Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
Helping to pay your way in F1
Indian Narain Karthikeyan’s return to Formula One, along with Renault’s retention of Russian Vitaly Petrov and the imminent arrival of Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado and Mexican Sergio Perez, has put the issue of the so-called ‘pay driver’ — a man whose place on the grid is rightly or wrongly considered as much down to the amount of sponsorship he brings as talent behind the wheel — firmly back in the spotlight.
There are those who bemoan the situation, lamenting the lack of opportunities for the talented but hard-up aspirant, but that is not a new phenomenon even if it was more muted in the era of manufacturer dominance.
In the early days of the championship, you had the well-heeled gentleman racer — flamboyant types like Thailand’s Prince Bira — who could afford to buy a Maserati or two and go racing.
“Do you think we are running on air? The money has to come from somewhere,” HRT team principal Colin Kolles, Karthikeyan’s boss, told Reuters last week when asked about the Indiank. “For more than 100 years if you want to race, you have to put money on the table.”
You only have to ask Niki Lauda about that.
By the early 1970s, with the arrival of swathes of on-car branding and ostentatious sponsorship, the pay driver was a recognised species and Austrian Lauda was in the vanguard.
“To the best of my knowledge, Spain’s Alex Soler-Roig (1971-72) was the first driver to use his own cash to buy himself a few Formula One starts,” Lauda wrote in his 1985 autobiography “To Hell and Back”.
The F1 title race, in old money
McLaren’s Formula One champions Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton have both sought solace in the scoring system after recent setbacks.
But in fact, if they did the maths they might feel a little bit sore. Applying the 2009 points to the 2010 results so far, the title battle would actually be even tighter.
“I think the new points system has definitely amplified what people think of the standings, but I’ve always imagined the points as they would have been under last year’s system,” Button said after last weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix left him fifth overall and 25 points adrift of Red Bull’s championship leader Mark Webber.
“So, in old money, I’m 10 points off Mark, and Lewis is about eight or nine behind him. And, with four races to go, that’s not much at all.”
“When you say you’re 25 points off the lead, that sounds a lot – but it’s just easier for me to reference it by the old system. It makes it seem easier to understand and compute, too.”
Hamilton, who has retired from three of the last four races, is 20 points behind Webber with four races remaining while Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso is 11 off the Australian.
“That’s still less than a race win,” said Hamilton. “It’s easy to get disheartened by being 20 points away, because it sounds such a lot, but under last year’s rules, that’s only about eight points – and to be eight points off with four races left is nothing really.”
Formula 1 starts 2010 with a headache
Former champion Niki Lauda did not mince his words last year when he said that Formula One’s Singapore Grand Prix race-fixing scandal demanded the heaviest of punishments to restore credibility.
A Times headline called Brazilian Nelson Piquet’s deliberate crash at the 2008 race “the worst act of cheating in the history of sport.”
Renault were handed a suspended permanent ban, with the authorities eager to keep them in the sport, while former team boss Flavio Briatore was barred for life and his engineeering head Pat Symonds for five years.
Piquet, the driver at the eye of the storm, walked away without sanction after being handed immunity for telling the governing FIA how he had obeyed orders to help team mate Fernando Alonso to win the race.
This week’s decision by a Paris court to overturn the bans on Briatore and Symonds leaves the sport’s reputation no stronger.
The worst act of cheating ever in the sport? The biggest let-off, more like.
Sure, Renault have suffered a huge blow to their reputation but their punishment was suspended and will be lifted altogether at the end of next year.
This is a difficult situation and it can really affect the sport as a whole and the individual who participated in the illegal activities. It is similar to when advertising agencies considered dropping Michael Phelps because of his drug use incident. http://www.ratesadagency.com
from The Great Debate UK:
Gates closing for commercial partners in sport
- Professor Simon Chadwick, Director, Centre for the International Business of Sport, Coventry, UK. The opinions expressed are his own. -
This summer’s Tour de France was truly historic: the race finished without anyone having returned a positive dope test. Monumental! In a sport seemingly beset with drug problems, professional cycling appeared to have turned the corner, started over, seen the error of its ways, cleaned up its act etc.
Some weeks later however, it was back to "situation normal" when Mikel Astarloza, winner of Stage 16 in this year’s race, tested positive for EPO use. To be honest, the only real surprise about this was that the media singularly failed to refer to the test result as "dope-gate" or some such other gating scandal.
Yet gates elsewhere were swinging this summer like those on a disused farm caught in a tornado. The world of sport witnessed scandals ranging from "crash-gate" to "blood-gate" and beyond (even to situations where women were apparently men – gender-gate?). Crash-gate was the most serious of the summer's attempts at self-implosion, according to some possibly the most serious sporting scandal of all time.
