DeltaWings

I am not really into single seater racing, but although there are many reasons for this, there are none of them particularly good ones. In the past, I have followed Formula Ford, Formula 3, Formula 2, Formula 3000 and I have even been to Indianapolis for the 500. Not to mention Formula One racing - the first race I ever saw was for Formula One.

And if it weren't for my family duties restricting the number of races I go to, then I am sure I would still be a big fan.

And I read the UK weekly magazines - at least I open them, turn the pages and look at most of them - enough to sustain my interest.

But my eye was particularly caught by the Delta Wing Indy Car proposal. Now there's a car that certainly looks different. If we are going to make this sport more appealing to the general public, then it makes sense to accentuate the differences between different categories. Making IndyCars very different from Formula 1 has to be a good thing, doesn't it?

And if you can drive one, surely you can drive the other?

Go on, Indycar, be bold!

Motor Racing - sport or spectacle?

Arising from my post last week about use of safety cars and full course cautions, I had a bit of an email exchange with Janos Wimpffen - author of Time and Two Seats and more latterly the set of four picture books entitled "Open Roads and Front Engines", "Winged Sportscars and Enduring Innovation", "Spyders and Silhouettes" and "Monocoques and Ground Effects". All of which are expensive, but worth it.

Anyway, our discussion was about the different approach in the USA and Europe. Motor Racing in the USA has always been much more about entertainment - and for this reason full course cautions get used more often. European racing has traditionally been a story of technical advancement, with spectators welcome to watch, but the race not being interfered with for their benefit (particularly).

Janos wrote to me:
That goes back to the dawn of racing whereing the sport was considered to be a platform for participants and manufacturers in Europe but a matter of spectacle in the U.S.


I replied:
can it "always" have been so? Surely motor racing started as an indulgence for those fortunate enough to own a motor vehicle and unfortunate enough to meet another such going in the same direction? A bit like wealth - but watching people get rich didn't ever get popular for some reason. Watching people race cars is entertaining, for all manner of reasons. But at some point, someone in America decided to make a spectacle out of it. And from that point on the sport entered the arena of public entertainment, and had to be "manipulated" to ensure that its entertainment value was maximised, not unlike many other US sports.

To which Janos's response was:
Of course there were no roads in the modern sense at the turn of the last century, but the European networks were far more developed with routes reaching back to Roman times. Also the distances between major centeres was far less than in the U.S. Thus when the auto emerged there were ready made routes for use wheter for rich boys with toys or for manufacturers.

The distances in the US were and remain great and the only inter-city transport was rail (by contrast with today where rail is nearly extinct). So there was little opportunity to have point-to-point races at the dawn of the auto age, although a few significant events did take place.

This gap plus interest in the new tech created a vacuum filled by entrepreneurs such as fair ground operators to use the ample space to build oval circuits, attract paying spectators and offer prizes.


And I think that's right. Thanks to Janos for his insight!

Le Mans entry list

So, the ACO has published an entry list, and it's only February. Takes some of the fun out it, doesn't it, if they make it this easy. I am sure there'll be many changes between now and June though.

Items of note - initial reactions... David Brabham out of the Peugeot and racing a Highcroft HPD (Acura)? I wonder if that was Brabs decision or Peugeots? His lap times may not have been as quick as some of the other Peugeot Pilots, but his influence on the team undoubtedly was a factor in the victory of the number 9 car in 2009. I suspect that he may have decided himself: it won't get any better than this - what can you do after winning, except win again? And even if Peugoet's chances in this year's race are good, David might drive perfectly well and still not win. No, with Highcroft he will have far more fun, he is part of the team, and he will get just as much satisfaction out of winning LMP2 with a Le Mans rookie car / team than driving in the manufacturer equipe. At least that's the way I see it.

