhaps my palate is too unsophisticated – after all I was raised on a diet of boiled maize and beans – but to my horror the food was bland and uninspiring.

Yesterday’s painfully dull race reminded me of that experience all too clearly. After all the anticipation of waiting five months, learning all the intrigue and seeing the driver line-up, to sit through one and a half hours of processional driving was just not what anybody had in mind for the first Formula One Sunday of 2010. The new rules were supposed to make races more exciting but they seem to be achieving the opposite effect if yesterday’s Bahrain Grand Prix is representative of their effect. Admittedly, the Sakhir circuit is a Formula One fan’s nightmare: ghastly location, ill thought-out design and desert heat. It could be argued that a suspension of judgement is the prudent thing to do this early on and I must agree that it is an argument that has its merits. Let’s wait and see what happens when we’re not watching cars in some Arab millionaire’s playground.

The only real on-track action yesterday was three quarters into the race, when pole setter Sebastian Vettel, found he was losing power because of a damaged exhaust and had to give up his lead to Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa and then Lewis Hamilton. I don’t think Alonso will be overly troubled by comments about the boring nature of the race, for it gave the Spaniard an important psychological achievement: winning his maiden race for Ferrari and starting his new championship campaign with a victory. Alonso was, therefore, absolutely thrilled with his achievement. I haven’t seen him smile so broadly since 2006.

The most exciting television moment for me happened before the race. Martin Brundle, the ex F1 driver and BBC commentator was doing his usual grid walk when he chose to barge in on an interview with Fernando Alonso by a Spanish television station. Alonso was responding to questions in quick-fire Spanish when Brundle elbowed his way in amongst the crowd and stuck his microphone under Alonso’s nose while hissing “that’s enough questions, this is the BBC!” at the Spanish journalist. The hapless Alonso, who is well known for his “love” of the English, simply had to shrug and switch languages to satisfy the BBC man. Classic!

Three more races like we suffered yesterday will result in fans switching off their televisions in droves. Reading this morning’s race reports was a bit like reading the reviews of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to his record breaking smash hit musical the Phantom of the Opera. The show, Love Never Dies, which opened in London a couple of weeks ago has been so heavily panned by the critics that one wonders if it will stay open long enough to recover its costs. One critic aptly had this to say: “Love Never Dies? More like Paint Never Dries!” A bit like the Bahrain Grand Prix really.

Gitau
15 March 2010

The most exciting driver line-up gets fired up in Bahrain

2010-03-12T11:50:00.004Z

Have you ever wondered what in the world would persuade a young, able-bodied man to give up his life willingly for a cause? Do you not feel flummoxed by the thought of a fellow strapping a few kilos of explosives onto his chest, getting on a train and blowing himself up along with several others? Or the guy who flies a plane into a high rise building? I admit there have been moments when I have felt an aching desire to leap off a bridge – particularly the time when Paulina, the statuesque Venezuelan beauty queen, threatened to disembowel me if she ever laid eyes on me again – but these have been very few, fleeting and by no means overwhelming.

Some have argued that there is contained in an obscure “holy” scripture a promise of seventy-two available virgins to ravish in paradise for the man who gives his life up for the cause but I have never been convinced by this fallacious line of reasoning. First, it ignores the motivation of women who blow themselves up. Secondly, it is hopelessly naïve. Anyone who thinks that a multiplicity of women is invariably good news does not know enough about women. If you are persuaded by this flawed thinking you might want to spare a thought for poor old Jacob Zuma. Despite having three wives and two fiancés at his disposal, the South African president still feels the need surreptitiously to seek solace in the arms of single young women to whom he is neither married nor engaged.

I think the answer to the mystery may lie in the human need for thrills. Never mind prohibition or bible-bashing prophets of doom, human beings will always find a way of getting pissed, high, stoned, spaced-out, slaughtered etc. Similarly, for some people, nothing can substitute the ultimate adrenaline rush one gets from pushing oneself to the limits of survival and saying “if I die doing this, what a way to go!” Formula One drivers fall into this category of human being. When they don their helmets so that all you can see are the whites of their eyes and strap themselves into machines so light, so fast and so exposed, you know that the adrenaline coursing through their veins could fire up a mini nuclear reactor.

Nothing else can explain what would cause a young man with bags of money, good looks and fame to choose to carry on racing Formula One cars after having achieved a world championship. You would have thought the thing to do would be travel the world, chase skirts and live life to the full. Most humans – certainly yours truly – see eminent sense in that line of thinking. Finnish Formula One world champion and champion lothario, Kimi Raikkonen, certainly did. But what about chaps like Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button or Fernando Alonso? What – most puzzlingly – about Michael Schumacher?

Well, we are about to start ten months of discovering just why. After five agonisingly long and bitterly cold (for those of us in the northern hemisphere) months, the Formula One thrills begin again this weekend in Bahrain. I would normally be complaining loudly that my least favourite circuit has been selected as the venue for the opening race of the 60th year of Formula One racing but that would be discourteous. The driver and team line-up being served up for our delectation is probably the most exciting I have seen since I began watching motor racing.

The anticipation of watching seven world class drivers, each with an at least credible chance of achieving the world championship causes my nerves to tingle with elation. The first four - Jenson Button (McLaren), Lewis Hamilton (McLaren), Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) and Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) - are all world champions and have by all accounts almost equally competitive cars for the first time in many years. The chasing three - Felipe Massa (Ferrari), Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) and Mark Webber (Red Bull) – are each about as eager to win their first championship as a chap emerging from a year’s solitary confinement and being presented with a nubile young lady to slate his thirst.

Which one will fortune favour? I am hesitant about bold predictions because there are, in the immortal words of former United States Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, unknown unknowns; that is to say there are things about this year we don’t know we don’t know.

Two significant rule changes will mix things up in ways we cannot possibly predict. The first is a ban on refuelling during races. This means that Ross Brawn’s clever overtaking strategies involving expertly timed pit-stops will now be verboten. It also means that drivers will have to learn to cope with a car that gets lighter and quicker as the race draws to a close.

The second rule change is the premium now placed on race wins. The point scoring system has been re-jigged so that the top ten cars get points in the following order:

1st : 25 points
2nd : 18 points
3rd : 15 points
4th : 12 points
5th : 10 points
6th : 8 points
7th : 6 points
8th : 4 points
9th : 2 points
10th : 1 point

Put these two changes together in your head and the permutations become interesting.

If my life depended upon it who would I put my money on? It all depends on who gets an advantage earliest in the season. The chap who clocks up the most wins quickly will stand the best chance. Hand on heart I would go for Fernando Alonso. He has yet to live down the humiliation he suffered at the hands of Lewis Hamilton in 2007 and the frustration of having not had a competitive car for two seasons. He is now at the helm of a blood red Ferrari, a team with everything to prove after two misery-filled seasons.

It will not be easy, though. There are so many races – 19 – and so many drivers capable of winning them that it doesn’t take too much imagination to work out that the winning margin in November is likely to be very slim indeed,

There is a long way to go before then and a race in the desert to be savoured this weekend. I have little doubt you will love 2010 but first, open a bottle on Sunday and,

Enjoy Bahrain!

Gitau
12 March 2010

The return of the android

2009-12-23T16:53:00.000Z

Have you ever wondered why, with very limited exceptions, African presidents tend not to retire willingly? Something about the saluting soldiers, cheering crowds, ululating women and toadying lackeys gets in amongst their innards and causes them to value their positions more highly than life itself. They simply cannot bear the thought of life lived any differently. Witness the behaviour of Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of Uganda. Once a revolutionary populist on a mission to change Uganda and leave it a better place after a limited time as president, he is now a fully fledged African Big Man. Not only has Museveni done all he can to make clear to all and sundry that the only acceptable receptacle for his removal from State House, Uganda is a coffin, he has filled his government and the military with close family members to ensure that his back is safely covered. Sadly, Museveni’s affliction is one familiar to Africans up and down the vast continent.

It must be said, though, that there is nothing peculiarly African about the Museveni phenomenon. It is one observed in the attitude to power of senior politicians everywhere. Unfortunately for many of their ilk in mature democracies such as the United Kingdom, the luxury of being able to manipulate the law to suit a politician’s megalomania is unavailable. Take for example former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. After being unceremoniously bundled out of 10 Downing Street, she complained bitterly about the “inconvenience” of having to wait at traffic lights while being driven around London whereas she had previously enjoyed over a decade of whizzing through all traffic obstacles at 70+ miles an hour. This is the all consuming nature of lots of power. One day you can declare war on any Third World country you feel like, the next you are just a doddery old lady who has to sit in traffic and suffer the indignity of serfs pointing at your car and saying “Ooh, look that’s Maggie Thatcher. Isn’t she old and ugly now?”

The feelings of a retired Formula One World Champion are not dissimilar. Climbing out of your car as the winner of a Grand Prix and hearing the mighty roar of a thrilled crowd and then seeing flags waving round a packed circuit must tug hard at the heart strings. It must make a successful driver yearn for more, much more. When, like Michael Schumacher, you have stood on the top step of a Grand Prix podium 91 times, retiring must feel like your thumping heart has been extracted and replaced by a lead weight. Schumacher may have amassed a fortune incapable of dissipation in two lifetimes but none of the pleasures of this world can measure up to the adrenaline rush provided by going wheel to wheel in a Formula One car on a race day at say, Spa or Silverstone.

Worst of all for Schumacher, as a special consultant to Ferrari, he has been present on the Ferrari pit wall for nearly every race since he retired at the end of 2006. To see the likes of Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel “doing a Schumacher” must have felt like slow torture. He has been bored and frustrated at home and probably furious at himself for having retired while he still had it in him to win a world championship. Now that the opportunity to drive for Brawn GP as the newly branded Mercedes team has been presented to him, it is no surprise that Schumacher has seized it with both hands and abandoned his retirement. The question on everyone’s lips is “is it wise?” I am not sure.

First, retirement with tons of cash is a privilege. The way to handle the inevitable ennui brought on by days, months and years of nothingness is to do a Hugh Heffner. Hef handed over the keys to the Playboy empire to his daughter and then retired in style. For stability and some kids, he married a Playmate of the year. But the wily Hef had struck a deal with her which allowed him a never ending flow of additional Playmates into his mansion. Even now while in his eighties, Hef rarely has a smile absent from his face. That, surely, has to be the way to do it!

Secondly, there is a real risk that Schumacher may find himself embarrassed by the young talent out there and take the shine off his glittering reputation somewhat. Schumacher was a driving sensation like none other. He was such a dominant presence in Formula One that many were glad to see him go just for the prospect of seeing other people winning races. When he was at the top of his game there was simply no better driver. I have doubts at whether he was at the very top of his game in the last two years of his career. In both those years, the young Spanish driver, Fernando Alonso, took him on and beat him. Crucially, when it came to crunch moments when one driver either had to relent or die, it was Schumacher, not Alonso, who backed off. As Alonso sagely said at the time when asked why he thought this had happened “Michael has two kids”.

As a father myself, I fully empathise: your ability to make do or die decisions is constrained when the delicate lives of others are involved. Quick, hungry and vastly talented drivers like Messrs Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel suffer no such hindrance. They will relish the challenge of taking on the 41 year old Schumacher, seven times world champion or not. For these chaps, the news of Schumacher’s announcement today will probably be the best Christmas present they have received.

Whatever the case, today’s news introduces an additional element of intrigue for the 2010 season which is delightful to acknowledge. I am almost tingling at the prospect. Just the thing one needs for the Christmas festivities. Have a lovely one!

Gitau
23 December 2009

Ross Brawn cashes in

2009-11-16T17:08:00.001Z

How could he? Ross Brawn has sold out to a bunch of marauding Goths from Baden-Württemberg. The bastards are then going to transform a proud English racing team in the finest traditions of Lotus, Tyrrel and Brabham into a German team with German drivers called Mercedes. Is this what the war was fought for, Mr Brawn? Is this why our brave boys instilled the Dunkirk spirit into us? For you to roll over and give everything up to the impudent Germans? Shame on you!

In writing that last paragraph I am anticipating what the English tabloids are going to be screaming tomorrow morning as they express their indignation at the takeover of Brawn GP by Mercedes which was announced this morning. The Germans will own 75% of the company and take control of its premises in Brackley while changing the team’s name to “Mercedes Racing” and painting the cars silver. World champion or not, Jenson Button is not German and, therefore, not suitable to the Baden-Württemberg lot. To survive in Formula One he will now have to smile sweetly and cut a deal with an English team in Woking, Surrey which you might have heard about. It’s called McLaren. Although Mercedes own part of McLaren – and the team is officially called McLaren-Mecedes – the English shareholders will assume full control of the company in the next couple of years. The Germans have fallen out of love with their perfidious English friends, you see. While cooperating with Mercedes to race Formula One cars, McLaren were quietly building super road cars behind the scenes and seriously eating into the market for Mercedes’s own sports cars! The situation simply could not be permitted to continue. A face-saving divorce is the only way forward.

