Home Race Memories

It has been nearly a quarter of a century since I was taken to my first Grand Prix, the European Grand Prix of 1985 at Brands Hatch, as a late seventh birthday present. For many years, I went to every Grand Prix in Britain and even now, more than fifteen years on from my last such trip, it feels a little odd that the British Grand Prix can be happening without my being there, camped out in a field near Becketts.

The first race I went to was notable for being the occasion of Nigel Mansell's first Grand Prix win, and of being the day on which Alain Prost wrapped up the first of his four driver's titles with a low key run to fourth place behind both Williams and Ayrton Senna's Lotus. These milestones, though, meant relatively little to me at the time, and are not what sticks in my mind. At 25 years distance, what I remember most clearly, aside from a frozen night before the race spent failing to sleep in the boot of the family Escort, was being blown away by the sight of 1000BHP turbo F1 cars streaming down Pilgrim's Drop towards Hawthorn Bend, trails of sparks flying from their titanium undertrays like fireworks (why can't we bring them back?). At the age of 7, it was the sheer speed of F1 cars which imprinted itself on my mind, made me insistent on watching the race from the entry to Hawthorn, to what I suspect was probably the irritation of my father who would rather have been somewhere better suited to trying out the new telephoto for his Olympus OM10. I was already a Formula 1 fan when I went to that race in early October, but I think now it was that weekend which sealed the deal, which turned a passing childhood fancy into a life-long love affair with the sport.

The British Grand Prix memories which remain strongest in my mind, though, came later. 1987 - the first time I saw Formula 1 at Silverstone. Not the modern circuit (good as it is), but the fearsomely fast old circuit. Sitting in the stand at Stowe, which in those days was an even more frighteningly quick corner than it is now, watching a titanic struggle play out between home favourite Mansell and his nemesis and team mate Nelson Piquet. There was no way that, at such a fast circuit, anyone was going to win in anything other than a Williams Honda, but the question was which one. Piquet led early on, and Mansell fell back by half distance, his tyres having taken too much punishment on a heavy fuel load. So he was forced into an unplanned tyre stop, emerging around half a minute behind Piquet with 28 laps to run. It seemed a lost cause, but then he began lapping very quickly. He broke the lap record 11 times in his pursuit of Piquet, and four laps from the end, right in front of where I was watching, he ducked out from Piquet's slipstream, with much better grip on his newer tyres, and grabbed the lead, to score a famous victory. I was not a Mansell fan as a child. Even at nine years of age, I was far too much the contrarian to support a British driver, but that afternoon, I was too caught up in the moment to care.

A year later I was once again in the grandstand at Stowe, and lucky to have a corrugated iron roof over my head for my first sight of Formula 1 in the rain. That day would, as it happened, see one of Mansell's finest drives, while being the first Grand Prix I had ever gone to that he did not win. As with more or less every wet race in the second half of the 1980s, it was won by my childhood idol, Ayrton Senna, though Mansell's drive to second in the underpowered Williams Judd, which had been hastily converted from active to passive suspension only the previous evening was the standout performance. If race-day was all about Senna's wet weather genius and Mansell at his very best, Saturday provided some comic relief. Andrea De Cesaris' altercation with a marshal as he abandoned his stricken Rial by the pitlane exit at Copse on Saturday morning stays with me even now, perhaps because I remember seeing the photos my father took of him apparently trying to thump the marshal (that telephoto lens again...)

This race was followed by two hot summer races won by Alain Prost, the first in a Mclaren and the second in a Ferrari. His team mate Mansell had grabbed the pole that day, but he never quite had an answer to Prost, and at the end of the afternoon, he announced his retirement. They were not the most memorable of races, but on the other hand, they were the first races of the 3.5 litre atmo engine era, and for the first time, after the slightly underwhelming whistle of the 1.5 litre turbos, F1 cars sounded like racing cars again. The Lamborghini V12s that powered the Lolas and Lotuses of that era, in particular, made a fantastic racket.