What about Audi? Fassler, Lotterer and Treluyer in - Luhr, Premat out. I am slightly surprised by the omission of Premat - he is extremely quick - but I suspect that his face maybe doesn't fit - or his attitude is wrong. Any comments gratefully received. More fundamentally, I worry about the R15. Even with a "plus" version. You can be sure that the 2010 Peugeot will have been updated over 2009 as well. I'm looking forward to seeing how the car shapes up at Paul Ricard in April. That's a good sign, and it will be very revealing in so many ways.

Then there are the Mansells - I suppose it will be an achievement if all three of them actually get to drive the car in the race. But it won't be on the pace, will it? I think one of the interesting battles will be between the Rebellion cars and the Aston Martins. I'm extremely optimistic about Rebellion - they seem to be taking it very seriously indeed - and the driver line-up is excellent with Boullion and Bellichi. And the team has a heart.

Another team with heart is Strakka Racing. And two better blokes than Danny Watts and Jonny Kane, you couldn't wish to have in a car together. Forza Strakka!

GT1 looks half-decent too - three private Corvettes and an Aston Martin up against the Larbre Saleen and a couple of Ford GTs. Somehow the JLOC Lamborghini seems to have sneaked in there again, and there is not a great deal of depth of GT1 cars in the reserve list, so I am afraid my enthusiasm for GT1 is under control.

GT2 is a mix of works Corvettes, BMWs, Porsche and Ferrari. With a Jaguar and a Spyker in there too to add lustre (if ex-F1 names add lustre).

All in all, I like it... there's lots more that could be said, but for now, I will let others say it.

DSC February Comment

I subscribe to the French language magazine "Le Mans Racing" and jolly good it is too.

In an article last year, editor François Hurel struck a chord with me in a piece he wrote about the use of safety cars to establish a “full-course caution”. I wonder how many readers, like me, were astonished how few safety cars proved necessary in Le Mans Series 1,000kms races last year? In the last three races of the season, in the Algarve, at the Nürburgring and at Silverstone there were a total of precisely zero laps behind the safety car. A jolly good thing that was too, in my view. It allowed the pattern of the races to emerge, rewarded good strategy and enabled the spectators to follow progress more easily. That’s the trouble with a full-course caution – aside from the fact that it interrupts the flow of the race, it also introduces an element of luck: inevitably, however efficiently the safety car (or cars) is / are deployed, you will end up giving an advantage to one competitor, or disadvantaging another. Those familiar with Formula One will recall Singapore 2008. Whether Renault was cheating or not, the safety car period clearly enabled Alonso to win the race and deprived Massa of a world championship title.

For my money then, periods behind a safety car should be avoided at all costs. I grant you that it can spice up a dull race, if a spread-out field is bunched up again, but surely deliberately manipulating a race should only be done in the direst of circumstances?

It’s a bit of a culture thing. In the USA, full-course yellows are commonplace. And are frequently – it seems to me – called on a whim. But racing in the USA grew out of ovals, often extremely short ovals, where a full course yellow is perhaps the only way to ensure safety when there is an incident, short of stopping the race altogether. This, surely, is how the practice arose in the first place. Racing in Europe, though, began on long road courses, where most of the circuit lay beyond the direct view of the race control building – and this has led to a different culture.

At Le Mans, the first use of a safety car was as recently as 1981 (I call that recent – does that make me old?). Then, they were called pace-cars, and were regarded very much as an ‘import’ from the USA. However, in the intervening thirty years, ‘pace car periods’ have become very much a feature of racing the world over, and not just endurance racing. The ability to make a good restart from behind the safety car is these days regarded as a vital element to a driver’s skill set.

I have been at the Nürburgring 24 hour race the last two seasons – and unsurprisingly, the organisers do not use full course cautions, nor do they have the phrase ‘neutralise the race’ in their vocabulary. It would be madness to sit behind a safety car when the lap is 25km long.