For Ross Brawn personally, the decision is typical of the man’s measured nature. When you have spent the better part of a year trying to ensure survival of your creation and then – as if a huge finger has reached down from the sky and touched your forehead and a booming voice has declared “it’s you!” – seen it propelled to the impossible heights of world champion on two levels, you must feel a bit like Alexander the Great: “when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.” There is nothing more for Brawn to achieve; nowhere else for him to go but down. He knows this and, once again, has produced evidence of his supernatural genius. He rescued the detritus of a Formula One team from Honda for £1 and nine months later has sold it on as a successful, championship-winning product to Mercedes for £30 million while retaining a minority shareholding. For a chap who claimed to know nothing about business that is not bad at all. Now he can concentrate on doing the job he loves in the knowledge that his family’s financial security is assured. Hats off to Mr Brawn.

Meanwhile, the discussions in Woking will have chins wagging for a few days to come. The smart money is on Jenson Button accompanying Lewis Hamilton at McLaren next year. That may not be a very good thing for the new world champion. I have no doubt that Hamilton is more talented than he is and will have no qualms about showing it. Worse, whereas Button would have been able to mould the Brawn team around him had it remained independent, he will now be joining Team Hamilton which – as we saw with Fernando Alonso – can be very unsettling.

McLaren had made no secret of the fact that they have been in discussions with that other world champion who has been jettisoned by Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen. Since Raikkonen was contracted to drive for Ferrari until the end of 2010, Ferrari are prepared to pay him $16 million to stay away. In the absence of a drive from a top team like McLaren for at least $16 million, there is little incentive for the Finn to do anything but get pissed and chase skirts around the world for a year. Most sane blokes I know would do the same, so more power to Mr Raikkonen.

Spare a thought for the Japanese chap who made the decision to quit Formula One and accepted £1 from Ross Brawn to enhance it. He must be feeling like a bloke who has been rogered rigid!

We have only just got through the 2009 season and the 2010 intrigue is already upon us. What else is about to emerge?

Gitau
16 November 2009

Vettel closes the curtains on 2009 in Abu Dhabi

2009-11-02T16:55:00.002Z

The Japanese do things insidiously. While the big American car companies were swaggering about producing ludicrously large, thirsty lumps of metal in the 1960s, the Japanese quietly observed and learned how to do things differently. Before long, their largest market place was the United States of America itself. They did the same thing with cameras, televisions and even ships.

It should not, therefore, be surprising that Japanese lingerie model, Jessica Michibata, was never going to be contented by being a Formula One world champion’s bit of totty. That role had already been claimed and owned by a brash American called Nicole Scherzinger aka Pussycat Doll (during qualifying on Saturday there were some superb TV pictures of the Doll being photographed standing next to a lecherous, old sheikh who seemed as excited as a three year old with a new toy car!) of whom Jessica was not particularly fond. Mindful of Jenson Button’s early years in F1 – when he was determined to recreate the image of the young F1 driver as a serial-shagging rake – Jessica swore to herself that once her man had secured the world championship, she would rather be damned than be “just a girlfriend.”

Nicole was on hand to cheer Lewis Hamilton - and he looked pretty good during qualifying on Saturday – but in a rare mechanical failure for the McLaren, he had to retire with failed brakes before the halfway point of yesterday's inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Nicole did not look too pleased about this but I have little doubt that Jessica was sniggering behind her well manicured hand.

It is not difficult to see, then, that Mr Button has come under some heavy pressure in the past fortnight. So heavy, that in the drivers’ press conference after the race, the other chaps on the podium with him yesterday (after he managed to finish the race in third place), wanted to talk about little else than his impending nuptials . Button was repeatedly joshed by Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber about when his wedding was going to be and all the clearly embarrassed English fellow could do was sheepishly declare that he wasn’t getting married this year. Well, there are only two months left until next year, so here is an idea for a wager. I will bet anyone £50 that Button will commence the 2010 season wearing a wedding ring. Any takers?

With everyone falling over themselves to say nice things about the Yas Marina circuit – after all, if a billionaire invites you to a sumptuous dinner cooked by a Michelin starred chef and accompanied by the most toothsome wines you have ever tasted, the last thing you want to be is rude! – it falls to me to state the bleeding obvious. The Yas Marina circuit, like the others designed by Bernie Ecclestone’s mate, Hermann Tilke, is in an incredible setting but is not one which I would describe as capable of producing superb racing action. It is a bland affair that produces processional Sunday afternoons where any overtaking is done in the pits and not on the circuit. The only real “action” we saw yesterday was Jenson Button hunting down and nearly catching Mark Webber in the final two laps of the race. There was also a comedy moment when Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari mistook the livery of the Red Bull for that of his own team and placed his car in the hands of the Red Bull mechanics who were waiting for the eventual winner, Sebastion Vettel, to come in for his own pit-stop seconds later. Unsurprisingly, Alguersuari was summarily redeployed on the circuit with a flea in his ear.

Ecclestone has repeatedly complained about people having to park their cars in muddy fields and suffer the indignity of less than luxurious track-side facilities at Silverstone. But given a choice between glitzy buildings – a hotel that changes colour through the evening, luxury yachts and floodlights etc – and a bland racing circuit; or having to shiver in the rain with mud up to my knees, wolfing down a hog roast and a pint of beer in a plastic mug while watching proper wheel-to-wheel action, I know what I would prefer. I have nothing in principle against new locations for Grands Prix (for instance, the new one in Korea for next season looks interesting) but the fundamentals should never be compromised. Yas Marina seemed to me to be every bit as unexciting as the new circuit in Valencia. How many times do we have to say this? Formula. One. Is. About. Motor. Racing.

Enough. The end of the 2009 season – the most exciting in recent memory – should not be about me venting my spleen about that worm, Ecclestone. It is easy to forget that for about a decade before this year, Formula One was dominated by two large and well resourced teams, Ferrari and McLaren. This year we have had four different teams win Grands Prix – Brawn, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari – and throughout, the uncertainty about the ultimate identity of the world champion (and the sheer mind-blowing nature of the possibility of it being a candidate from small teams like Brawn or Red Bull) has kept us thrilled and entertained. In addition we have had entertaining side shows like the defenestration of Flavio Briatore and the Nicole/Jessica wars.

I have enjoyed this year’s racing immensely. It seems like an eternity until engines are revved up six months hence…

Gitau
02 November 2009

Another desert folly

2009-10-29T12:04:00.001Z

I knew the madness of the Gulf Arabs had reached its zenith in December 2008 when, in the middle of the most severe banking crisis in history and the worst recession since modern economics began, it was announced that a hotel was under construction in Dubai that was so luxurious it even had a solution to the Gulf’s perennial problem of foot-scorching beaches. The gods were munificent in endowing the Gulf Arabs with more oil than they could pump but uncharitable in every other natural thing. The weather conditions are unkind for most of the year. Dubai may put about beguiling pictures of beautiful, sandy beaches but try putting your foot on them in, say, August, and you will leave your skin amongst the grains of sand. Solution: a refrigerated beach. A system of heat-absorbing pipes built under the sand and giant wind blowers will work in tandem to deliver perfect beach-combing conditions: mildly warm sands and a cool breeze. With this and the indoor ski resort you need never leave the magical land of Dubai.

But hang on a minute, I hear you remark, isn’t this taking things a touch too far? It isn’t as though the rest of the world has ceased to exist, has it? I mean to say, if I want perfectly clement weather conditions, clear, azure waters, coral reefs and sand that runs comfortably through my toes, why, I am spoiled for choice in the world. There are at least a score of places in the Indian Ocean and plenty others in the Caribbean and the Americas where I can get all of this without having to watch some money-crazed people setting the global warming clock galloping to Armageddon. If I am after a skiing holiday, why would I go to a cavernous hall blowing “snow” out of a tube in the middle of the desert when I can visit any one of several dozen European and American locations with clear blue skies and breathtakingly stunning snow-covered mountains in Europe and North America. This, I am afraid, is the curse of limitless riches. People completely lose touch with reality. They begin to believe that anything, even nature, can be defied by bucketloads of cash.

And so we come to the latest folly: yet another Grand Prix in the Gulf of Arabia. This at a time when a true classic - one of a tiny clutch of Grands Prix which are about the very essence of Formula One, its history and its charm – is under threat. The British Grand Prix may be consigned to the dustbin of history by Mr B. Ecclestone. The owners of Silverstone – including former F1 world champions Jackie Stewart and Damon Hill – refused to accede to Ecclestone’s demands for an escalating series of payments year on year and he, therefore, persuaded the owners of another old British race track, Donington Park, to take the place of Silverstone. Faced with the global economic slump, Donington’s owners found it impossible to raise the initial sums demanded and were forced to admit defeat to Ecclestone. He now faces the unenviable task of going back to the Silverstone chaps with his tail between his legs or find still more dodgy people with large wallets in other parts of the world.

The trouble is that this has now become a dangerous game. Ecclestone’s insatiable appetite for money has finally got to the point where he runs the risk of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. There are certain races that you simply cannot afford to mess about with. If you get rid of the Monaco Grand Prix, the Italian Grand Prix, the British Grand Prix or the German Grand Prix, you are on the path that leads to the wolves. To make way for races in ridiculous places like Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and the others he is contemplating, Ecclestone has already jettisoned seasonal favourites like the Austrian Grand Prix, the Canadian Grand Prix and the United States Grand Prix. At this rate, Ecclestone’s epitaph will certainly be “the man who killed Formula One”. I keep wondering why he can’t simply get run over by a bus…

Perhaps one ought not to cavil too much at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this weekend. For all the billions he has spent on his glittering new circuit, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has already received as much embarrassment from Interlagos as it is possible to suffer. The fact of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix being the last race of the season with no championship at stake provides an opportunity for a lot of fun. No driver has to hold back and be cautious. More than half the paddock are moving on to different teams next year, so there is the “going out in a blaze of glory” factor to be considered. These things should make for an interesting racing weekend.

With many drivers’ contracts for next year still under negotiation, a fair few will be looking to prove a point in Abu Dhabi so as to enhance their earning potential. A look at the 2009 salaries is instructive:

2009 driver salaries – US $ (m)
1 . K. Raikkonen - Ferrari F60 - 45
2 . L. Hamilton - McLaren Mercedes MP4-24 - 18
3 . F. Alonso - Renault R29 - 15
4 . N. Rosberg - Williams Toyota FW31 - 8.5
5 . F. Massa - Ferrari F60 - 8
6 . J. Trulli - Toyota TF109 - 6.5
7 . S. Vettel - Red Bull Renault RB5 - 6
8 . M. Webber - Red Bull Renault RB5 - 5.5
9 . J. Button - Brawn Mercedes BGP 001 - 5
10 . R. Kubica - BMW Sauber F1.09 - 4.5
11 . H. Kovalainen - McLaren Mercedes MP4-24 - 3.5
12 . N. Heidfeld - BMW Sauber F1.09 - 2.8
13 . G. Fisichella - Ferrari F60 - 1.5
14 . S. Buemi - Toro Rosso Ferrari STR4 - 1.5
15 . R. Barrichello - Brawn Mercedes BGP 001 - 1
16 . J. Alguersuari - Toro Rosso Ferrari STR4 - 0.5
17 . A. Sutil - Force India Mercedes VJM02 - 0
18 . K. Nakajima - Williams Toyota FW31 - 0
19 . V. Liuzzi - Force India Mercedes VJM02 - 0
20 . R. Grosjean - Renault R29 – 0

You can probably see now why Ferrari were so keen to get rid of Kimi Raikkonen! This also shows me that Barrichello probably earned a fair bit in his Ferrari days because a measly $1 million doesn’t do an awful lot for a guy with his lifestyle (you might have read that Jenson Button flew back to England in Barrichello’s private jet after winning the world championship in Brazil). It will be interesting to compare this with next year’s list.

I hope it is an exciting race – after all, the Sheikh’s billions should at the very least have built a challenging circuit! – and that you will,

Enjoy Abu Dhabi!

Gitau29 October 2009

Button and Brawn win in Brazil

2009-10-19T15:05:00.003+01:00

He did it. Jenson Button is the 2009 Formula One world champion. By driving from fourteenth place on the grid to fifth at the end of yesterday’s Brazilian Grand Prix, Button ensured that he had entered the annals of Formula One history. The debate about whether or not Button is a worthy champion has now been rendered irrelevant by the simple fact that he is; especially in a country like England where, for the media, you are only ever as good as your last triumph. The best one can do is remind oneself that only five other men in the history of Formula One have achieved the quite extraordinary feat of winning six out of seven successive races. This was not predicted by any commentator, least of all yours truly. If anything, Brawn was expected to be a minor team, lower down the ranks than Force India and Torro Rosso.

