It’s holiday time now in F1 and in a few days everyone will be off in all directions. I am headed to where the F1 sun casts no shadow: to get properly away from it all. And I have promised myself that I will not waste my energy on the return of Flavio Briatore and other such trivial things. If the answer to F1’s problems is Briatore, then the question is wrong.
Thank God the racing is still so good. Yes, Mercedes is dominant but at least the team is allowing the drivers to fight. The instruction to Lewis Hamilton in Hungary to let Nico Rosberg through was not well thought out, and I don’t see why it was given. The last thing the team needs now is to alienate a driver. Letting them fight is the right thing to do. If the strategies chosen meant that Nico might need to rely on Lewis to succeed, then it was the wrong choice. To have ordered Lewis out of the way after such a great drive from a pit lane start would have been wrong and it is not as if a few points here and there is going to affect the Constructors’ World Championship. An instruction for Lewis to help Nico was thus a mistake and there was no insistence on it. Nico might have who fed about it but that is to be expected. Drivers are by nature selfish beasts and believe that they must always be the most important person in every room. So we should put it all down to the fact that the engineer involved must have had a bang on the head in the recent Tour de Hospital cycle event in Vienna and was not thinking straight.
joeblogsf1 
Maybe fans could vote online for a driver to engineer a spin in each race. Or perhaps people could tweet for their favourite driver to receive a secret active suspension system hidden in the ECU for a whole season. The possibilities are endless, but as you say, probably not worth thinking about…
F1 keeps trying to lose credibility. The best things about this year are the cars, and the men who drive them. Inconsistent stewardship, politics as usual, sensationalist journalism, and an obsession with putting on a “show” threaten to undermine the sport. A lot of people seem to have banged their heads.
Oh how I laughed to hear Nick say “Why isn’t he moving out of the way?”…Because he is racing you!
Briatore is a fixer!!!!…………sorry
Great race on Sunday and maybe a turning point, Rosberg looked frustrated after the race and I am already looking forward to Spa, at least Hamilton has given Mercedes the answer to a problem they did not know how to manage, race for the championship is well and truly on……Ricciardo is looking stronger and stronger so maybe not all Mercedes…….
A fine defence of Lewis, as usual, Joe. His thrice ignoring a direct instruction from the team only helped to show just how much he puts himself first and the team second, but a least it sets a clear precedent for the rest of the season as to what Nico can do if the situation is reversed at some stage. Rosberg may rightly be less compliant than he was in Malaysia last year. Good luck with managing this one, Toto:)
What chance a few driver moves for 2015 being settled during the summer recess? How about Seb to Mercedes, Fernando to McLaren and Lewis to Ferrari?
Perhaps you should put this argument to Nico Rosberg, Niki Lauda, and Toto Wolff, all of whom seem to disagree with you.
Show me a driver who will willingly move over for his only true title rival, and I’ll show you a driver who will not go from the pitlane to the podium. Among other things.
There’s no danger of the reverse situation materialising, Graeme. Nico’s quite unable to overtake.
“If the situation is reversed.” Like the Monaco pole, or Bahrain engine settings that proved… erm…. Nico puts himself first? What comes around goes around. And as Nico wasn’t close enough to pass, why should Lewis stop to let him pass? It was a stupid order that slightly spoiled a great race. The order and Nico’s reaction to Lewis not moving over says more to me about who the team is structured around, and who believes the team is structured around them.
Stating that Nico was compliant in Malaysia last year is akin to stating that Maldonado does favours up and down the field by breaking off bits of competitors cars to make them lighter.
I just hope Hamilton kicked his engineer up the arse, put him straight on which team really matters and pointed out who he’s working for.
Interesting to see Vettels crew chief cheering on Ricciardo so vigorously too.
“…and pointed out who he’s working for.”
Right, Mercedes.
that would be true if there was just a constructors championship.
Well I hope Lewis doesn’t whine if the Hungaroring situation, or some other situ happens with Nico in front spoiling Lewis’s race? If he doesn’t if/when this happens next, then I think honour will be satisfied between them.
Hi Mr. Saward,
Good ONE as usual. I’ve got a general question for you: which is the best MotorSport marketing agency / professional?
Can be any where EU or usa…
I don’t know
“Tour de Hospital” … I like that one Joe. I think some of the Mercedes personnel must have been watching the Tour de France (which was a crashfest in the first week) and gotten ideas…
Speaking more seriously, do you think Bernie is deliberately bringing in Briatore to get a rise out of people; to get them talking? Does anyone really take Briatore seriously at this point?
Joe
Thank you for you common sense approach and comments and insight into F1 realities.
Have a good break and come back refreshed for what, judging by the first half, is looking like a classic year with excellent drivers displaying their immense skill.