What they do have though is the concept of a ‘neutralised section’ of track. Without the use of a safety car, they force drivers to slow down by using cones to restrict the available width of the track and enable marshals to work on cars or damaged barriers safely. Drivers have to slow down, just as you do on the public highway when lane closures occur on the motorway due to road works. Sufficient marshals are available to wave yellow flags, transgressions are reported, but most importantly, drivers are responsible and slow down sufficiently to minimise risk. On occasions when this happened during the 2009 race, it appeared to the folk in the media centre that there was merely an increase in lap times (was it maybe raining on the far side of the track?), and for the fans in the non-affected areas, the on-track action continued unabated.

Surely there is a lesson to be learned here somewhere? Due to a combination of circumstances, the organisers end up without spoiling the spectacle of the race, yet are able to keep the cars competing against one another and keep the race flowing.

What about the weather though? Particularly at the Nüburgring, where fog can be a hazard. But there have been occasions elsewhere recently when the safety car has been deployed in the face of particularly heavy rain. Last year’s Petit Le Mans event is an obvious example, but I am also thinking of the closing stages of Le Mans 2007, when we saw torrential rain, TV pictures showing Emmanuele Pirro holding a piece of card, with “Safety Car?” written by hand, and reports of team managers going to race control, requesting that the race be neutralised.

Now I find all this ‘appealing’ to race organisers a bit unpalatable. As I noted in last month’s column, there seems to be a general malaise these days, in which sportsmen (and women) in every field use whatever means necessary to try and achieve their ends, and are regarded as merely showing ‘commitment’ when they do so.

The question of safety cars in extraordinary weather though, is a very difficult one. The trouble is, that once you send the safety car out because of rain (or fog, or any other extreme weather condition), you need to find a good time to withdraw it again.

One of the reasons I am so averse to safety cars is that two of the most dangerous parts of the race are the deployment of the safety car (as some drivers have a tendency to miss it, and do not slow down, others over-react and slow down excessively), and the restart after the safety car is withdrawn, when cars are bunched-up and drivers are unsure how much grip is available under race conditions.

So often we’ve seen a long period of running behind the safety car followed by another caution period immediately afterwards as another incident occurs at or shortly after the restart. Someone with far more experience in these things than I once suggested to me that Ayrton Senna would still be with us if safety cars did not exist in Formula 1 – but I think that is another debate, and not one to which I feel qualified to contribute.

Suppose, just suppose, that safety cars were not deployed at Petit Le Mans last year, and suppose, just suppose, that the race had not been stopped. Here’s an imaginary conversation between Allan McNish and me.

PT: What are conditions like, Allan?

AMcN: Awful, the car’s undriveable!

PT: OK, bring it into the pits, we’ll wait for conditions to improve.

AMcN: What? You’re kidding me, we’ll lose positions!

PT: You have no choice. It’s either that or crash.

AMcN: You don’t understand! I’m a racing driver! It’s up to the organisers to stop the race!

I know, it wouldn’t happen, would it? The reason why it wouldn’t happen is that most racing drivers these days have stopped thinking about their responsibilities as human beings and focus single-mindedly on racing and driving the car as quickly as it will go. Felipe Massa was recently quoted as saying that he forgets about his wife and newborn child when he gets in his racing car and only remembers he has a family when he gets out again. Whether or not this is wholly true, I would not call it wholly responsible.

Listen to interviews with the great drivers of the fifties, Moss, Fangio, etc. and they all say that they would leave a margin when racing, in order to have some room for manoeuvre when they needed it – and they did need it, since often lives depended on it – and not just their own.

In the recent snowy conditions that prevailed in this country, I left the car in the garage for two days. I took a judgement and decided it wasn’t worth the risk. My decision was influenced by the fact that technology and my boss permitted me to work from home. A friend who has some snow chains, fitted them to his car and went off to the hospital, where he works in A&E. My wife felt less comfortable in the conditions, and didn’t move her car for the whole week. The point is, we each evaluated the conditions, took account of the circumstances, made a judgement and lived with the consequences.

