I guess that before roads and railways there was not much to do in the Massif Central, the mountainous centre of France. Every time I pass through this wonderful region, usually en route to or from Barcelona (although one could also make the trip going to the French GP when it still existed).
I will tell you straight away that motorsport did not exist south of Clermont-Ferrand and north of Beziers, down near the Mediterranean coast, until a few years ago, and there still isn’t a great deal, so there are no evocative old circuits where madmen used to take insane risks on mountain roads.
So, if you are only looking for racing stories, skip through the next few paragraphs. The region was a dead zone for automobile competition, but it was a great place if one wanted peace and quiet. The first major road to cross the region was not completed until 2010. The A75 was an extraordinary achievement in engineering, as much of the 210 miles it covers are above 2,600ft. Thirty miles of its are over 3,200 ft, with the highest point being 3,600ft.
What makes it spectacular is the famous (and magnificent) Viaduct de Millau, a 1.5-mile long bridge which sails across the entire Tarn valley, 1,100 ft above the river (left). I think it is still the tallest bridge in the world, and while it is one of my favourite structures anywhere, it is only one of a series of bridges, six of them longer than 300 metres, that take the A75 across the deep valleys of the region.
The A75 also features a wonderful climb from Lodève, which it arrives at after running up the valley of the Lergue after leaving the vineyards of Herault behind. At the top of the so-called Escalette, one arrives on the Plateau de Larzac, a raised limestone plain, dotted with rocks. It is only good for sheep.
It was sunny as I drove across the plateau, one of those days when when you wish you had more time to stop and look at dinosaur footprints, Roman bridges or at the Combalou caves where Roquefort cheese is made.
They say that Roquefort was first created because a young French shepherd was eating his lunch at the entrance to a cave when he spotted a beautiful young girl in the distance and instantly abandoned his bread and cheese and went in pursuit of this exciting prospect. A few months later he found himself back in the same cave, with no girl in sight and found that the cheese he had abandoned had become rather more interesting thanks to a blue-green fungus, which – for reasons unknown – he thought might be quite tasty. So was born a celebrated cheese, the very first fromage to have its name protected by law.
You cannot help wonder why on earth the bloke in question decided to taste the mouldy old cheese, but mountain folk the world over do get up to some funny things. They also have vivid imaginations… and the region is awash with strange tales (presumably because before TV there was not much else to do apart from chasing women and making up stories).
Saint Affrique is not far from Roquefort and has a rather odd name. If you dig around a bit you discover a theory that the founder of the town settled in the middle of nowhere because Joseph of Arimathea had hidden the Holy Grail in the area when he was passing through Gaul before sailing to Britain. It all sounds rather less likely than Dan Brown’s idea that the Holy Grail is buried in a shopping centre under the Louvre in Paris…
A little further up the A75 one gets to an area that was once called Gévaudan, now in the Lozère, where imaginations ran riot in the 1760s when a man-eating animal, known as The Beast of Gévaudan, killed more than 100 people by tearing out their throats and chowing down on their remains. Those who survived attacks reported that the beast was a huge wolf-like animal, but as large as a small cow and not really very vulpine. It was all very strange and terrifying, and did wonders for newspaper sales across France. King Louis XV sent hunters to track and kill the beast. Several wolves were killed but the attacks did not stop for a while longer. The truth about the beast will probably never be known, but the theory that it was a big wolf seems the favourite, although wolves rarely attack people.
Still, we are taught from an early age that wolves are bad (think The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood) and yet we love dogs, even if a Siberian Husky looks a lot like a wolf. Do we fear wolves because we know we can train dogs but have failed to tame the wolf?
Nowadays the Beast of Gévaudan is a useful tool for local tourism and there is even a Musée Fantastique de la Bête du Gévaudan to draw in visitors. All is well, unless of course another beast appears.
Motor racing folk can hardly complain about attempts to attract tourists as these days most of the Grands Prix take place for that reason alone. The latest example of this was a rumour that popped up about a Grand Prix in Zanzibar. If nothing else it would be more exotic and romantic title than the Formula 1 Qatar Airways Gran Premio del Made in Italy e dell’Emilia-Romagna, or the NASCAR classic “The Beef, It’s What for Dinner 300”, but I must admit that I am just a little sceptical. We all know that F1 wants a race in Africa and that South Africa is struggling. Africa is plagued by instability, poverty, strife and corruption.
Zanzibar is an archipelago, about 20 miles off the coast of Tanzania. It is a semi-autonomous province of Tanzania although many locals would like to see it become an independent sovereign state. The island attracts about half a million tourists a year but has only 8,500 hotel rooms, which suggests that the hotels are not very busy. The locals don’t earn enough in a year to buy Paddock Club tickets and there are not enough hotels to house a decent crowd, so the only way that a race could be successful is if the government paid for everything. The idea may sound unrealistic but for the fact that Zanzibar has a cruise ship terminal capable of welcoming ships with a capacity of 3,000 passengers. One of the companies that sends ships to Zanzibar is MSC, a big F1 sponsor and, one can imagine that the firm sees potential to develop its own business, while also developing Zanzibar’s tourism, using big ships as floating hotels. MSC came to F1 thanks to Flavio Briatore and he knows a bit about African tourism having developed a resort at Malindi in Kenya. I suppose that he may be looking to negotiate a massive commission, as he has enjoyed from the deal he organised to take F1 to Baku. The big question is really whether Liberty Media want to broaden its links with Briatore. Liberty is keen on cash and Briatore is good at finding it, but his background includes the infamous race-fixing scandal in Singapore in 2008 which got him banned from the sport, so one might ask whether such an association would be viewed as a good idea by F1’s compliance lawyers or would they run screaming from the idea, like peasants in Gévaudan when faced by a hungry wolf-like creature.
