My F1 rave...

As I said, I love F1. What a shame this sport has been so politicised over the years. This ranges from the internal politics in certain teams (like Ferrari) to the party-political games on the periphery of the sport.

An example of the latter is the move of the Australian GP from Adelaide to Melbourne. What was behind that move? The best interests of F1? It would seem as if the best interests of the sport didn't come into this decision at all. Instead, it was a Liberal (conservative) Premier in Victoria trying to outsmart a Labor Premier in South Australia, and Bernie Eccelstone, for reasons of his own, allowed himself to be sucked into this.

Was there ANY reason for moving the GP from Adelaide??? NONE WHATSOEVER! The drivers liked Adelaide, the crews liked Adelaide, and the fans liked Adelaide - let's remember that the 1995 Australian GP in Adelaide drew the largest crowd in the history of GP racing - of any GP anywhere and ever... an absolute record in attendance figures. Did Melbourne, with a population well over three times that of Adelaide, and supposedly so much easier to reach for tourists, manage to surpass the Adelaide record in 1996? NO, absolutely not - it didn't even come near it, which means that much of the reasoning for the move has proven to be sheer nonsense, as was absolutely clear right from the outset to anyone with even a small amount of knowledge in this area.

Am I saying that the Melbourne GP is not as good as the one held in Adelaide? Again, ABSOLUTELY NOT. This isn't a "whinge" about "some other city got what we had...", but a complaint about the underlying politics. The 1996 Melbourne GP (or correctly of course, the Australian F1 GP held in Melbourne) was undoubtedly a success, and I have no doubt that future events there will be just as good. But that, in itself, is no justification for how this situation arose in the first place.

Unfortunately, F1 racing is full of this sort of politics. Some drivers get drives because of their connections or money, rather than their skills, in some cases the nationality of a driver determines his chances of getting a drive based on a particular manufacturer's or sponsor's global sales strategies, and so on.

While I can understand (but not approve of) a certain degree of nationalism when it comes to sponsors and manufacturers, I have an ABSOLUTE DISLIKE for the at times rather nationalistic if not outright xenophobic commentary that is often associated with F1 broadcasts. I can recall MANY occasions of this happening, particularly a degree of Francophobia by some of the English-speaking commentators. For instance:

• the famous case when the Monaco GP was stopped when rain was absolutely pelting down, and the commentator informed us that he thought that was a "typically French decision" designed to prevent Senna from winning (Prost won, receiving half points, which ultimately cost him the championship for the year...). The fact that Monaco isn't France, that the decision was made by a Belgian (a well-respected former GP driver himself, and a non French-speaking Belgian at that), and that the decision was blatantly obvious for safety reasons, didn't really seem to come into the discussion.
• the time when an Australian commentator suggested that a French driver was likely to get a second trophy just for being French...
• the time when a British/Australian commentator seemed to suggest that Renault engineers would deliberately cause an engine blow-up and/or torn tire to prevent a British driver from winning...
• the way Alain Prost was treated by some of the media... when he won, it seemed to be the achievement of the car, or sheer luck, but when he didn't win, it was a driver error on his part (in recent commentaries, involving commentator favourites like Damon Hill, an exact opposite approach seemed to be taken - if he lost, it was bad luck or equipment failure, if he won, it was his sheer driver brilliance...) Unless I am very much mistaken, and I don't think I am very much mistaken, I don't actually have to name some of the commentators in question...

Enough of that. My favourite driver? I've already mentioned him: ALAIN PROST. Although much maligned by some commentators, "the Professor" is the most successful driver of all times. Just look at the stats:

• 1st in number of total wins
• equal second in Pole Positions
• 1st for Fastest Laps
• 1st in overall points

What's more, he did it all while continuing to be a SAFE driver, unlike some of the flashy racers with whom one always has to wonder when they are going to kill themselves or somebody else. Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but for me, GP racing is about the skills of the drivers, NOT about the crashes... a good race for me is one without any accidents.

And Prost managed to do something else that nobody I can think of has done successfully before or since: take a year off from F1 and come back to win another championship.

Moreover, he did all that at a time when there was some real driver talent on the tracks, people who were great champions in their own right... people like Lauda, Senna, Mansell, Rosberg, and so on. There have been periods in GP history where a driver like Prost (or, for that matter, Senna, etc) could have been even more successful than he already was, simply because there wasn't as much competition around.

Here a few F1 links:

F1 statistics - as the name implies, this page gives us some very useful stats

FIA Formula 1 World Driving Championship

Other Automobile-Related Pages - an excellent collection of automobile-related links

The Murray Walker Quotes Page - don't miss this one!

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