07/09/2004
NEWS STORY
Bernie Ecclestone has said that it would be "fantastic" to see former World Champions Mike Hakkinen and Jacques Villeneuve back in F1.
Of course it would.
It would be great to see Jimmy Greaves, Glenn Hoddle and Paul Gascoigne turning out for Spurs, Lou Reed, John Cale and Moe Tucker reforming the Velvet Underground as a real band and not a money-making ego trip for Lou. It would be great to see The Phil Silvers Show, The Simpsons and The Larry Sanders Show given prime time slots on TV instead of make-over shows and other reality TV crap. It would be good to see a sequel to The Long Good Friday where Bob Hoskins escapes from the bad guys, it would be good to have The Bill back as a proper crime drama rather than just another soap opera. I would be good to see Jean Alesi replacing Rubens Barrichello this weekend.
But it aint going to happen.
F1 must move forward not backwards.
The return of Jacques and Mika would be fine, providing they have decent cars that will allow them to be fully competitive, but are there really two such drives available? We don't think so.
Then again, what about the youth, what about the young stars rising through the ranks?
In the last couple of years we have seen a number of talents emerge only to sink again, without trace, spat out by the F1 machine without a second thought.
No offence to fans of either Jacques or Mika, it would be great to see them racing in decent cars, but only in decent, competitive cars, not merely because their names will pull in more TV viewers, and put more bums on seats.
We cannot simply keep looking to the past, after all, how far do we go back in time... let's not forget that Nigel Mansell has never officially retired.