The money that is swilling around in F1 at the moment is causing some of those involved to get cartoon-like dollar signs in their eyes, with busloads of billionaire sports investors trying to get a slice of the various F1 pies. Unless one has handbook of billionaires they are hard to spot, although I have noticed that some of F1’s billionaires wear the strangest trousers, which seem to ride far too high, perhaps because they have eaten too many pies…
Anyway, the word after Monaco was that one of the high-rollers who was in town for the Grand Prix was none other than John Henry of the Fenway Sports Group (FSG), although he kept a low profile. FSG owns the Boston Red Sox, Liverpool FC and the Pittsburgh Penguins and is also owner of the NASCAR Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing team.
Anyway, Liberty continues to push for profits and more VIPs and the latest suggestion about the future of the Spanish Grand Prix is that it will be moved to Madrid as quickly as possible in order to turn it the biggest VIP event in Europe. This is not going to happen in Barcelona because VIPs tend not to be keen on visiting racing circuits surrounded by scrapyards, abattoirs and warehouses. And the traffic jams have not helped… This year the race drew a three-day crowd of 284,000, which is a decent score, but it is clear that the Barcelona circuit cannot handle more, whereas a city race in Madrid might top 400,000. The Madrid project is attractive and plans are far more advanced than people know, with a delegation of interested parties visiting the recent race in Miami. The track design is completed and work will start as soon as a contract is agreed. The circuit is around the IFEMA exhibition centre and would use existing roads and infrastructure. However, there will be two tunnels to go out to, and return from, an area of land that will be developed specifically for the track. This would include a high-banked corner similar to the new Hugenholzbocht at Zandvoort and would also go into an event area which houses the huge MadCool music festival. There is public transportation in place and the development will be adjacent to a vast new forest area that has already been planted. Thus the race has decent environmental credentials as well.
Barcelona has a deal until 2026 but they may conclude that there is no point investing further in F1 if they are going to lose the race no matter what they do. There is a note in the green notebook which suggests that there a several bidders for the role of promoter, including Grupo CIE, a company which promotes the Mexican GP and is looking to expand to other events; Stephen Ross’s RSE Ventures, which is involved with the Miami Grand Prix and, so they say, LiveNation, which is owned by Liberty Media itself.
We used to say that the fastest way to make a million in Formula 1 was to start with two million, but the rising value of the teams suggests that the average sports investor does not agree. Perhaps they are right. At the moment no team is for sale, despite some huge offers. The owners are holding on because they see the value doubling in the next few years. It may seem rather odd given that a few years ago teams were still running into trouble and going into administration. The difference is not just that there has been a budget cap introduced and there are higher revenues, it is also because of other changes in society. New technology has opened the way for bigger deals from media companies which see live sport as the most effective way to sell advertising. It seems that sport is immune to economic crises that hurt other industries.
The other key element is that sports franchises are not just more profitable, they are also what might be termed luxury assets. Sports franchises are few in number and not many people can afford them. Owning one shows the world that one is super-rich. Thus the value of teams has grown exponentially, outpacing inflation. It is reckoned that the average value of an NFL franchise has gone from around $1.5 billion in 2014 to $4.5 billion 10 years later. And recently the Washington Commanders set a new record, being sold for $6.05 billion. F1 teams are on the same path, albeit a way behind. Alpine is currently selling a minority percentage to raise money for self-impovement.
But when will another team be sold? The answer to that question is probably when someone decides it is a good moment to cash in. We have already seen Sauber and Williams being sold because the owners wanted to get out having spent too much money. In both cases one can argue that they previous owners cashed in too early, but in the case of Williams there was little choice. The team was going bust.
With Sauber, the owner is so rich that it must all seem like Monopoly money. He could have hung on and made more, but by selling 75 percent of the business to Audi it means that he does not have to try to figure out how to make the team work and can swan around at races being an owner until he sells the remaining 25 percent, for a lot more than it cost him.
The name mentioned most these days as the team most likely to be sold is that of Aston Martin. Let us not mince words here, the aim of the team is to try to make Lance Stroll a World Champion. The young Canadian can be quick on occasion but he is not seen by many as being in the really big league. After seven seasons in Formula 1 he has had far more chances than those without as indulgent a father. Stroll does not need to be an F1 driver and could in theory have a more enjoyable life doing something else, but his father is still living the dream and took on a big job when he bought the Aston Martin car company, which has always been a basket case business. It seems that not even James Bond can save the day. Stroll and his allies have sunk a lot of money into the car business, which still has massive debts and it was pretty significant the other day when his consortium sold a chunk of the business to Geely, having previously fought to keep the Chinese at bay. This does not mean that Stroll will give up on F1 but if Lance decides to go off an enjoy life a little more it would not be a surprise. If that happens, Stroll Sr will treat the team like any other business.