Sidney David
Hey Joe, got a huge kick out of you on camera on the Sky F1 pre-show, roping in anyone who might be willing to talk about Bernie’s little pow-wow.
Turn off your phone and your servers, lock the doors and enjoy your holiday..
Slightly worrying aspect about the Briatore news – is it an attempt by some element to try and position Flav back in F1 with a view to succeeding Bernie?
Poor decisions seem to be the flavour of the moment. It was a misjudgement by Race Control not to bring out the safety car in Germany, a further misjudgement to give Hamilton the order to move over but the greatest misjudgement of all is to bring Briatore back to F1.
Remember that this is the man the FIA tried to ban from all F1 activity for life following the Singapore GP fixing scandal (later overturned in a French court). But staying ‘friends’ with Bernie pays dividends as he now attempts to bring him back to very influential position that could shape the future of F1 for years to come.
With the smokescreen of negativity that is being generated by Bernie, De Montezemolo, Vettel, etc many have failed to notice that the racing is actually very good to watch – and isn’t that the whole point of ‘the show’?
Yes, there are elements of the sport that need ‘adjustment’ but F1 is not broken but with Briatore heading the ‘fix’ and dancing to Bernie’s tune, there has to be a danger that hidden agendas and preconceived ideas will play too great a part over the coming months.
Mind you, I’d give my right arm to be the fan’s representative at the working group!
Lewis drove well but he also was lucky to get the safety car to allow him back in the race. Watching the race today I can’t understand why Lewis didn’t use his new option tyres after 2nd safety car he would have had better pace and still would have finished were he did or higher maybe. He certainly would have covered Rosberg.
I do find it a little off putting the whole Sky sports, BBC reporting is so one sided towards British drivers, take the BBC headline straight after the race Hamilton 3rd Riccardo Wins, it then goes on about how sensational Lewis is and how lucky DR was.
The reporting isn’t balanced and is blatantly one eyed,
And another thing some of the drivers on the radio come across as petulant children a good smack on the backside might help. Oh I can’t say that can I it’s not politically correct to smack kids.
Sorry had to have a rant before you go on F1 free holiday have fun I am sure we will be here when you get back.
Garry, Australian media will do the exact same when Danny gets on any step of the podium…
Hold the front page! British media in biased towards British drivers shocker!
Tosh like most front pages
It wasn’t so long ago that the merest mention of Montoya would have the British colemantators in paroxysms of joy. Naming no names, obv.
Remember this one
Enjoy the break and thanks for the year so far.
My thoughts exactly…………
Have a nice holiday Joe, agree with your point, to a certain extent, except it’s said that Paddy Lowe issued the instruction….question is why? Next question is will this finally rupture the truce with Lewis & Nico, and can Ricciardo use that to his/RBR advantage over the part of the season?
Couldnt agree more joe. And on the Flavio Briatore thing? well like someone said on twitter, its like asking Lance Armstrong to help the Tour de France.
Briatore should never be aloud to come close to an F1 event for the rest off his life.
” Briatore should never be aloud to come close to an F1 event for the rest off his life”.
Spot on Dutch Johhny absolutely agree, and neither should Pat Symonds.
“Tour de Hospital” 🙂
Anyway, I think it’s good for all these “selfish beasts” to be reminded that they’re not always the most important person in every room.
Lauda says it was a decision made in panic and that it was wrong. But why did they not put Hamilton on soft tyres in the latter part of the race with the same strategy as Rosberg? Hamilton had loads of brand new soft tyres as he did not take part in qualifying and he is the more aggressive charger between the two Mercedes drivers. Many are asking this question in forums, but no answer has yet been offered. Any word or insight?
“The last thing the team needs now is to alienate a driver”, you say.
How about Rosberg? Or his opinion just doesn’t matter as long as Hamilton gets his way?
And Hamilton’s “way” is that he is not forced to move over by the team so that Rosberg can increase his lead in the championship?
Thanks Joe for saying what any decent F1 fan was thinking. I think this phrase of yours is the “core” point that ANY team should consider when in the situation Mercedes is in: “if the strategy chosen meant that Nico (read: a teammate) might need to rely on Lewis (…their teammate) to succeed, then it was the wrong strategy”. It should be clear to Merc that the “one strategist to guide them all” philosophy is done.
“If the answer to F1’s problems is Briatore, then the question is wrong”. That says it all really, doesn’t it. And how ridiculous do LdM and BE appear with their criticism of the cars that have given us the best racing in a generations.
I have a feeling the Mercedes management are a country mile away from your thinking here. They dont do disobedience well over there I hear. His “instruction” to let Nico pass was given in order to give him enough rope to hang himself with; he was given an option by the team to see what his response would be! Up to you if you think he impressed his bosses with an extra 3 points for him instead of a possible Mercedes Team win for his teammate. And anyway…Im sure after debrief it would have all been arranged for the favour to be returned when the next opportunity arose.