Rarely in sporting history itself has every expert been proved so comprehensively wrong. I was thinking about this as I went to bed last night and recalled the 1974 classic boxing match, the “Rumble in the Jungle”, between Muhammad Ali and George Forman. Not only did every pundit expect Ali to lose awfully, they feared he would get badly hurt. Foreman was young, fit and devastatingly powerful. With fists the size of loaves of bread, Foreman had made short work of Ali’s most formidable opponents before accepting Ali’s challenge. In his private moments - when he was not able to swagger about or call Foreman ugly - Ali must himself have feared a heavy defeat. But, come the day of the fight, Ali did it. He knocked out Foreman and became heavyweight champion of the world.

After a season dominated by the lime green and black logo of the white Brawn GP cars, it is easy to forget that Brawn GP did not exist until ten months ago. This was an F1 team cobbled together in a hurry after Honda made the (to my mind, short-sighted) decision to exit Formula One. Ross Brawn and his gang of mechanics - somehow -managed to build championship winning cars from the spare parts Honda had left lying around in their Northhamptonshire factory in their haste to return to Japan. The team’s self-belief and commitment in the face of all the odds propelled them to achieving the impossible. A privately owned, cash-starved, little team ended its debut season by winning both the F1 constructors’ championship and the drivers’ championship. This has never been done before.

Whereas most teams start the year with sponsor’s logos liberally posted all over their cars – look, for example, at the prominent place occupied by Vodafone on the McLaren team livery – the Brawn cars were almost embarrassingly clear of advertising when the season began in Melbourne. As the season progressed and the team’s bankability was repeatedly proved, a smattering of advertising began to creep onto the pristinely white bodies of the cars, helmets and overalls of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. Virgin weighed in, then MIG Investments, Ray Ban and a gaggle of others. This demonstrated more than the fact that Brawn GP was proving itself a safe bet: it meant that not only did Ross Brawn have to apply his technical and commercial nous in managing the team, he had to divert his attention to buttering up sponsors for much needed funding. If Ross Brawn is not knighted in the new year honours list for 2010 for outstanding British achievement, I will eat my shoes.

It was a thrilling weekend of motor racing. Qualifying was wet, chaotic and brilliant. By the end of it there seemed no doubt that Jenson Button had blown all his chances of clinching the world championship at Interlagos. His closest rival, team-mate Rubens Barrichello, was on pole at his home Grand Prix while Button languished in fourteenth place. As we now know, Button chose to be a daredevil and pull overtaking manoeuvre after overtaking manoeuvre as though his life depended upon it and everyone is now rejoicing.

Well, not quite everyone. A moneyed chap in a palace in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is seething with fury as I write this. The Sheikh feels like a man who has lost his trousers in an unsafe bet (come to think of it, the Sheikh isn’t too keen on trousers, but I am sure you get the picture). Having been assured of a place on the F1 timetable which guaranteed that the spotlight fell on Abu Dhabi after the billions he had poured into yet another Gulf white elephant (“listen Sheikh, old man, the statistics show that most championships go right down to the wire at the last race of the season”), the Sheikh must be feeling prepared to consider sautéed Ecclestone testicles for dinner. As the traditional Formula One circuits of Europe grew ever more adept at giving Bernie Ecclestone a curt middle-fingered salute, the malevolent little man had to seek out richer, less scrupulous people to fleece. But now that both championships have been settled in Brazil, who can say hand on heart that they will cry into their beer if they miss the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix a fortnight hence?

Tempted as I am to point fingers at Sheikh Khalifa and go “Ha Ha Ha!,” I am being unfair. This is not the time for schadenfreude. Nor is it the time to be engaging in querulous complaint, that favourite pastime of British journalists. It is the time to be celebrating the achievements of Jenson Button and the boys at Brawn GP. Well done lads!

Finally, just in case you were wondering where Jessica Michibata now features in the new world champion’s thinking, this is what he had to say after the Brazilian Grand Prix yesterday: “I want to thank my family and my girlfriend Jessica. I love you so much, this is for you.”

Gitau
19 October 2009

Interlagos: a nation waits

2009-10-16T12:11:00.002+01:00

You will not be thanked for mentioning the word “Brazil” anywhere near the White House for a long while. Barack Obama – a man who had been persuaded to believe he walked on water – felt certain a few weeks ago that his global appeal was sufficient to swing anything. He had convinced himself that his unquestionable star quality was enough to convince the members of the IOC to ignore Rio de Janeiro and choose his home city of Chicago as the host city for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Obama’s political advisor, a wily cove called David Axelrod, probably took a look at pictures of the Brazilian president, imagined him standing next to Barack Obama and thought “no contest here, man, Rio’s goose is stewed!” It is not difficult to follow Axelrod’s reasoning. While Barack Obama is tall, athletic-looking, young and handsome, Luiz Inácio da Silva (Lula) is short, stout, hirsute, old and repellent. He looks like the sort of evil loan shark you find in a dark, smelly, pawnshop when you are on the bones of your arse and prepared to sell your soul for a bit of cash.

What Axelrod had not reckoned upon were the pictures of beautiful, bikini-wearing Brazilian maidens (this is the home of the Brazilian wax, remember) gambolling along Copacabana beach which the Brazilian delegation had plastered everywhere they could in the IOC meeting hall in Copenhagen. What Lula da Silva and his mates had planned was the inevitable consequence: the good gentlemen of the IOC positioned their brains firmly a few inches below their belts and reached for their pens. To a man they awarded the 2016 Olympic Games to the ladies of Copacabana…I beg your pardon…to the city of Rio de Janeiro. Barack Obama was forced to climb the steps of Air Force One thinking murderous thoughts of David Axelrod.

The Formula One action this weekend is in Brazil but not in as scenic a location as Rio de Janeiro. The Interlagos circuit is old, shabby and located next to a sprawling slum with a propensity to release unpleasant things like stray dogs in the path of screaming F1 cars (which isn’t exactly in keeping with the prestigious traditions of Formula One, but there we are). Still, there is something to be said for a “jua kali” (panel-beaten in the baking noonday sun) circuit. Unlike modern computer generated circuits which completely ignore the natural lay of the land and require heavy bulldozing and expensive concrete work to accomplish, Interlagos follows the natural contours and twists of its home.

This gives you an uphill starting grid, roller-coasteresque drops, odd bends and generally a really fun day (if you’re watching, that is!). Add in rain and the woefully inadequate drainage of Interlagos and you have a circuit designed in hell for drivers and crafted by angels for spectators. Who can ever forget the chaotic, rain-sodden 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix when a torrent of rain water came sweeping downhill and caused half a dozen cars – including that of rain-expert, Michael Schumacher- to aquaplane helplessly and crash into the barriers?

Interlagos was not renowned as a world championship deciding location until the 21st century but it has now taken over from Suzuka as the place where, in mafioso parlance, champions “get made”. The last two new champions, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, achieved immortality at Interlagos. Alonso by finishing third in 2005 and Hamilton by causing hearts to stop around the world and scraping fifth place at the last corner of the last lap of the last race of 2008. Since neither of these chaps had been champion before, you could argue that the omens look encouraging for the boy from Frome, Somerset, Jenson Button.

Button alone among the three title contenders has the luxury of not having to go hell for leather. Each of Sebastian Vettel and Rubens Barrichello know that to be world champion they will have to win in Brazil. For Vettel, winning the championship in 2009 at the age of 22 would be very handy as it would allow him to eclipse Lewis Hamilton as the youngest ever Formula One world champion. Nevertheless, I don’t expect too many tears from the young German if he is unsuccessful. After the troubles he has had this season, I think he will be delighted to say at the end of it that he kept himself in the running until the bitter end. For Barrichello, the story is very different.

Interlagos is the circuit closest to Barrichello’s home. He cut his racing teeth there. It is, bizarrely, plagued by bad luck for Barrichello. He has had all manner of mishaps on his way to victory at home – including running out of fuel in 2003 while leading the pack to a certain win. I hate to think what is going through his mind now. Since the death of Ayrton Senna, Brazil, a sports-obsessed nation has won the football world cup twice but had no Formula One world champion. An emotional people were brought, as one, to their feet as Felipe Massa won the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix but ended up heart-broken when seconds later an Englishman took the bigger prize as world champion.

This year, Brazil suffered the emotional torment of seeing a near repeat of Senna’s horrific death in a crash at Imola in 1994 when Felipe Massa was horrifically injured in Hungary by a loose part from the car of – wait for it - Rubens Barrichello! Barrichello, an emotional man, was friends with Senna and was deeply affected by Senna’s death. The Massa crash shook him but probably intensified his focus on the challenge he faced.

Brazil wants, nay, needs a world champion. The country will not rest easily if, yet again, defeat has to be conceded to yet another native of Her Britannic Majesty’s dominions. In the awful knowledge of all of this and the fact that 2009 is his last ever chance of being the new Brazilian F1 hero, Rubens Barrichello would happily donate his left bollock to science if it would guarantee him the prize which has for so long eluded him.

The prospect of rain at Interlagos has been mentioned by some. This is splendid news. It would, therefore, be unwise to make any plans for Saturday or Sunday afternoons. Settle down somewhere comfortable, instead, and,

Enjoy Brazil!

Gitau
16 October 2009

Suzuka fails to deliver star quality

2009-10-05T16:51:00.002+01:00

If you want a weather vane of star quality, look no further than the contrasting media fortunes of Nicole Scherzinger and Jessica Michibata, Jenson Button’s girlfriend. Not many Formula One drivers’ wives or girlfriends end up becoming an essential part of the F1 landscape but Nicole has. If Lewis Hamilton has an off-circuit moment, performs a dramatic overtaking manoeuvre or, worst of all, is involved in a heavy accident, the television cameras instantly switch to Nicole’s face so that the entire world can see every last twitch of her reaction. We haven’t had this since the late 1990s when the face of Erja, the wife of Mika Hakkinen, was as much a feature of F1 television courage as her husband’s driving ability. It has given Nicole’s face a ubiquity which performing as a Pussycat Doll could never do in a month of Sundays. Nicole, in short, has attained star quality. This, I assure you, will not have gone unnoticed by the lovely Jessica who, while a desirable model in her own right, cannot yet claim to possess star quality.

In Noel Coward’s play Star Quality, an ageing actress is so determined to attain that elusive quality that she will stop at nothing. At one point during rehearsals for a play she hurls the play’s director across the dressing room and has to be reminded that “we’re putting on a play, not fighting a war!”

I can see Jenson Button having a conversation in similar vein with Jessica.

Jenson: We’re a step closer to the big goal, darling.
Jessica: But, Jenson, you promised me that you would finish it in Japan, darling. Now what?
Jenson: I know, I know, sugar lump, but all is not lost…
Jessica (raising her voice irritably): But this is Suzuka! You told me more championships are decided here than anywhere else. I told everyone. Now I just look stupid!
Jenson (sighs): I wouldn’t go quite that far, Jess. After all, I am still in the game and surely winning it matters more than where you win it, doesn’t it?
Jessica (beginning to lose it): You don’t understand! This is my home country. I could have eclipsed Nicole today. She would be nothing now!
Jenson (understanding swiftly dawning on him, chooses his remarks carefully): Jess, love, I’ll take you to Copacabana for some you and me time after the next race and we can put all of this to the back of our minds.
Jessica (sobbing): Jenson, please, please don’t deny me the world championship. I deserve it more than that American bitch.
Jenson: (embracing her): There, there, Jess. Relax, darling. The battle’s nearly over.

It is not too far fetched an assumption to suggest that Mr Button is rather more stressed than he has ever been. Not long ago he was the toast of the world; the driver who couldn’t seem to put a foot wrong. Now, the recurring question is whether he has it in him to become world champion. Every commentator now wonders how things came to be so bad. In another woeful day at the office for Button yesterday, Sebastian Vettel won the race commandingly and cut the gap between him and the leader to 16 points while Rubens Barrichello earned 2 more points than Button to cut his own point deficit to 14 points. A deep breath is required now. Let’s not all get carried away.

If you look at where Jenson Button is, you begin to understand Fernando Alonso’s frustration at McLaren in 2007. McLaren refused to accord Alonso the “respect” he felt he deserved as a double world champion. In Alonso’s eyes it was the team’s duty to order Hamilton, a mere rookie, to support him in his championship campaign. If Rubens Barrichello’s role was to support Jenson Button - like it was to support Michael Schumacher when he was employed by Ferrari – he would already be world champion. Having to fight his own team-mate has made things infinitely more difficult and proportionally increased my respect for the man. He capitalised on events when he could at the start of the season (while everyone else was scrambling to make sense of dramatic new regulations) and, now that the rest of the pack’s cars have equalled and even surpassed his own car’s capabilities, he is being cleverly conservative.