One can easily get carried way with the current Aston Martin Mania and think that Fernando Alonso is a god sent to earth to cheer up Spaniards. But while loads of fans were dressed in green in Barcelona, some in the paddock are asking interesting questions. Aston Martin has just been overtaken in the Constructors’ Championship by Mercedes. If Ferrari is not entirely useless (and the jury is out on that question this year), it should also pass Aston Martin before the year is out.
But pragmatic folk in the team (who don’t say things out loud because their boss can be touchy) are wondering whether Aston Martin could be achieving more if it had different drivers. Alonso is enjoying himself and playing a clever game. If it had not been the bosses son ahead of him at the end of the Spanish GP, does anyone think Alonso would have held back? He had fresher rubber but chose to stay where he was, arguing that the two cars would finish sixth and seventh whether he overtook or not. So instead he waved at fans while within DRS range of his team-mate and let Lance score more points than he did. A good career move.
Even so, Fernando leads Lance by 99 points to 35, which is a massacre. If Stroll was driving for any other team, pesky journalists would already be saying that his position is in danger, just as they are now doing with Sergio Perez… Last year Stroll looked half-decent against Sebastian Vettel, but one can argue that Vettel had lost his mojo long before his retirement.
Alonso’s performance look good, but F1 engineers are pragmatists and look at questions in a scientific way. Stroll is not much use as a yardstick so they are wondering whether the car is flattering Alonso, and whether it might be getting even better results if it was being driven by a younger bloke. Engineers use data and they argue that Fernando scored fewer points at Alpine last year than Esteban Ocon did. Ocon was not quite a match with Sergio Perez when they were together at Force India in 2017 and 2018 and it is clear that Perez has met his match with Max Verstappen. So they wonder: would things be better if they had different drivers? Engineers are very competitive, of course, and if they feel that a team is not using their brilliance as well as it could be used, it is not very motivating, even if the money is good.
Wondering about the speed of a car is much the same as wondering about which engineers are the ones who make things happen. Obviously, results suggest that Adrian Newey has a Midas touch but there are a lot of good folk around him and so rival teams are busy raiding Red Bull to strengthen themselves and to weaken the enemy. Ferrari has reportedly made a big play for the team’s technical director Pierre Waché but I am told that he is having none of it and has agreed to stay at Red Bull until 2028. Ferrari is currently refusing to let Sporting Director Laurent Mekies go to Scuderia AlphaTauri because it wants Red Bull to release some engineers who do want to move to Italy, although we do not know the names for the moment. And McLaren has grabbed Red Bull’s chief engineering officer Rob Marshall, who has been with Milton Keynes team since 2006 and played a big role in the team’s success story in the Vettel years that followed. I am told that luring Marshall away from Red Bull was not easy and required a massive salary (I heard the figure $3.7 million) but what was interesting was that Red Bull did not try very hard to keep him, as he had a couple of years left on his contract. I’m told that McLaren paid $1 million to get him, but the team does not need to accept money and is fighting hard to keep others, so one does wonder whether McLaren taking him on is a good move. Marshall will become McLaren’s technical director, engineering and design, and will be the Woking team’s fourth technical director, alongside Peter Prodromou, (technical director, aerodynamics), David Sanchez (technical director, car concept and performance) and Neil Houldey, who currently has the title that Marshall will be given. Houldey was named to that role just three months ago, which suggests that the Marshall deal was not on the table at that point. McLaren says that Houldey will now happily move back to being a Deputy Technical Director (and Alice in Wonderland will marry the Mad Hatter) while three technical directors (not all of whom will be getting the same salaries) will manage by committee, reporting to Andrea Stella, who is going to have to live up to his name to control it all.
If he can do that without his hair turning grey, he should be named as an Italian Cavaliere del Lavoro, which is roughly equivalent to a British knighthood. Each year on the country’s Republic Day (June 2), the President announces a list of those honoured and this year the list included “Domenicali, Stefano”. This is recognition for a stellar career as Ferrari team principal, the boss of Lamborghini and his current role as president and CEO of Formula 1. It is an award that is thoroughly deserved, even if Stefano is still not as famous and lauded as Gunther Steiner… a mountain man with a big imagination and the patience to do a million selfies.
Joe Saward is hosting an Audience for F1 fans on Friday, June 16, in the old town in Montreal, where fans can ask anything they like… For more information, click here
joeblogsf1 
To say Ocon was a match for Alonso is little disingenuous, its bit a like when Rosberg beat Hamilton. We have enough data using your logic to assume Alonso has still got it, HE destroyed Kimi, however Kimi was close to Vettel in raw speed and sometime quicker. Vettel had a larger Edge over Stroll, but not always, so no great surprise Alonso is destroying Stroll Jnr. In fact id go as far as to say Stroll is a constant too, there was a gap on and off to Massa, and we know Massa faired against Alonso.