Perhaps Formula One should align itself and enter a partnership with a global brand in the consumer electronics, smartphones, tablets, video gaming and mainstream movie production.
There is a natural synergy here, mutually beneficial to both parties.
Japan has a long standing passionate, enthusiastic fan base for Formula One, the fastest moving sport in the world; the brands current slogan is Be Moved.
It’s true what David Coulthard said on the BBC:
A strategic team order order like that should have come from Paddy Lowe, to make the engineer do it is unfair. This is why it required the authority of Ross Brawn last year at Sepang to halt Rosberg.
Also Nico was never on Lewis’s gearbox, what is Lewis supposed to do, lose 4 seconds by stopping and letting him by? As Lewis rightly pointed out, all that would have done is let Rosberg finish ahead of him.
Lewis looked mightily hacked off on the podium and I can sort of understand why despite his great drive.
Enjoy the vactaion! 😂
Have a great holiday.
I am unconvinced that Mercedes have genuinely been allowing both drivers to fight for the WDC.
I have felt that since Barcelona, their team instructions have been something like, whoever wins qually on Saturday, calls the strategy and takes the win on Sunday. Last Sunday was the first time that we saw the two drivers even close to a fight since then, and then came the controversial instruction to move over for Nico. That bad decision has to be unprecedented for two drivers competing for the championship. As you say, perhaps the wrong bang on a head.
First lap failures throughout the grid are quite rare events so the probability of the same car experiencing hot lap failures in consecutive Q1 is frankly minuscule. Mercedes need to understand the motivations of every mechanic putting hands to car No44.
I not a strong believer in coincidences. Human negligence is the most probable cause. Was it deliberate is the important question, that Mercedes needs to understand.
Have a great break Joe. It has been a great first half of coverage from you and the crew at GP+.
Joe, does your wife’s work take her all over the globe or does she want to travel the other half of the world during the holidays?
Exactly, it’s not like the Vettel-era of dominance of 2011, 2012 of 2013, it’s still competitive.
Who knows, a couple of tangles between Rosberg and Hamilton going into the flyaways could give the ever-improving Ricciardo an outside chance.
Nico really didn’t look like wanting to get anywhere close to the back end of Lewis (let alone the front) – He seems to be just playing the “Keep it clean card” and as such …. considering how many other drivers are happy to mix it up … this is pretty poor …… depending on your nationality this can be seen as either “Being Sensible” …….. or if you’re Australian, Spanish/Italian or British is …. “Not showing any Balls” ……….. I wonder if that Engineer that ordered Lewis to move over is the same Engineer that is coaching Lewis on his Post Race Interviews …….. I’m pretty sure it’s not Niki !!!!
“.. bang on the head in the recent Tour de Hospital cycle event.. ”
made cornflakes come down my nose!.. pmsl..
And.. i gotta agree with Lewis on this .. he WAS racing Nico!.. he’s not really racing anyone else in the championship.. so why would he let him through so late in the race? Its mute saying Nico will stop again for tyres.. well Lewis may well of opted to do that too!.. anyway.. this year the racing is awesome.. unmissable every race.
I remember Nico obeying team orders at the 2013 Malasian Gp and Lewis retaining third place in front of Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg on orders from team principal Ross Brawn.
This was only the second race of the season and they could well have been fighting for the title by the end of the year.
I don’t recollect any hoo hah at that time from the British press in Rosbergs favour nor any whining from Rosberg .
Lewis could learn a thing from Rosberg who has been silent and has not played the blame game despite breaking what James Allen calls a well established protocol ie to let a team mate by if you are two stopping and he is three stopping. Also not to forget Lewis pushing Rosberg onto the grass in the last lap.
I wonder what the rabid British press would have said had the positions been reversed …. Something to think about.
Why is this situation not comparable Multi 21? Vettel was castigated at the time, this time Lewis cost his team a win! That to me is selfish and putting himself ahead of the team that is funding his massive paycheck as well, as costing them points a win and a lot of marketing opportunity.
If a team order has come, you need to respect it and put the team into perspective. 🙂
Good points. The engineer was not acting in isolation. Me thinks PL a/o TW did not come on the radio to save face, as they expected they too would be disregarded. Whether one thinks the order appropriate or not, the point is made.
Last year you were off to Cape Cod , this year you’re off to a place where F1 doesn’t exist. A get a way for certain. Have a great time and unwind! Cheers!
That’ll be France then…
No Bernie Ecclestone’s London offices!
Joe, can you tell me why Flavio Briatore is allowed back into the paddock? Apart from being a good friend of Bernie’s that is. I mean he brought the sport into disrepute and left Renault with no other option but to leave as a constructor, not to mention ruining an F1 drivers career and almost costing him his life all for his own his own big ego Flavio show. Can Renault not object to him being on this new board of making F1 better? Surprised they would even be in the same room as him. The guy is nothing but a greedy egocentric sleeze bag.
