The Gravel Trap

I'm not dead

2011-11-23T08:49:00.000-08:00

It just seems that way.

Yes, I've finally got round to posting here again after an extraordinary long absence, caused by quite a few events in the recent months, some small and some much larger. I'm not going to go into detail about all these things, just to say that this blog was evidently forgotten about for quite a while.

Obviously I could have chosen a better time to return, what with the 2011 season ending this weekend in Brazil. But with the emphasis now shifting to the matters of pre-season, driver changes, car unveilings and the like, there should be plenty of news to go around between the end of the month and March when the whole circus starts again.

A few notes to do with writing: having made it to university, as a journalism student no less, the quality of writing should be substantially higher than it was before. You're probably aware by now of the changes to the template as well. I'm hoping that this is the first event in a major change to the site's layout, so please try and get used to objects moving around each other for no apparent reason.

Along with this, I will try and get a few articles together that aren't as much news or comment related (perhaps a few Top 10 lists, classic race reports, stuff with embedded video clips etc.) to try and diversify the blog a bit. For now, though, the aim is merely on getting this place alive again.

As always, if you want to contact me, feel free to leave a comment on one of the stories or contact me through my profile.

So yeah, that appears to be everything. Good day to you all :)

Liuzzi + Force India = good?

2010-12-14T13:10:00.000-08:00

Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi has told Italian newspaper Autosprint he thinks his race seat for next year is 'safe', despite threats from both test driver Paul Di Resta and Nico Hulkenburg, who is looking for a seat after being dumped from the Williams team. Although he has a contract for next year, the pressure is on for him to show his worth after an ordinary 2010. The question is: would keeping Liuzzi be a good move?

His 2010 season was one which despite starting well, seemed to end up failing to fulfil many people's expectations, with good points finishes in Australia and Korea being devalued by some rather poor qualifying performances, with the Italian struggling to get the car out of the first qualifying session on some occasions, and crashing unnecessarily, such as in the last two races of the year in Brazil and Abu Dhabi. For a team that was supposed to be moving up into the midfield, it got somewhat stuck in a rut, with performances alternating between good and terrible. But the problems were mainly to do with the car's lack of development over the year, and as a result this meant both drivers ended up struggling, so it could be quite easy to let Liuzzi off for some of the poor performances.

Even so, with two young drivers on the way, it may well be a good idea to let Liuzzi go, particularly as his comparatively long career has not yielded as much success as could be provided by the other two choices. Di Resta in particular has proven to be a reliable and solid tester for the team this season, which could help him appear more favourable to boss Vijay Mallaya if Liuzzi were ever to go, and Hulkenburg's form this season was good even before his stunning pole position in Brazil, that certainly put him on the map for the first time. But with neither driver having had much experience of racing under the belt, and Hulkenburg making some rather amateurish mistakes this season, it may well be a step too far to allow them to compete fully with their team mates, something which may impact both of them greatly were they to get the drive. Liuzzi, on the other hand, has shown himself to be capable of dealing with team-mate Adrian Sutil this season- surely a plus point.

Overall, I think it would be worth Force India's while to keep Tonio Liuzzi for another season, as he's proven to be quite a capable driver for the team, if not entirely spectacular. For Liuzzi's sake, it would be the best move as well- with only one drive at a semi-good team left, there's no real option for Liuzzi to do anything but stay with the team and allow their relationship to grow, as this is a team and driver partnership that is certainly capable of doing good things if the car and the driver both work at their best.

Tom Walkinshaw: 1946-2010

2010-12-13T13:20:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the delay in posting. The last month has began to fill with coursework and other college-related work, so I haven't been able to spend enough time here as I would ideally want to. What with the end of the F1 season and the crowning of Sebastian Vettel as World Champion, it wasn't the best of times for this to happen. Nevertheless, now everything's out of the way, I will make sure I get back to posting properly from now on in.