Numbers are numbers. It’s the only measure we have and wishful-thinking is the only option.
If Alonso wasn’t so old and slow he would have been on pole at Monaco. He was three tenths faster than Max after the first two sectors but exhausted by the end of the lap so gave it all back (you know, his high blood pressure and arthritis and all). Am I to conclude that a younger journo would write better stories…? 😉
Faster perhaps, but without the same experience. If you don’t think drivers get slower as they get older, you cannot have followed the sport for very long…
Hello, Laurent, Otmar, is that you?
Tired? Or the Aston Martin wasn’t as kind to tyres as the Red Bull is? I agree that those two laps were striking in that Verstappen made all the difference in the last two corners, but there are possibilities other than tiredness. We’ve seen Alonso race hard for a whole race distance this year. Another possibility is that Verstappen used the battery differently. But I think tyres.
Very interesting Joe, but how do you factor in the Ricciardo effect. He matched and often beat Vettel, matched and beat on pace Verstappen who is clearly special, aced Hulkenberg who I have always thought was around the top of the second set of drivers (Top set being Hamilton, Verstsppen, Alonso, Vettell around that time), then fell off the cliff at McLaren.
If he doesn’t understand what happened, it’s doubtful that anyone else can, except taking guesses.
I guess confidence is the one thing you cannot put a value on and in some ways the technology is a limiting factor, like Monaco and Fernando’s pit stop “error”. The technology was wrong over the tyre and over rode the human input.
Hi Joe,
With yesterdays news regarding the PGA Tour/DP World Tour/LIV Golf merger, and the recent news of the PIF taking over the 4 largest Saudi clubs and offering huge contracts to every star player currently out of contract, do you think is it inevitable that an 11th entry will be granted to the Saudi proposal and we will have 2 Grands Prix in the country by 2025/6?
What Saudi proposal?
Well a lot of people have reported and speculated that the Formula Equal proposal has PIF backing – even if that isn’t true the original question still stands regarding aggressive and quick expansion of PIF involvement inn the championship, whether its running races, teams or the championship itself.
I don’t see this happening.
Hi Joe, an enjoyable read as always, love learning about European history and geography from your green notebooks. The Beast of Gévaudan bit was interesting and reminded me of a 2001 movie “Le Pacte des loups” starring Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci, loosely based on the stories you referenced.
As for the Grand Prix, it was a yawner. Frankly, he last few GPs have been quiet boring affairs. Take away the excitement of Monaco’s rain storm where everyone was tiptoeing around the track and there are little memorable events from the last few races. Most of the excitement seems to be the pre-race hype and celebrity spotting on Brundle’s grid walk (spotted you in Barcelona).
Glad to hear that teams and media companies are making lots of money and F1 is financially strong but if they don’t improve the actual racing, people will turn it off and move on to the next exciting thing. Hopefully Aston Martin and Ferrari will get their updates to work so we can have a more exciting race behind the dominant Red Bulls.
The popularity of Netflix’ Drive to Survive show has create a lot more new F1 fans. This, in turn, has driven up demand for tickets and hotels. We’ve tried booking something for Montreal earlier this year and were told the 2023 race sold out in July 2022… they were trying to get us to commit to tickets and hotels (4 night min) for Montreal 2024 this June, at prices that have somehow managed to increase significantly in the last few years. It’s a bad combo: expensive to attend and a boring show.. we will skip it this year and look forward to your new green notebook
I found the last race decently exciting, with varying strategies, & decent racing from P2 downwards, although out-of-position drivers (especially Perez & Leclerc) alongside big tyre deltas from differing strategies + Bottas’ slowness contributed to this.
Hi Joe thanks for the notes, great read as usual.
Your comments suggest that Lance is almost in F1 against his will and isn’t really enjoying his time there. Is this the case?
I’m sure he’s enjoying racing but I’m no
His situation reminds me of that of Arthur the cabin steward in the Radio 4 comedy Cabin Pressure. His mother gets a private jet in the divorce and runs a failing airdot (because you can’t put one jet in a line) with it, and he (and sometimes she, as well as being the CEO) are the cabin crew. In a moment of self-doubt she points out to him that it’s his inheritance she’s blowing and asks whether she should call it quits. He replies something like “well, if it were up to me, which it isn’t, but if it was, I can’t think of anything I’d do with the money which is more fun than flying around the world with you guys”.
Your Aston Martin/Stroll/Alonso comments are, as usual, interesting and provocative. And run counter to all the wide-eyed, sycophantic opinions offered up by other writers at major F1 sites. A casual, but knowledgeable, F1 fan asked me yesterday if Lewis had lost it or was it all down to the car. I told him that Lewis still had IT—though he’d had a rough 2022 against a new, young, strong teammate. This season he’d regained the upper hand. Can’t help but wonder, however, how Fernando would be faring if his teammate was George Russell. Perhaps this is what those engineers are wondering as well…
Thanks Joe. You should open up another revenue stream in travel writing.
Now, onto F1. Thoughts on James Key joining Seidl at Audi (Alfa/Sauber)?