I’m not a Flav fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think sometimes he actually has something right to say about the show.
“Nothing costs more, and delivers less entertainment, than hidden technology.”
and in 2009 he did put into perspective the ticket prices by saying it was cheaper for a family of four to spend a long weekend in new york than to go to a Grand Prix.
To say that he ruined Piquet’s career and almost cost him his life is exaggerating massively to be honest. It says a bit more about the power vacuum in F1 that someone with such a tarnished record as Flavio Briatore is the person that talks most sense and they turn to.
You don’t know much about him
Fair point, it goes without saying you’ll know more about Flavio, but looking at those points he made, I would stand by them. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Nope. This clock is wrong 24 hours a day.
“where the f1 sun doesn’t shine” – Sudan?, Tibet?
Staycation? No GP in France and no noise about F1 from Msr Todt.
I agree that asking Hamilton to “let Nico through” was wrong, but only because Rosberg was only very briefly in a position to do so. It’s logical for a team to have drivers on alternate strategies and for one to pass the other on track to maximize each driver’s forward progress.
But Rosberg only got to within 0.5 sec of Hamilton, then fell back to around 1.0 sec in arrears until he (NR) pitted. I’m not a LH supporter by any means but thankfully, Niki Lauda apparently is. Hopefully The Rat will slap some sense into the Merc brain trust.
Mostly it seemed that what the Mercedes team got wrong was not bothering to look at the video feed. Of course, the world video feed director spent laps 47-51 admiring the 4th-7th position drivers, ignoring the epic battle among the top three. Here in the States, the real battle was who was angrier: Rosberg, or the NBC Sports Network presenters.
Overall though, a fantastic, up-off-the-couch-and-yelling race; just the thing to hold our attention until Spa where…I’ve got Bottas for the win. All those long straights, you know…
Man, I was about ready to lose it during that lap 47-51 stint on the World Feed. It was absurd how long they focused on it. Meanwhile the commentary was getting intense about the podium battle that was playing out, and all they had to go off of was telemetry. Really wish I could have seen more of THAT battle.
But, in the end it was a truly great race. I’ll be reviewing the first half of the season on my DVR during the break. Roll on Spa!
There is some press on Bernie possibly settling his bribery case. If you have time before you go away it would be great to know if there is anything in this?
Seems a little odd his Lawyers are calling for the case to be dismissed for lack of evidence while also offering £25 mil settlement.
Thanks
Although I assume the no evidence claim is so they can pay but say he didn’t admit guilt and remain in charge of F1.
I think it is a bit late for a settlement. Besides he says he’s innocent. You don’t settle innocent cases
My thoughts exactly. Paying money got him into this mess, and now paying more money could get him out. Ho hum.
To most of us outside the apparently ultra flexible and understanding German legal system, it looks very much like a bribe is being offered in order to get out of a bribery charge. Isn’t that just wonderful in it’s irony?
Is the German legal system really that shallow and naive? Do they have any idea of how this looks from outside?
German law is not my area of expertise, but I thought that even if there were an offer to settle, this can’t be taken into account to determine innocence or guilt. If both sides say actually, the problem’s been fixed, the court has no locus
This is a criminal action, not a civil suit. Bernie is charged with the crime of bribery; how can that ‘problem’ be ‘fixed’ with money to the prosecutors or bank? If Bernie pays money (a fine) he will also have to plead guilty; then maybe we can be rid of him.
True.
From what I’ve read Bernie is negotiating with the State Prosecutor over this. It also said that even if the State takes his cash, the case would continue….but it also said that if the Prosecutor is happy to take Bernie’s cash, then the State would withdraw from the case??? None of that made sense to me, anyone here that can explain how this works??
Seems strange I agree but according to the reporting, the prosecutors are allowed to stop the trial if a mutually agreeable settlement is agreed. That’s reasonable in a civil case, but it seems deeply wrong on many levels to allow a very wealthy man to effectively buy his way out of a criminal conviction. Not the least of which is yet more years of BE and CVC continuing to bleed the sport dry.
On the HAM/ROS saga, Joe – there has been very little mention in the (non-gutter) punditry about HAM being on the slower tyre for the last third or more of the race. I must say I found that much more dubious than the call, considering they were the thick end of a second slower than the soft tyres. If he had been on the option, there’s a reasonable chance he would have been able to cut through the pack and end up on a charge as ROS did… but from a higher starting point.