Two more Mansell victories followed in 1991 and 1992, the latter of these, especially, marred by the migration of a minority of the kind of idiots who have made following the England football team such a depressing experience. A drunken clown wrapped in a Union Jack ran out onto the circuit to 'celebrate' as Mansell crossed the line for a win which, given the superiority of the 1992 Williams FW14, could hardly be said to rank among his best. I don't remember much of the race.

There's a neat symmetry of sorts about the fact that the last Grand Prix in Britain I went to was, like the first, a European Grand Prix rather than a British Grand Prix. Tom Wheatcroft had dreamed of bringing Grand Prix racing back to Donington for the first time since the 2nd World War, and on Easter Sunday, 1993, he got his way. The combination of that Easter date, awful weather and the disappearance State-side of home favourite Mansell resulted in a rather sparse crowd but those who did make the trip were treated to a race that has gone down in motorsports folklore. The race where, thanks to the wet conditions, Ayrton Senna took a Mclaren Ford that was far from truly competitive and made everyone else look like amateurs up against a professional. The yellow helmet, sailing serenely to victory through the rain. Shades of what Lewis Hamilton did, another yellow helmet in a Mclaren in the rain, at Silverstone fifteen years later.

I'll be up in a field in Balado this weekend, rather than down Silverstone way. The fact you can never get near the pit or paddock, the way that the grandstands and spectator banks have gradually crept further and further back from the circuit in the name of safety and the silly ticket prices have all rather put me off going back. Nonetheless, a part of me will miss it. If you're going, enjoy yourselves.

Nothing But A Number?

Will Michael Schumacher really be stepping back behind the wheel of an F1 car at the European Grand Prix in Valencia in three weeks time? Is it perhaps all nothing more than a very elaborate PR stunt intended to keep the sport in the press during the month-long summer break?

When I first heard that Michael Schumacher had emerged as the most likely candidate to fillin for Felipe Massa at Valencia, I assumed that Ferrari were simply trying to drum up some publicity during what has hardly been a stellar year for the Maranello squad. However, no matter how enthusiastic Massa might be about getting back behind the wheel it is unlikely that a driver who has suffered significant skull injuries would be given the green light to race even if he felt ready. And somehow, I can't imagine Ferrari being overly enthusiastic about the idea of running either of its regular test drivers, Luca Badoer and Marc Gene, even if the latter might be a popular choice in Valencia.

Will Michael, though, be put off by the refusal of Red Bull and Williams to allow him to test the 2009 F60 ahead of his first race? He shouldn't need it - if teenaged Jaime Alguersuari can cope having never driven an F1 car prior to Hungary, then the 7 times world champion shouldn't be too seriously hampered by his unfamiliarity with 2009-spec KERS-equipped F1 cars. After all, he has more experience of racing cars on slick tyres than just about anyone else in the field. That said, given his uncertainty about whether his neck has fully recovered from his accident while testing for the German Superbike Championship back in February, he might be nervous about going back into F1 'cold', as it were. And how big a factor in his thinking is concern about his reputation?

With so many imponderables, I'm not entirely sure I'll believe Schumacher come-back is really happening until he appears in the Ferrari on Friday morning at Valencia. That said, it does all look rather more definite than it did when it was first talked of on the Monday after the Hungarian Grand Prix. If Schumacher does come back, he will be the first man in his 40s to race in F1 since Nigel Mansell raced in Spain for Mclaren in 1995.

The memory of Nigel Mansell's brief, embarrassing return to full-time F1 might be one thing that is gnawing at Schumacher's mind right now. Three years after winning the world title - he was already 39 years old when he did so - Mansell returned from US Indycar series to drive for Mclaren alongside young gun Mika Hakkinen in the first year of their partnership with Mercedes. On the surface of it, the auguries appeared good. Mansell had won the Indycar Championship in 1993, and had taken pole and victory for Williams in a guest-drive for the team at the last race of the 1994 season in Australia.

Scratch beneath the surface, though, and it wasn't too hard to see that the Mclaren-Mansell partnership might be destined for trouble. For one thing, Mansell might have been able to win in Australia for Williams, but this happened only after his team mate, Damon Hill, had had a race-ending collision with Michael Schumacher. What's more, the team reported that Mansell sounded rather more tired and out of breath in the car than they remembered him being in his heyday, just a few years earlier.

Mclaren and Mansell always seemed an unlikely partnership, in any case. Ron Dennis had never hid his distaste for the Brummie in the past, and had even gone so far as to say he would never hire him. More to the point, the team was in something of a trough in terms of its form that year. They hadn't won a race since Senna left the team at the end of 1993, and were left trying to make things work with their fourth different engine supplier in as many years. In short, it was going to be a "building year" and Mansell, clearly in the twilight of his F1 career, was not much interested in helping to develop a car which might win races in a year or two's time.

Schumacher's in a different position. For one thing, he's a couple of years younger, and has always seemed to take his physical fitness more seriously than the Brit ever did. More than that, though, Mansell's motivation was always subject to peaks and troughs, throughout his whole career. If the car wasn't really on it, as for example in his latter days at Ferrari in 1990, or with Newman Haas in Indycar in 1994, he tended to lose interest. That's not an accusation which could ever be levelled at Schumacher. Come to that, while the Ferrari has yet to win a race this year, it has looked like a much more serious package in the last couple of races than was the case earlier in the year. How ironic it would be if it was Schumacher that took the F60's first victory.

Taking a broader historical view, though, there's perhaps nothing so remarkable about Schumacher racing in F1 at 40. He's still some 13 years younger than F1's oldest winner, Luigi Fagioli, who won the French Grand Prix of 1951 at the age of 53 (he is, I think, the only driver born in the 19th Century to win an F1 Grand Prix). Now to be fair, he shared the car with Juan Manuel Fangio, but the Argentinian maestro was no spring chicken himself, by modern standards. He was older than Schumacher is now when he won the first of his five world titles. And the oldest F1 driver of all time? Well Louis Chiron was only a couple of years shy of 60 when he attempted to qualify for the 1956 Monaco Grand Prix, although, to be fair, the oldest man to actually start a Grand Prix was 55 year old Philippe Etancelin, in 1952.

Different times. For one thing, the younger drivers who might have been coming through in the early 1950s would have lost years of their careers to the Second World War. There is always a trade-off, I suspect, between youth and experience. Drivers began racing at a later age in those days, with karting still 10 years away and the idea of letting fourteen or fifteen year olds loose in racing cars had yet to catch on. Put simply, it took a driver many more years to build up enough experience to reach the peak of his abilities. Jaime Alguersuari, by contrast, would have had the benefits of hours in what are increasingly sophisticated simulators. I doubt they are yet quite like the real thing, but the gap is doubtless narrowing.

The other side of the coin is that the cars were physically easier to drive and less demanding of absolute fitness. When Martin Brundle tested a 1950s Mercedes F1 car at Spa a few years back, he was struck by two things: How mentally demanding it was to drive, and how physically easy it was. The cornering speed of cars was much lower, the g-forces correspondingly lesser, and as a consequence, drivers didn't need to be at the peak of physical fitness, as even a cursory glance at the portly Jose Froilan Gonzalez amply illustrates.

It is this, perhaps, which explains why a good many F1 drivers go on racing successfully for many years in other racing categories where the physical demands are not as great. Sportscar racing may require considerable endurance (although with driver-sharing, this isn't necessarily the case) but the absolute fitness required to race an LMP car is not as great. Mario Andretti came tantalisingly close to winning Le Mans at the age of 55, after all. NASCAR drivers quite frequently go on racing into their 40s and Mark Martin has won four times this yer at the age of 50.

Is Schumacher too old, at 40, to race competitively in F1? We'll not know for sureunless and until he competes at Valencia. Me? I think that, provided his neck doesn't cause him trouble, he'll be right up there with Raikkonen, and leave us all wondering whether he might, by now, be a nine-times World Champion had he not hung up his helmet at the end of 2006. Any which way, it will be interesting finding out.

The Idiot Fringe

Even the most cursory glance at the F1 internet message boards and forums confirms that I was far from alone in finding the coverage lavished on Lewis Hamilton last year a little tiresome. That's not to diminish the scale of his achievements. In coming close to winning the World Championship in his debut year, he achieved something very unusual. In doing so whilst paired up with a double world champion who had just beaten the outstanding driver of his era to claim his second title, his performance was truly exceptional. Nonetheless, reading the British press and - in particular - watching the ITV coverage, one could sometimes be forgiven for wondering what had happened to the other 21 drivers.