Maybe they needed someone as Monchaux is moving on? Not sure
Joe, your tweet today mentions Monchaux might possibly following Fred Vasseur to Ferrari. Would he be a capable enough TD to develop and lead Ferrari to challenge for a future WCC?
No idea but Vasseur seems to like him…
Besides the fact he designed their podium finishing cars in the early teens, the cars for Alpha Tauri and McLaren weren’t good, so why has Sauber/Audi take James Key back? Seems like an odd move if Audi wants to be competitive out if the gate.
It may be a reflection on Audi….
The Key penned Saubers and SAT’s were, generally speaking, punching well above their weight!
Very good cars indeed.
But are the skills that produce a good car for a minor team the same skills needed to produce an outright winner?
I think history suggests not, though of course some people are lucky enough to have both sets of skills. But leading a smaller team, being more hands on, to get most bang from a small buck is a very different thing to leading a huge team which might include other people of much higher calibre than in a small team, delegating more, and being focussed on ultimate performance with little regard for resource. On the other hands, the laws of physics are the same…
Mike Gascoigne springs to mind, he did a great job at smaller teams and Toyota was the opportunity. I wonder if the real issue there was more politics than ability though. You get the impression that the management team there would have spec’ed out a horse and wondered why it ended up as a donkey with webbed feet and the head and tail at the wrong end.
Paddy Lowe then seemed the opposite, he seemed to look good with the team around him, but when he went to Williams to turn it around it went south very fast
A really absorbing read, well worth the wait. Re: Aston Martin and Red Bull. Although silly at first thought, switch Stroll and Perez. If Stroll has anything, we’ll see what it is without Daddy worrying, and we’ll see how fast Alonso is with Perez alongside. A fun thought.
Hi Joe, I’m wondering what signs the Miami GP might be seeing in the level of interest in tickets. They have offered to lock in prices and thrown in free parking for those of us who re-purchase tickets before next week. I’m wondering if they are starting to see price fatigue?
God, I hope so.
I seem to recall reports that Miami this year had unsold tickets and actually dropped the prices to move them; maybe the fatigue has already arrived. Las Vegas ticket prices are just plain stupid….
Miami looked pretty busy to me
We’re you trying to escape from Flav on the grid Joe as you raced past brundle with green notebook in hand. The note book looks compact, how many do you get through a season?
It’s more a question of seasons per notebook. I don’t make many notes. Just one word reminders!
Another interesting post! Stroll to be retired at season’s end? Def no GP in SA, thanks. The Drive2Survive bubble has popped. No one wants to spend mega $ on a boring event. And that bridge at Millau is damn spectacular; was on my to do list but my bucket has a hole due to illness. I did get to Digne-les-Bains to visit the home of the late Buddhist explorer Alexandra David-Néel. Very moving. Enjoy Montréal, ma ville de naissance.
Someone sent me an article last week saying in effect, Formula 1 has dropped any further negotiation with Mxanzi IAfrica because of our stance on Putin and Ukraine. I did the courtesy of reading it, it it seemed like unsubstantiated opinion full of speculation. There was no objectivity such as you cannot punish a country for its legal actions, although I think we are close to the mark at times currently.
While I would love to see a Grand Prix here, I think Toby Venter’s go kart track in Johannesburg would produce dire racing, there is only 1 potential DRS zone and if a classic circuit like Spa should be judged by how people get to the race, Kyalami is worse. The closest public transport is the Gautrain at Marlboro (ironic as that is what the real Crowthorne was called for a while in honour of the cancer sticks). That is before we consider South Africa’s illogical stance on the Ukraine war, non-aligned but clearly on Russia’s side, refusal to effect the ICC arrest warrant on Putin which is probably going to see the BRICS summit moved to China, allowing sanctioned Russians to bring yachts into Cape Town Harbour and the current Lady R and arms debacle. Sadly as we have a broadly illiterate population addicted to TikTok not news they lap up the rubbish that the war is about NATO. It’s about population growth and Leubensroom.
Great writing with brilliant segues, especially the final paragraph. Thank you.
Sauber was going bust in 2016, with unpaid salaries and suppliers, the lot.
We should be thankful that a buyer stepped in, saved 300 jobs (probably feeding 900 mouths) and invested in a new simulator, improved their wind-tunnel and hired hundreds more staff.
If he sells out to Audi at a profit, good luck to him.
Martin Brundle has got into hot water with some folks because he called Zhou a ‘Chinaman’. That is, we are told, a racist slur. I’m very sure it was not intended as such. Nobody seems to mind when Sainz is called a Spaniard….
It wasn’t a racial slur or a pejorative term and no more controversial than other compound terms, such as ‘Englishman’, until individuals with certain cultural and political agendas decided that it bloody well should be.
When demand for offensive acts greatly exceeds supply, you have to create your own.
Chinaman has always been a racist term for well over a 100 years. Ignorance and justification doesn’t let you off the hook. It was used derogatorily a lot during the time when there was a large Chinese immigration wave into the U.S. and they worked as laborers on the building of the railroads.
Having said that, I’m sure Brundle meant no harm by it and didn’t realize the significance of the word. I’m always willing to give people in his situation the benefit of doubt. I am not willing to give the same to people who try to dismiss the word completely simply because they want to shout “cultural and political agenda” arguments which has nothing to do with semantic truths.
