This month Joe examines holidays, Poles and horsepower – and in the midst of it all wants to know why Formula 1 isn’t part of the Olympics!
In August, the Formula 1 world really does shut down for two weeks – with everyone getting the chance to spend time with their families. Apart from the old folk who’ve forgotten what it’s like to have kids, or those who’ve never had them, this is essential to keep the F1 circus (and their spouses) happy. Some think that F1 people zip around the world with their wives in tow, but it really isn’t like that. This year has been the toughest calendar ever, with 21 races. I’ve spoken with a lot of the team people, and they’re worried that when the new calendar is published in December they’ll receive a whole lot of resignations from those who do the travel – it’s just too much!
The financial people, who own F1, don’t care a damn about this and believe that there’s an endless stream of youngsters who’ll be happy to spend a year or two on the F1 scene. They’re probably right, but it is only a year or two – it’s not like the old days when people stayed in F1 for their entire careers. Today very few of them do. They move on and do other things, which offer them more of a home life. Obviously, the high paid engineers and drivers keep on going – but they have a relatively easy life, with the best travel options and comfortable places to stay. Increasingly, they have people looking after their every need, be that organising hire cars and even down to programming satnavs – it’s all done for them. Quite often they don’t need to travel with a lot of luggage, as their team uniforms are all there when they need them. There’s amazing organisation and logistics that go into keeping this circus happy.
But, in August, it all stops. Some people travel (usually because their partners insist), others stay at home and enjoy “staycations” where you don’t have to go anywhere. This was always a problem for me, because, on holiday, I really don’t want to move. I don’t want hassle; I don’t want crowded beaches, or restaurants that one has to book. I just want peace. For a while, the best idea was to go on a cruise ship (something I would never normally do), but it is a hotel that moves from location-to-location without any real hassle – and that suited everyone. You get to sleep in the same bed for two weeks (a rare thing), and yet you also get to visit places and have a proper conventional holiday.
This year, I went driving with my son – across Europe, and back again. Not too much everyday, some interesting places, no real schedules. If there’s a traffic jam, you just turn off and do something else. We ended up in Poland and realised that there are reasons why lots of Poles come to the West to live. It reminded me of a great talent that F1 lost when Robert Kubica smashed himself up in a rally car. He was a real match for Lewis Hamilton when they were growing up, and the man Lewis respected the most. And, if he had not crashed and ruined his arm, he would have been a Ferrari driver. That was all signed up and ready to go. But such is fate. One must hope that Robert’s F1 adventures inspired a generation of kids and a new wave of Polish kids will start to appear in the years ahead.
While I was away travelling, I watched a little of the Olympic Games – although, to be honest, the magic of many of the events has gone for me, because of the substance abuse. I’m not sure why anyone watches. How can one know who’s cheating and who isn’t – unless one believes in the drug testing programmes? I’m always glad that, as far as we know, no-one has yet found a drug to improve F1 driver performance because otherwise everyone would be doing it. I do believe that F1 is completely clean when it comes to any kind of performance-enhancing substances, and the only area where there might be doubt would be muscle-building. Drivers work with their bodies to an astonishing level, although – oddly – very few of them ever work on their minds, at least not officially. Romain Grosjean says that he worked very successfully with a sports psychologist, but most drivers wouldn’t even consider the idea – as if it somehow represented a weakness if they even thought of the idea.
Every four years, when the Olympics are on, I asked the same question. If the Olympics allows the technology one sees in cycling, rowing, sailing, shooting, skiing and bobsleighs, one can argue that car racing should be allowed. Ah, the naysayers argue, these sports are all powered by humans. Well, no, that’s not really true, is it? Sailing is powered by the wind, and bobsleigh racing is more to do with gravity than muscles. And those arguments fail completely when it comes to equestrian events, where the motive force is equine, rather than human. So, either horses should be thrown out of the Olympics, or cars (powered by horsepower, of course) should be allowed in.
Chariot racing was a popular part of the ancient Games, and so there’s a very solid argument that there really ought to be an Olympic Grand Prix every four years – with or without World Championship points, and with gold, silver and bronze medals. Take a look back in history, and you’ll find that in Paris in 1900 there were 14 unofficial car races during the Olympics with gold medals going to manufacturers of a wide range of vehicles – including delivery vans and fire trucks.
Now, some will say that those medals were given by the World Fair rather than the Olympics, but then the Olympics was part of the World Fair and if you wanted a gold medal at that time, you had to win the race and then buy the medal…
Joe Saward has been covering Formula 1 full-time for 28 years. He has not missed a race since 1988.
Write your Comment