I find it hard to believe such a massive outfit as Mercedes AMG would do something like that, and I certainly can’t believe that either rationality or racism comes into it. However, I’m starting to wonder in the back of my head whether there might be a small coterie (maybe as few as 2/3 people) who think – like me – that HAM is inherently faster, and who dislike him enough to make sure ROS has a “luckier” season. Only time will tell I guess…
And one last quickie if you are responding to my comment – I don’t think Lewis will leave Merc voluntarily, but is it possible they dislike him enough to do a HAM/VET at the end of 2015?
Thanks for the info as always.
“Team” ends when the driver slides into the car. And, that is as it should be, I believe, even though everyone else outside the cars is still thinking “team.”
“Team orders” are detestable and demeaning to the driver asked to give way. I think Felipe Massa still struggles with the cumulative effects of being the number two to Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonzo, and, while still fast, isn’t the same driver that he was before going to Ferrari. I hope that he became very wealthy during that time, because it was a bargain with the devil.
Team orders have existed, rightly or wrongly, in F1 ever since it began back in 1950, when second drivers could even be forced to stop and hand their car to the number one driver if his suffered a problem. Imagine that these days:)
Team orders have existed far longer than that. More than 100 years.
Agreed, Joe. As you will see, I was only referring to team orders in F1. I seem to recall that even Fangio only won his 1956 Ferrari title after taking over his team-mate’s car even when the latter was also still in with a chance of the title himself. Imagine that in 2014:)
Team orders were banned for a number of years, but were then allowed because preventing team order couldn’t be policed ie, the teams cheated and gave team orders anyway. In the end, it was simply to stop teams breaking the rule by taking the rule away and giving them the open ability to fix which of their drivers would beat the other.
It was good Hamilton fought his corner, keeps the points fairly close and allowed us to see Ricciardo earn another well deserved win. Although I was hoping to see Alonso nab victory, surely his best shot all season in that pig of a car…..he might do quite well in a Williams-Merc…..
bon vacance joe
hope you enjoy your break from F1 as much as my wife does !
Joe, have a fantastic break. I finally (FINALLY) got a subscription to GP+, and I will be catching up on what I missed in the beginning of the season. The material so for has been top notch, as expected.
Rest up, and when you get back to it, let’s chat about Audience With Joe in Austin, Part 2!
I do wonder if Flavio Briatori will conclude that Pay TV and high ticket prices are driving people away??
I would like to know how many subscribers have signed up to Sky F1 as I only know a single person.
This may be a closely guarded secret, but the people buying advertising must know!
Come on Joe, I know you’ve not got any time for FB but what about my comments about the impact of pay TV and people turning away?
I do what I can do. I’ve been extremely busy and I don’t know where your comments are.
“Oooh… but DRS is artificial and makes overtaking too simple.” – every grumbling F1 opinion bandwagon jumper
Really?
Having watched DRS in action for a while now, it seems that the system has very much had its intended consequences. For those occasions where a much faster car is catching a slower rival it makes the overtake possible where previously (in the “Trulli Train” boreyears) we had the ludicrous situation of a dog slow car being almost unpassable even by the cream of the field.
In those circumstances where two very evenly matched driver-car combinations are in opposition, overtaking is still difficult and takes experience and skill. Witness the Alonso-Ricciardo battles of late, the various Hamilton-Rosberg set-tos this year, and any number of other great moments in the last 12-18 months. If DRS makes overtaking so easy why did anyone feel they had to let Lewis know to get out of the way? Surely Nico was just going to sail gaily by without even breaking stride? The grouches of the F1 press room *cough*Roebuck*cough* – sorry, frog in my throat – and their sycophantic hangers-on might be making many column inches out of whining about DRS, but since its introduction there haven’t been many occasions where truly evenly-matched competitors haven’t had to duke it out properly to sort out the running order.
For me, as a mere consumer of F1 excitement, I can’t think of another innovation that has been made in the last couple of years that has had such a dramatic effect on my enjoyment of F1 racing. I really hope that the great racing we are seeing this season shuts up some of the whingers. It won’t, I know, but hey, I’m having fun watching F1 for the first time in quite a while.
I agree. DRS has become a very good tool and there are now only very occasional easy overtakes.
My bugbear were the tyres of last year that I felt were too on the edge. This year I think has been a good balance and therefore we have actually had some classic races.
I’m with Jimbo and John C. here: DRS has had a beneficial effect. It’s no more artificial than a push-to-pass button that most cars seem to have: an extra engine mode that the drivers can use to boost performance. The DRS is just a more visible version of the same… and everyone has it! And what’s more, everyone knows how to defend against it: be the faster car.
This IS a classic season: new technology, close racing, championship leaders tussling for the wins, it’s not inevitable who’ll win each race, (though I think I’d put money on Merc for Spa to be fair), Williams resurgent (OK, a bit of bias showing there) and Ferrari back where they belong (in the doldrums).