Indeed, there was a sense amongst certain people that the 2008 F1 Grand Prix in Singapore will serve as a headstone on the grave of sporting credibility: we can no longer trust in or rely upon those involved in sport. Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds have admitted their guilt and apparently done the decent thing, but others may well be complicit too.
Just how could something so brazen, so dangerous, have remained secret for so long amongst such a small group of people? From whistle-blowing, to organisation culture, the use (and abuse) of power and the basis on which teams compete, the whole saga has been a sad, pitiful, mangled mess of managerial, organisational and commercial issues.
Blood-gate was a lot less controversial than the Renault fiasco, if for no other reason than it was essentially a domestic drama and wasn’t therefore played out in the glare of international publicity. Moreover, while the likelihood of a physically painful outcome was much greater in the F1 case, Harlequins willingness to feign a physically painful outcome was at the heart of bloody matters down at The Stoop.
Suspended sentence for Renault — does the punishment fit the crime?
The news has just come in from Paris, where Renault have been handed a suspended ban from Formula One, while their former boss Flavio Briatore has been banned from all F1 activities, including driver management, and ex-technical chief Pat Symonds is barred for five years.
So the immediate result of the inquiry into race-rigging at last year’s Singapore Grand Prix is that Renault can stay in the sport, provided they stay on their best behaviour for the next couple of years, even though the offence was described by the FIA as one of “unparalleled severity”.
Does that punishment fit the crime, would you say?
It’s well worth reading the FIA media release on this in full. It confirms that Renault admitted conspiring with Nelson Piquet Jr to cause the crash. Here’s a section of the statement:
The World Motor Sport Council considers Renault F1’s breaches relating to the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix to be of unparalleled severity.
Renault F1’s breaches not only compromised the integrity of the sport but also endangered the lives of spectators, officials, other competitors and Nelson Piquet Jr. himself.
The World Motor Sport Council considers that offences of this severity merit permanent disqualification from the FIA Formula One World Championship.
when will Alonso get punished for anything?
it had been involved in every F1 scandal since he begun racing, and still, always get a FREE PASS, why?
clearly, he is a cheater, traitor, manipulate man
Schumacher pulls plug on F1 comeback
A disappointing day for fans of Ferrari and Michael Schumacher, with news that the German has had to call off his proposed F1 comeback.
As the seven-times world champion said on his website:
“Yesterday evening, I had to inform Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo and Team Principal Stefano Domenicali that unfortunately I’m not able to step in for Felipe (Massa). I really tried everything to make that temporary comeback possible, however, much to my regret it didn’t work out. Unfortunately we did not manage to get a grip on the pain in the neck which occurred after the private F1-day in Mugello, even if medically or therapeutically we tried everything possible.
The consequences of the injuries caused by the bike-accident in February, fractures in the area of head and neck, unfortunately have turned out to be still too severe. That is why my neck cannot stand the extreme stresses caused by Formula 1 yet. This are the clear results of the examinations we did on the course of the past two weeks and the final examination yesterday afternoon. As there were no improvements after the day in Mugello, I decided at short notice on Sunday to do that thorough examination already yesterday.
I am disappointed to the core. I am awfully sorry for the guys of Ferrari and for all the fans which crossed fingers for me. I can only repeat that I tried everything that was within my power. All I can do now is to keep my fingers crossed for the whole team for the coming races.”
“Disappointed to the core” says it all, really. It has been a year of sporting comebacks, but this one was just not meant to be.
PHOTO: Michael Schumacher leaves a restaurant after visiting injured Ferrari driver, Felipe Massa, in downtown Budapest August 1, 2009. REUTERS/Karoly Arvai
As much as I’d have loved to see MS back in F1, I’m kind of glad he didn’t come back. Regardless of reputation and some of the more questionable decisions he has made, he will always be an F1 legend. After 3 years out and at his age, there was a good chance he’d have struggled in the midfield runners and that would have tarnsihed the man when the rose-tints are already forgetting the more dubious side to his character. Let us not forget, the current Ferrari has won precisely zero races this year. Had it been the best car on the road, fair enough – add a few dozen WDC points and notcha cameo win. That was pretty much never on the cards.
The best sportsmen/women rise to the top, and in this case he has made the best sporting decision.
Is Schumacher right to return to Formula One?
Incredible but true: Seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher is to return to Formula One as a short-term replacement for Felipe Massa — provided the German passes a medical.