Today's news in motor sport as a whole was dominated by the sad death of TWR founder and sometime Benetton/Ligier/Arrows F1 boss Tom Walkinshaw yesterday from cancer at the age of 64.
To say Mr Walkinshaw was an unsung hero in the field of motorsport would probably be right, although his career definitively speaks volumes about the influence he had on motorsport in general. Beginning his career as a driver in MG Midget races in his mid-20s, his progress was quick, winning the Scottish Formula Ford title in his first season, and becoming an Formula 3 driver in 1970, only two years after starting his career in motorsports. His career in single-seater racing was not a particularly long or sparkling one, though: after breaking his legs in a shunt that year, he struggled for a few more seasons in Formula Two before being recruited to drive a Ford Capri in the British Touring Car Championship in 1974. This proved to be much greater in terms of results: Walkinshaw won seven race wins and a title in his class, alongside finishing fourth overall in the championship.

The year after saw the beginnings of Tom Walkinshaw Racing, which began by preparing BMWs for the BMW Country Challenege but within years had progressed to, and won the British Touring Car Championship with Win Percy in the TWR Mazda RX7s, as well as the Spa 24 Hours in 1981 (with Walkinshaw himself driving) and even the Paris-Dakar Rally, all within six years of the company's beginnings. There was some controversy involved, however. In 1983 the field-conquering TWR Rovers were found to be using illegal bodywork to improve their performance, and were stripped of their British title and banned outright. After 1983, the Rovers ran alongside TWR Jaguars in the European Touring Car Championship, where Tom Walkinshaw won the title in one of his own Jaguars. The partnership between Jaguar and TWR was a good one, and consolidated itself through their victories together in World Sportscar championships and the Le Mans 24 Hours, using the legendary XJRs. This also brought a young Ross Brawn his first taste of success, long before his F1 glory with Benetton, Ferrari and Brawn GP.

A Walkinshaw-prepared Rover Vitesse, 1985

Walkinshaw first entered Formula One in 1991, as a technical director for the Benetton team. One of his earliest coups was to lure Michael Schumacher from Jordan to Benetton in the 1991 season, to much uproar in the paddock and the threat of lawsuits from Eddie Jordan himself: the move turned out to be an extremely shrewd one. Schumacher was winning races within a year and by 1994, was looking set to win the driver's world title for the first time. Both, though, were soon to be caught up in controversy. A number of controversies, from Jos Verstappen's horrifying fire at Hockenheim, to Schumacher's disqualification in Britain and subsequent two race ban, left many believing the team may cheated greatly on their way to the title. Team principal Flavio Briatore subsequently allowed Walkinshaw to run his newly-bought Ligier team for two seasons, without much success. After a falling out with Briatore, the Scot chose to buy into the Arrows team in early 1996, beginning a journey of 6 years with the British squad.

These years were a tumultuous time for the team as it struggled to find sponsorship and decent drivers to represent it. Once again though, Walkinshaw managed a coup by signing the out-of-work reigning champion Damon Hill to drive for the time in 1997, although the relationship didn't go as planned, with the pair both criticizing each other for their poor performances; despite Hill coming close to winning the Hungarian Grand Prix that year, he left at the end of the season and the team's fortunes went downhill once again. Despite sponsorship deals with Orange and Red Bull, the team's finances finally ran out and Arrows, along with TWR, went bust before the end of the season, ending Walkinshaw's involvement in F1, although he did set up a team in Australia's V8 Supercar series last year.

Tom Walkinshaw was a passionate and dynamic figure in motorsports whose talents led to great things across a great range of different formulae. A tough determined and complex character in the paddock, Walkinshaw never shied away from speaking his mind, but forged a great number of bonds in the business, as one of the sport's key players for over two decades. His legacy lives on through the large number of great drivers and teams he was involved with and the cars he helped to design and race throughout his long career, and the great success they have had in shaping the visions of racing we see today.

Rest in peace, Tom.

Korean GP- the aftermath

2010-10-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

Again, the computer has been bugged up over the last few days. It appears to be definitely fixed this time though, so hopefully this blog should be back to normal.

For those of you who missed the Korean GP, Fernando Alonso won the delayed and rain-hit race from Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa, allowing him to take the championship lead. Both Red Bulls failed to finish the race, with Mark Webber crashing out on the 17th lap and Sebastian Vettel retiring of engine failure ten laps from the end of the race. The other title contender, Jenson Button, finished a lowly 12th, out of the points and seemingly out of contention.