One cliche, though, which I feared we would hear a lot of but which I was pleased to see the media largely ignored was that of "first black driver to... ". Perhaps it was because Hamilton's accomplishments were such that "first driver to..." applied equally well, but either way, the colour of Lewis Hamilton's skin has approximately nothing to do with how quickly he drives a racing car, and it was refreshing to see it wasn't given undue prominence.

Except, of course, a small group of moronic Spanish 'fans' who went down to Barcelona to watch winter testing thought otherwise. After a season in which Lewis Hamilton's blackness took second place to his speed in terms of media attention, they saw fit to start chanting racist abuse at Hamilton from across in the pit garages. Such behaviour is of course completely unacceptable, but I am not convinced that it is necessarily a sign of a deeper problem of racism among Spanish racing fans, or of infiltration by the Spanish equivalent of the National Front.

Rather, the problem is more likely one of mindless nationalism. To my mind, George Bernard Shaw had it right nearly eighty years ago, when he observed that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. It strikes me as more than a mere coincidence that it should be in Spain that we should see race fans direct racist chants towards Lewis Hamilton, rather than any number of countries F1 visits where race relations are more fraught. After a fractious 2007 season, Hamilton and Spaniard Fernando Alonso are seen by many as sworn enemies, and in the minds of simplistic fans, if you are 'for' Alonso, you have to be 'against' Hamilton. Fundamentally, I suspect, what the Spanish fans really don't like about Hamilton is not his skin colour, but the fact that on occasion, he was capable of making their national sporting hero look rather ordinary. And for some, it would seem, this extends to 'blacking up' and holding up banners insulting his family...

This sort of thing is usually the province of football, rather than Formula 1, (where racist chants were commonplace until recently, though tellingly, they were always directed at the opposing team). As someone born in England, I need no reminding of the disgraceful depths of behaviour plumbed by those supposedly motivated by patriotic support for their football team. I remember feeling saddened and even ashamed when I read that two German tourists visiting my home town had been assaulted after the German national side had succeeded in eliminating England from Euro '96. I doubt it cheered the tourists at all, but I was glad when Germany went on to win that tournament.

Sometimes, though, the mindless nationalism that seems so endemic in team sports (at least, quelle surprise, when played at a national level) comes to infect individual sports. Often, it is harmless, or merely hugely embarrassing, as the 'come on Tim' brigade used to demonstrate at Wimbledon every year, with their fervent belief, in the face of all the available evidence, that Tim Henman would actually win a Grand Slam tennis tournament. As someone who has resided in Scotland for most of my adult life, the brief obsession with curling following Winter Olympic success is one of the peculiar moments in the nation's sporting history.

F1 has not been immune. The first time I can recall it coming into play was at the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch in 1976, when a partisan crowd looked ready to riot when it appeared that louche national hero James Hunt would not be allowed to take part in the restarted race after he had become involved in a first corner accident at the first start. Fearing what may happen if they refused to let him start, Hunt was allowed to race, and was disqualified after the fact, handing victory to arch-rival Niki Lauda.

It was the next British world champion, Nigel Mansell, who did most to attract the football hooligan contingent to F1 though. Maybe it was just the mood of the times, or maybe it was a certain tabloid-friendly side to Mansell's personality, but he did much to attract the Union-Jack boxer shorts brigade to the British Grand Prix. Humourous banners have long been a feature of Grands Prix, but there was nothing particularly funny or clever about the banners that appeared at the 1992 race and simply read "Fuck Senna". When one beered-up idiot took it upon himself to run across the track while the race was still going on, to celebrate Mansell's victory, we had a chilling reminder that motor racing is not like other sports, and that even the well-meaning drunken antics of so-called fans have the potential to end in tragedy. Thankfully, we got lucky that time, as we did again when defrocked priest Neil Horan decided to take to the track in 2003, wielding religious banners.