Even if Jenson Button does not win another race this season, he will have six wins to his credit at the end of it. That, remember, is one more than Lewis Hamilton was able to achieve in his 2008 championship winning season. The Cassandras of this world argue that if Button is crowned world champion, he will somehow have “lucked his way into it”. The argument is that he exploited a loophole involving dodgy diffusers at the start of the season, stole a march on everyone else and was no match for the big boys when the odds were evened out later on. Nonsense. The rules were the same for everybody. It is a 17 race season. The chap with the most points at the end of it wins the world championship. Quite simple when you think about it. Two years hence, anybody reading the list of past championships won’t begin wondering whether Button’s wins were evenly spread throughout the season or not. The records will simply say: “Jenson Button, World Drivers’ Championship Champion 2009. And nobody will ever be able to take that away from the Somerset lad. But first, he is going have to become world champion.

Given the new state of play after Suzuka what would you do if you were Ross Brawn? You have an English driver with talent but a worrying degree of conservatism in choppy waters containing many sharks. The hungriest of the sharks are Vettel and Hamilton. Vettel is not giving up until the final chequered flag has been waved. Hamilton wouldn’t mind a couple more wins for reasons of kudos (it is important to have lots of front page exposure if you wish to retain good earning potential and keep Nicole happy). You also have a temperamental but talented and experienced driver in Barrichello. Any hint that you are leaning towards favouring Button is not going to endear you to Barrichello. But how do you ensure that you keep both chaps happy and ensure the Brawn team’s survival?

Here’s how. Engineer things so that Barrichello wins in Brazil. You can’t do better than win at home. Separately, tell Button that you want Barrichello to win in Brazil and for him to come second or, at least, third. Result: Barrichello has his day at home, Button becomes world champion, lots of British sponsorship money flows into Brawn and everybody is happy. QED.

We are at the stage in every tightly contested championship when jangled nerves get raw. I love it.

Gitau
05 October 2009

Suzuka, Japan's gift to the world

2009-10-02T16:08:00.000+01:00

In the mid 1990s I found myself on secondment to the London branch of a gargantuan Japanese bank. Of the many things I found peculiar about the experience, the best was the hauntingly beautiful presence of a Japanese “hostess” called Tsukasa.

Tsukasa’s job was to look after the needs of the expatriate Japanese management. If any of them required a family holiday, Tsukasa would arrange an exotic trip to Chile. If a manager felt hungry and desirous of well prepared sushi, Tsukasa was his girl. Over and above everything else, Tsukasa’s job was to arrange golfing sessions at the top golf courses in the South-East of England for her Japanese bosses. Golf mattered so much to these chaps that it surpassed work by a considerable factor. Writing off the afternoon after giving oneself up to the sumptuous food and wine available at, say, Le Gavroche, was heavily frowned upon. In sharp contrast, taking the day off to play golf at Wentworth or St Georges Hill was not merely indulged but positively encouraged.

As Tsukasa minced her way bewitchingly around the open plan floors of the bank approaching each manager with radiance and fawning respect, I was sometimes able to snatch a few moments of her attention. This way, I came to understand the significance of the game of golf to the Japanese. It is akin to a religion in their country because land comes at such a vast premium in places like Tokyo that giving up acres of it for a golf course is almost criminally wasteful. You, therefore, need serious wonga to be a frequent golfer in Japan. Joining one of the top clubs will set you back eye-wateringly large sums of money. If, for instance, you wish to join the super-exclusive Koganei Country Golf Club, be prepared to part with ¥65,000,000 (roughly $723,000). Very serious wonga indeed.

While not enjoying the same cachet as golf, motor racing – and Formula One in particular - is not very far off in the mind of the average Japanese sports fan. Apart from the obvious fact that racing circuits, like golf courses, require lots of acres of land, Formula One is about glamour and the Japanese certainly enjoy that in spades. For corporate entertainment, if you can’t offer a weekend at Koganei, you could do a lot worse than obtain decent Grand Prix tickets with corporate hospitality thrown in.

One day, Tsukasa came onto my floor armed with a few important looking gilt-edged envelopes. She minced her way from Japanese manager to Japanese manager handing over the envelopes and smiling sweetly. She had run out of envelopes by the time she got to my mate, Hirai-san, and quietly withdrew. Each envelope contained an invitation to a prestigious golfing tournament at the Sunningdale Golf Club in Berkshire. At this realisation Hirai-san looked more crestfallen than I had ever known anyone to look. He sat still as a post quietly staring out of the window at the City beyond and contemplating hara-kiri. Tsukasa re-emerged, daintily walked up to Hirai-san and handed him a purple envelope. When he opened it, his suicidal expression was replaced by a toothy grin. “Ah so!” he declared. To soften the blow, the ever resourceful Tsukasa had arranged an all expenses paid trip to the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka. Hirai-san was pleased.

I often sought ways of exploring Tsukasa’s resourcefulness outside the bank but, regrettably, was never successful. Privileges such as Tsukasa offered were exclusively for those born in the land of the rising sun, not those born within the sound of Bow Bells - still less those born on the slopes of Kĩrĩnyaga. Like I did 13 years ago, I will have to get up early in London on Saturday and Sunday and watch the action in Suzuka through my Japanese manufactured television equipment.

Of the two active F1 circuits in Japan (Suzuka and Fuji) Suzuka is easily the better one. For many drivers it is a proper driver’s circuit and easily the best one there is. Lewis Hamilton – who is at Suzuka for the first time ever – concurs enthusiastically. Michael Schumacher, a devastatingly efficient winner here (6 times!), marginally placed Spa above Suzuka (partly, I think, for emotional reasons) but had enormous respect for this circuit.

With this being the first of the final three races of the season, the championship battle is shaping up quite nicely. If Jenson Button finishes 5 points ahead of his Brazilian team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, he will be crowned world champion on Sunday. That is to say, if Button wins the race and Barrichello is fourth or worse, the battle is over. Short of an accident taking Barrichello out or a mechanical failure on his car, I cannot see this as being remotely possible.

Barrichello is fired up and driving better than he has ever driven in his career. With the exception of last weekend, where Button managed to finish one place ahead of the Brazilian, the second half of the season in the Brawn team has belonged exclusively to Barrichello. One can sense that he wants this more than Button. He is like a cheetah that hasn’t eaten for a whole week and knows that he has to put in a life-sapping 70 mph run chasing down an antelope if he is to have any hope of survival. Barrichello means to take this championship down to the wire. He knows the best he can do is aim to win every race and hope that something happens behind him affecting Button. What is more, Barrichello has won a Grand Prix at Suzuka before. Do not bet against Barrichello being world champion. We have seen more dramatic ends to a season.

From the reports I am reading about rain interrupting this afternoon’s practice session at Suzuka, the omens look good for a wet weekend. Wet races make all the difference to one’s enjoyment. And they are rather better to watch from the comfort of one’s living room, Kirin beer in hand, than at an open stand on a chilly afternoon in Japan! Catch it live if you can and,

Enjoy Suzuka!

Gĩtaũ
02 October 2009

Singapore ends season’s speculation

2009-09-28T16:48:00.003+01:00

When I first began to see lead Pussycat Doll vocalist, Nicole Scherzinger, appearing at Formula One circuits, I would smile knowingly to myself or exchange glances with whomever I might have been watching the race. An enticing girl who sang for a band with as laughable a name as The Pussycat Dolls and thrust her hips alluringly while mouthing lyrics like “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me” seemed ideal for discussing Uganda but not a great deal else. More power to the Hamilton boy, I thought, he has found himself a very useful diversion from worries about oversteer and tyre graining and who can blame him!

In a mostly dull Singaporean Grand Prix yesterday, the camera kept moving from the racing circuit, where Lewis Hamilton was driving expertly at the front of a long snake, to Nicole sitting next to another driver’s bit of totty. She – Nicole, that is – appeared to be explaining the finer points of F1 racing to her companion. From her hand gestures and head movements, it appeared to me that she knew what she was talking about. This was a good sign. There is something between the girl’s ears after all. If she is taking as keen an interest as this at what her boyfriend does for a living, there may just be some long term hope in this relationship; notwithstanding that many other young ladies have submitted applications for Nicole’s position expressing a detailed and expert knowledge of Uganda.

It was not Singapore’s fault that the race was not as exciting as one would have liked, it is just that street circuits – with the exception of Monaco which oozes history and tradition - are poor substitutes for well designed, proper overtaking circuits like Spa, Silverstone, or Suzuka. That, of course, depends on what you want to see most in Formula One. Is it wheel-to-wheel racing or beautiful people in picturesque surroundings? Call me odd but I tend to have a fondness for the former.

Having expertly put his car on pole on Saturday, Hamilton never once put a foot wrong from the start of the race to the chequered flag. After his misplaced heroics at the last lap in Monza which resulted in an unnecessarily smashed McLaren, Hamilton negotiated the narrow corners of the Marina Bay street circuit as if his car was on rails. With talent like he has and age on his side, it is almost self-evident that another world championship will soon be his for the taking.

Speaking of world championships, after qualifying appallingly on Saturday - and appearing to all the world like a man who was haunted each night by a succubus – Jenson Button looked like a man determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Nevertheless, he drove a near perfect race to fifth place and, crucially, managed to finish a significant championship point ahead of his closest championship rival, Rubens Barrichello, with three races to go. The gap Barrichello must now bridge is 15 points. This is difficult but not impossible. Remember, Lewis Hamilton was 17 points ahead of Fernando Alonso in 2008 but managed to throw it all away and deliver victory to Kimi Raikkonen at the last race. Raikkonen ended up becoming world champion ahead of both Hamilton and Alonso by a single point.

The mood in F1 circles is not quite as feverish as it has been in recent years. It seems to be received wisdom that Jenson Button will be world champion in 2009 and more attention is, therefore, being devoted to which driver is going where in 2009.

The worst kept secret in the F1 paddock is that Fernando Alonso will be driving for Ferrari in 2009. Anybody with a hint of a working knowledge of the sport will have known that the Spaniard was merely cooling his heels at Renault for a couple of years. He had stormed out of McLaren in 2007 without a suitable home for him as an A-list driver. The only other comparable team to McLaren at the time was Ferrari but both its seats were filled with other A-list names. Now, although the contractual position for both its drivers is unchanged since 2007 – both Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen are contractually bound to drive for the scarlet team in 2009 – Ferrari, in their eagerness to sign Alonso up, appear to have done a deal with Mclaren. Raikkonen will go back to his old team as Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate in 2009.

As things currently stand, the A-list for 2009 reads as follows:

Lewis Hamilton – McLaren

This is not surprising. Nurtured by McLaren from the tender age of 13, Hamilton is as loyal to his team as it is possible to be.

Kimi Raikkonen – McLaren

I have sometimes doubted Raikkonen’s commitment to F1 racing since winning a world championship in his Ferrari debut year. It had been rumoured that he wanted to leave F1 and begin a career in rallying. This gives him another year at the top end with an A-list salary to boot. Raikkonen is very much his own man, so he is unlikely to be discomfited by the fact that McLaren is virtually built around Hamilton.

Fernando Alonso – Ferrari

For a double world champion, this offers Alonso the best opportunity of competing on equal terms with the rest of the A-list. However, Alonso is a prima donna who expects a racing team to suck his dick on a day-to-day basis. At team Ferrari/Schumacher where loyalty counts for everything, this will not happen. Also, Ferrari loves Felipe Massa. Worse than this, Michael Schumacher loves Felipe Massa. Still, I don’t think Alonso will be subjected to a team intoxicated like McLaren was in 2007 with Hamiltonmania. All in all this is a good choice for both team and driver.

Felipe Massa – Ferrari

Massa is as at home at Ferrari as he could ever be anywhere. He nearly died this year in a nasty accident which nearly ripped out his brain. The man’s motivation after this is nothing short of sensational. No surprises here, then.

Jenson Button – Brawn

Button has made a few career choice blunders but it looks like he has finally found himself a team in which he fits comfortably. Is it conceivable that any driver would willingly walk away from master strategist Ross Brawn? Hardly.

Rubens Barrichello - ?

At 37, Barrichello is lucky to have had a drive at all this year. He has lots of useful experience, though, and I see him ending up in a little bolt-hole like a new or up and coming team. At a guess, I would say Lotus is a good possibility for the next year or two and then retirement in Sao Paulo with enough money for a lifetime of golfing.

Before you give up on it, the 2009 season isn’t over yet. There is, after all, a race next weekend at a Japanese classic. Yes, you guessed right. Suzuka it is.

Gitau
28 September 2009

Renault begins to suffer

2009-09-25T11:21:00.002+01:00

There is widespread outrage that Renault got off so lightly from Crashgate (see, for example, the comment by Tugs to my post yesterday). Well, it appears that the FIA are not being allowed the final word on the sordid affair. See below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/renault/6228807/Renaults-principal-sponsors-pull-out-over-race-fixing-scandal.html

Singapore hopes for an end to its shame

2009-09-24T16:23:00.003+01:00

They must be spitting razors in Singapore’s corridors of power as I write this.