The title standings with two races to go:
1. Alonso, 231 points
2. Webber, 220 points
3. Hamilton, 210 points
4. Vettel, 206 points
5. Button, 189 points

And some personal points/observations:

In my last post, I mentioned how Fernando Alonso was beginning to look like a good bet for the title. Much as I hate to blow my own trumpet, it appears to be coming true. He's certainly got the form for it- three wins in the last four races, six podiums in the last seven. The Ferrari also looks to be a competitive force at Interlagos, the next race, so there's a good chance for Fernando to put his title rivals even more under pressure. At the same time, Felipe Massa's podium was a good way for him to bounce back from a nightmare weekend at Suzuka, and it will be him that will play the most critical role in his home race next Sunday.
Most of the predictions of Red Bull's dominance failed to take into account the team's unreliability, particularly in the case of Vettel. After problems with the car cost him wins in Bahrain and Australia, the engine blowup in Korea made for a sorry hat-trick, and one which has probably cost him the title. Something to think about is: had he won all three races mentioned above, he would have had the chance to wrap up the title in Brazil next week. Instead he has to come from way behind, and with team-mate Webber also in the hunt, it'll be hard to see which driver they will favour.

As for Webber himself, his mistake was only the second retirement of the season, but simply could not have happened at a worse time. More importantly, the crash was a pretty amatuerish mistake to make, even in wet conditions, and is the sort of thing that may well knock the confidence of someone whose championship challenge has been the most based on reliability. At least he comes to Brazil knowing that he's got a good chance of winning, having done so last year.

It was a mixed weekend for McLaren, whose car seems the slowest of the three championship contenders,but who had a lot more luck than either of the others. Although Hamilton effectively threw away his chances of victory by going off and allowing Alonso to pass him, it was inevitable he would have got through anyway, so it didn't make too much difference. Either way, second is a great result to get him back into the thick of the fight. Button, on the other hand, completely chose the wrong tyres, but even without that struggled in conditions he normally excels in. It seems extremely likely now that Jenson will be handing his title over, perhaps even in Brazil, the venue he won the title last year.
Mercedes got the better of Renault in the battle for fourth in the constructors' championship, with Michael Schumacher again impressing in fourth- the Rainmaster loving both the Korean track and the adverse weather conditions. Team-mate Nico Rosberg was unlucky to be caught up in Webber's crash early on, as it seemed like he would be on for a decent finish as well. As for the Renaults, Kubica's fifth was somewhat disappointing after he was quick in practice, while another crash for Vitaly Petrov has marked his card even further as he goes for a race seat in 2011.
There were also good races for BMW Sauber (8th and 9th) and Williams (7th and 10th), and a great drive from Tonio Liuzzi for Force India to take 6th, his best result of the season. The form of the team has tailed off significantly after a promising start, so it was good to see them taking decent points for the first time in quite a while.
Finally, the first race at the Yeongnam track, still being finished as the race was being held, wasn't too bad. OK, so there may have been teething problems, like fans trying to get into the track an hour after the official race start (although the one-hour delay caused by the extremely wet conditions did aid them somewhat), but for a track that was reportedly very close to not being ready to host even a go-kart race, the organisation was good, as was the racing, although of course it may well have been different in the dry. The rain conditions, coupled with the already slippery track surface, brought good racing, but the driver's refusal to drive in the early, monsoon-like conditions may well have been right on balance, even if it did lead to questions about the finish of the race, which happened under darkening sunset conditions.

A week is a long time in F1...

2010-10-17T14:34:00.000-07:00

Firstly, apologies for the lack of updates over the last week or so, been having some computer troubles which took quite a while to sort out. As there's been too much going on to go into in detail, this post is basically to get back up to speed with everything. I'll post some more regular updates from tomorrow.

Basically, the biggest news is that Sebastian Vettel won the Japanese Grand Prix last Sunday, with team-mate Mark Webber second, Fernando Alonso third and the McLarens of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton fourth and fifth.

Webber keeps the lead of the championship with 220 points, Vettel and Alonso are joint second on 206, Hamilton on 192 and Button on 189.