It's not only been Britain which has had a problem with it's idiot fringe. Michael Schumacher had always attracted a loud and colourful 'barmy army' (I should know, I once shared a camp site with them) and they were friendly enough. In the run-up to the German Grand Prix in 1994, though, following Michael Schumacher's disqualification for ignoring a 30s penalty at the British Grand Prix a fortnight earlier (the details of the affair have long slipped my mind, I seem to recall that the old reptile Tom Walkinshaw was involved somewhere along the line), some took in upon themselves to issue death threats to his chief rival, Damon Hill.

On that occasion, Michael Schumacher went to great lengths to distance himself from the unacceptable actions of his fans. Thus far, while the FIA have been quick to make clear that the kind of behaviour displayed by so-called fans in Spain will not be tolerated, there has been deafening silence from Fernando Alonso. On-track, Michael Schumacher was no paragon of virtue, but in this instance, I can't help thinking Alonso would do well to follow his example.

The Curious Case of Felipe Massa

So did you stay awake through the Spanish Grand Prix? I did, but I must confess it was something of an effort. After the first lap, there was, by my counting, just one 'on track' pass through the whole race, when Jarno Trulli made a move on Adrian Sutil into turn one, early on. The Circuit di Catalunya has never been especially good for overtaking (memories of wheel to wheel battles in the early years of the circuit's existence notwithstanding, but both the 1991 and 1992 races were wet). The current F1 cars, with their combination of high downforce, aerodynamic instability and relatively low power, merely serve to emphasise the problem.

The Spanish Grand Prix was, thus, the dullest Grand Prix in some while. It was, though, a soporific race which provided a very interesting story. Namely, Felipe Massa is beginning to emerge as Ferrari's lead driver and, perhaps, the favourite for the World Championship. I think its safe to say that pretty well everyone assumed that Kimi Raikkonen would emerge as the de facto team leader at Ferrari. The team were, after all, paying him perhaps as much as six times what they pay Massa. The Finn had built up a reputation during his time at Mclaren for being the outright fastest driver in the world. It was simply assumed that Felipe Massa would pose no serious threat. Even when Massa went quicker in testing, many of us (certainly myself) thought that this was indicative only that Raikkonen was sand-bagging. At most, we thought, he was perhaps taking a little time to get used to the Ferrari and to the working methods of his new team.

And yet here we are, 4 races into the new season, and, except at Australia, where Massa was handicapped by a one-stop strategy and a pre-race engine change, he has looked the quicker of the two Ferrari drivers. Perhaps this is nothing more than an anomaly. Perhaps, come the season's end, we'll be musing about Kimi Raikkonen's strange, slow start at Ferrari. Maybe we'll even be wondering whether this was what let Alonso, or even Hamilton, through to the title. But perhaps not...

I was scouring through Felipe Massa's resume, trying to find any hints that he was a potential front runner in the way that Raikkonen is. Its far from obvious. When he came into Formula 1, in 2002, he was occasionally quick, but wild and erratic. He scored 4 points, which in a 2002 Sauber was a respectable enough haul for a newcomer, but he was outqualified 12-5 by team mate Heidfeld, and ended his season with a sadly characteristic error at the Degner Curves at Suzuka.

He spent a year testing with Ferrari, during which time it is claimed he matured considerably, but when he reappeared with Sauber in 2004, I well recall one Autosport journalist remarking along the lines that "He's so wild he looks like he's going to have an accident at every corner, but his car control is so incredible, he usually manages to keep it to one every race. Which is still not much use." In 2004, he was back at Sauber and paired with Giancarlo Fisichella. He had matured somewhat since his wild opening year but still, he was usually outpaced by the Italian and scored only half his number of points. If one was looking for a potential future world champion, then a man who, after a full season of F1, and another testing with Ferrari, was still being blown away by perpetual underachiever Giancarlo Fisichella surely wouldn't be the obvious bet.

The following season, his third and final at Sauber, saw him paired with a returning Jacques Villeneuve. It was here that perhaps, in retrospect, we began to see signs of what Massa might be capable of. Initially, he considerably outpaced his former world champion team mate, and as the season wore on, Villeneuve was eventually able to get on level terms with the Brazilian, but never really established superiority over him. Having said that, I've always thought Villeneuve one of the luckiest world champions there has ever been, and that by 2005, he was probably some way past his best. It must also be borne in mind that Nick Heidfeld, on balance, fared better against him the following year when they wered paired at BMW.