The only flies in the ointment are a) double points at the last race (now that *is* artificial), b) people who should know better talking down their own product, and c) the prospect of Flav coming within 20 miles of an F1 event. 😦
Funny, how DRS is considered “artificial,” but in general the attachment of airplane components to automobiles, and the aerodynamic consequences thereof, particularly to their ability run in close company, is not.
I have always hated how front wings and rear wings sprouted monstrous extra bits, and bodywork did the same as well. I’d like to see a simple single plane front, and a simple 1-2-or 3 slat rear wing with no extra bodywork aero aids. And I’d ban DRS which is demeaning to the drivers and the sport. This device renders a driver helpless to defend, against a following car and has no place in motor sport imho!
Damian, I don’t agree. Bahrain this year and that epic battle between Ham and Ros was DRS putting on a show! It was epic and Lewis proved many times that if you have the talent you can fight back.
The alternative is the races back in the 90s and 2000s where cars follow in turn and in honesty the only classic races we got was where it rained or cars used differing strategies to win. Make no mistake DRS badly set up is awful but listening to how Charlie W sets it up to allow a car to get within 0.3 of a second has made me realise it is worth keeping.
There were good races up till DRS came in. DRS allows any driver to make a pass without skill, just press a button. The driver in front cannot defend, it’s pointless and demeans the sport. If the problem is aero, which it is, then just rewrite the aero rules. No multi plane wings, no side vanes, no aero brake covers. Yes the cars will slow a bit but driver skills will be more valuable. In the 1990’s there were plenty of good races, in the early 2000’s the problems were mostly down to tyres being made more to suit one or two drivers and less suitable for others. I think aero should be neutered, tyre competition should be encouraged, and some stuff like carbon brakes should be replaced.
Frankly Damian, cobblers. Are you watching the same racing as the rest of us? Before DRS there were maybe one or two overtaking moves in each race that didn’t involve a backmarker team being trounced by an out-of-position front runner. Drivers in front certainly can defend, as we have seen with the examples I gave above, and many other fights this year and last. In the past no reasonable driver had to even try to defend as the aero wash from his car did all the work for him. Where was the skill in that? Where was the excitement? Seeing very talented drivers steam up to within 1s of the car in front and then sit there for 5-10 laps so as not to ruin their tyres, then thumping in a couple of quick in laps to try and get past in the pit stops…. wow, thrilling. Good races in the early 2000s were perhaps two or three times a season and, as Jimbo pointed out, usually coincided with rain or other disturbance. These days the percentages have almost entirely reversed, with only a couple of races a year being dull and processional.
Aero simply isn’t going to simplify as much as you want, as Bernie and the rest of the people needing to keep F1 at the top of the motorsport heap know that on every occasion in the past where F1 has stopped being the fastest form of road circuit racing there is, its popularity has dropped. Sportscars were as popular if not more so in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1980s, and sportscars have started to show signs that they might get back up to those heights.
What a load of rubbish John C. The real drivers in F1, have always been able to overtake. Are you trying to tell me that Peterson, Hunt , Lauda, Jones, Villeneuve, Mansell, Senna Hakkinen, and others of their ilk, could not overtake? Villeneuve and Senna would be appalled with DRS would be my guess. I didn’t say that I supported Pitstop racing, when fuel/tyres were changed and things were just a series of sprints, that I didn’t like. Neither do I care for the degradable tyres of these days. You are correct that Sportscars were at times, as popular as F1, and guess what, that could only help keep interest up in F1, as it encouraged spectators to many events, and those fans also supported F1. Whereas these days those type of fans are in the minority, and F1 depends on the One Series Fan of just F1, to survive. That aspect of F1 is one of the prime reasons why it is losing support now. If your spectator only has interest in F1, he/she will not be going to Sportscars, F3, Club events and Rallys. A One Series Fan is not going to help F1 survive, but this is what Bernie wanted and the result is that Historic racing & rallying is pulling huge crowds, but modern racing is shedding spectators in droves.
As to Aero, this is a problem going back to the Lotus 78 in 1977, and should have been firmly stepped on back then. It was a curse in the 80’s with the rock hard suspended cars, and has been something that has been both a performance inhibitor and a vast unwarranted expense ever since. Aero could be eliminated with sensible rule making, and the racing would be all the better for it. If DRS is the answer, then the question is all wrong. It requires no skill to push a button, even a monkey could do that for you, and having all these artificial creations in F1, just shows that the cars & circuits are wrong for real racing, racing predicated just on skill behind the wheel, not on constantly juggling buttons and ” after you Claude ” overtaking that cannot be defended!! How you can call that exciting I cannot comprehend…there’s no excitement in knowing that Car B has closed up to 1 sec from Car A and can now just zap past? Frankly to call that exciting is absurd. Exciting is when Car A & B are on the same bit of track and only driver skills or a driver mistake, cause a change of position, that was what motor racing used to be about, not how one presses a button, if one’s tyres may do 7 laps or 11 laps, or whether one should ” Coast..” ha ha ha , and SAVE FUEL! Hell, I can’t believe that Bernie has been so successful in brainwashing so many people….although there is now a groundswell of those who realise that they have been had!