Some personal points and observations from the race:

It was a pretty darn boring affair, and one which really wasn't worth getting up for (it started at 7am British time, which will be the same for the now confirmed Korean race next week). This pretty much suited the Red Bulls down to the ground, as it was clear Webber would not attack Vettel for fear of losing his championship lead. The Red Bulls were fastest all weekend, so it was clear when the delayed qualifying was on a completely dry track that they would dominate. As for both drivers, although Webber played it safe this time, he may well have to go for broke a lot more in the last few races- even if he were to finish second to Vettel in both Korea and Brazil, the pair would be on equal points heading into the last round, something Webber might not be able to handle.

Fernando Alonso is beginning to look like a good bet for the title, particularly as it seems his car is looking a lot better than the McLarens at the moment and can hold up well with the Red Bulls. Massa, on the other hand, despite apparently having full support from the team, will have to provide a much better service if Alonso is going to win the title- his first lap crash with Tonio Liuzzi's Force India shows how much he has gone off the boil since the German race.

Both McLarens are effectively out of the title hunt, as the remaining tracks suit Red Bull more, particularly in Brazil. It means Hamilton would have to hope for some reliability problems from Vettel and Webber to have a chance of the championship, something Button seems to be ruling himelf out of, and the team are not concerned about.

Robert Kubica's early retirement robbed us of a good race in Suzuka, as it seemed the Polish driver was the only one to come close to the two up front. It also throws into sharp relief the distance between Kubica and Vitaly Petrov, another driver whose early retirement, coupled with a grid penalty for the next race, would not have endeared him to his already impatient bosses. There is still a chance that somebody else will come into the team, but with the options already thin on the ground, it will be hard to see Renault getting rid of him.

There were two standout drives on Sunday, both from drivers with rather mixed seasons. Michael Schumacher in sixth drove probably his best race of the season, easily keeping in touch with team-mate Nico Rosberg and proving to be at least consistent, if not particularly fast towards the end of the year. Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber was the other one- whether it was being in front of a home crowd, or something the team put in his cereal, he was definitely the most entertaining driver of the race, with some fantastic overtaking manouevres making up for the timidness of the other drivers.

Finally, the battle of the last three teams seems to have ended in Lotus' favour after Kovalainen's 12th place, while Virgin finally moved ahead of Hispania after Glock finished 14th. As for Lucas Di Grassi, the less said about his weekend, the better...

The rest of the news this week concerned the Korean GP, which will definitely go ahead next Sunday after the FIA approved the track for racing. As well as this a race has been announced for Russia in 2014, in the Winter Olympic city of Sochi, proving once and for all that Bernie Ecclestone doesn't read my posts, and that F1 testing will take place at Portimao in Portugal from next season, which sounds good.

Right, that's your lot. As mentioned above, normal service resumes tomorrow. Hopefully.

Japanese GP Predictions

2010-10-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

Some notes from the two practice sessions:

Red Bull are looking like the team to beat at Suzuka; not suprising really, given that the track's fast blasts really suit the car.
Vettel looks the faster of the pair, it seems he's able to get a lot more out of the car through the turns. Could lead to some problems through the first corner if he's partnered up with Webber at the front.
Hamilton's crash in practice is a sign of recklessness, but it should hopefully wake him up a lot more for this weekend. This is the race where he has to win, and moreover beat all other title rivals into a cocked hat. Any mistakes this weekend would be fatal, but I doubt even Lewis can make it three in a row...
Degner is obviously the danger spot, but then it's always been, so no real problems there.
Everything I've said above is pretty much irrelevent, as monsoon-like rain is being reported as being present during qualifying and maybe into race day as well.

The final factor throws up some particularly interesting scenarios. Red Bull have not been particularly impressive in the wet this year, but given the dominance of the car in the dry conditions this may not have as much of an impact as it would normally. The conditions will definitely suit the McLaren drivers more, so both Button and Hamilton have to use the conditions to their advantage. Alonso may have to throttle back somewhat, which could give a couple of other drivers a chance to get into the mix: mainly Robert Kubica, whose Renault was 3rd fastest in both practice sessions and could provide a real threat in rainy conditions.

