Abandon Ship!

Are you still reading this blog and wondering just when the next article would be coming along?

Well if you haven’t already, you need to point your Internet browser at http://www.motorsportmusings.co.uk

See you over there!

The End of the Beginning for Le Mans

I was reminded, whilst watching this year’s (rather lacklustre) Le Mans 24 Hours review on DVD, that it has been 40 years now since the more traditional style start to the blue riband event was abolished.

Up until 1969, drivers would line up opposite their cars on the starting grid, and as the flag was dropped to signify the start of the race, they would run across the track to their vehicles, climb in and get it started as quickly as possible to pull away from the grid.

In their haste to make a speedy getaway, many of the drivers would often neglect to belt themselves in correctly until they were often along the Hunaudieres straight pulling speeds of around 160mph, resulting in frequent crashes and, as 1969 would show, tragedy.

John Woolfe, an amateur British driver who had qualified 21st in his private Porsche 917, crashed into a barrier at Maison Blanche and, due to the fact he had not taken the effort to strap himself in securely, was flung from his vehicle and subsequently died.

This would then set off a chain of events as the fuel tank from Woolfe’s car became dislodged and eventually collided with Chris Amon’s Ferrari 312P, causing it to explode underneath his car, resulting in his retirement and forcing the race to stop for two hours before eventually restarting.

In contrast, a 24-year-old Jack Ickx had demonstrated his displeasure against the starting procedure by slowly walking over to his Ford GT40, deliberately making the effort to strap himself in properly and securely, and as a result, emerged voluntarily at the back of the field.

Yet in a dramatic race, which some consider as being the best in the history of the endurance event, Ickx eventually won after beating rival Hans Hermann by just 100m after 24 hours of fierce driving and winning Le Mans for the first time in his brilliant career.

The following year the traditional Le Mans-style start was then replaced by a variant in which the drivers already sat in their cars, strapped in safely by their mechanics and then entered the track simultaneously, before the advent of the rolling start we now know was adopted in 1971.

But a legacy to this bygone era still remains, as to this very day, Porsche continues to place the ignition to the left of the steering column on its cars. This placement was chosen to enable the driver to start the car with his left hand and put it into gear with his right. Old habits die hard.

Behold, Super Monaco GP!

Three years is a long time to ask anybody to wait, especially for the majority of gamers out there with their short attention spans. Which is why this week’s release of Codemasters’ F1 2009 game on both the Nintendo Wii and Sony PSP is so hotly anticipated by spotty herberts up and down the country, despite the fact it looks about as realistic as some of the waxworks at Madame Tussauds. Me, I think I’ll be sticking with Super Monaco GP on my Mega Drive, thanks very much.

Super Monaco GP started life in the arcades some twenty years ago and thanks to its popularity spawned a whole host of ports to various platforms in the early 90s, the most faithful of these being for Sega’s newly launched Mega Drive/Genesis console. This version not only successfully replicated the arcade version in its entirety, but also brought some longevity to the party with its World Championship mode.

The ultimate goal when playing in World Championship mode was to win the drivers’ title in your debut season, before going on to defend your crown the following year. Initially the player begins driving for minnows Minarae (Minardi), but through challenging other drivers on the grid and beating them, you could move up the pecking order with the ultimate goal coming in the form of a drive with the Madonna (McLaren) team.

Each of the sixteen rounds begins with either the choice of unlimited runs in free practice mode to become accustomed to the circuit, or jumping head first into a one-lap qualifying session ready for the race itself, and that’s where the fun begins.

Now Super Monaco GP will never win any awards for its realism, because even I know you can’t navigate a hairpin at 120mph without so much as breaking into a sweat. But that’s not the point really. It was incredibly easy to get into and amazingly fast, especially since it adopted a first-person perspective and made it feel like you were almost sitting in the cockpit of your ‘Minarae’ driving around a strangely featureless Monaco harbour, or the half-a-dozen trees in the forests of Hockenheim for example.