Singapore is perhaps the perfect example of what “enlightened dictatorship” is capable of achieving. The expression is often derided as oxymoronic but Singapore seems to prove that it is not. A prosperous first world economy was produced out of nothing in less than a single generation because a people collectively and willingly bowed to the will of a powerful and extremely clever lawyer, Mr Harry Lee Kuan Yew.

In Mr Lee’s mind prosperity depended first upon decent, rule-abiding behaviour and unquestioning respect for authority. If Mr Lee woke up with a bad feeling about something, his solution was to find a clever, if legal, way of declaring that something to be illegal and then see to it that the law was strictly enforced in both letter and spirit. Thus, when carelessly disposed of chewing gum was found to be blocking the doors of Singapore’s shiny new underground trains, Mr Lee’s authorities did not reach for lily-livered cures like a severe fine. No. Chewing gum was banned outright from the country. To discourage slovenliness and poor hygiene, strict sanctions were imposed against filth. If you deposit an unsightly mess in a Singaporean toilet and leave it for others to deal with, you will find yourself hauled off to chokey; leaving a toilet unflushed is a criminal offence.

Even august western publications like The Economist have found themselves banned from Singapore for daring to be critical of the government’s (for which read “Mr Lee’s”) methods.

The no nonsense nature of Mr Lee’s methods was brought into sharp focus in the 1990s. An American teenager called Michael Fay thought he could treat Singaporean residential streets like Chicago’s back alleys and vandalise motor cars when his excitable spirit moved him. Fay was arrested, tried and sentenced to six strokes of the cane. The Americans could not believe that one of their citizens could suffer such “barbarism” and the then president, Bill Clinton, tried asking the Singaporeans to be sensible. The message from Singapore was despatched back to Washington at a high rate of speed: “you do not tell us what to do with criminals here, matey!” The foolish boy was duly flogged.

Imagine then the outrage, the fury, the sheer indignation felt in the island city-state at the certainty that their country will now forever more be associated with easily the most blatant example of crookedness in motor racing and one of the worst ever in the history of sport itself. The 2008 Singaporean Grand Prix could hardly have been more execrable. Nelson Piquet Jr. was ordered to crash his car by his bosses at Renault in order to force a safety car episode at a time which so suited his team-mate Fernando Alonso that he went on to win the race. Formula One is now thought about as a mafia-controlled, vile sport where anything – even people’s lives – is expendable. Because of the skulduggery of Flavio Briatore and his loyal lieutenant, Pat Symonds, the first ever night-time Grand Prix – an event which was supposed to showcase the best of Formula One’s glamour and pizzazz - is now linked with the ludicrous new word “Crashgate”. Oh dear.

It does not take too much imagination to see that some hapless government official or minister from the appropriate government department was probably summoned to the office of Mr Lee Kuan Yew – who, although well into his eighties, now sits in the Singapore cabinet of his son, the Prime Minister, as Minister Mentor – and had heavy objects hurled at his head.

As we now know, Briatore and Symonds are now not even allowed within a mile of a Grand Prix circuit, so you might well be wondering what is to become of Nelson Piquet Jr. You are probably thinking that he is viewed like someone who has just emerged from the depths of a pit latrine liberally covered in “mature” substances and will never drive an F1 car again, right? Wrong!

At least four new teams are coming into Formula One next season and one of them has almost certainly lined Piquet Jr. up for a drive. Why? Well, Piquet Jr. is no ordinary driver, you see. This, however, is nothing to do with the Brazilian’s driving skills. Putting it delicately, he is not the most brilliant of racers (by all accounts, he even made a hash of the crash in Singapore – it wasn’t supposed to be so severe and it should have been against the opposite wall). But Nelson Piquet Jr. is special because – yes, you guessed it! – he is the son of Nelson Piquet Sr. Daddy has never been sparing in lavishing millions on his son – he even bought the boy his own racing team in Formula Three and GP2 – and would not be averse to paying any cash strapped new team a few million to keep the boy racing. Nelson Piquet Sr. is also very influential and could attract a lot of sponsorship money to any team employing his son. In other words, whether or not Piquet Jr. will be driving in Formula One any more is a no-brainer.

Singapore - and those in the world, like me, who wish we could all move on from this tawdry affair – sits with bated breath in anticipation of this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix. Will it provide sufficient razzmatazz to allow us a soothing break from talk of gangsterism, thuggery and cheating? I await it with interest; particularly because we are now at a critical point in the drivers’ world championship.

With only four races left this season, there are now just four drivers with a mathematical chance of being world champion: Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. The two Red Bull drivers, Vettel and Webber are so far behind Button – 26 and 29 points respectively – one has to conclude that it would take something as terrible as a crash eliminating Button and Barrichello from the rest of the season’s races for either of them to be in with a chance.

Barrichello looks like the only driver with a realistic chance of displacing Button. The Brazilian is 14 points behind his English team-mate. Button must, therefore, make 26 points in the last four races to prevent Barrichello defeating him. That is to say, Button must achieve at least 3 third places and one second place if Barrichello wins all four races. Given Barrichello’s age, experience and the fact that this is almost certainly his best and last ever chance of winning a world championship, one must conclude that four wins from him are highly likely. He has everything to gain and nothing to lose by going hell for leather. Button, by contrast, has everything to lose by gunning for it. I expect a daredevil will to win from the Brazilian and caution from the Englishman.

What we do not know is the role team orders are likely to play. Will Ross Brawn really let his two drivers race each other to the wire? I would love to be a fly on the wall of the team briefings this weekend.

If I was to bet I would put my money on Button. In all the circumstances it seems safest.

Notwithstanding Crashgate, the Singapore Grand Prix is an exciting night-time race at an amazing street circuit. Try and concentrate on this as you knock back a chilled Tiger beer and,

Enjoy Singapore!

Gitau
24 September 2009

The bullet finds Briatore

2009-09-16T16:40:00.001+01:00

My friend Zachary Oluoch got engaged to his Italian girlfriend a couple of years ago. Ochieng’s fiancé, Isabella, was from the town of Ravenna in the wealthy Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. Having never been to Italy, Ochieng was unaware that to an Italian, where one comes from matters a great deal. The differences between the north and the south are staggeringly stark. The southern part of the country is, to put it mildly, another country all together. The variation is complicated but the best way to summarise it would be to say north, rich and posh; south, poor and grubby. It is the reason there is a forthright political party, the Northern League, that advocates secession of the north.

The bit about the southern part of Italy which fascinates me the most will not be surprising to a keen reader of this blog: it is the home of the Mafia, the Calabria and all the other gangsters. That is where you find the shady, dangerous fellows you do not want to mess with.

As his relationship progressed steadily, Oluoch decided to take his fiancé on a Kenyan holiday with a difference. After taking in the joys of Mount Kenya, Tsavo and the Masai Mara, Oluoch included a surprise trip to the coastal town of Malindi. The couple arrived in Malindi at night, tired from a day’s safari and went straight to bed at the End Roc Hotel. When they awoke the next morning, Oluoch announced his surprise to his fiancé. “Today, my darling,” he said, “I am going to show you a home away from home. I will take you into Malindi town and you will see that far from being a Kenyan town it is Italian. You will see people from your country, eat food from your country and even walk in the streets licking Italian ice cream.”

Oluoch was perplexed when, after no more than a half hour’s stroll through Malindi town, Isabella fell into a mood and refused to speak to him for three days. When she eventually spoke on the flight back to London she, in a way only a highly strung woman can, put Oluoch firmly in his place. “Do not ever dare to presume that I have anything whatsoever in common with those people calling themselves Italian in Malindi,” she said. The subject was thenceforth closed forever and a day.

Flavio Briatore, the Svengali of Formula One, is not from the south of Italy. He, however, has spent, sufficient time with the denizens of the region to have acquired enough of their ways to get by in the world. Why, he even owns an island off the coast of Malindi where he has been known to entertain supermodels like Heidi Klum and Naomi Campbell. The influence Briatore has wielded over the sport has been legendary. There is no better talent scout than Briatore – after all it is he who discovered two of F1’s most outstanding drivers, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso.

But, as any Mafioso will tell you for nothing, influence comes at a heavy price. Each success adds an enemy or two to a waiting gang of thugs hell-bent on destroying you. Remember, even the Godfather, Don Vito Corleone, was gunned down in the street by rival gangsters. If you engineer the embarrassing filming of the FIA president as he indulges in le vice Anglais or sack the son of a Brazilian household name, you must be aware that at some corner on some day a bullet will be waiting for you.

Well, Flav will have lots of time to spend in Malindi with his shady friends now. For 16 September 2009 is the day he will remember for the rest of his life as the day when the bullet found him.

See below:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article6836809.ece

Gitau
16 September 2009

Gangsterism and, er, the little matter of a race in Monza

2009-09-13T21:14:00.003+01:00

If you took the portrayal of Italians on the large and small screens as being representative of Italy, you would think that the country was heavily in thrall to the mafia. You could be forgiven for imagining that everybody in Italy wears dark glasses, hats and two-tone shoes if all you ever watched were films like Goodfellas or television shows like The Sopranos. While Hollywood Americans glamorise the life of the gangster (“As far back as I can remember I’ve always wanted to be a gangster” – Goodfellas, a film by Martin Scorsese), Italians in “the old country” show it warts-and-all in films like Gomorra, as a vile, dangerous existence to be avoided at all costs.

Formula One, while retaining very close links with Italy (the Italian Grand Prix is, after all, one of the oldest continuous motor racing events in the world), has always kept itself aloof from these seedier aspects of Italian life. Some might argue that all of that has now changed; that the board rooms of the companies running Formula One teams are becoming indistinguishable from Vito Corleone’s office in The Godfather. In a famous scene from The Godfather, a baker whose daughter has suffered abuse at the hands of some American youths goes to see Vito Corleone in search of justice. He does so in a disrespectful manner which irritates the Godfather. Corleone is obliged to steer the man towards an understanding of his surroundings: “What have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you'd come to me in friendship, this scum who ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by some chance an honest man like yourself made enemies they would become my enemies. And then, they would fear you.”

It was circumstances not entirely dissimilar to these which prompted the release of devastating revelations by a sacked Renault driver, Nelson Piquet Jr, a couple of week’s ago. Piquet Jr is a rookie driver who has been anything but exceptional since being employed as a driver for the Renault team and the team-mate of double world-champion, Fernando Alonso. You could, if you were uncharitable, argue that his unremarkable driving ability goes back even further to his karting days; but I won’t. I will, however, admit that Piquet’s success in motor racing – such as it is – has everything to do with the phenomenal wealth and influence of his father, Nelson Piquet Sr. While one can pooh-pooh the abilities of Piquet Jr, the Formula One world is as one in its unstinting admiration of the three time Formula One world champion, Nelson Piquet Sr.

Like any doting father, Piquet Sr has done all he can to guide the career of his son through the maze of Formula One. Sadly, though, the boy’s abilities have not quite matched the wealth or ambition of his father. This has come as a growing – and, doubtless, devastating – realisation to Piquet Sr. The wily old man, therefore, probably sat quietly in his armchair at his palatial beach home in Rio-de-Janeiro a little while ago, glass of red wine in hand, and thought things through.

Nelsinho, his boy, had pissed several million dollars against a wall and there was little hope of anything being recovered from that. Now, with no other team prepared to grant any more favours to a spoiled young brat whose father was exhausting their patience, Falvio Briatore, the Italian boss of Renault, had threatened Piquet Jr with the sack and infuriated Piquet Sr. Things were, surely at rock bottom. What could he, Nelson Piquet Souto Maior, do so as to give his boy a dignified exit from the world of Formula One and, at the same time, settle a very old score with an Italian Formula one veteran who operated much like a mafioso hood? As he sipped away and painted various scenarios in his mind, a wry smile crept from the corners of his mouth and burst into a full blown chuckle which prompted one of the skinny girls lounging in bikinis by the pool to come racing in from her deck chair and inquire imploringly, “are you all right, Nelson darling, do you want anything from me?”

In advance of the first ever Singapore Grand Prix in 2008, a few men carrying briefcases were despatched to Enstone, Oxfordshire, home of Renault F1, to speak to some race engineers. Their instructions were clear. A crash was going to take place in Singapore involving a Renault car. Nothing about the crash was to be said until appropriate instructions were delivered in coded form.

A year later, while Flavio Briatore was in the middle of sensitive negotiations with a very wealthy Italian team over the release of the most outstanding Formula One driver currently available, a young man whom he had long forgotten about made a bizarre press announcement. So bizarre that all discussion about this year’s Italian Grand Prix in the press was pushed aside to make way for some fascinating information: Nelson Piquet Jr had announced that Flavio Briatore had ordered him to crash his Renault during the Singaporean Grand Prix last year. This, Piquet’s statement alleged, was done so as to force a safety car episode which would benefit Fernando Alonso in the other Renault. What made the story at least credible was the fact that Alonso would not have stood a chance of winning that race had there not been a safety car episode. A win by Alonso in a woefully uncompetitive car would have been useful in enhancing his value in Briatore’s negotiations with any team looking to wrest the Spaniard from his control.