Damian, I honestly believe that you have brainwashed yourself into a time that never really existed! The idea that at any time since now that the racing has been exciting is I believe delusional. If you go back to the F1 cars of the 50s and 60s close racing was non existant because of the risks involved. Then also factor in the great differences in car performances, the distances of the GPs and you essentially had endurance racing.
By the 1970s and 80s you had an F1 that was more representative of today and all of the drivers you mention really didn’t do any overtaking against similar paced cars there was nearly always a big speed differential. Go back and watch the classic GPs and you will see the field spread was great and there were always some form of differential ie Piquet/Mansell at Silverstone. I am not saying that they can’t overtake I am saying that the way the F1 has been has meant that only sparingly were those drivers skilled needed. F1 has always had this problem and I believe that the current setup aids racing in a manner that is fair. As for example Hamilton proved in Bahrain.
Just like Ricciardo zapped past Alonso you mean? Or the way Rosberg zapped past Hamilton at, what is it now, four or five different races this year? You see to want a return to the days when Raikkonen, comfortably the fastest guy on the track and no mean overtaker, trundled around in third because to attempt a pass for second would have annihilated his tyres and dropped him to tenth, only then to bang in a FL in the last lap simply to prove a point? For well over a decade we had processional racing that bored many real racing fans to death, and now you are whining about the cure because of some misperceived and misplaced notion of what it means to go racing.
There is no zapping. Even if there were, the situation would be immediately reversed and so the guy that had just been passed would then be in a position to attack right back. How many times does that happen? That is doesn’t, really, strongly argues that DRS is only really a factor where there is a significant difference in car performance. In those cases yes, I don’t care if the overtake is easy, I would rather see the quick guys going hammer and tongs against each other (which they do now!) rather than being bottled up behind whatever midfielder happened to get past them due to a clumsy pit bod cross threading a wheel nut, or similar mishap.
As for saving fuel and looking after the tyres, before the advent of Bridgestone’s rock hard rubber every single driver had to look after their tyres and watch their fuel loads. Coulthard repeating over and over (ad flipping nauseum) in his commentary and columns that “F1 is all about guys driving as fast as they can” doesn’t change the fact that he’s flat wrong. That may be all he’s ever known (it isn’t, he just forgets) but for most of racing’s history drivers had to keep close eyes on their car to make sure bits didn’t break, wear out, or run dry. I’m with Mark Hughes, the best thing that the FIA could do for proper racing is to get rid of pit-to-car radios and the all-seeing eye of telemetry. Pit boards and drivers’ brains, that’s the way it should be done.
DRS works to overcome the problem of wings. Wings aren’t going away. I agree that many of Tilke’s abominations are unsuited to racing, but if you look at the overtaking stats (prepared and presented on other websites that I shan’t link to here for fear of putting Joe’s nose out of joint!) for the likes of Silverstone, Monza and Spa in the decade between 1995 and 2005, they don’t fare much better.
Next race, please do me the favour of actually watching the overtaking moves and I promise that you are going to see the properly skilful drivers just as able to defend as they ever were.
You can’t defend against DRS John. It maybe that there are times when a driver gets up close and makes an error and can’t use DRS in the way that it is expected to be used, but the simple fact is that if a car is within 1 sec of the car it is following, then the car in front cannot defend….and that is plain stupid and not racing!
I’ve got race vids going back to the 80’s and there were plenty of good races, but the cars were all going the same way, to Identikits. In the 90’s and 00’s this got worse. I’m not saying that those days were perfect, not at all, apart from the thrills 1500bhp turbos could provide….but real cars were the likes of Tyrrell 001, Surtees TS7, Lotus 72, Brabham BT42 etc, all different within the same framework of rules, and they provided great racing without the overboard tech of today. What tech you cannot see has no bearing on the entertainment factor of F1. If people can’t see it, they are not going to be excited by it. One could not fail to find a Williams FW10 or 11 exciting, even a Zakspeed could be exciting! A Caterham is not exciting, just plain ugly.
The rules need real change, and with that there maybe a chance of retaining spectators and casual viewers. Without it, and keeping on this road, will result in continued loss of followers and no series left, just like CART went. The problem is John, that there is plain evidence that the show is not attracting established followers or casual followers, and if one cannot sell one’s product satisfactorily, then it’s no good saying that the followers are all wrong, it’s obviously the product that is the problem. And the sooner more people finally get this, the sooner things can be resolved, and the sooner artificial means of making the series look like motor racing, can be done away with.
Thanks, Joe, for this blog. Do enjoy many moles of ethanol during break time. Sun works, too.