I wen through this a long time ago. It depends on the country you are from. In the US and Canada it is deemed insulting. In Britain it is not. In Britain and India it is also a cricketing term. So international writers/commenters have to learn that it is not acceptable everywhere.
Thanks for the further education, Joe! Cultural differences does make the world complicated. 🙂
Rant all you want, neither arrogance nor ignorance let you off the hook imposing local and peculiar (and historical) social and cultural beliefs on everyone else.
Martin Brundle is not American, was not in America, and was not talking to Americans. I’m not American. The increasing belief in my culture – a culture I share with Brundle – that it is pejorative and racist is an importation by people with cultural and political agendas. That’s a semantic fact. So the points I made were appropriate and correct, and you did a superb job demonstrating it. It is precisely people like you, with your attitude, who have purposely turned a benign word in British English into a malign one for no good reason, or for any benefit other than to allow you to confect the rage and share the self-righteous condescension you employ here. As I said, when demand exceeds supply …
Personally I don’t opine on which things that other cultures see as good or bad should be treated the same in my culture, or vice-versa – that would be arrogant and racist, almost colonial, and is a very slippery slope. I leave that to people with much stronger agendas than me.
But generous and magnanimous of you to ‘always [be] willing to give people [like Brundle] the benefit of doubt’. You are clearly so pure of morals and devoid of guilt, and therefore qualified to stand in judgement of others like some self-appointed politruk. You don’t extend it to people like me of course, so I’ll leave you with some Huxley. (Do carry on if you like. I’m going back to the motorsport news.)
‘The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’ — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.’
How about a GP in Gibraltar, you could call it GP de Rock!!
Peter Ustinov got there first!
Abo,
The late Sir Peter Ustinov already did that back about 1957 as I recall.
And it’s utterly brilliant… Perhaps a touch to long…
I too have been wondering if the cheerful, helping Fernando would exist if there was someone younger and quick in the other AM. A certain Mr. Norris comes to mind as one I would love to see in the other car. That being said, the resurgence of ALO in a good car has been the high point of the season so far for me. If only he could have been in a competitive car the last four or five years, there could have been a few epic seasons with him running at the front with the other few drivers up there.
Loved this notebook!
Having just returned from Zanzibar a month ago, I can tell you that even MSC could not manage to provide enough pseudo-infrastructure to make a race a reality. Fun fact: Zanzibar WAS its own country before April 26, 1964 when Zanzibar and Tanganyika united to form Tanzania.
Marjorie Laflin North Hills, CA
The only thing we can be sure of is Vettel was over-rated. Say what you want about Alonso, but Vettel would not have 99 points at this time in the season.
No way did you just compare Ocon’s performance to Alonso’s and leave out the fact that Fernando retired from points scoring position 6 times and had issues in Canada from the front row, had a failure from a very fast quali lap in Melbourne. Are we also going to forget that Palmer’s analysis on F1TV put Fernando well over 0.2% faster than Ocon particularly on Sundays. No way Joe Saward doesn’t know this, so it’s just being disingenuous.
If you read the post properly you will see that it is not my opinion. I am reporting the opinion of others. It is not the same thing and calling me disingenuous does not get you on my Christmas card list…
Lets just deal with the elephants in the room
Spain was the dullest race in living memory. Even the commentators sounded bored and subdued from about half way onwards.
As far as the season is concerned, it is dead and as good as over – after only 7 races.
The Red Bull car is a rocket ship and is so far in front, and because other teams have to be careful how they spend their money because of the cost cap, it will remain in front. The next placed none Red Bull car is always about 20 – 30 seconds behind the leading Red Bull. In F1 terms, it may as well be the distance from the earth to the moon.
Don’t expect any change any time soon, and certainly not this season, and possibly not even the next – because Red Bull will probably improve their car further anyway, even if the others do improve. And the word is, they are not even pushing that car close to it’s limit. In short – they are coasting.
So we may as well face up to it now – unless somehow Red Bull suddenly and inexplicably implode, Ferrari style, it will probably more or less be this way until the next regulation change in 2026.
So lets just summarise – they change the regulations to put the emphasis on aero and ground effect, hoping it will lead to more competition. Whilst knowing full well that, sitting in the midst of all the F1 engineers and designers, there sits a genius of a man with no equal in designing F1 cars, who in fact cut his teeth in the early years of his career on ground effect and all the ins and outs of it, and is a master at aero and is famous for designing cars that stick to the road like glue.
In retrospect – just what the bloody hell did they (and, for that matter, us as well) think was going to happen, eh? The regulation change has played right into Red Bulls hands.
So the cost cap, coupled with the new regulations, has unintentionally led to the opposite of what they were intended to do – because one car is so far out in front.
It is no good consoling me that there’s a good midfield battle going on as a crumb of comfort. To do that, I’d have to suspend belief and imagine that one team and their cars don’t actually exist. So the crumb just went away.