It was with all this fizzing away in the background that we arrived at Monza for the Mafia, sorry, Italian Grand Prix earlier this week. The race proved to be a traditional Monza affair: good qualifying and mastery of throttle and brakes, as ever, made for a happy chappie at Monza. Rubens Barrichello, who has won at Monza twice previously in a Ferrari, was that chappie. He got – just – the edge on his team-mate, Jenson Button, during qualifying yesterday and successfully carried it through to a resounding win today. Lewis Hamilton did well by claiming pole position on Saturday but learned to his detriment that strategy mattered more than raw speed. His two pit-stop strategy was impossible for the Brawn cars and he failed to compromise on a safe points scoring third place by going for glory in the last lap and sacrificing his race – and his McLaren – in a bank of tyres.

Where all this leaves us is intriguing. For the championship, it now looks like either Barrichello or Button will be world champion. Their boss, Ross Brawn, cannot dare demonstrably favour either driver if he wants to retain harmony in his team. Given Barrichello’s superior ability in the second half of the season and that there are now 14 points between them with four races still to go, it is too difficult to call it yet.

As far as Formula One is concerned, your guess is as good as mine. As any mafia movie devotee worth his salt will tell you, a war is never far away from the surface. Nelson Piquet Souto Maior may just have lit the blue touch paper...

Gitau
13 March 2009

Ferrari buys Fisichella

2009-09-04T15:03:00.000+01:00

Anyone who has ever had the good fortune to be in a negotiating session with a member of the Kenyan police constabulary will tell you that those uniformed gentlemen of the law speak the language of Formula One very eloquently indeed. If you are driving and a Kenyan copper pulls you over and says “what you have just done is commit an offence,” he really means “I could do with two hundred shillings to tide me over for a couple of days, matey.” If, though, the copper says “you have just committed a very serious offence!” you know that the wolf is bivouacked outside his door and hunger pangs are gnawing at the bellies of his children. He really means “one thousand bob from you will mean the difference between the mortuary and survival for me.”

Applying this sterling logic to the language we heard from Giancarlo Fisichella and his Force India employers last weekend and throughout the earlier part of this week was, for me, the work of an instant. When Fisichella was asked whether he would be replacing Luca Badoer in Felipe Massa’s Ferrari seat for the rest of the 2009 season, he said “I have not received any call from Ferrari and am very happy driving for Force India at the moment.” In translation, he meant “It’s a done deal. The official Ferrari tailor was in my room five minutes ago measuring me up for my promotional photographs in brand new Ferrari togs in time for the Italian Grand Prix two weeks hence in Monza.” Similarly, Fisichella’s boss issued a statement on Monday denying the claims of a senior Force India employee that the Fisichella Ferrari move was “a done deal”. About his employee, Mallya said “he is not the official spokesperson for Force India and his comments should be ignored.” He meant “only I am authorised to negotiate on behalf of Force India and the Ferrari cheque has been written out in my name, not this arsehole’s.”

Taking a step back, this all looks to me like a game of numbers. Vijay Mallya owes Ferrari money for the engines they supplied his team last season which he hasn’t yet paid for. Fisichella has scored eight points for the team which will be worth a few million quid at the end of the year. Ferrari run the risk of having Italian fans throwing seats on the circuit at Monza if Luca Badoer comes last again which could ultimately be injurious to the team’s bank balance. There has been no Italian driving a Ferrari since Ivan Capelli in 1992. Giancarlo Fisichella is Italian. As the Americans say, do the math…

You can just see it, can’t you? Mallya picked up a phone call from the Ferrari boss, Luca di Montezemolo. I am privileged to have obtained access to a cleverly obtained copy of the telephone conversation. Here is a transcript:

Mallya: How nice to hear from you, Mr di Montezemolo.
di Montezemolo: Vijay, is-a no need-a to be so formal-a. You call-a me Luca. Maybe I invite-a you and a woman – don’t-a ‘ave to be-a your wife-a! (heh heh) - to my villa in Toscano. Maybe we ‘ave a swim-a and maybe a good-a Italian meal-a together-a. You like-a da plan-a?
Mallya: Sounds very good, Luca.
di Montezemolo: Okay you leave-a everything-a to me.
Mallya: No problem, Luca.
di Montezemolo: You remember those engines-a you ‘ave-a still-a to pay?
Mallya: Don’t worry, Luca. Now that we have some good points, there will be enough money in November for me and for you.
di Montezemolo: No, no, Vijay. You are-a now my friend-a. We forget-a engines. Okay?
Mallya: Thank you, Luca. But what’s the catch?
di Montezemolo: No, no, Vijay. You are-a too suspicious-a! Ha ha!
Mallya: Well, I..
di Montezemolo: You no worry. I take-a care of everything. Can you do something-a small for me, Vijay?
Mallya: What is that, Luca?
di Montezemolo: Tell-a Fisichella his overalls are now ready and the new-a team photograph is this-a Thursday. Okay?
Mallya: (sighs) Yes, of course, Luca. Anything you say.
di Montezemolo: Gracie, amico miyo. See you in Toscano! Ciao.

Gitau
4 September 2009

Force India - who's laughing now?

2009-08-31T12:55:00.002+01:00

If you chose to absent yourself from all things related to Formula One this past weekend, the remainder of this paragraph will cause you to question my sanity. Force India came to Spa fully intending to wow the watching world this weekend and achieved their goal in no small measure. Pole position on Saturday was executed by Giancarlo Fisichella in a superlative demonstration of how to maximise speed through the corners of Spa-Francorchamps. The Italian then went on to underline this with such an almost effortlessly brilliant drive that a win at Spa was denied him only by bad luck.

No, I have not gone mad. You know the times when a cartoon character sees something he can’t quite believe, shakes his head hard enough for you to hear his brains rattle and then repeatedly slaps his forehead? Well, you would be justified in behaving like that this morning. Force India – a team that caused people to snigger behind their hands before now – had everybody staring in disbelief yesterday afternoon. A team which, until now, was viewed in snobbish F1 circles as nothing more than the vanity of an arriviste Indian who, despite his “new money” was never going to be worthy of a seat at the top table. “Yes, Mr Mallya,” they would say, “we are perfectly happy to wash down our chicken vindaloo with a drop of your Kingfisher lager when the pubs shut of a Friday evening but let’s be realistic here. You don’t really understand the sophisticated world of top end motor racing now, do you?”

Vijay Mallya, owner of Force India kept his cool, said very little and carried on brewing Kingfisher lager while pumping in the odd million or two into his F1 racing team. The scoffs had conveniently overlooked a very significant aspect of Mallya’s F1 team. It might have had the almost ridiculous moniker, Force India, but was in reality a card-carrying member of the F1 pantheon. Force India was the successor title given to Eddie Jordan’s brilliant Jordan racing team. Eddie Jordan, a hard-nosed, straight-talking Irish businessman, has long been one of the most colourful characters in motor racing. Despite his limited budget and unconventional approach, he has always had a knack for spotting drivers and reading their potential. It was Jordan who discovered Michael Schumacher and gave him his first drive at Spa back in 1991. It was Jordan who provided a home to an eventual British World Champion, Damon Hill, and it was Jordan who nurtured the talent of the younger Schumacher, Ralf. Fittingly, it was while at Jordan that yesterday’s sensation at Spa, Giancarlo Fisichella, earned his first Grand Prix success.

You may recall Mark Webber’s debut Formula One race at the Australian Grand Prix in 2002. At the time, Webber drove for another minor team called Minardi. By coming fifth in that race Webber assured Minardi’s then owner, a maverick Australian businessman called Paul Stoddart, survival for at least another season. So ecstatic were the two Australians that they had their own podium ceremony after the top chaps had left and sprayed one another with enough champagne to bathe each one three times over. The eight points earned by Fisichella from his second place yesterday meant much than that. One point for an F1 minnow is of huge financial significance. Eight points and you are now talking real money.

In another of its peculiarities, Formula One’s unfairness extends beyond the kudos attached to a big name like Ferrari. At the end of each season, the television revenues are divided amongst the participating teams in accordance with the number of constructors’ championship points each team has scored. Simply put, the team with the most points gets the most money. If, like Force India, you participate more as a hobby for a team owner than anything else, a single point catapults you into the world in which drivers, engine manufacturers and sponsors take you seriously. Force india was previously destined to last for only as long as Vijay Mallya stayed interested – and who knows how long that was going to be in a world where there are hundreds of ways of amusing oneself with money? – and no more. Now, I would like to meet the man who argues that Force India are not here to stay.

The celebrations were less muted in the Force India garage than the Minardi one at Australia in 2002. The reason is that everybody – including yesterday’s Belgian Grand Prix winner, Kimi Raikkonen – knows that they were robbed of a certain victory by a first corner accident and KERS. The first corner accident was caused by inexperienced drivers running into the back of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton and precipitating a massive pile-up which necessitated deployment of the safety car. Kimi Raikkonen, who had used KERS to catapult himself from sixth to second at the start, waited until the end of the safety car episode to press the KERS button again and fly past Fisichella.

I am no expert in these things, but I understand KERS to be a system that is designed to recover kinetic energy from an F1 car during braking, store that energy and make it available to propel the car later. Given that only Ferrari and McLaren had the wherewithal to invest in this expensive system this year, one begins to see that there is method in the madness of the FIA when they demand cost savings from all the teams. Nevertheless, without the safety car, KERS alone would not have been sufficient to deliver a Ferrari win yesterday.

Although, they have chosen to hold off further development of their 2009 car and concentrate instead on next year's, Ferrari must be delighted with achieving their first victory of this - for them, ghastly - year. To have identical cars at both ends of a Grand Prix finishing line must surely be enough to convince even the floor cleaner in Maranello that Felipe Massa’s Ferrari can no longer be entrusted to Luca Badoer in 2009. Despite the denials, I find it impossible to believe that a telephone call in rapid Italian was not made to Fisichella’s management on Saturday afternoon. Two things are now certain. First, a man is on his way from Maranello to Silverstone to deliver a healthy cheque to Vijay Mallya’s Force India office as I write this. Secondly, Giancarlo Fisichella will be in Ferrari overalls when the F1 circus reconvenes at Monza a fortnight hence.

Gitau
31 August 2009

Spa, the jewel in Formula One's crown

2009-08-28T17:18:00.000+01:00

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, president of Uganda, revolutionary leader and visionary has often expressed frustration about Belgium. He is at pains to understand what about the tiny western European country qualifies its denizens to lead as charmed a life as other western Europeans. The sum total of Museveni’s argument is that the Belgians do not “deserve” to be so well to do. “The Belgians have nothing,” he says, “but they are very rich.” This is obviously something which greatly annoys the president. “You Africans have everything,” he says with a curled lip, “and yet you still have jiggers!”

I was minded to point this out to an annoying Belgian a few years ago but decided instead that discretion was the better part of valour. I had arrived at Brussels Airport and found myself confronted by a large immigration fellow with facial furniture of which even King Leopold would have been proud.

“Where have you arrived from today?” asked the bewhiskered Belgian.
“London, England,” I said, “home of the Wilkinson Sword razor company. I happen to have a fine example of their excellent products in my bag and would be only too happy to donate it to you because I see that your need is far greater than mine.”
He harrumphed irritably. “What is the purpose of your visit?” he said.
“Why, to see the Belgian Grand Prix, of course,” I said.
His eyes bulged and his whiskers rose about an inch. “You are going to Spa-Francorchamps? A likely story. Let me see your ticket,” he demanded.
I reached into my breast pocket, extracted the required item and handed it to beardy. When he inspected it, he was visibly impressed, for not only was it the genuine article, it had my name indelibly printed on it. He handed it back to me begrudgingly.
“The race should be over by 5:00 pm at the latest,” he said. “I want you out of Belgium by no more than 24 hours later.”
“Be reasonable,” I said, “I have arranged to see a chap about some Magritte paintings on Tuesday morning and…”
“Next!” the man roared.

I took exception to this treatment and haven’t been back to Belgium since then but, taking everything into consideration and totting up the pluses and minuses, I am forced to the conclusion that Belgium narrowly wins on this one: Gitau’s losses are greater than Belgium’s. Most significant of these is denial to myself of the pleasure invariably provided by the Belgian Grand Prix. Spa is without a doubt the greatest race track on the calendar (perhaps I ought to point this out to Mr Museveni).