I’m not really having a moan here, honest I’m not. All I’m asking is that we in this sport – all of us, drivers, organisers, team members, media and even spectators, take our responsibilities more seriously. I didn’t say that racing drivers these days can’t think, indeed many that I have met are far more intelligent than I am. I’m not saying that full-course cautions should never be used either, just that they are used too often, and they can cause more problems than they solve. If a well-respected race director gave a proper race briefing, explaining to drivers and team managers the (very limited) circumstances under which safety cars would be deployed, I think we might just get some better, fairer races, without jeopardising safety.

Christianity

Actually, I was going to call this post "more on Senna", for it was inspired by Mike Doodson's piece in Motor Sport this month about his relationship with Ayrton Senna. In addition to being a Senna fan, I am also a fan of 'The Dood' - having met him once, but also being aware that he, like me, used to sit in the back of commentary boxes and do lap charts - in his case for Murray and the BBC before the days of electronic timing, when a lap chart was the only way to follow a race.

And also, from reading him, it is clear that he is the type of journalist who gets to know drivers and then writes about what he knows, rather than necessarily always making up 'a story'. Although, it was that inevitable tendency that got him into trouble with Ayrton, to the detriment of his relationship with him.

What seems to have been at the heart of the problem were some remarks made by Doodson about Senna's spirituality. Not simply his religious beliefs, but some specific (alleged) religious experiences. Now I can well understand anyone's sensitivities on this subject, but there was another element to Doodson's article that caught my eye.

As a Christian myself (indeed, as a speaker I once heard put it, a 'praying man'), I often find putting my faith into practice to be a difficult balancing act. But Mike Doodson suggested that Christianity and sport did not mix - I quote: "It is... hypocritical and irreligious to ask Him (God) to favour anyone - especially oneself - in a sporting contest."

Now I do not engage in sporting contests personally, but I don't see anything wrong with those who do. And although it is certainly not my role to judge who is fit in God's eyes and who isn't, I do feel that those who engage in sport are not excluding themselves from heaven's promises and eternal life. No place in sport for God-botherers, Mike? I think not.

I admire the 'Christians in Motorsport' organisation. (How could anyone not be seduced by a Ferrari 430GT?) But I do fear the 'loopy' tag which can easily be associated with such initiatives. Mike Doodson also said in his article that "a man's faith should guide him in his daily life", and with this I wholeheartedly agree. In the 1924 Olympic Games, athlete Eric Liddell famously refused to run in a qualifying event on a Sunday, declaring that it wasn't appropriate to do so. His faith guided his daily life. The villains of the piece were the media, who made headline news out of the incident.

What we need in this world is a little more graciousness, call it 'grace' if you will. That ability to allow others to do what they feel is right without at the same time passing judgement (particularly prejudicial judgement). It is rarely helpful putting individual decisions under the microscope and inviting others to publish their opinions.

The culture thing again

I am a big fan of Ayrton Senna. Because I was involved in the sport throughout his career, I watched him in Formula Ford, Formula Three and in Formula One and feel that I could appreciate his talent at close quarters; which I was not able to do with Jim Clark, Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio or Tazio Nuvolari, who also rate as heroes of the sport in my book. I have often watched Moss driving historic machinery, but sadly never saw any of the others driving in their heyday.

I do remember Clark though, from watching races on television and from reading reports. And the trouble that sticks in my child's memory was that Clark was simply 'too good'. If he was in a race, then the others didn't get a look in. It took away some of the unpredictability of a race. And surely that is a sign of a true great.

Senna was similar. Put him in a race, and likely as not, he would win. His talent was matched by a commitment, a self-belief, a 'drive', if you will, that stood him head and shoulders above the rest. He also had a marvellous way of expressing himself. In many ways, he was a very emotional, open character.

However... (there had to be a 'however', didn't there?) in my view, by his very commitment he damaged motor sport irrevocably through the flaws in his character that introduced the current 'win at all costs' mentality.

