01/06/2014
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
The media is full of a spat between Lewis and Nico. One of the F1 para-sites invited its readers to take part in a poll to 'decide' whether Nico had deliberately ruined Lewis's chances of pole at Monaco, as if the opinion of couch potatoes counted for anything.
It does not matter what any of us think. The stewards saw the on-car data and made their decision.
I have no idea how things stand between the two Mercedes drivers who had been pals most of their lives. What I do know is history. What we are now seeing is amateur history. Hamilton and Rosberg are being compared to Prost and Senna.
If you want real rivalry you go back to the prewar Mercedes-Benz team. Luigi Fagioli hated Rudolf Caracciola and Manfred von Brauchitsch because of team orders. Fagioli twice got so frustrated that he abandoned a perfectly good car, once in the pits, once on the track so it was useless.
All three drivers hated their team-mate, Hermann Lang, because he was working class. It was as if a private had been allowed to dine in the Officers' Mess with no idea how to use a fish knife. It did not matter that, by 1939, Lang was the star of the team.
Caracciola persuaded Mercedes-Benz to give a drive to Louis Chiron in 1936; they were both shagging the same woman. Chiron turned down her proposals of marriage, but she eventually married Rudi.
Fagioli so hated Caracciola that he tried to kill him. After one race, he threw a tyre hammer at Rudi's head, who ducked just in time. Fagioli was escorted from the pit in tears.
That is what I call history.
Read some people and you would think that Tazio Nuvolari was the greatest driver of the prewar era. It's a slam dunk, except it ain't.
Italian opinion was divided between the cool, aristocratic, Achille Varzi and the small, wiry, peasant, Nuvolari. Fans took sides according to their preferences and prejudices. The two men appeared to be opposites, yet they were close friends.
Nuvolari and Varzi set up their own team for a while, but they soon felt that their rivalry was damaging their friendship, which they held more highly, so they went their separate ways. The media had them as being at each other's throats because that whipped up interest.
They played along with it, it meant they could negotiate better appearance money.
In Britain, in the 1950s, the media struck up Moss vs Hawthorn. Mike was the tall blond, often pictured with a pint in his hand and a pipe in his mouth. Stirling was the short, intense, professional. Each appealed to a different audience. They were never friends, but they were on friendly terms and understood the value of the media's story of their rivalry.
When the German teams entered Grand Prix racing in 1934, with Nazi backing, they were each allowed an Italian driver. Auto Union chose Varzi, Mercedes-Benz chose Luigi Fagioli, Nuvolari was left at home.
Nuvolari had announced his retirement, and was on a ship to America in 1938, when he received a cable asking him to join Auto Union. Varzi had become addicted to morphine and was out of it. Varzi had been shagging a team-mate's wife who had become addicted to morphine following a bad road accident.
Nuvolari was spectacular in the 1938 Donington GP and became idolised by the handful of British journalists from whom American writers, notably Ken W. Purdy, took their cue. A legend grew that Nuvolari was the undisputed king of prewar racing.
It is plain wrong to claim that Nuvolari was the first choice of all Italian fans and it is plain wrong to say that he had no rival for the title of greatest prewar driver. I could make a very good case for Rudolf Caracciola: six times winner of the German GP at the 'Ring; European Grand Prix Champion three times (a title Nuvolari never came close to winning) and one of two non-Italians to win the Mille Miglia - the other was Stirling Moss, of course.
This does not mean that I love Nuvolari less, but it does mean that I love accuracy more. There is more to history than bald facts. During WWII Nuvolari, his own health fading, helped Varzi overcome his addiction. I reckon that is worth a mention as we see drivers throwing their teddy bears at each other.
Varzi returned to drive for Alfa Romeo when it was dominant and then died in a racing accident. When Fangio came to Europe, he named his team, Squadra Achille Varzi.
You have some facts, now tell me that Nuvolari, great as he was, was without rival. You might like to consider Fangio's tribute. You might also like to consider that in the view of some, Alberto Ascari was the quickest driver of the early 1950s. Among those who held that opinion, and said so in print, was Fangio.
Do we dismiss Fangio's view? If anyone won entitlement to an opinion, it was he.