The thing with Super Monaco GP is that it holds a very special place in my heart. As a sprightly seven-year-old, it gave me my first introduction to the world of Formula 1, which up until that point I had dismayed as just being a glorified Scalextric set (yes I was cynical even then). I think I must have played it to the point I could beat that pesky A. Asselin (Alain Prost) even in my sleep, and that’s not something you can say everyday is it?

When DVD Reviews Go Bad

The Le Mans 24 Hours is perhaps the most prestigious racing event currently on the motor sport calendar. The jewel in the motor racing crown, it is steeped in tradition and, as any fan will tell you, almost always delivers in both speed, skill and most importantly of all, excitement. This year’s incident-packed race, whilst not a classic, didn’t fail to deliver as Peugeot vanquished Audi with a dream 1-2 finish.

See, now I managed to make the endurance event sound at least a little bit exciting within the space of a paragraph didn’t I? It’s not that difficult really as the racing sells itself. So you have to wonder quite how Duke Video have managed to commit to DVD one of the most boring, poorly edited and factually incorrect annual racing reviews ever.

Running close to 90 minutes, but featuring about 25 minutes of actual on track footage, the entire review is narrated by someone with as much warmth and passion as a damp squid. An individual who sounds like he has no feeling for the sport at all and is reading from a hastily prepared script. His delivery almost sends you to sleep as he trundles his way through the poorly edited, misaligned, highlights package.

But the biggest disappointment of the lot has to be the continual references that this was to be Tom Kristensen’s last Le Mans 24 Hours event. Problem is, nobody bothered to tell the interim responsible for the research that the Dane had in actual fact announced he would no longer be participating in the DTM series and not Le Mans. For an official review this is completely unacceptable and I am actually astounded that such a gaff could slip through the net.

What amazes me the most is that I actually thought that after last year’s lacklustre effort, Duke Video might have taken onboard some of negative comments they received and put a stop to the deterioration from setting in even further – seems I was completely wrong. A blue riband event like the Le Mans 24 Hours deserves much better than this shambles.

Avoid, unless you’re in the market for overpriced table coasters.

Baguette rolls out for Renault F1 test

With a surname that lends itself to more dodgy puns than a month’s worth of tabloid headlines, Bertrand Baguette is a driver who has been steadily climbing up the racing career ladder in the past five years and now looks poised to realise his Formula 1 ambition, having clinched this year’s Formula Renault 3.5 title and secured a test with the Renault F1 team in the process.

The accountancy graduate from the Belgian city of Verviers took a fairly ordinary route to where we currently find him today. Mixing karting with his studies during his teenage years, Baguette won a scholarship through a shootout arranged by the RAC Belgium, which landed him a place in the national Formula Renault 1600 championship. After relative success in his debut season, he progressed on to Formula Renault 2.0 for 2005 before graduating on to FR3.5, skipping the more-customary apprenticeship in Formula 3.

Despite mixing with the front runners during the early period of his career, Baguette’s driving attributes where not immediately apparent and remained under the radar, especially during his tenure driving for the Kurt Mollekens-run KTR team, as the likes of future Formula 1 star Sebastian Vettel and GP2 winner Alvaro Parente took up the column inches in the press.

A decision taken to drive for the Italian team Draco for the following season can be judged as an astute one. It is here, under the guidance of team boss Adriano Morini – a man who is seen as having contributed to the success of Rubens Barrichello’s and Felipe Massa’s careers in Formula 1 – that has lead to Baguette growing in both self belief and maturity.

It seems all that was required to showcase Baguette’s championship-winning attributes was for the 23-year-old to be surrounded by people who could give him the psychological boost and encouragement that he needed, and under the often intense work ethic, family-like atmosphere of Draco, he received that in abundance. As Morini explains:

“I look at Bertrand and I don’t think he has changed, but he has more confidence. Say, you have a driver who in karting was a winner, and in Formula Renault 2.0 was a winner – they’ll have that winning mentality embedded in them. But when in karting, or maybe FR2.0, if they are not champion they haven’t got the security to say, ‘I’m a winner.’ The moment I understood his mentality and potential I pushed, pushed, pushed Betrand. I told him, ‘You’re a possible winner – one day you will win.’

Bertrand has the possibility to go to F1, but it is important he is surrounded by people who can encourage him, saying ‘Go! Push!’ because it is very difficult.”

This year was when Baguette finally grew in stature, winning five races to secure the FR3.5 title at the Nurburgring with a round to spare. While Spanish racer Marco Martinez initially filled the limelight with his early large points lead, Baguette remained consistent all year long, producing an almost faultless performance, culminating in a mammoth end-of-season points advantage over second place Fairuz Fauzy.

The Belgian youngster has recently become the latest name to land the chance to test at next month’s young drivers’ session at Jerez and will be in action for Renault at the Spanish circuit on December 1, as a reward for winning the FR3.5 series. An excellent opportunity that should see his stock rise even further. A brilliant racer, who sometimes lacks that vital one-lap qualifying pace. If he can overcome his shortcomings, the future looks bright for him.

The first driver from Belgium to win an international single-seater championship since Jacky Ickx won his Formula 2 title in 1967, Baguette will be hoping to replicate his fellow countryman’s performance, and with his manager Manfredi Ravetto rumoured to be working hard on Formula 1 negotiations, it doesn’t look like those bread-related puns will go stale anytime soon.

after an impressive end-of-season haulage of points

The Raging Bull

I have to admit, I am somewhat surprised. It has been a week now since the Formula 1 season came to a close with the rather processional Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and where are all the usual end of year lists got to? There’s usually a deluge of the things in the press and on the Internet by now?

About the only one I have seen so far is Mark Hughes’ assessment of what he believes to be the five best drives of 2009, except I can’t help but feel he’s missed possibly the best of the lot: Mark Webber’s imperious performance at the German Grand Prix.

Webber triumphed despite penalty at the German GP © Getty Images

Coming to the Nurburgring, Sebastian Vettel had three poles and two wins. In reality though, there was barely a cigarette paper’s width between him and Webber, but that wasn’t the perception. So it was understandable if the doubts began to creep in, if Webber had overdriven, made a mistake and sealed his fate of a supporting role.

But grit and determination helped Webber win the race. Coupled with his talent and the brilliant Red Bull-Renault RB5, the Australian stamped his authority all over the whole race weekend. In Vettel’s back yard, he stuck it on pole and disappeared up the road, that even a questionable drive-through penalty was unable to derail him from clinching his maiden victory at the 130th time of asking.

And that’s what made it all the more fascinating to watch. He almost nearly didn’t win the German Grand Prix through the drive-through penalty for his clash with Rubens Barrichello as the race began. Perfectly, though, he recovered. He never gave up hope, and during his middle stint, as his tyres came into their prime, produced qualifying-like laps at almost two seconds per lap quicker than anyone else. His recovery and desire to not allow anything to ruin his day combined to define his focus.

But as Webber began to tick off the remaining laps, with nothing between him and the chequered flag, you couldn’t help feel that, Webber being Webber, a thousand different things could possibly go wrong to jeopardise his race. But after all that’s happened, after the broken leg in Tasmania, after driving the wheels of various shitboxes in the past, the dramas at Williams and the shunts at Le Mans… it finally happened: the most deserving and overdue maiden GP win I can remember.

Race of Complete and Utter Failure?

As a concept, The Race of Champions sounds like the sort of thing that should get motor racing enthusiasts frothing at the mouth. Bringing together some of the world’s best racers from a variety of racing categories under one roof to try and find out just who is the fastest of all. That sort of spiel alone is license enough to print money. So why then does the event continue to underwhelm year-after-year?

The biggest problem the organisers have faced is the number of empty seats. When The RoC first visited Wembley Stadium in 2007 crowd numbers fell short of 40,000 and pledges were made about drastically cutting ticket prices for 2008. This completely failed, with only a few thousand more spectators were in attendance off the back of world champion Lewis Hamilton’s appearance.

What didn’t help was the fact the cheapest half-decent tickets hovered around £50. Take a few kids along, add in parking or a train ticket, food and the questionable timing of it just before Christmas in sub-zero temperatures, is it any wonder it failed to take off during its brief spell in the UK?

For the event to work, it needs to be near full. It needs to buzz and have some atmosphere, wherever it is held, and watching the Nations Cup yesterday from the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, it looks as though the RoC has failed once again.

Whose idea was it to run the event across two days, during the middle of the week this year? Whose idea was it to run it so soon after the bigger racing categories have only just concluded, and while the likes of NASCAR are still running? Whose idea was it to take it to Beijing for heaven’s sake?

Lessons clearly haven’t been learnt. It’s simple really. Fly close to the red line in terms of profits on ticket sales, make up the shortfall once you’ve got the punters through the gates. Fill the venue, and you’ll start to get the attention of the general media and, by extension, the general population.

What is the biggest frustration of all is that The RoC is a neatly packaged and easily accessible to non-racing fans and has the potential to be an excellent entry point to motorsport for hundreds of new fans. The event could easily become one of the biggest highlights of the annual racing calendar, what’s not to love about seeing Michael Schumacher race Andy Priaulx in identical machinery?

There’s a huge opportunity – but it’s not being realised.

Alexander Rossi – The next competitive American driver?

It has been just over two years now since we last saw an American driver participating in Formula 1, ever since Scott Speed failed to live up to his namesake and was given the chop mid-season by Toro Rosso under rather acrimonious circumstances.

In the meantime, despite the occasional murmurings surrounding the likes of NASCAR’s Kyle Busch and the easy on the eye, media-savvy Danica Patrick possibly applying their trade in Formula 1, there haven’t been any American drivers appearing on the radar – until now.

Alexander Rossi is putting together a substantial case to be the next stateside driver to make his way into Formula 1 in the not too distant future, be it with the American-based USF1 team or any of the other more established teams currently competing in the sport.

The 18-year-old’s racing career to date makes for impressive reading. After a couple of years racing in karts, Rossi progressed on to the American variant of the Formula BMW series for Team Apex Racing and finished third in his first season. Driving for the more competitive Euro International team the following year, he clinched the title after scoring a record-breaking ten poles and ten wins out of 14 races. The icing on the cake then came as he won the Formula BMW World Final (a race among all the Formula BMW champions) and with it came a test drive with BMW Sauber.

Reaching the single-seater formulae ceiling in America, Rossi ventured across the Atlantic Ocean at the start of this year to participate in the International Formula Master series. Initially driving for the Hitech Racing team for the first four rounds of the season, he then switched across to the more favourable ISR Racing and despite being the novice in the field, finished the season in fourth having achieved three wins.

Buoyed by his relative success in IFM, Rossi recently found himself behind the wheel of a GP2 car for the first time this month during testing at Jerez for both Piquet GP and DAMS teams, and despite not appearing at the sharp end of the timesheets, did show his worth by being the quickest in the wet session before suffering from a mechanical failure and eventually emerged ahead of a certain Bruno Senna.

Receiving rave reviews from both the GP2 teams he tested with, the young American was promptly snapped up by Ocean Racing Technology for their 09/10 GP2 Asia campaign, driving alongside fellow rookie and Formula Master Champion Fabio Leimer and Rossi’s season has got off to an impressive start already in the opening round at Abu Dhabi.

Typically the GP2 Asia series is often regarded as not having the greatest level of competitiveness, but this season the field consists of a lot of regulars from the main European series. His fourth place today, following an impressive run from 12th on the grid, is hopefully indicative of more to come from the youngster who definitely looks like being one to watch out for in the future.

Should he continue to flourish this winter, it is more than likely that Rossi will find a seat in Formula 1’s feeder-series, so long as he can find the necessary finance and sponsorship needed to fund his way through an entire season of GP2.

Someone who will be definitely keeping an eye on his progression has to be Peter Windsor who has stated on numerous occasions his desire to fill at least one of the seats at the newly formed USF1 with some American talent.

Something tells me however that if he keeps this up, Rossi will not only find his way into F1, but may find a number of other opportunities to drive with more established teams present itself. The guy has some serious talent on offer with his raw pace, and at this stage of his career, is shining brighter than Scott Speed ever did with all his Red Bull backing.

Easily the brightest current young American talent with a real F1 perspective. Watch him with interest.