On this basis, my predictions for qualifying are these:

1.Vettel (Red Bull)
2. Hamilton (McLaren) (7th after penalty)
3. Webber (Red Bull) (up to 2nd after Hamilton penalty)
4. Kubica (Renault) (up to 3rd)
5. Button (McLaren) (up to 4th)
6. Alonso (Ferrari) (up to 5th)
7. Massa (Ferrari) (up to 6th)
8. Sutil (Force India)
9. Petrov (Renault)
10. Rosberg (Mercedes)

EDIT: Qualifying has been postponed until 12pm Japanese time on Sunday (2am BST, 10pm Saturday EST), because of torrential rain. Lewis Hamilton has also been docked 5 places on the grid due to a change of gearbox. I have therefore changed my predictions accordingly.

Keeping a distance: Raikkonen rules out Renault

2010-10-06T15:15:00.000-07:00

Former F1 Champion Kimi Raikkonen's decision not to return to F1 with Renault for next season can be seen in quite a few different ways: a driver too big for his boots, or a team fabricating lies and rumours for publicity's sake, whatever floats your boat.

Raikkonen's season with Citroen in the WRC has been no great shakes, so to speak, with the odd heavy crash mingling in with some rather frequent but hardly inspiring points finishes. So why stay there?

Enthusiasm, really: there's no other real reason for it, although his form has improved markedly over the year, it's still unlikely that he would continue as a rally driver for the rest of his career, even with the chance to become the first man to achieve a rallying and F1 double header, how long away that is. For a man used to winning, it could only be seen as a setback, but with his interest for the sport growing race on race, the urge for single-seater racing could diminish rapidly.

Which brings us neatly onto the Renault situation, where the official lines from the team were that the Finn had been in talks with the team to race alongside Robert Kubica next season. Raikkonen called bullshit on these claims pretty quickly, describing them as publicity-boosting material. It smacks a lot of desperation from the team: although their second driver Vitaly Petrov has shown flashes of brilliance this season his unpredictability had made him a sitting duck for a removal. With the chances of Raikkonen joining the team gone so publicly, it's not only clear that Petrov would have been second choice anyway, but the lack of support from his own team will be extremely telling. For somebody who has an obvious knack for driving, as Petrov has and has shown several times this season, it's quite shocking treatment, and something which will need to be sorted out by the beginning of next year. A poor showing overall from the team.

As for Raikkonen, the urge to turn down Renault could have been motivated by quite a few factors: first of all, money. With one of the biggest salaries in the whole of motorsport, maybe even sport as a whole, it's hard to see him moving back to a team which obviously doesn't have the right amount of funds or backing, such as Renault. It also could relate to a problem of competitiveness: having already turned down an offer from the now-defunct Toyota to drive for them this season as they weren't championship potential, the same could be applied in this situation too. If so, it could be seen as a somewhat snobbish outlook: despite spending most of his career with two top teams in McLaren and Ferrari, and having some of the best skills in the business, he still came up rather short on many people's expectations, and in doing so made himself look somewhat unconcerned with the sport as a whole. Even in his rallying career, his role at Citroen has made him one of the most high-profile names in the sport, but with a depressing lack of humility.

Overall this story has seemed to backfire on Renault more than most, but it's hard to see any good coming out of this at all on either side. Unless you're a certain Russian driver, of course.

'Regular drivers? What are they?'

2010-10-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

Hispania Racing Team boss Colin Kolles has said both the team's 'regular drivers' will be driving at the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka next week. Which brings the problem: who are their regular drivers? Bruno Senna is certainly one, as he's driven all but one race this year, but who's partnering him?

For those that don't know, the team's had four different drivers this year, Senna (the nephew of the great Ayrton Senna), Indian Karun Chandhok, who raced for the team in the first half of the season, Sakon Yamamoto, the Japanese pay-driver currently racing for the team, and Christian Klien, the team's test driver, who replaced the ill Yamamoto at the last race in Singapore (and did pretty well).