Let us get one thing straight: in a democracy everyone is free to express an opinion, but nobody has the automatic right for that opinion to be respected.
This piece was prompted by the hysteria which surrounded the 20th anniversary of the death of Ayrton Senna some of which caused me to reach for the sick bucket.
A legend has been created by people who were not actually there at the time, I saw Ayrton in FF1600 when I could name everyone in a press box. There were four spectators when he tested for Toleman at Silverstone in November 1983; two of them were called Brundle (brother and Dad) and were more interested about the other end of the pitlane where Tyrrell was running.
According to some, Ayrton was indisputably the greatest of his day, but that was not how it was at the time. Almost everyone I knew preferred Alain Prost, the 'Professor', and I was among them. There was also a substantial body of opinion in favour of Nigel Mansell. If an asteroid the size of one of Nigel's gonads threatened Earth, we would be in serious trouble.
Had all points scored in the World Championship counted, Prost would have won six titles to Senna's two. Fact.
A movie documentary about Senna has won awards, and a fine piece it is, but it is hagiography. Mansell hardly gets a mention, yet he was the one driver who could out-pysche Senna on the track. He did win 30 Grands Prix in the 'Senna Era' (and one post-Senna), but you wouldn't know that from the movie.
It is hardening into fact that Ayrton's first lap in the 1993 European GP at Donington is the greatest lap ever. One person who disagreed was Ayrton Senna because his McLaren had all the latest driver aids. He said so at the time, but few paid attention.
If you want the measure of the man, look at his drive in the wet at Estoril in 1985, that was sustained brilliance. It was one of the greatest drives ever and it was achieved in only his 18th Grand Prix start, and only his second with a reasonably competitive car.
Real history requires a bit of effort, sound bite history does not even need the brain in gear. What we got with the 20th anniversary of Ayrton's death was not only bad history, but an opportunity to sell commemorative products.
Some observers blame Senna for introducing a streak of ruthlessness, as opposed to competitiveness, into racing, of the sort that saw Michael Schumacher stripped of all World Championship points in 1997. The movie glosses over that.
In 1984, a new circuit was opened in Germany and given the name, 'Nurburgring', a travesty. Mercedes-Benz had just launched its 16-valve 190 model, with an engine developed by Cosworth. Mercedes invited the top drivers of the day, plus legends from the past, to participate in a race using its new car. Ayrton won and he was a Formula One rookie with only four starts to his name.
New circuit, equal terms, Senna beat everyone.
A few days later, Denis Jenkinson came into the office (believe it or not, I was his boss, nominally) and he was full of Senna. On the plane home, Ayrton had bagged the seat next to Jenks and had pumped him for information which Jenks was delighted to provide.
That is a small incident, but it is real history. It is not sound-bite pap.
Like many informed people at the time, I preferred the approach of Alain Prost because it chimed with me, but I thought there was no sight finer than Mansell on a charge. Mansell could intimidate anyone, and he did.
It is as untrue that Senna was the dominant driver of his age as it is that Nuvolari was of his. We all have our prejudices when it comes to drivers and we project them onto the stars. For me, Prost, Senna and Schumacher cannot be counted among the greats because they all cheated.
Prost is the only World Champion to have been sacked from two top teams (Renault and Ferrari) and he also caused Senna to crash at Suzuka in 1989 in a sucker punch, Schumacher is the only driver to be stripped of all his World Championship points. Senna later admitted punting off Prost at Suzuka,1990. I cannot regard these people as sportsmen, let alone great sportsmen.
They may have been able to drive racing cars quickly, but cheating in sport is like having an extra ace up your sleeve. It is wrong, it is plain wrong. It is an offence which cannot, must not, be forgiven.
Nobody ever accused Ascari, Brabham, Clark, Fangio, Moss, Nuvolari or Varzi of cheating. When we have the pub debate, they can all be included but Prost, Schumacher and Senna cannot. So far as I am concerned, they are all non-people. They all made a mockery of racing as a sport and for that they cannot be forgiven.
You may disagree with my opinion, but I challenge you to find any flaw in my history.
Learn more about Mike and check out his previous features, here