So, on balance, Massa's 3 year stint at Sauber did only enough to suggest that he was a decent racing driver - a good number 2 for a top team perhaps - and no more. When compared to what Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher or Ayrton Senna were able to do in second rate machinery in their first season, it can't be said that Massa stood out as the kind of driver who might frighten Raikkonen and emerge as a serious title contender.

What, then, of his time at Ferrari, alongside Michael Schumacher? On paper, the qualifying performances at least, seem to suggest that he was really rather close to the 7 time world champion - much more so than anyone might have expected. However, Mark Hughes, a man who frankly knows his stuff, is pretty sure that, when corrected for fuel load, Massa was on average 0.4s a lap slower than Schumacher. By contrast, the fuel-corrected gap between Alonso and Fisichella was just 0.2s My own analysis of fastest race laps last year suggest a similar margin of superiority was enjoyed by Schumacher on Sunday afternoons, too. Perhaps the one thing that can be said is that a more nuanced analysis of their relative performances shows Schumacher way out ahead in the early part of the season, but Massa much closer to him later on in the year. I have seen this put down to a change of race engineer - with Rob Smedley seemingly able to understand what Massa wanted from a car in a way that his previous engineer could not.

And if there is an explanation, perhaps this is it. Rightly or wrongly, Massa has never struck me as the most technical of drivers. I could be wide of the mark, but he doesn't strike me as someone who would simply know what he wanted from a car. Perhaps in Smedley he has finally found someone who has been able to work it out for him - or at least work with him much more effectively. The two wins towards the end of 2006 have convinced Massa that he is capable of winning Grands Prix, and that confidence, combined with a car and team with which he is familiar, has enabled him to really raise his game this year.

I was trying to think of a precedent for what has happened at Ferrari. For sure, illustrious drivers have been matched or even outpaced by newcomers before. One thinks, for instance of Nelson Piquet against reigning champion Niki Lauda at Brabham in 1978. Or, with neat symmetry, of Michael Schumacher against three time champion Nelson Piquet at Benetton some 14 years later. Perhaps by the end of the year, we might be adding the names of Hamilton and Alonso to that list. Its something which happens from time to time. It might happen still more often if inexperienced drivers more regularly walked straight into front running teams.

But an established star being outpaced by a well established number 2, a known quantity? That is actually rather rarer, by my reckoning. In fact, Massa's performances remind me of a very different personality with a very similar reputation some 20 years earlier.

By 1986, Nigel Mansell had been knocking around F1 for several years. There was no doubt that he could be fast on his day, but he didn't seem to be really quick. He was, for instance, generally outpaced by Elio De Angelis, a good rather than great driver, at Lotus in 1984. He also had a reputation for bottling it when the really big opportunities came - most notably at Monaco in 1984. Towards the end of 1985, in his first season at Williams, however, he began to show real signs of promise. First came a mightily assured second place in treacherous conditions at Spa. Then there was his first win, at Brands Hatch. Two weeks later, he repeated the trick at Kyalami.

For 1986, though, he was paired with Nelson Piquet, a double world champion who had made the Brabham team his own over the past seven years. It was simply assumed that he would put the upstart Mansell in his place. Piquet had acquired a reputation for being the fastest driver in the world at that point, after all. Yet, that wasn't the way it played out. In the first part of the season, Mansell was generally comfortably quicker. And in the second half, Piquet succeeded only in closing the gap - he never established superiority. The following year, the gap between the two seemed even greater, and it is only sheer blind luck which gave Nelson his third and final title that year.

It is hard to think of two more disparate people than the sunny Massa and the perpetually sullen, chippy Mansell, but their remarkable similarities in their early careers. Neither was an instantly fast and consistent, natural. Both struggled to shake off a reputation for being fallible under pressure. And now I wonder if the comparison might be an omen. Because, of course, in 1986, Piquet eventually fought back against the upstart and began to take points of him. And that battle enabled a little Frenchman by the name of Alain Prost to sneak through and win the title. He, of course, drove a Mclaren....