What think you of this story??
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jul/29/bernie-ecclestone-talks-german-prosecutors-bribery-trail-settlement
So an supposedly innocent man is willing to make a public payment to make a bribe allegation go away? Hmmm. Not exactly a brilliant advertisement for corporate Germany if the court accepts that, is it? If you want to do business in Germany you can buy a Get Out of Jail Free card. If I were a judge I might consider this to be an admission of guilt. At best I’d say it was a high-risk strategy… Does the deal come with a guilty verdict?
I’m waiting for some enterprising fans at some race to modify one of the “Bernie says think before you drive” signs – with the aid of some sticky letters or a bit of paint the D and V could so easily be changed to B’s …
The signs are all virtual I believe.
What’s the story with those messages anyway?
At the start of the case, the Germans were unwilling to accept a settlement. If they are considering it now it’s because they have less faith in the case than they did previously. In a game of poker, you are looking for a tell. Bernie has probably offered a settlement every few weeks, knowing that the first time it doesn’t get rebuffed, the opposition are on the ropes. Even if you are innocent, it’s sound strategy.
Have a good rest Joe! Look forward to reading your blog when you return.
I’ve not gone yet! A couple more days…
What do you make of the Caterham F1 press statement about a counter suit against its former workforce? Seems counter productive and ill conceived in a few ways:
1) crossed-purposes – employee statement talks about terminated staff expecting July pay, Caterham statement talks about current staff having been paid – two separate points.
2) inaccurate – both the employees and Caterham use a vague name to describe the team – neither uses 1malaysia etc etc bhd – so claims of innacuracy don’t really stand up – they were referring to team in the round not to specific internal company structures
3) contradictory – the Caterham statement is at pains to point out that no staff are employed by ‘Caterham f1 team’ then says words to the effect that all staff employed by Caterham f1 team have been paid. That could still mean nobody has been paid given the previous statement – also again not relevant to the question of whether the former staff had any expectation of a July payment, or to whether this was honoured.
4) and finally – counter productive – since the reputational damage from the Caterham press release far outweighs the impact of the original ex-staff announcement. All just creates the impression that a rather unpleasent entity has taken over.
I do not wish to get involved in it. It is a mess. It will get sorted out. The team will live or die.
I fit helps to make things a little clearer, in its first season (and possibly up until very recently) the staff were employed by OneMalaysia Racing, rather than Lotus/Caterham F1.
Caterham’s new owner’s image is fast declining. Firstly apparently sacking a large number of staff without proper UK required notice or procedures. Now, when sued for the above apparently counter suing the ex-workers. Sounds American to me.
Image is not always what it seems
Perception is all!
(As I think you wrote recently)
Hi Joe, are you going to make any comment on the legal dispute between the sacked staff and the new owners of Caterham? It would be nice to get to know the reality rather than the press releases.
They don’t want to talk about it.
Good morning Joe
Thank you for yet another very incisive article, and your comments I couldn’t agree more with. I do wonder though with all Lewis’s ‘bad luck’ whether Mercedes aren’t orchestrating the whole scenario to ensure a German driver winning in a German car. Certainly if I was Lewis I would be beginning to wonder whether that was the case?
Both Briatore and Bernie should be drummed out of Formula 1, their dealings just continue to bring the whole motor racing business into disrepute. I am looking forward to Justin King taking over.
Best wishes
First of all, enjoy your much deserved break, Joe. I have just recently been introduced to your Blog, and i have been hooked ever since. I very much enjoy coming here reading about what is essentially a fantastic sport. On the subject of the team orders issue involving Lewis and Nico, i have to say that it was totally uncalled for, and sort of contradicted Mercedes policy of ‘ allowing their drivers to race it out to the line’. Hamilton absolutely did the right thing for himself and it is totally understandable, especially when you take into account the selfishness that characterises F1 drivers.
I believe, Hamilton -did the warrior, ‘hero’ Formula 1 Christian Horner was refering to the other day,- a huge favour. You simply cannot order around drivers or shall i say racers of the calibre of Lewis, Alonso, Kimi, Vettel…etc, to play the team game when it is themselves they are racing for themselves in essense. The constructors championship i doubt it means much to them drivers. All in all, the racing- rather the quality of it, was sensational. The second part of this season sounds a great prospect ahead, with Kimi, Vettel and Ferrari seeminglyhaving made a step forward in the right direction. Can’t wait! Until then, it is me wishing you, Joe and the rest of the F1 fraternity the best in whichever you go. See you and hear from you soon. Cheers 🙂
Abdellah – hear hear
Hamilton was right to ignore team orders. If he cost Mercedes the chance to attack Alonso with Rosberg, so be it. We wanna see racing, not fixed results.
It could always be worse Joe; the answer could be Gino Rosato 😉