Blogs are about opinions, not just straight journalism… I would rather write of the good things that Grand Prix racing has to offer, rather than the latest sleazy scandal. One might, I suppose, argue that Flavio going down in flames is a good thing and point out that the F1 paddock has been enjoying his pain in a schadenfreude-fest of Olympic proportions. It is a universal truth that those who live by the sword must accept that they will likely die by the sword as well. Flav knew the rules of the game and he has only himself to blame if he has been caught.
The sordid tale of Singapore 2008 has no place in F1. It is a tale of miserable cynical people, people with no souls. Where is the passion in doing such things? Where is the joy? Where is the pride? Where is the honour? It was all just to keep them on the Renault gravy train. To keep their jobs when they did not deserve to be kept.
Go to Monza and watch awesome men in awesome racing machines on a proper circuit and you will understand the grandeur and the purity of the sport. See Giancarlo Fisichella glowing with pride in his new red overalls and you will understand. He gave up a car that might have been capable of winning the race to become a Ferrari driver, to join the league of extraordinary gentlemen who have been Ferrari drivers. His heart ruled his head. His passion for the sport overruled his desire to win.
See Tonio Liuzzi so proud and happy to have been given the opportunity to show the F1 circus that they were wrong about him, which he did with great aplomb.
Most of all, see Lewis Hamilton drive his car so hard in the final lap of the race that in the end he crashed heavily. You can call it stupid if you have no soul, but points were meaningless for Lewis on Sunday. It was about winning, or at least trying to win. It was about going to the limit and beyond.
It is not winning because your team-mate stuck his car in the wall.
Winning is not about finishing first, winning is about passion, about pride, about the joy and the thrill of the contest.
And if you have to manufacture that, then you are lost… and have no place in the sport.
Excellent, well said.
Absolutely perfect! Thank you so much for that.
I have been a great fan of Formula One since the late ’70′s and what you have said here especially in the last 5 paragraphs just articulates the very essence of whom Ayrton Senna was.
Senna would have been proud to have seen the way Hamilton gave it EVERYTHING.
Keep up the amazing work.
Cheers!
Great stuff Joe.
GD
well stated……I could not agree with you more.
Bravo!!
“It is a tale of miserable cynical people, people with no souls. Where is the passion in doing such things? Where is the joy? Where is the pride? Where is the honour? It was all just to keep them on the Renault gravy train. To keep their jobs when they did not deserve to be kept.”
This actually says it all. An issue I find disturbing is the power the teams appear to exert over their drivers, we had Lewis lying for his team and to get another team disqualified. We now have Renault not prepared to defend allegations that a driver was asked to crash so their other driver would gain an advantage. Although the Singapore victory cannot be taken away from Renault and Alonso it represents a very shallow award.
Thanks for this one Joe, and I agree completely. I’m glad you can still see the enjoyment in F1, and I think a lot of use felt the same way last weekend. The Renault affair is something we really didn’t need, especially after the nasty McLaren affairs past. Having said that, I guess we don’t want people in the sport who only have thoughts for winning, and not for the sport itself.
This is why I was sad to see Ron Dennis go. I honestly think he always had F1′s best interest at heart, despite all that may, or may not have happened.
I agree wholeheartedly
Joe,
Truer words have never been spoken. This scandal is a scar on the greatness of those real people on the circuit that are so passionate about the race.
Just look at the face of Barrichello when he stepped out of his car in parc ferme at Monza this year and you’ll see the passion for the sport that you so accurately describe.
I’m looking forward to the closing races of the season, and toward a cleaner 2010.
Jameson
You are absolutely right. Great post!!
Amen…well said Joe.
Hear! Hear! I couldn’t agree more.
There’s a line in there somewhere about nails and heads…
Keep fighting the good fight Joe.
I would query your assertion that grand prix drivers are gentlemen.
Excellent stuff.
Tend to think all the teams should be posting this on their intranet or communal notice boards. A reminder why (a) they do it (or should be doing it) and (b) we watch it, after sifting through all the crap associated with the sport so very often.
You’ve got to hope that, although the new teams may not have the names of some of the teams we’ve lost/are losing in recent times, they’re coming in for the sort of reasons you outline Joe. And not just to sell us cars’n'stuff in their corporate dullness.
Well said! – Great post
Joe
Well said Joe!
I have been reading your thoughts for a long while now but never commented on the blog before…
I think any true motor racing fan reading your post will wholeheartedley agree with your sentiments and anyone remotely connected with the sport will be truely sickened by these latest events with renault.
Frankly in my opinion Jackie Stewarts most recent comments are on the money – the sport needs new governance at all levels.
– The Challenge is that absolute power corrupts absolutely especially when coupled with huge sums of money.
Without true change I fear the pinnacle of our sport is now doomed and other areas will be influenced over time mores the pity.