Sadly, it appears Yamamoto will be given the nod, not because of his racing ability, but due to his rather large wallet (which the team desperately needs), plus the fact it's his home race. It's quite sad to see Chandhok on the sidelines after the solid start he made, and was improving all the time before they suddenly dropped him: his commentary on the BBC in the latter half of the season has shown he's got a good knowledge of the cars and tracks as well, not to mention a clear enthusiasm and dedication to the sport.

As for Yamamoto, having already had two tries (and fails) at F1 before his current job, I think it's clear he should think about giving it up, as his driving remains erratic, his speed slow and his effectiveness for the team and the race overall extremely low. I can agree that being in F1 would be a great experience, and that it would be better to get as much time as possible, no matter where it is, but the lack of improvement shown by Sakon Yamamoto is very telling.

Hopefully the team will be able to sort this out ahead of the final few races of the season, but with the team stuck to the back of the grid and two underperforming drivers, they may well be hoping just to get the season over with.

Sauber lands Perez for 2011

2010-10-04T09:48:00.000-07:00

Sauber have signed Mexican Sergio Perez to be second driver to Kamui Kobayashi for the 2011 season. The GP2 runner-up becomes the first Mexican to race in the sport since the not-particularly-good Hector Rebaque back in the 1980s.

Now I must confess to being either blind or stupid, but I genuinely don't seem to know how good he is, even though he won no less than four races in GP2 last year, including one at Silverstone. Where I was in the crowd. From the sounds of it though, he could be a shrewd move for Peter Sauber's boys, as he strikes me as someone who could do a Vettel and become good when it really matters. At only 20 years old, he's already older than both Raikkonen and Massa when they started, so may have to do a bit of catching up in that respect.

Two things strike me about this deal more than anything else, though: firstly, what about Nick Heidfeld? Left Mercedes to test for Pirelli, and then left Pirelli for the second Sauber race-seat. What did he get out of it? Five races in an uncompetitive car. Certainly not what one of Sauber's most loyal and dedicated drivers wanted, or more obviously, deserves.

Secondly, and I know this is much less important, but with a Japanese and Mexican team for next season, I sure would love to visit the Sauber garage's kitchens to see the food they're knocking up in honour of their drivers' respective nationalities.

Oh, hang on, maybe not.

Sebastian and Michael- two peas in a pod

2010-10-03T06:43:00.000-07:00

Sebastian Loeb won his seventh World Rally Championship today, with a win in front of his home fans in France allowing him to defeat his nearest rival, fellow Citroen driver (and Frenchman) Sebastian Ogier.

Much as the feat has to be applauded- it's quite clear now Loeb is already the best driver ever to grace the WRC in terms of championships and wins- it's quite easy to draw some obvious comparisons with Michael Schumacher's titles in F1.

There is the undying loyalty to his team throughout his career (just don't mention what Schumacher did next, though). There is the sense of a lack of competiton, that Loeb made it look easy all the time, when in fact there were many other drivers snapping at his heels, many other GOOD drivers. And, most importantly of all, there was the ability to win when it was needed, when it mattered, and across all types of terrain and through all manner of ways.

Sadly, the comparisons can also stretch to the accusations that the WRC has merely became Seb Loeb's plaything, just like F1 was Schumacher's plaything in the 90s. It is clear to see how the sport has suffered too, with a lack of satisfactory opposition to the Citroens and Fords turning the WRC into a shadow of its former self.

Nevertheless, to win seven titles at any sport is something that must be applauded- and to win them all back to back is even more so. Congratulations to Sebastian Loeb, and Citroen, and good luck on making it number 8 in 2011!

The solution to the Lotus Racing/ Team Lotus problem

2010-10-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

You wouldn't call this Malaysian made, Malaysian-funded, Proton-built car a Lotus...

... so why should this Malaysian funded, Proton-built car be any different?

OLD LOTUS=BEST LOTUS.

COLIN CHAPMAN > TONY FERNANDES.

Tell us something we don't know, Luca

2010-10-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

Ferrari president Luca De Montezemolo has urged Felipe Massa to help out Fernando Alonso in his title bid:

"I have waited for Felipe with great perseverance in the last four races. I want a strong Massa who will shave points off the rivals. In Singapore he had some bad luck, but he is in good condition to win. Those who race for Ferrari don't race for themselves, but for the Ferrari team colours. One who wants to race for himself will have to face his team."