And before all the yeah but brigade start gabbling incoherently, no, it wasn’t the same during the Mercedes era. There was competition from within (Hamilton v Rosberg for 3 years), and then from Vettel and Ferrari, which would have made even better viewing had not both driver and team performed that particular trick they both pull off so well – self imploding. But at least they were there and kept Mercedes honest.
Here, there is no competition from within (a deliberate strategy) and the next placed none Red Bull car isn’t even close.
Practically three more years of this.
Glass half full there. I like the fact it’s a meritocracy, word used a lot just now, but the best should win, with no gimmicks in F1. It’s especially hard to bear for me as I can’t stand the very ungracious, and droning Horner, a man who is ungracious either winning or losing.
Wow, he really is in your head isn’t he, Christian Horner
IMO what Red Bull have done is what they had to do, especially this year with test time reduced by penalties. IE they got it right first time. The car is fast out of the box. Other teams will catch them eventually, but an early big lead, such as Red Bull and Max have, is very hard to overturn. The only team to have done a comparable job in the off-season is Aston Martin. The rest all seemed to have aimed too low.
I think of 1991 when the Williams was ultimately the faster car, but it took a while to get sorted and to get reliable, by which time Senna had won 4 out of 4 and had enough in the bank to prevail over the season.
Or 2009 when Brawn hit the ground running. They were not the best car by the end of the year (arguably only third best), but Button had notched up lots of points early on and, again, had enough in the bank to still prevail.
Already Max has 53 points over Perez. He can fail to finish the next two races, Perez can win them both, and Max will still be in the lead. The gaps to Alonso and Hamilton are larger still.
I fear that the fight is already for second place. Champion drivers such as Hamilton and Alonso will give their all, but it’s going to be hard to beat Max and Red Bull.
One more thing: Red Bull are strong too as a team. Their strategy calls are good, their pit work is the best. There doesn’t seem to be a chink in the armour. Even when Red Bull were not dominant they were always confident and well motivated and able to pounce on any chance the opposition handed them. Horner is a very, very good team boss.
“Other teams will catch them eventually”
You mean like when Red Bull won their 4 titles in a row? Nobody caught them then, nobody will catch them now.
Good point. I was thinking of years like those I gave as examples, but there also cases when a team hits the ground running and stays ahead – though in two of Vettel’s years there was a close fight.
No winning streak lasts forever, though it can feel like it at the time.
When F1 is aero-dominated, Team Newey wins. Has been true since the early 90s. When it’s engine or tyre dominated, other teams can win.
The only exception was 2009 when the ambiguity in the wording of the rules it took a second-language English speaker to spot gave Brawn half a season’s head start, but even then Team Newey had caught up by the end.
Just quit watching then. There, your problem is solved.
“Just quit watching then. There, your problem is solved.”
Yes, just like everybody did when Red Bull won 4 in a row and people switched off in droves. That’s really good for the sport, and I’m sure what Liberty Media want.
Did you really watch seasons 2010 and 2012? RBR won but not in runaway fashion.
My comment was not directed at “everybody,” only to you and your negativity. If you are seriously this bothered by the season thus far then for your own mental and physical health YOU should cease watching and save yourself what appears to be serious health damage done.
Isn’t this true in every sport? In the 162 game baseball season, the season isn’t even halfway and some teams are hopelessly behind. But people still watch, attend, and root for their teams because the joy is not necessarily in the winning. Didn’t will.i.am teach you anything in Miami?
This.
Finally someone who doesn’t fall at the feet of mighty Fernando. He’s good, always has been, but the fawning on Sky over him this season has been unbearable. He’s up against a poor teammate, he was up against Ocon last year who is mediocre.
Fabulous post Joe! Amongst a sea of good ones this one stood out for me.
I never ‘skip to the racing stories’. It’s the non-racing stuff that grips me more these days, it’s always more interesting!
Zac Brown has achieved management perfection, no matter which aspect of the team is underperforming he has someone below him to fire.
I just don’t see him being in anything like the same management league as Horner, or Wolff. My guess is that one day the owners will recognise this and do the decent thing.
McLaren deserves better.
How warm is it in Australia at this time.
Not very.
Particularly if you’re in Victoria.
Indeed. He’s even managed to expand McLaren into other series it can underperform in.
I keep harping about DRS and its impact on the quality of the racing. IMHO, either get rid of it completely OR let the drivers use it anywhere they like. Just another of my bad ideas!
Pit lane DRS would be super exciting.
I’ve been saying the same for years – but unfortunately I don’t move in the sort of circles where anyone influential is likely to hear 😦
I’d love to see drivers ‘pushing’ it at what are currently non-DRS zones – if only to stop the predictability of the ‘save-battery-to-attack/defend’ scenario and the endless DRS ‘trains’.
Of course, I ought to temper this by saying I’m not a DRS fan at all, really and would much prefer ‘natural’ overtaking; however, if that’s not feasible then freedom to use it when and wherever a driver wishes (still maintaining the 1 sec rule) ought to be a given.
Freedom to use when & wherever was the case for practice, qualifying, & test sessions in the first two DRS years before DRS use eventually got reduced to designated zones at all times on safety grounds, so reverting to this approach would be unworthy.