Apart from the demanding nature of the circuit design, Spa presents unique challenges because of its unpredictability. Set high up in the Ardennes mountains, the area has its own micro-climate. Rain is almost a certainty at Spa but rather than rain uniformly across the circuit, it can be raining at one end and sunny and dry at another. Car set-up and tyre choices are, therefore, notoriously difficult to get right. This is a circuit where raw driving skill pays huge dividends. Drivers who have an instinctive feel for the circuit and possess no fear love Spa. It is no surprise that the list of Spa experts reads like a who’s-who of Formula One greatness: Jim Clark, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher et al. More recently Kimi Raikkonen has come to “own” Spa by winning three of the last four races there. Lewis Hamilton showed he had class at the old circuit last year but came against some crass stupidity from blinkered stewards and was denied a well earned victory.

It is difficult to predict how things will pan out this weekend. A lot is riding on this Grand Prix. Jenson Button’s championship could do with the boost a win would give him but the Brawn cars seem to struggle with tyre temperatures when driving at circuits which aren’t bakingly hot. We saw this at Silverstone this year when Red Bull easily coasted to the chequered flag well ahead of everybody else. Still, the word on the street is that Brawn have worked out what the problem is and should be competitive. It remains to be seen whether Button has been spooked by his team-mate Barrichello after the latter’s strategically clever win in Spain last week. Nothing would give the Brazilian greater joy than winning the world championship, so he must be looked at as Button’s most credible threat.

If I was considering a wager on this race I would put my money on either Kimi Raikkonen or Lewis Hamilton. Raikkonen needs to show that rumours about him having lost interest in Formula One are unfounded. Spa probably offers the best opportunity for this in 2009. Hamilton must be smarting from last year’s disaster and needs to add his name to the winners list if he is properly to be considered the rain master. Going by both drivers’ performances last weekend, victory on Sunday should be well within each of their capabilities.

The other thing to point out to Mr Museveni is that no country on the planet produces a greater variety of beers than Belgium. There are far too many to choose from for me to make any recommendation but I would advise getting your hands on a few before sitting back on Sunday to,

Enjoy Spa!

Gitau
28 August 2009

A win for Barrichello in Valencia

2009-08-24T15:38:00.001+01:00

I had lunch with my old friend Jolyon Simpkins the other day and, as ever, it was a memorable occasion. Simpkins is about 85 now and becoming increasingly curmudgeonly with age. I find him fascinating, though, and am always thrilled to receive a luncheon invitation from him.

Simpkins has always been dismissive of my fondness for continental Europe and its culinary joys. For him, the continental Europeans are effete and pretentious and they cannot cook proper food. He harrumphs disgustedly when I mention catching the Eurostar train to meet friends for dinner at La Coupole in Saint Germain des Pres, Paris. To this day he hasn’t quite worked out that often this is simply clever artifice; a means by which I can earn myself a good lunch without damaging my wallet too much. When I told Simpkins I was looking for last minute tickets for the European Grand Prix in Valencia, he demanded that I met him and discussed this over luncheon at that most unashamedly English of London restaurants, Simpson’s-in-the-Strand.

Waving away the leather-bound menu proffered by a nervous waiter, Simpkins demonstrated that his mind was made up. “I will have lobster soup to begin, followed by the roast beef and horseradish with steamed cabbage, roast potatoes and yorkshire pudding for my main course and then rhubarb crumble with custard for pudding. “He,” said Simpkins, indicating me with a fat finger, “will have the same. And while you’re at it would you mind pouring us a decent drop of claret, there’s a good chap.”

“Now,” said Simpkins while fixing me with a fierce look, ”what is this rot about you taking your hard earned pounds and wasting them on orujo-swilling Spaniards? I couldn’t believe it when I heard it. Are you not aware that there is a recession on?”
“But Simpkins,” I attempted to say but had to stop as he raised his podgy hand up to silence me. As he did so tears filled his eyes.
“They have no shame these European bastards,” he said, “none whatever. They will take food out of your baby’s mouth, the swine. They will rob you of your trousers before you know where you are with them. But we’re not going to let them do that, are we?”
“Simpkins, I…”
“There’s a good fellow. Now eat your lobster soup before it gets cold!” By this time a steaming bowl of soup sat before me and it seemed unreasonable to do anything but pick my spoon up and get slurping.

So, out of sympathy for my friend’s feelings for Arabella’s welfare, I cancelled my plans to attend this year’s European Grand Prix before I had so much as investigated the cost of tickets. But I was also motivated by baser, more selfish, motives. Last year’s race in Valencia was as boring and processional as any we have seen in less interesting Formula One locations and I was unconvinced that this year’s race would be any better.

Notwithstanding having watched the race from the comfort of my living room with Arabella switching my television sound on and off whenever it took her fancy, I am pleased to say that I was wrong. The 2009 European Grand Prix was not jaw-droppingly fascinating (and neither, in all honesty, is the refurbished old dock in Valencia that now serves as a racing circuit) but it had its interesting moments.

It was good to see a Brawn driver on the top step of the podium for a change. The fact that it was Rubens Barrichello and not Jenson Button is testament to how much better a job of Valencia the former made this weekend. Applying useful lessons learned from Ross Brawn from the years at Ferrari when Barrichello had the good (or miserable – depending on your point of view) fortune to ride shotgun for Michael Schumacher, the Brazilian had the good sense to capitalise on cleverly timed pit-stops and breathtakingly quick laps in the dying phases of each pre-pit-stop stint. Barrichello was also assisted by the lack of preparedness of the McLaren team.

Having dominated qualifying on Saturday and locked up the front row of the grid, McLaren contrived to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Slightly panicked when faced by the efficiency of Barrichello’s use of tyres and the Brawn team’s seamless ability to get their driver out at exactly the right point on the circuit, McLaren bungled the call to Lewis Hamilton for his final tyre change. When he came in, the team were not ready for him and he was forced to sit there and fume while his team threw away six seconds and a Grand Prix victory. It would have been close between him and the eventual winner in the end, no doubt, but taking everything into consideration, I believe Hamilton would have won the race.

Nevertheless, Barrichello’s win was universally popular. He is clearly a very well liked driver. I cannot claim to have ever before seen all the mechanics coming out of every single garage on the pit lane to salute the winner of a race. Acknowledging their adulation, Barrichello was emotional and self-effacing. I think it was good for the man in various ways, not least because he could dedicate the race win to his fellow Brazilian, injured Ferrari driver Felipe Massa, whose injuries were caused by a loose spring dislodging itself from Barrichello’s car.

Hamilton stretched every sinew in his face not to relay the frustration he must have felt to the wider world when seated in the post-race press conference, but I am sure he was seething inside. When we saw his ever present father and Pussycat Doll girlfriend scream out their frustration during that fateful pit-stop, we had a fairly clear indication of what would inevitably be going on in the McLaren garage long after the race was concluded and orujo-soaked bodies were propping-up various bar walls in the seedier parts of Valencia.

All this now leaves Barrichello 18 points adrift of world championship leader, Jenson Button. Luckily for Button neither of his next two opponents, Red Bull drivers Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were able to finish in the points; Vettel, ominously, because of the second engine blow-up in as many races. Button knows only too well that the time for leaning against a comfortable points cushion is now over. If a Brawn is to be the car that powers the next world champion to the chequered flag in October, it is by no means certain that its driver will be English.

Gitau
24 August 2009

The comeback that never was

2009-08-11T17:15:00.001+01:00

The Russian composer, Modest Mussorgsky, wrote a classical piece of beautiful piano music called Pictures at an Exhibition in the late nineteenth century. The work is an attempt to describe the sensations experienced by a lover of paintings as he walks through an art gallery displaying an exhibition of his favourite works of art.

I was reminded of Mussorgsky’s famous composition at the end of the 2006 Formula One season when Michael Schumacher, 7 times world champion and winner of 91 Grands Prix announced his retirement. I had written a valedictory piece praising Schumacher’s extraordinary achievements in Formula One but declaring that the sport would be better off without him. Short of death treats, I received everything else: emotional emails calling me a turncoat; phone messages warning me to stay away from Italy; and even threats to have my blog deleted from the internet in its entirety. Best of these was an email from a member of the tifosi who said he felt like I had yanked at his testicles. He had, he explained, a room, nay, a shrine in his house in which there hung blown up photographs of Schumacher winning at every Grand Prix circuit. This same chap wrote to me a fortnight ago ecstatically explaining the joy he now felt every day as he walked through that shrine in anticipation of the master’s return at the new circuit in Valencia on the weekend of 23 August.

Sadly for chaps like this and millions of others of his ilk around the world, this is now not going to happen. Schumacher has been declared medically unfit because of lingering injuries to his neck which he sustained while racing a motorbike in February this year. He will not be taking part in the European Grand Prix and the tifosi are simply going to have put away their hooters and rattles.

I must admit to being more than a little perplexed by this news. What, I ask myself, is going on? A driver’s neck being the most important part of his anatomy when racing an open top car at great speed at the same time as cornering and attempting to resist tremendous g-forces, you would have thought the first thing Ferrari would have made sure of was the durability of the Schumacher neck before rushing out an announcement about him being Felipe Massa’s replacement for the remainder of 2009. That the injuries to his neck are the reason for Schumacher’s decision seems bizarre. Really? Ferrari – a team with tons of spare cash and access to as many doctors as necessary – was unable to give Schumi a thorough going over before telling the world he was ready for a comeback? Come on! Pull the other one.

I have two possible explanations. The first is one that every conspiracy theorist has probably been drawn towards. After spending half of 2009 looking pitiful, Ferrari couldn’t bear being so out of sorts for any longer. They had already accepted that this season was a wash-out when near disaster struck and their star driver was seriously injured in an accident. How better to make the most of the situation and keep Ferrari in the headlines than by announcing the return of the most successful driver in Formula One history? Schumacher retired at the top of his game. It is perfectly believable that given the right equipment he could conceivably win a fair few races and even a world championship.

Therein lies the rub: the right equipment. It is the reasoning behind my second possibility for today’s state of affairs. The 2009 Ferrari – the F60 - is a no-hoper. A driver as competitive as Schumacher, with as technically brilliant a mind as his, would have realised fairly quickly that he risked embarrassment in Massa’s Ferrari. The last thing a successful and competitive sportsman wants is embarrassment. He would much rather lose money than the respect of his fans; respect, mind you, earned through years of hard effort. After spending hours in the Ferrari factory on the F60 simulator and studying its data, Schumacher will have come to the growing realisation that he risked serious damage to his colossal reputation by racing the F60 competitively. He risked looking as pathetic as Muhammad Ali did when he attempted a disastrous comeback fight against Larry Holmes in 1980. Schumacher probably considered his options and decided that disappointing his fans – who had already bought tickets by the vanload for the race in Valencia – was the lesser of two evils.

There is a more prosaic version of this theory. It is that while sitting at dinner across the table from Corinna, his wife, in their splendidly appointed home in Gland, Switzerland, Schumacher casually mentioned that he was planning to return to Formula One. The conversation went something like this:

Michael: (clearing his throat) Corinna, darling, how do you fancy an extra €35,000,000?
Corinna: Michael, what for? Haven’t we got more than €1 billion stashed away or have you been gambling?
Michael: Ah, well, that’s all safe but you could always do with a little extra couldn’t you?
Corinna: Why don’t you just come out with it and tell me what you want to tell me? Why skirt round the subject in this silly manner?
Michael: (very quickly) I have agreed to be Felipe Massa’s replacement driver for the rest of this season for €5,000,000 per race. Isn’t it great?
Corinna: Felipe is in intensive care, Michael. He nearly died in Hungary. Have you lost your mind?
Michael: It’s only 7 races and I’m always careful, you know that don’t you?
Corinna: (very slowly) I am only going to say this once, Michael. No. You are not racing a Formula One car ever again. Do you understand?
Michael: (very contrite, now smiling) Heh heh. Only kidding, darling. There’s nothing worth watching on telly so I thought I’d give you a bit of a laugh.
Corinna: Very funny, Michael. Ha ha bloody ha.

Result: Luca Badoer, Ferrari’s test driver, will be standing in for Felipe Massa at the European Grand Prix in Valencia just under a fortnight hence.

Gitau
11 August 2009

Hamilton hammers Hungary

2009-07-27T16:38:00.002+01:00

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

2009-07-24T15:19:00.002+01:00

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

2009-07-13T17:26:00.001+01:00

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

2009-07-09T12:25:00.002+01:00

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

Did the game change at Siverstone?

2009-06-22T14:54:00.002+01:00

When you see a Pussycat Doll leaping up in horror as her boyfriend slides off the Silverstone circuit onto the grass and an elderly man - who has the same name as the round objects at the front of your shirt - puts his head in his hands as his son loses track position to lesser mortals, you know things are not good for the subjects of Her Majesty. When you then see a German – a German! - express regret that he is not an Englishman because of how important winning the British Grand Prix at Silverstone is to him, you know that the words “not good” must surely be inadequate in description of the feelings of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button yesterday.