As Ferrari have just confirmed, Schumacher is poised to make a comeback after Massa fractured his skull in an accident at last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
It’s another twist to a Formula One season you could hardly describe as ordinary, what with the breakaway threat, the stunning start from Brawn GP and the news from BMW this morning.
Is Schumacher doing the right thing in returning to the sport? Having him back will be a great boon in PR terms both for F1 as a whole and for Ferrari but will it work out? He hasn’t been out that long but in a sport where fitness is becoming more and more important, can the 40-year-old possibly be in the necessary shape to step straight back into the car?
Here’s what Willi Weber, Schumacher’s manager, said yesterday: “What would we expect from Schumacher if he stepped into a Formula One car? To win. The expectations from both sides would be too high.”
Is Schumacher right to come back?
It may be difficult to win but it’s good to see the greatest driver back in the race !
Peace breaks out in Formula One
Formula One stepped back from the brink on Wednesday as FIA president Max Mosley agreed a compromise with FOTA, the Teams’ Association, to save the sport from a rival breakaway series.
The disagreement, which centred on Mosley’s plans to introduce a budget cap for the 2010 season, had threatened to end Formula One’s 60-year existence with eight teams including champions Ferrari prepared to walk away for good.
To the relief of Formula One fans and teams including McLaren, Red Bull and Brawn GP who all faced having to start again in what would have been a hastily arranged rival championship, Wednesday’s world motor sport council meeting in Paris has finally ended that threat.
The compromise comes about as Mosley also announced that he would not stand for re-election as FIA president, something many thought would have to happen for any agreement to be reached.
The controversy of a possible split has overshadowed the sport in recent weeks but hopefully attention can now return to a season which promises a championship showdown between Jenson Button’s Brawn GP and Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.
Roll on Germany’s Nuerburgring.
Formula One on the brink as eight teams threaten split
Formula One plunged into its biggest crisis in 60 years on Friday with eight of the 10 teams announcing plans to set up their own championship.
The teams association FOTA said BMW-Sauber, Brawn, Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, Renault, Toro Rosso and Toyota were united in a decision that would split the sport in two if carried through.
“The teams cannot continue to compromise on the fundamental values of the sport and have declined to alter their original conditional entries to the 2010 world championship,” said a statement.
“These teams therefore have no alternative other than to commence the preparation for a new championship which reflects the values of its participants and partners.”
Click here for the full story, and check back for more news as it happens on a decisive day for Formula One.
Talking Turkey with Lewis Hamilton
Of all the corners in Formula One this season, turn eight at the Istanbul Park Circuit subjects drivers to the highest G-forces (around 5G, or five times their body weight).
It is a long, sweeping multi-apex corner that yearns to be taken flat out (270kph+) but that will see only a handful — probably only the Brawns, Red Bulls and Ferraris — manage to do it this weekend.
We strolled around it with McLaren’s world champion Lewis Hamilton to get the inside track. Here’s what he had to say:
“The entrance is very straightforward but if you turn in too early and cook the first apex (the peak of the perfect racing line), you will miss the second and third so there is a certain point where you have to turn in.
You have to miss the first curve by something like two or three metres. Then you clip the next two apexes. The speed which you are going into this corner, it looks quite tight already and we are in sixth gear and doing about 270 kph. it’s flat and you keep going.” - – - - Istanbul is one of only three anti-clockwise circuits on the Formula One calendar, which puts an additional strain on drivers’ necks as they wrestle the G-forces. Hamilton had already walked the length of the 5.338km trac klong before Friday’s first practice, just as he has done at every track the 24-year-old Briton has competed at since 2005.
The walk is more a part of his pre-race routine, a time to talk calmly with his race engineer away from the cramped confines of trucks and motorhomes and to breathe in the atmosphere. He may not learn much that he does not know already, but the effect of walking is more sub-conscious. - – - - “It’s easy to arrive at the weekend and just get in and drive and get a good or bad result,” he says. “If you get a bad result, you just wish you had prepared better so we prepare the best way we possibly can and make sure we cover every area and feel comfortable that even if we have a bad weekend, we did everything we needed to.” - – - That means paying special to turn eight. Last year he had to make three stops, costing him a potential victory, triggered by concern about tyre wear brought on by his aggressive approach. - – - -
>None would describe themselves openly as pay drivers, certainly not in the old-fashioned sense, even if their sponsorship is clearly welcome.
Taki Inoue openly calls himself a paydriver.
Moreover he has spoken of why he decided to pay for the drive, how raised the money and finally why F1 sponsors put money into the teams or the drivers – money laundering, kickback, tax evasion and so on.