I’m aware of that, but as every ticket states – ‘Motor Racing is Dangerous’.
IMO it should be up to the drivers to risk manage their performance and if they believe they can gain an advantage by using DRS somewhere where others aren’t – go for it!
I see what you mean, but I disagree because not everything is worthy of leaving up to driver discretion, especially when safety is concerned.
Yes, motorsport is dangerous, but the danger element should be minimized as much as possible, which unlimited DRS use wouldn’t do since it’d risk crashes via losing the rear when trying to activate as early as possible, as happened a few times in the first two years.
Joe, just catching up with latest season of DTS. Lovely to see you and DT in the opening minutes of E:10 getting your 15 minutes (seconds) of fame….
We had no idea the cameras were there, but taking the mickey out of Gunther is pretty normal behaviour … and vice versa.
While I generally enjoy the geography lesson of these note books, I think think was your best yet. My father loved Roquefort cheese, he could eat it like it was a piece of candy. I’ve tried to like it, and with the right combination of “suppressents” it’s ok. I never knew it’s history or how it came about. Great geography lesson as usual. You really could do a coffee (other beverages allowed) table book of these journeys. Two volumes ‘in the Prieus” and “Seat 123a”. Bill Bryson but more interesting.
Hi Joe, any talk in the paddock about possible changes to the cars to reduce the weight? I find these cars incredibly boring to watch. Qualifying is okay but the cars look horrible in race trim.
Not that I have heard, but it would be good.
Can’t see how it can happen any time soon.
In effect you have 2 power units and their weight penalty that seem unlikely to change even in the medium term.
Without a radical invention for energy storage that is much lighter than the current batteries and their attendant control systems we are also stuck with that load.
Synthetic fuels look promising elsewhere and may well come more into F1 but it would be a brave person who would suggest that electrical energy use and storage will be discontinued.
Tons must have lost their coveted f1 jobs over the years due to not really being good enough to give Alonso a winning car.
Naturally there will be the grudge filled individuals dotted all around F1.
Massive teams like mercedes and ferrari were always going to catch up so it just looks like
a opportunistic dig at Alonso now his results may not be top 3 every race.
Alonso wont be around for more than a few more years so may as well enjoy it while we can.
Meanwhile F1 just loves churning drivers round as it takes the pressure off the salary men at the team and their dud car developments.
Hi Joe and thanks for all your Green Notebooks etc. I am only just back from the Le Mans 24 Hours, so catching up on your Blog – as the bandwidth at the Circuit de la Sarthe for the “normal spectators” (ie not VIP guests or accredited press) was very poor.
As I live in the area you passed through (I live in the Gard just before the Cevennes), I picked up on your point saying “I will tell you straight away that motorsport did not exist south of Clermont-Ferrand and north of Beziers, down near the Mediterranean coast, until a few years ago, and there still isn’t a great deal, so there are no evocative old circuits where madmen used to take insane risks on mountain roads.”
You are of course, quite right – however there are a few exceptions that are worth a mention in passing. One of your previous travelogues has already noted the old and excellent Circuit Charade (only just) south of Clermont-Ferrand that did host an edition or four of the French GP – and was subsequently emasculated to a much smaller autodrome that still hosts smaller category racing. Then just further south is the Hillclimb venue of Mont D’Or that is still active each season.
Going further South, the town of Ales has a Pole Mecanique which is a sort of motor racing industrial estate built around a modern circuit. One of the teams based there is Duqueine who finished on the podium last weekend at Le Mans in the LMP2 class and also build their own racing cars.
Also nearby and to your point on “there are no evocative old circuits where madmen used to take insane risks on mountain roads.” – using a bit of artistic licence – the Ronde Cevenole which was a closed road race directly modelled on the Targa Florio was run nearby near Le Vigan and up and down vertiginous mountain roads with 10 Laps around a 42kms Circuit. One can still drive these mountain roads today and wonder at the madness required to tackle at speed.
Incidentally, former F1 driver and Le Mans winner Peter Whitehead was killed nearby whilst competing in the 1958 Tour de France (the motorised version…) when his Jaguar went over a ravine near the village of Lassalle.
There is a lot of local Hill Climb action around this area essentially due to the topography and then the Gard circuit at Ledenon.
On the ‘what might have been…’ a fully F1 standard Circuit was planned just outside Lodeve by non-other than Don Panoz (of Nicotine Patch Fortune and Panoz Le Mans Cars Fame) – as the local (exhausted) Uranium mine was put up for sale with the Govt inviting offers to buy, renovate and develop the site to help the local economy. Panoz planned a tantalising circuit with a VERY LONG STRAIGHT (a bit a la Paul Ricard) to utilise the predominant local wind – called the Trans Montagne as well as Hotels, a Golf Course etc near the Lac de Salagou. I wish I could find the artist impression of the track design…..
Sadly, the local environmentalists were very vocal in protest against the project. Roads were painted with slogans like “Ne Tombez pas dans le Panoz” (A play on the word Panoz to say – Don’t Fall into the Trap) – the project fell through in light of the local hostility and Don Panoz took his project elsewhere.
Thought this might further embellish your excellent Travelogue
Best,
Paul Rothwell