For the latter of the two English drivers, yesterday was not a complete disaster. He had a dreadful qualifying session on Saturday – both the mystique of Silverstone and the inevitable heebie-jeebies accompanying racing at home while leading the world championship did for him – and he was only able to manage sixth place on the grid. In a team controlled by the tactical maestro, Ross Brawn, this mishap could probably have been overcome by clever driving and keen race observation, but Button chose to pile on more problems for himself at the start of yesterday’s race. By the time the cars came round to Woodcote Corner, Button had lost three places because of a poor get away from the Start/Finish line. The rest of his afternoon was then all about damage limitation. That he was able to leave Silverstone with 3 points must be worthy of a little sigh of relief at how much worse things could have been. As things stand Button is still 23 points ahead of his nearest challenger, his team-mate Rubens Barrichello. With 8 races still to go this year, this is still a healthy buffer for the Englishman but he certainly cannot afford to be complacent. Things have been known to change very dramatically in F1.

What should keep Button’s management on their toes is the worrying fact that a young German is quietly and efficiently chipping away at the lead in front. The last German to overhaul a seemingly unassailable championship lead was Michael Schumacher. From the metronomic race control from the front to the android-like podium leap, Sebastian Vettel looks almost like Schumacher Mark II. To me there appear to be two main differences between the two Germans. The first is that whereas Schumacher was usually taciturn and uncomfortable speaking English, Vettel is loquacious (I have never known a driver speak so much after a race – this chap has his jaw wired to the national grid!) and perfectly at ease with the language of Shakespeare. The other is that notwithstanding his three wins at Silverstone, Schumacher always struggled at this circuit - and even suffered a bad injury there in 1999 when he broke his leg – while Vettel takes to the Northamptonshire track like a duck to water.

Yesterday’s commanding performance was by no means a fluke for the young lad (he’s only 21!); it was an announcement, an indication of things to come. Sebastian Vettel may be 25 points behind Jenson Button but I don’t think that is a fact which is likely to keep him awake at night. Better still for Vettel is the performance advantage Red Bull racing seem to have cobbled together. A one-two at Silverstone – with Mark Webber on the second step of the podium – is no mean achievement in anybody’s book. Red Bull is not a two-bit team run by some Austrian buccaneer who dares to think he can piss where the big dogs piss. Not any more it is not. Ferrari, McLaren and BMW can only stare in awe as the Red Bull cars lap nearly a minute faster than everybody else. The game has changed.

A chap having to come to terms with the new game is the autocratic boss of the FIA, Max Mosley. Having successfully faced down the mighty British tabloid press over revelations about his sadomasochistic predilections last year, Mosley arrived at Silverstone on Saturday determined to brow-beat the rebel teams comprising FOTA (the Formula One Teams Association) into submission. Describing the team owners as “lunatics” and accusing Flavio Briatore, the Renault owner, of attempting “to be a Bernie when he can’t”, Mosley was in vintage belligerent mode on Saturday. By Sunday it had become clear that FOTA were not listening to him any more and Mosley – perhaps for the first time in his life – was sounding conciliatory, magnanimous even. It is too late now for Mosley no matter how much he tries to lay on the charm; the die is cast. The only way FOTA will remain part of an FIA controlled Formula One series is if it has nothing to do with Mosley. In other words, the future looks simple: it is either an F1 series without Max Mosley or no F1 series at all. Again I say Hallelujah!

There is no escaping the fact that events at Silverstone this weekend marked a watershed moment, if not for the sport of Formula One as we know it, for the 2009 drivers’ championship. I look forward to the future with keen interest.

Gitau
22 June 2009

Silverstone heralds the beginning of the end of the madness

2009-06-21T11:49:00.003+01:00

“About Turkey and Turkish birds we have heard lots,” wrote my correspondent. “Of Italy and your recollections we now know more than we need to. About France we have heard more than is sufficient to illuminate a late night conversation in any pub. But of England what do we know? Are you not resident in Her Majesty’s fair dominions? Do you not sup of English ale and call it your own? God bless my soul, do you not avail yourself from time to time of England’s fair maidens? These things we are certain about but a word about them nothing. Well, why? Why, why, why?”

I will spare you the rest of the details of that choking email which I received a couple of days ago but suffice to say it rather unsettled me. The gist of it – if you haven’t worked it out for yourselves – was the restraint I appear to express about my adopted home and fluency (his word, not mine) about lesser countries. I brooded over this for a while and chose to ignore the missive as being no more than the consequence of a deep and meaningful conversation with Mr Johnnie Walker but I have since corrected that thought and decided that there was some sense in my correspondent’s sentiments. I owe my readership an explanation – especially as it is the eve of the British Grand Prix, the home race of nearly all the teams in the 2009 Formula One championship, and probably the beginning of the end of the sport as we know it. The reasons for my silence are multiple but mostly related to a single event.

Here is what happened. Conscious of the significance of a symbol which any sailor would have identified as English since English sailors sank the mighty Spanish Armada a long time ago, I chose to spend a day sitting eating sandwiches and drinking lemonade on the white cliffs of Dover. When I arrived at the entry gates to the revered site, I met a crusty old gate keeper dressed in a moth eaten tweed jacket and smoking a pipe pensively. When I asked how much he wanted for a ticket, he stared at me through swivelling eyes.

“Like England do you?” he said at length.
“What does it matter you stupid old git,” I said irritably, “just hand over the bally ticket and go back to chewing your silly pipe.”

Remember the old chap who crops up from time to time in old westerns pointing vaguely at some point in the distance and declaring “there’s gold in them thar hills!”? Well, the gate keeper looked something like that when he handed over a ticket with the words “I’d be carefully my lad, there’s magic in those cliffs”.

Days later I woke up to find my bedclothes soaked. Convinced this was the consequence of a passionate visit by the Succubus in the dead of night, I dismissed this and attempted to get up for a drink of water. When my legs buckled under me and I began to see stars, I realised things were far more serious. As I sat on the White Cliffs a malicious tick had crawled into my trousers, bitten me on the backside and left some nasty poison inside me. I was now a victim of Lyme disease. Salvation came through medical intervention but I had learned my lesson: do not be disrespectful of Albion. So there you have it.

One would have thought they knew better but, after years of unfettered control of the sport, two arrogant, old Englishmen are about to have their comeuppance. And, appropriately, it is happening in England. For years, while Bernie Ecclestone decided where Grands Prix were held, how much any potential host circuit had to pay for the privilege of staging a race, which television stations were allowed to cover events and how much of this money he was prepared to share with the teams, his close friend, Max Mosley, set the rules of the sport. Both men grew increasingly megalomaniacal over the years. Result: disaster.

When Bernie Ecclestone found himself at war at home with his statuesque, no-nonsense Croatian wife, he soothed his battered ego by doing F1 deals with shady characters in ghastly places (how else do you explain the extraordinary, mind-numbing craziness of the Grand Prix in the desert – Bahrain – which we have been forced to endure for five years?). Meanwhile, Max Mosley, when unable to locate hookers sufficiently enthusiastic at thrashing his bottom, caused havoc with Formula One’s rule book. The participating teams put up with this double-headed nonsense for a very long time but they have now said enough is enough. From next year all the teams – excepting Williams and Force India – will be forming their own break-away racing championship. Hallelujah!

It is, therefore, with relief that I have been stacking up my fridge with Courage Best Bitter in readiness for tomorrow’s British Grand Prix. It is the home race of current championship leader, Jenson Button, but that is never a guarantee of success. If past races involving otherwise successful drivers at their home circuits is indicative of Button’s chances, I would be hesitant about placing bets on the Englishman. His team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, has better chances, I reckon.

The other Englishman racing at home tomorrow will be last year’s race winner Lewis Hamilton. Unfortunately the youngster’s car is so appallingly bad this season that he has better chances of persuading HRH the Prince of Wales to join his pit crew than he does of winning the British Grand Prix.

Silverstone is a magnificent circuit ; it is easily one of my favourites. One of the best pieces of news about the end of the Ecclestone-Mosley pantomime is that classic circuits like this one will be safe from threat. Heaven knows we may even see a return of precious places like the A1 Ring in Austria and Watkins Glen in New York – Inshallah.

I have never failed to enjoy a British Grand Prix and hope that you too will,

Enjoy Silverstone!

Gitau
20 June 2009

Turkey reveals Button's secret

2009-06-08T16:44:00.003+01:00

Halfway through yesterday’s Turkish Grand Prix, the television camera swung round the Istanbul Park and I saw something that caused me to sit bolt upright, place Arabella on the floor and think hard. A tired looking fellow of indeterminate racial origin was sitting on a grass verge swigging thirstily from a bottle of water. To his right was his jacket – there was nothing unusual about this as temperatures were very high at the Istanbul Park yesterday – and to his left a six pack of Efes Pilsen. Looking carefully at the man’s jacket, I noticed that it was concealing some sort of object. Later on, when replaying the highlights of the race, which I had recorded, I paused the picture at this point and looked more closely at the man’s jacket. Poking out of the side of the jacket were the unmistakeable gaudy feathers of a mask I had seen somewhere before.

In the days before English and European football clubs like Arsenal, Manchester United and Barcelona became global religions and caused youngsters in a vast Nairobi slum like Kibera to kill themselves when things went awry for their teams, some local football teams actually mattered. I have in mind the days when it was dangerous to wander through certain parts of Nairobi in anything other than a lime-green Gor Mahia (a Kenyan football club) jersey. I remember getting into the spirit of the thing and queueing for many hours in 1987 for tickets for the biggest football match ever played on Kenyan soil. The final of the African Cup Winners Cup was to be played on a Saturday in November of that year between Gor Mahia and Espérance Sportive de Tunis at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani and I was damned if I was going to miss the game.

On the fateful Saturday I was in amongst the crowd singing “Gor, Gor Mahia, Gor, timbedutoywakni!” (which, I am told, translates as follows: “Gor, Gor Mahia. Gor, all the teams are crying!”) when I noticed a rather disturbing, (or reassuring, depending on your disposition) sight. Running round the corridors of the stadium and dancing down the steps of each stand when he came to it, was a chap dressed like a peacock.

Apart from lots of lime-green being in evidence about his body and several jingly bits wrapped round his ankles, he had on a massive mask covered in feathers of every possible shape and colour and waved an elaborate fly-whisk over the heads of the chanting fans as he ran up and down the stand steps. The chap was perspiring so profusely that he left a little puddle of sweat on the steps of the stand in which I was sitting before moving on to bless the remainder of the stadium. He looked every bit like a member of the welcoming committee at the gates of hell. I was assured by better informed Gor Mahia fans than me that he was anything but bad news. In his absence, they said, Gor Mahia was assured of defeat, for the Tunisians were formidable opponents. The fans were right. I will never forget the faces of the Tunisians as the final whistle was blown and they had slowly to trudge to their dressing room in the knowledge that they had been humiliated by a team which, outside Kenya, was not known for its ability to do much more than kick its way out of a paper bag.

I was reminded of these scenes yesterday as Jenson Button easily got past the distracted pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel at turn 10 of the first lap and then went on to lead the Turkish Grand Prix for the rest of the afternoon and take the chequered flag as only the fifth man in history ever to achieve six wins out of the first seven races in a Formula One season. A man who had been written off as a has-been at the end of last year had now joined the exalted ranks of Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher. I feel certain that the feathers being inexpertly concealed on that grass verge at the Istanbul Park have something to do with this. Button is doing better than anybody could ever have dreamed because he is the beneficiary of very powerful muti.

“Surely you jest, Gitau,” I hear you smirk. Well, here’s how it happened. The perspiring chappie at the football match in 1987 was also wearing a black tunic covered in white, lime-green and red buttons (bear with me, my friends, because this is significant).

Not long after the end of last season, Jenson Button was lying on his bed in a hotel room in a foreign city with a bottle of scotch and a revolver by his side. He had received word that Honda were quitting Formula One and each of the girls in his little notebook in that city had claimed “prior engagements” as an excuse for not seeing him that evening. He thought it a good idea to take a last look at the world – through the eyes of the television – see how awful it really was and then do the evil deed. The pictures from channel to channel were dominated by a grinning black man with a funny name. The black man was waving at vast crowds in acknowledgment of a significant moment in human history. “O-what?” Button thought in his state of befuddlement. “That can’t be right.” Than he saw pictures of the village where the father of the new American president was born. Among the dancing crowds was a gaudily dressed man in a black button-covered tunic, a feather-covered mask and jingly bits round his ankles. Button thought twice about the revolver and phoned his father in Somerset, England. “Get that bloke, Dad,” he whispered.

The colours of the Brawn GP car are white, lime-green, black and red. The Brawn pit crew wear black overalls. Now do you see it?

Jenson Button is going to be world champion in 2009. If you fancy your chances, offer me a decent wager against this not-so-bold statement. I promise to cooperate.

Gitau
8 June 2009