Hmmm, thought he'd done that already.

No surprise there though. The question being: with that in mind, how much do they want from Massa? Second places behind Alonso at every race? Holding the Maccas and Red Bulls behind at all costs? Taking himself out while in good positions to help his team-mate?

The problem being, Massa has done this so many times already he deserves some sort of award for a patience being worn thinner every race, and for allowing his importance in the team to diminish to a pinprick, so much so that even the top brass know the right moment to tell him when to play the team game. First Schumacher, then Raikkonen, now Alonso.

Almost makes you sad he didn't win the title in 2008. (Although that would mean we never got this...)

PS: I make no apologies for using a crappy quality clip with German commentary. It was better than having a clip of James Allen and Martin Brundle creaming themselves simultaneously.

Yeongnam: a cautionary tale?

2010-10-02T10:18:00.000-07:00


The logo for the Korean GP- but will we ever see the accompanying race?

It was all he way back in 2006 when plans for Korea's first shot at a Formula One race were announced, when Bernie Ecclestone's dream of expanding F1 into the far, far east had begun to take hold. Yet four years and several hundred million dollars later, we're still far away from sealing the deal: a half-finished track, shoddy organisation and pathetic excuses have lead to the race becoming a farce, and with only three weeks until the race itself, there's no knowing if there will even be a Korean Grand Prix this year. The big question here: could this fiasco be the first of many in F1's vastly-expanding world?
Korea's plans have not been put into jeopardy by the FIA. They haven't been put into jeopardy by the government, no matter how much funding they refuse to put into the building of the track. They have, however, been put into jeopardy by the simplest of things: weak organisation and a lack of action. As mentioned, it was four years ago we were looking ahead to a future race in Korea; although it wouldn't entirely have been true that work had to start from that moment, it was clear the organisation needed for an event like this was a big one, and something that clearly hasn't worked.

The dithering over the Yeongnam Circuit's completion is becoming embarrassing, for both parties. The excuses, coming in fits and starts, have began to sound like those a schoolboy trying to explain his lack of homework to an unwilling teacher would use: 'It'll be done in ten days'; 'The track is ahead of schedule (even though it clearly isn't)', and the somewhat optimistic opening date of early September (now of course passed) being key examples. It can't be said that this is a normal occurrence either; SK has hosted a large number of national events before- most famously the Seoul Olympics in '88, but also a few Asian Games and even motor racing at the street circuit in Changwon- so there is very little reason why the country's first Grand Prix should be very different, as has been proven.

But for the FIA, it's much more of a catastrophe than many people realise. This is in no way a new situation, a new race coming to the Far East- Malaysia, China and Singapore have all became integral parts of the calendar- but the lack of enthusiasm for the race at all, whether it goes ahead or not, could make the race irrelevant. The fact that the track is miles away from anywhere, coupled with the lack of any South Korean drivers able to race in even the more minor formulae, have meant that the crowds are planning on staying away. Of course, it may also be that the lack of a a track has deterred them- but surely the thought of just having a race on home turf would be enough to lure the punters? Obviously not.

All this has managed to damage the FIA just as well as the organisers, for trying to bite off more than they could chew. Although there are grand dreams of racing in all the big markets- hell, they'll find a way to race in Antarctica if they have to- it's clear that it just isn't feasible in all areas. That is something that has already been made clear from this problem. Next year's calendar features a race in India, another attempt to expand F1 even more, but with the problems surrounding the Delhi Commonwealth Games at the back of their minds, it may not be too late to reconsider some of the other, more frivolous ideas lurking in the back of Bernie's closet.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are enough adequate places, all over the globe, to hold F1 races. But building entirely new ones are not the right answer. If people want the F1 season to be more exciting, then get races back to France, to Portugal, to Imola even. The need for money, which is what the dropping of these races was technically all about, must be smaller than the need for the best fan experience. Because, as Yeongnam has already shown, money can't always buy love. Or even progress.