I spent many great years racing gearbox karts on long circuits in the uk and had a truely fantastic time -there was great skill, sprtsmanship and camraderie -in fact anyone watching the latest machines will see some truely awsome (in the british sense
) machinery.
Money is always a factor in motor sport but frankly what we are seeing now is purely people looking at this in the same way as hangers on do in premiership football
and look at how thats going!
My instinct tells me that the pure motor sport enthusiast hankers after a time where racing was about man,machine and fear (of very real danger) – with a dose of good manners, competition and relief that everyone got home safely
Unfortunately F1 is simply not about this anymore its about comercialism, sales, branding , marketing and most of all greed for all but the very heart of the show (the unsung hereos at the factories, mechanics etc).
What is needed right now is someone who can truely set the vision for where this sport needs to go albeit in a modern way – I hope for all our sakes that “Ari” is that man and that he gets the chance to prove it…
Peter
This is why we have professional writers… to explain to us how we feel. You summed it up perfectly Joe. And I also agree about Ron Dennis – the man has oil instead of blood in his veins, which is a far cry from Flavio.
Absolutely bang on the money Joe! Keep up the super work.
Nav
Well done Joe. Right on the mark.
By the way Stuart, Senna did have his adverse moments.
Bravo! Well said by a man who obviously shares that same passion!
Love it Joe. Forza F1.
Great blog but very rose tinted. It’s always gone on, it was just called team orders, the manufacturing of a result. There is too much money to be lost to leave it to passion and skill I’m afraid. 10-1 that we have another of these “scandals” before the season is out.
You’re right, blogs are about opinions, and this is a great opinion. Well said.
superbly written Joe,
this is exactly why corporations/manufacturers (who have no soul) should never be in charge of the sport
big money corrupts
Hopefully the glorious rags-to-riches stories we’ve had all year on the track will begin to shine through by the end of the season. We’ll have a good bloke (either way) and a new team as world champions, and everyone else racing just for the hell of it.
May I add someone who wasn’t at Monza to your list of positives: Felipe Massa for his dignity in defeat last year, and an inspirational approach to his recovery that shines through in his recent interviews.
I’m sure some of that has rubbed off on his mate Rubens, who seemed to come back a different man after the summer break.
Maybe the driver you refer to at the end wouldn’t fit in after all at Ferrari – even if he does bring a focus and killer instinct that they’re maybe missing.
Nice article,but with a single glaring omission, points may not have been important to Lewis Hamilton, but they may well have been important to those other people with soul, you know, the constructors who toil to build his car, he threw away chance to feel the pride that Fisi felt last week.
[...] Two crashes (Joe Saward) [...]
Excellent piece. Well argued and written.
I can’t think of a greater response to all the negativity of the last couple of weeks.
That crazy, irrational passion for the sport is what keeps one coming back every other weekend, month after month, year after year, in the hope of witnessing some of the glory moments.
Brilliant, brilliant article. Sums it up completely.
Joe, if I might call you by your first name. What a great piece of writing. You made my heart sing with joy! This piece is the best I’av seen on the web for ages. What passion, what joy. Bravo my friend, bravo.
Points beautifully made Joe (as usual). But wait..I’ve just received a note from an intermediary…it’s from a B. Eccleston Esq….it says in part…’and another thing, get Saward off my Christmas card list!’
Perfect.
Great Post Joe… I hope everyone in the paddock reads this and remembers what they are doing.
We need more people like you running the sport!
Mr. Saward,
I am dismayed that you should end this well-reasoned piece with a questionable slander against Fernando Alonso.
When you write “It is not winning because your team-mate stuck his car in the wall.” are you assuming that Alonso was part of the plan to rig the race result?
If it is proven by the FIA’s investigation that Alonso was in fact a co-conspirator such a statement is all well and good but I don’t think it’s fair to condemn him just because he was on the Renault team, or was there some other reason behind your statement?
I agree that everyone is entitled to their opinion.
When you speak of passion for the sport I recall Alonso’s battles against Schumacher and Raikkonen and the way he’s driven the substandard R28 and R29, pushing them well above their rightful place over the past two years. I’ve seen him race and he has as much passion for the competition as any driver out there!
If I had defamed Alonso it would have been libel rather than slander. However there is no hint of any defamation. I was simply drawing a parallel between the two crashes.
Great post Joe. A pity there are not more people in the paddock who subscribe to this way of thinking.
Or is it a fact that the workers on the shop floor, the mechanics and truckies who don’t get the vast wads of cash, actually DO subscribe to these sentiments? And THEY are the ones, along with true fans of F1 who still have the soul you so eloquently refer to.
Perhaps there are various team managers, who, due to commercial pressure and their need to purchase a season ticket on the gravy train at any price, that are the miserable cynical people you talk of.