Taking part - we can't all be winners

Here's something I wrote a while ago, intending to submit to dailysportscar, but somehow it never made it. It's not quite right yet... maybe I will come back to it sometime, tidy it up and I will be a bit happier with it:

As the evenings are drawing in, the weather is getting cooler, and it is not really fit for being outside, we sometimes gather around the dining room table on a Sunday afternoon and play a family game of some sort. Now for those of you who are not aware of my domestic details (and why should you be?) my two children are eleven and eight, and sometimes have a hard time with losing. Whether they lose because of bad luck (most of the games we play are purely down to luck), or whether it’s bad strategy (those familiar with the card game ‘Uno’ will know what I mean), it is still hard to come to terms with being a loser.

But then we remind each other that it was fun taking part, we each did our best, and that maybe if we play again, the result might be different.

But when my son, who can count perfectly well, throws a four that takes him to the top of a snake, he instinctively moves five, or three, or suddenly needs to visit the toilet. He really can be quite creative in the face of adversity. And we others need to keep an eye on him. “It spoils the game for everyone else,” we tell him. But we don’t punish him; we just quietly correct him and get on with the game. And when he does it for the umpteenth time, we probably let him get away with it, and just get on with the game. Sometimes my (elder) daughter understands, and behaves well, but other times, she loses patience, and blurts out “but it’s not fair!” which of course is true, but she still wants to play again the next week.

The perceptive reader might already be making a link to motor sport (at least I hope you are).

It just strikes me that these days, our culture seems to have moved on – I can’t bring myself to use the word ‘progressed’, for I am not sure if it is apposite – to the point where the scene I’ve just described seems incredibly old-fashioned. I suspect that Sunday evenings for many children will mean playing computer games, on which they have become adept by surfing the internet for ‘cheat codes’ or tailor-made strategies. Or watching the latest F1 scandal on the TV (apparently they show the Grands Prix in full on the TV these days…).

Competitiveness is now the buzz-word; win at all costs. Dads teach their sons to dive in football practice, appeal for LBW regardless of whether the batsman was playing a stroke, so it goes on. Cheating is endemic: the crime is being caught. The casualty has been sport for the fun of it; “it spoils it for everyone else.” Does anyone care whether others actually enjoy themselves anymore?

The answer is that of course they do. I am lucky in that I get to write about the sport that I love, and to talk about it. And I enjoy writing and talking about it. Sir Stirling Moss said something similar recently on the occasion of his eightieth birthday – that he always raced because he enjoyed it. And I can think of many racing drivers in the sport today that are doing what they do because it is great fun to drive cars fast. And many of them would admit that they are not as good at it as Allan McNish is, for example. There are many writers and commentators better than me. But I don’t go to the Guild of Motoring Writers and complain about it. I just get on with what I do and hope that people enjoy it.

But you cannot walk around a paddock these days without meeting people who take themselves far too seriously. It would not be appropriate in this article to go into detail, but I approached a driver in an event earlier this year whose car had stopped on the circuit during a practice session. I tracked him down, and asked him what had happened – had he spun, was there a mechanical failure, etc? He denied the whole episode. There wasn’t a problem, he hadn’t spun, he hadn’t stopped, he said. Now this was a driver whom I hadn’t met before, and who didn’t know me (except for the fact that my journalist’s pass was clearly on display). But at the very least I expected him to refer me to the team’s Press Officer, if he didn’t want to talk about the incident. In effect, I was lied to. (Isn’t that an offence, Max?)

Hands up if you can think of a situation where the first reaction of the second-placed driver after finishing a race is not to shake the hand of the winner – however worthy he is – but to reach for the rule book and see if your rival can be protested for some transgression.

“But the sponsors expect me to win!” is the plaintiff’s cry. What on earth did you tell your sponsor then? Does he not understand that the very nature of competition is to risk losing? If sponsors only back winners, then we are indeed in a sorry state.