The case for Daniel Ricciardo

Well it’s fast approaching that time of year again. As another gripping season of motor racing reaches its climax, Autosport (or should that be: AUTOSPORT) are beginning to collate votes for their annual awards ceremony, held this year on December 6.

Choosing your candidate for any of the eight categories on offer largely comprises of massacring your copy of AUTOSPORT and following an origami master class before running the Royal Mail gauntlet.

British F3 trailblazer - Ricciardo

The notion of being able to cast your vote online hasn’t been lost on them entirely though. They have selected ten drivers for us to choose from in their ‘Rookie of the Year’ category and I’m going to make your decision process that little bit easier by suggesting you select this year’s British F3 winner Daniel Ricciardo.

The Formula Renault Eurocup graduate was the latest of Red Bull’s Antipodean prodigies, whose ties with the energy drinks giant brought the potent VW back to British F3 in direct competition with Mercedes-Benz.

Driving for the championship’s top team Carlin Motorsport, Ricciardo emerged as the pre-season favourite despite his rookie status. The Aussie racer did not fail to disappoint as he was the class of the field from the first race of the season and clinched the title with a round to spare, becoming the first Australian driver to win the championship since David Brabham, 20 years ago.

Most title-winning seasons are founded from a strong start and Ricciardo’s was no different, scoring a brilliant double win at Oulton Park and followed it up with another win at Silverstone. It immediately became apparent that there would be nobody to touch the 20-year-old this year, despite the best efforts of Hitech Racing drafting in Renger van der Zande who ran as wing-man to Walter Grubmuller. Once Ricciardo had dominated his tyre issues mid-season, he was unstoppable, achieving five poles in the last 10 races, winning three of the last eight and wrapping up the title with a round to spare.

Some may question the 87-point margin by which he clinched the title and that his runaway success in the series was due to a lack of competition from the rest of the field. But the figures speak for themselves. Six wins, six poles – you can’t really take anything away from Ricciardo being consistently good at his trade. If anything it was up to his rivals to improve and to work harder to try and catch him, and they failed.

Does his dominance in British F3 make him any more worthy than the other nominees in the category? Well I think he just about pips Kris Meeke to the award, who enjoyed an impressive season during which he showed an abundance of speed and consistency to clinch the IRC title with a round to spare. The difficulty here is trying to compare drivers from different racing series, but it could be suggested Meeke has more experience under his belt than that of Ricciardo, and so the British F3 driver’s achievements are more impressive as a result.

His great raw speed and excellent temperament coupled with his Red Bull backing means Ricciardo is destined for bigger and better things (he is likely to test with the F1 team during the off-season) and winning the Rookie of the Year category would top-off an amazing year for the Australian, giving him the recognition he fully deserves.

Vote for your Autosport Rookie of the year here.

A Loeb-less F1 is a boring F1

King of the rally, but deemed not worthy enough to drive in F1 - Sebastien Loeb

Sebastian Loeb admitted yesterday that any chance of making a one-off switch to Formula 1 had all but vanished, as the FIA have denied the Frenchman the mandatory super license he requires to race in the season finale at Abu Dhabi next weekend. Should the FIA be applauded for sticking to the rules, or should special dispensation be made to one of the most talented drivers in the history of motorsport?

Loeb has regularly been called the Michael Schumacher of rallying. Having won the World Rally Championship every season for the past five years and is closing in on his sixth title this weekend in Wales at the Rally GB. Some have suggested that he should retire, that his domination is not helping the sport. But most are in agreement that Loeb is arguably today’s best all-round driver.

The 35-year-old is a master of his art and what really sets him aside from the likes of Schumacher or Valentino Rossi is that he excels in just about anything he puts his mind to. An approach developed during his younger years as an accomplished gymnast, where he finished fifth in the French national championship. A good gymnast requires a massive amount of discipline and a lot of hard work to reach perfection. Focusing on every detail undoubtedly made him the driver he is today.

