All entries for Thursday 04 October 2007

No.1 Driver

Writing about web page http://sport.guardian.co.uk/motorsport/story/0,,2181573,00.html

I’m not the biggest Formula 1 fan in the world, but it does fascinate me a bit, at least when it’s going through one of its competitive periods. So this year has been a bit more interesting than last year which was about a million more interesting than when Schumacher was winning everything by a mile (and doing so fairly rather than running rivals off the tracks all the time). But I am a little bit bemused by comment this week from Flavio Briatore, the Renault boss, about Fernando Alonso.

Briatore has essentially said that he sympathises with Alonso’s annoyance at the title race being so close with Lewis Hamilton. In Briatore’s eyes it is unfair of McLaren to treat the two drivers as equals, and Alonso should have been given some sort of priority as defending world champion.

Well if the defending champion in any sport needs help from his team to limit the chances of his team mate then how on earth is he a worthy champion? You wouldn’t expect British Athletics to assist Christine Ohuruogu in the 400m by clamping weights on to Nicola Saunders and Lee McConnell! Granted British Athletics would never go out of their way to do anything particularly helpful for Ohuruogu (let her run at the Olympics!) but I like athletics and it’s the first example which popped into my head.

I’ve never liked the way F1 prioritises drivers,* and was quite pleased with McLaren for being less inclined to do this. As one of my friends pointed out, Alonso knew McLaren did this before he joined, so how he can be moaning about it now is a mystery. What’s more, he was given equal chance against Hamilton and is currently coming off second best, therefore implying that if anyone at McLaren deserved priority it was Hamilton!

Still, everyone loves a bit of drama. This would never have happened with Schumi.

Disclaimer: The spying thing with Ferrari isn’t really the subject here, so don’t go pointing out that McLaren may or may not have had an unfair advantage. It’s about Alonso and Hamilton.

*^{This also applies to other sports, like cycling where this happens.}

Holly Cruise : 04 Oct 2007 11:00 |  Tags: Formula 1 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem