20/08/2024
FEATURE BY MAX NOBLE
Two of my recent articles explored "What's the point?" in terms of the points system over the years and the point of getting into and racing a race car in the first place. We then carried out a brief examination of the magnitude of George Russell's 1.5 kg weight disaster. Now, in some ways as an epilogue to those musings, I offer a sliding doors moment for our gentle readers.
For those not familiar with the term, the movie "Sliding Doors" plays out a time travel tale with an intelligent twist. A lady both just catches and just misses getting on a London Underground train due to the sliding doors closing. The movie (1998, starring Gwyneth Paltrow) then does a fantastic job of tracking how her life paths vary based on that single sliding door moment (making the train, missing the train). It had such an impact at the time that, "It was a sliding door moment" has passed into popular, casual usage and most know the concept being stated.
So sliding doors for F1? Who might have made the train, missed the train? How would their life paths vary? I'll start with my favourite automotive engineer on the planet, Adrian Newey. What if Adrian had studied accounting? What if he had never gone to University but started to illegally import records and flog them at a good profit? What if he qualified as he did but went into medical science? What if, he had turned to a life of crime and become a gangland boss with the swagger of Tom Hardy in Legend, but the genius of, well, of Adrian?
So many sliding door moments to explore! I believe Colin Chapman is the most likely F1 genius to have modelled the Kray twins in a sliding door moment. Yet, what might Adrian have achieved in the world of medical physics or the ganglands of London? Where would F1 be today without his genius to chase down in the never-ending hunt for race winning glory?
What if Max Mosley followed his father into politics? What if Bernie had simply kept selling stuff? What if Alain and Ayrton had shaken hands, made up and never clashed, twice, in Japan? What if that all caused Ayrton to be in a car other than a Williams on that horrid day?
What if Frank Williams was never in that road car crash? What if that horrid Mercedes Le Mans crash never happened...?
What if us humans gave up on the obsession with winning and simply cheered one and all for taking part and went home after a rousing chorus of "I should be so lucky!" simply for the fun of being there?
Quite. No points and pointless, like comparing drivers over the eras. Like wondering what Adrian would have done at NASA or St Bartholomew's, a renowned medical teaching hospital in London. Adrian chose automotive excellence and executed with a mythical vengeance. Heracles and Odysseus could not have been more complete in their delivery of ultimate victory. Did that have a point?
Well yes.
Like music, art, good warm English ale or a fine French red, there is a point. It is the wonder, joy and sheer delight of the crazy universe which is human life on Earth. The Olympics have whizzed past for another four years. The pinnacle of human sporting endeavour. It was, as ever, a non-stop delight of people giving all they had. Yet the humanity, the spirit of respectful competition was the finest I've witnessed in many years. Wimbledon and the Tour de France have both come and gone for another year. I've no doubt something super-super is happening in America, some World Series or something, I'm sure. So sport has a point for us humans. It allows us to express, push against bounds and show the joy of being alive and achieving. A struggle for a reason, a limit to reach and exceed.
Sport is battle and war by means more measured. Bloodied bodies are not dragged from the battleground as the sun sets. Sport allows us the thrill of competition without the horror of hand-to-hand combat to prove "My tribe rules". That's a bonus for those of us who would have been thrown to the lions. The pity is the extent to which the likes of Liberty Media have monetised our love of fearless competition. Don't, please gentler reader, get me going on pay TV sucking the blood from one and all (Name a world title boxer right now, anyone? Anyone!).
So the point is to care for the battle at hand. The fight well fought. Adrian is an F1 engineer. We shall never know what sliding door moments might have gifted us in other arenas as a result of his mighty striving. He's generated sporting moments for the ages. He's helped employ many more engineers. He's helped F1 become a global sport. A new pacemaker? A refined anti-cancer drug? Others need to achieve those milestones. Adrian selected his sliding door and has never looked back to see if his coattails are caught dragging him elsewhere. They are not. He has a forward biased focus.
So as we get ready to throw the doors wide open on the second half of a fascinating season we should all mind the gap, and watch our fingers. Each of us every single day, nearly every single minute, has endless choices to make. Steve Jobs famously stated he wore the same turtle neck sweater, jeans and sneakers every day as it was one less decision to make, thus freeing his mind for other things. Adrian embraced his sliding door into F1, as did Gordon Murray, Colin Chapman, Jim Clark, Senna and Schumacher, more recently, George, Lando and Lewis. Would we prefer they all became lawyers? Double-glazing salesmen? Or simple home bodies who could relax any cat with sweet, soulful ear fuss?
Finally to all those of us who never had a sliding door open to offer a racing driver lifetime. I set a few unofficial lap records on karting tracks and I like to think I could have inhabited the back half of the grid without undue disaster. Yet the sliding door never slid my way. I've no doubt many of our dear readers could say the same. What if... what if... what if...?
Adrian and the gang are doing just fine pushing the bounds of physics in the racing world to the delight of millions of fans. Then we fans go and run society, busy being dentists, farmers, shop assistants, insurance salespersons and all those things which keep the wheels on the bus of humanity. Would Adrian swap his sliding door for something more mundane? I think not. Would I leap through a sliding door for just one chance at being on the gird in Monaco...? Dear reader I think we know I'd leap the gap, and risk losing my arm in the sliding door for one shot at that.
May the sliding doors of the second half of the season both surprise and delight in equal measure. We shall witness what those who leapt to their special path continue to achieve. We all have a ticket to ride, just on different trains. Now please, mind the doors!
Max Noble
Learn more about Max and check out his previous features, here