As a reward for winning his fifth rally title last year, Citroen sponsor Red Bull handed him a golden ticket opportunity to step out of his comfort zone and into the fast world of Formula 1 by testing with the Red Bull Racing team at Barcelona. He was instantly fast out of the box, setting the eighth quickest time of the 17 drivers who participated that day, with a time of 1m22.503s – a second or so off the ultimate pace. He impressed the Red Bull engineers, who reckoned that he could easily have broken into the top five by simply braking later.

There where a few sceptics who questioned whether Loeb’s test for Red Bull last winter was an accurate indication of his potential in a single-seater. The main suggestion being that there were too many factors skewing the numbers and that he tested at a time when every team was running cars in different specification, and the Red Bull RB4 running with more downforce than most. It’s also worth noting that on the day on which Loeb was eighth fastest, Ferrari test driver Luca Badoer was sixth. A fact not entirely lost on him and good enough reason for Loeb to want to get as much time as possible behind the wheel, if he was serious about switching from rallying.

While Loeb continued to deny that he had any thoughts of making his cameo appearance on the Formula 1 grid throughout the summer, the whole situation gained further momentum when he recently made an appearance in a GP2 test at Jerez with DPR, though he still insisted it had nothing to do with a temporary switch.

“It’s no link (to Abu Dhabi).

“This chance to test in GP2 is a private opportunity from an engineer from the (French) Porsche Cup, where I drove last year, and who now works with DPR.”

The red-flag interrupted test session was a frustrating one for Loeb, after posting the slowest time in dry conditions during the final day of the session. Rain interfered in the morning, and while the skies cleared for the afternoon, the repeated stoppages made it difficult for him to improve on his best lap of 1m28.114s – 2.3s slower than the fastest time of the day.

The disappointment of the test was then followed by the news that despite winning 52 races in WRC and competing in the Le Mans 24 hours, Loeb had not fulfilled the criteria for the necessary super license from the FIA and as such, would not be allowed to participate in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix next month. A decision that seems to defy all logic, especially when you consider Kimi Raikkonen is freely available to hop into a rally car and participate in the WRC, but rally drivers to F1 is a no-no.

With both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships now settled, there needs to be something for the viewers to tune in for when it comes to the last race of the season. Ok so Abu Dhabi is a brand new venue, but on first glimpse the circuit layout appears to be rather lacklustre and unlikely to generate an exciting race. It would have been fascinating to see what Loeb could do among the regular drivers where they will all be learning a brand new circuit.

Instead we’ve been denied the opportunity of seeing him go up against some of the supposed best drivers on the planet. Not only have we missed out, but Formula 1 has missed out on a huge PR boost at a time when its reputation is only just about emerging intact after a season full of scandals and crisis.

Loeb is clearly a talented individual behind the wheel of a car. It could be suggested he has more expertise than several of the rookies currently participating in Formula 1 at the moment. The sporting regulations do contain a provision in exceptional circumstances like his to allow for a super license to be granted:

By exception, if supported by the Safety Commission, the FIA World Motor Sport Council may approve the issue of the Super License to persons judged by the Council to have met the intent of the qualification process.

He could easily have met these provisions and an exception could well have been made, if only it wasn’t for the following:

In this case the F1 team concerned must show that the applicant has driven at least 300km in a current Formula One car consistently at racing speeds, over a maximum period of 2 days, completed not more than 90 days prior to the application.

Highlighting once again that the current testing bad needs to be reviewed as soon as possible, to allow all new drivers (and not just Loeb) the chance to become fully accustomed to the latest Formula 1 cars.

There is little argument to suggest that Loeb is not worthy of a super license and the FIA seem to be very highly-strung on safety issues. They’re looking like bureaucratic fools who need to change with the times. What’s the worst that could happen if Loeb did take part next weekend? Not to be as competitive as the rest of the field? That’s for him to find out. But would he be any less ‘safe’ behind the wheel compared to some of the other drivers drafted in during the course of this season?

Instead we will have to wonder what might have been, had he been given the opportunity. On reflection it’s been a strange ol’ year for Formula 1 hasn’t it? Big name drivers like Loeb and Schumacher almost contesting in the world championship, but just missing out in the end. Who would have thought it at the start of the season?