But let’s look forward. What will the FIA do to rectify the perception that F1 is packed to the rafters with cheats and where “sport” has been reduced to the level of farce and is merely a euphemism for making money?
My bet is they won’t do much if anything substantive.
We are left watching those “awesome men in awesome racing machines”, the illogical yet understandable pride of Giancarlo, the destructive determination of Lewis and the admirable self belief of Tonio, all risking their lives within a bent and crooked sporting pastiche.
If ever there was a opportunity for Max Moseley to redeem his reputation; this is it.
Thank you for correcting me on the point of libel versus slander, I always get them mixed up. You did get my meaning none the less.
What is the parallel you refer to? Hamilton’s teammate didn’t win at Monza.
Did you mean to draw a parallel comparing Hamilton’s efforts to avoid crashing and Piquet’s effort to crash?
Why the need for the Alonso reference? Is it to show that Button is a cold cynical person for improving his finishing position because Lewis lost control of his car and crashed?
Isn’t it funny Joe, all parties involved were so afraid of loosing out of F1 – of not having a job, not having a team, not having a drive, not winning – and all have gotten their prize ZILCH.
Big names in tatters I mean forget Flavio but the Piquet name – a name from a daring era – his brand is DONE and dusted.
what damning desperation poor suds really.
[...] Two crashes « Joe Saward’s Grand Prix Blog The sordid tale of Singapore 2008 has no place in F1. It is a tale of miserable cynical people, people with no souls. Where is the passion in doing such things? Where is the joy? Where is the pride? Where is the honour? It was all just to keep them on the Renault gravy train. To keep their jobs when they did not deserve to be kept. (tags: F1 renault) [...]
Nice article Joe. Sometimes i wonder, if we are a naive lot in thinking that this is still a sport, while the people who run the show don’t give a damn as long as we keep filling up their coffers…
Yes, that was a big hit Lewis had wasn’t it? I love to see a driver driving his guts out, that’s exactly what it’s all about.
Let’s please all pray that Ari somehow gets in. I’m afraid I haven’t read his manifesto in much detail but I do know that the current climate and culture HAS to change.
Keep up the good work Joe.
I am amazed at the timing of Gerald Donaldson’s visit considering the comment I am going to make.
I never thought I would see a driver like Gilles Villeneuve again but since Lewis arrived in F1 talking about Senna I have been convincced he is more like Gilles than Senna. His attitude at Monza was pure Gilles. He could have sat in third and had a guaranteed podium and most would have settled for that but he refused to settle for that and kept attacking right till the end.
Some people have said he had no chance of taking second but the numbers don’t back that up. He was 1.0 seconds behind Button going into the last lap and was 0.2 seconds faster in the 1st sector. Given the near magical powers attributed to KERS it seems reasonable that he would have been faster between Ascari and the parabolica and also faster from the exit of parabolica to the finish line. In that situation with KERS I don’t think it is unreasonable to believe he could have made up 0.8 seconds in two sectors given that Jenson is defending a championship lead and could not afford to make contact.
It is great to see a driver refuse to accept a podium position and give it everything right till the end. This time it didn’t work out but anyone with racing in their soul must admire what he did.
Well said Joe.
About 6 years ago I introduced the lady who became my wife to F1.
She got it straight away.
She could see the passion that the sport inspires, she understood the perils & the bravery of those daring young men in their driving machines.
She felt the pain of shame when a certain red team conspired to fix things for their favoured son. She felt the worry and anxiety when Kubica so spectaculary crashed out in Canada. She was even more worried when Massa was hit this year and the relief that he should be okay is palpable.
She jumped for joy at the end of the last season, last race, last corner, last chance. She sat with me and marvelled Monza 09.
If she, a novice, can understand the emotions that drive us to love this sport but those that run it can’t, then the wrong people are running it. I fear that without an Ari to fix it it may die and that is unacceptable.
Paul F
Forza Joe!
Yesterday, my wife and I became parents for the first time. My wife is Japanese and we live in Japan, so we were going to choose a Japanese name, followed by an English name for our lad. We ended up with a Japanese name followed by Valentino, after the MotoGP world champ. To me he epitomises so much that is good about the spirit of motorsport, that I will be proud to call my son Vale-chan until he is old enough to decide that whatever Dad calls him is daft and needs to stop.
My workmate (I work at a tuning shop – he is a pretty serious street drifter) has a nephew named “Senna”.
Thanks again.
Congratulations. It’s a great day when you get your first kid!
Domo arigato. It sure is!
[...] Joe- Two Cheats 21 09 2009 This was an e-mail I sent to Joe Saward last week in response to his article on Two Crashes , let me know what you think… I read your blog post on ‘Two crashes’ the other day, and [...]