06/10/2014
FEATURE BY CHRIS BALFE
As ever at such times one feels not only a great sense of loss and emptiness but anger, it's part of a natural process.
This morning, as Jules Bianchi fights for his life, the sport, once again, finds itself on the front pages and at the top of news reports for all the wrong reasons.
Whereas the world should be applauding these brave young men, particularly in the sort of conditions witnessed yesterday, and Lewis Hamilton should be soaking up the praise following his superb drive, we are instead on tenterhooks, fearing the very worst.
In their analysis of yesterday's incident, a couple of newspapers have pointed out the questions that need to be answered, interestingly, two of them, the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph, have only five. I have a lot more.
First off, yesterday's weather didn't come as a surprise. The impending arrival of Typhoon Phanfon has been known about since mid-week and by Friday some F1 sites, including Pitpass, were looking more like meteorological blogs.
And yet, once again, the powers that be dithered, responsibility appearing to be pushed from pillar to post. Whilst the FIA was happy to move the race time the promoter refused to budge. However, it was made clear that by promoter this meant track owner Honda, as opposed to 'The Wee Man'.
Fact is if Bernie Ecclestone had wanted the race moved forward a couple of hours or even a day it would have happened, and there was little that Honda would have been able to do about it.
From time to time I receive emails - some of them extremely abusive - about the adverts on Pitpass. I respond that the ads are a necessary inconvenience, that without them we couldn't exist. The more abusive complainants are reminded that we cover, and therefore they follow, a sport whose very lifeblood is advertising and sponsorship. It is the money from advertising and sponsorship that drives F1.
In turn, the sport's owners - of whom more later - are able to extract great wads of cash from broadcasters who want to cover the 'sport'.
Part of the TV deal not only guarantees a fixed calendar, a fixed number of teams and drivers - unlike the old days - it also guarantees session and race start times.
With the world's TV broadcasters set up to cover a race starting at 15:00 local time, there was no way that the schedule could be moved forward a day or even a few hours. No way.
Then again, why exactly was the race taking place at 15:00 anyway, when, at this time of year we know that it is already getting dark around 17:30.
Would it have anything to to do with those 'lazybone' fans in Europe, you know, the ones for whom races all around the rest of the world have to be scheduled in order to be viewed at a convenient time? After all, a 15:00 start time in Japan converts to 07:00 in the UK and 08:00 on mainland Europe, just right for breakfast, as opposed to 05:00 and 06:00 or worse.
So taking it as a given, that the race was not going to be moved forward, the event went ahead, behind the Safety Car. After just 2 laps the Safety Car led the pack back to the pits where gazebos were quickly erected as the grid set up camp.
Shortly after the 'race' resumed, again behind the Safety Car, and after a few laps the drivers were calling for the action to get underway. Got that, the drivers, the ones in the cars, the one's risking their lives.
Instead the Safety Car continued for several more laps until the powers-that-be deemed conditions good enough for the drivers' to be trusted.
A couple of years ago, the FIA, wisely, introduced a Driver Steward at each race, a former driver who would understand the racers' approach to certain incidents and would therefore be best-placed in meting out punishment and knowing when a driver was 'pulling a fast one'. Couldn't the FIA have gone one step further and introduced a sort of Driver Liaison, a former driver who could represent those guys out on track in terms of communicating with the Race Director.
If we have said it once, we have said it a million times, it is the drivers whose lives are on the line, so what on earth is the point of a Grand Prix Drivers Association, effectively the drivers' union, if it has no teeth, no power.
The GPDA should have been fully involved not only in terms of the Safety Car but also the decision as to whether the race should have been moved forward in the first place. That said, as anyone who has witnessed the meaningless PR sessions that pass for the official press conferences these days can we really ever expect the drivers to speak out? In this highly corporate era long gone is the spirit of driver unity witnessed at Kyalami in 1982.
No offence intended, but for some fans Martin Brundle's memories of his encounter with a tractor at Suzuka in 1994 has become a mainstay of 'bullshit bingo', and yet yesterday, twenty years later, lessons do not appear to have been learned. Why not?
Speaking at the Watkins Lecture a few years back, Niki Lauda said that when a family sits down to watch a motor race it wants to see crashes, as they are exciting, but it doesn't want to see drivers maimed, or worse.
Ignoring the discomfort of hearing this legendary figure joke about his own accident, the fact is he has a point. Whilst we want to see drivers taking risks, doing what we never could, we don't want to see them get hurt. When we lament the removal of the gravel trap at the Parabolica and the like it isn't because we want to see drivers spear into the barriers at 180 mph but because we want to see the racing kept pure, that mistakes are punished... but not in blood.
Consequently, in the wake of such incidents the sport has a tendency to over-react indeed, there is already talk (once again) of closed cockpits, which, in the humble opinion of this writer (and fan) would be fatal move for the sport.
During his time, Max Mosley was often the subject of criticism, some of it warranted, especially his 'closeness' to you know who, but in terms of safety he performed wonders.
Yes, it upset some of the purists, but thankfully over the years we have seen countless drivers walk away from accidents that in the 'dark old days' would have been unthinkable.
But as a result, have we become complacent, have we taken safety for granted? Let's not forget, just 48 hours before Jules horrific accident, a young man, barely into his 17th year, was let loose in a Formula One car, just twelve months after making his single-seater debut. No disrespect to Max Verstappen, but he's not allowed to drive on public roads but is able to drive an F1 car in excess of 200 mph.
Meanwhile, we are told by the legend Lauda, that driving an F1 car has become "too easy", echoing the words of Nico Rosberg when he made his F1 (test) debut in 2004.
Today, as Jules fights for his life, we run a story revealing that CVC is not actively looking at selling its controlling stake in F1. The private equity firm, which currently owns 35% of the sport, has already banked £2.6bn from F1 which it bought in 2005 using £573.8m from its investment Fund IV and a £653.7 loan from the Royal Bank of Scotland.
How much money has it 'reinvested' in the sport however, what benefit has motorsport - at the top or grassroots level - seen from this? Personally, I don't have a single socialist bone in my body, but this is wrong, wholly wrong.
Pity the guys and girls at Marussia today, those back at Banbury and those making their way to Sochi. Their pain will be almost unbearable, coming as it does just two years after the tragedy at Duxford Airfield involving Maria de Villota.
Despite their concern at events in the Mie General Medical Center they will get on with their jobs for the show must go on. Through their tears they will continue, there are points to be fought for, prize money to be won.
Yet only a couple of weeks ago F1's 'frontman', fully aware of the struggles at Marussia, Caterham and Sauber, admitted that he would rather have eight teams fielding three cars.
"I think we should do it anyway," he said. "I would rather see Ferrari with three cars, or any of the other top teams with three cars than having teams that are struggling."
After that, yesterday's tragedy must have felt like the final kick in the bollocks for the team.
On a personal level, it makes one question what one really sees in this sport these days.
Questions must be asked, and they must be asked of those at the very top of the sport.
Chris Balfe