This blog has now closed. Please visit my new blog, Stepreo.

Archive: Sakon Yamamoto

Britain’s Lewis Hamilton and Spain’s Fernando Alonso do not exist

21 October 2007 14:32

Categories: Current affairs, Entertainment, Formula 1, Newspapers, Radio, Scotland, Sport, Television

For me, the worst aspect of this Formula 1 season has been the hopelessly biased media reporting. I have railed against the British media’s love affair with Lewis Hamilton many times. But it is worth pointing out that, if anything, the Spanish media are probably even worse when it comes to Fernando Alonso.

Let us not forget that before Alonso burst onto the scene, Formula 1 was not even televised in Spain! (Apparently this is inaccurate — see the comments.) At least prior to Hamilton F1 was a regular fixture on British television screens. So it should be no surprise that some Spaniards are pretty rabid Alonso fans. This has led to some rather colourful goings-on on the internet.

One of the strangest was the mass invasion of nationalist Spaniards on Ed Gorman’s rather good blog for Times Online. The rabid one-sidedness of the Spanish commenters was quite a sight to behold, and it became all the more entertaining when they began to adopt Anglophone names in a bid to disguise their favouritism.

I suppose it is always possible that someone called George posting on the internet can have terrible English. Have Your Say is testament to this. But seeing Victor screaming to Ed Gorman, “I WANT TO SEE THE EVIDENCES!! GIVE TO ME THE EVIDENCES!!” doesn’t quite convince.

Of course, Ed Gorman did not help himself much by being so blatantly biased (in the opposite direction) himself. And this is the very problem. The British media talks through its arse on one end, and the Spanish media talks through its arse on the opposite end. It is no wonder that different groups of people have ended up with such radically differing views as to what has happened during the season.

In Britain, Fernando Alonso is viewed as a moaner, while Hamilton’s own moans (post-Monaco and post-Belgium) have been downplayed. While Alonso’s comments about not getting equal treatment at McLaren have often crossed over into the realms of the ridiculous, let us not forget that Hamilton was the first to run crying to the media about his treatment at McLaren following the Monaco Grand Prix, long before Alonso hinted at any such levels of discontent.

Meanwhile, in Spain, this season has been viewed as one massive conspiracy against Fernando Alonso. As Keith Collantine notes, the claims are easily debunked.

Why would McLaren want to sabotage the efforts of their own driver? Moreover, why would they go out of their way to upset him when he is a double World Champion? If McLaren were acting in their own self-interest to sabotage the season, it’s not exactly worked out well for them, has it? This season has been one long PR disaster for the team.

This is why I have such a short fuse when it comes to nationalistic sports coverage. I suppose being a Scot I am naturally wired up to have a sensitive bullshit detector when it comes to nationalistic sports coverage. But while for most of my compatriots it stops at pro-English bias in sports commentary, I find myself equally exasperated by all biased commentary — pro-Scottish, pro-British, pro-Spanish, pro-whatever.

Part of me really hopes that Lewis Hamilton fails to win the Championship today just to burst the ridiculous bubble that the British media has blown up. The ridiculous “weekend of British supremacy sporting success” was already dealt a blow yesterday with England’s failure in the Rugby World Cup. With all eyes on Lewis Hamilton today, I really hope the media ends up with egg on its face.

The bias exists in team sports as well. Holyrood Watcher wrote about it today in relation to the rugby. But at least I can understand it with team sports. International rugby is one sport where a team is set up specifically to represent a country.

Formula 1 is a team sport — but the teams do not represent countries. It is also an individual sport, and in no way does it make sense to constantly make references to “Britain’s Lewis Hamilton” or “Spain’s Fernando Alonso” as though their nationality made a blind bit of difference to anything. You might as well talk about “blond Kimi Räikkönen” or “the right-handed Felipe Massa”.

Because you can bet your bottom dollar that Lewis Hamilton doesn’t want to be World Champion “for Britain”. He wants to be World Champion for himself. For an explanation, I wrote here about sportsmen and nationality some months ago.

The recent obsession with F1 drivers’ nationalities particularly saddens me because every single one of the drivers who will be racing at Interlagos this afternoon is an absolute hero. They all do extraordinary things, putting their lives on the line. I can never get my head round how these drivers can travel at 200+ mph, routinely experiencing forces of 5+ gs, yet still manage to hit the apex of a corner, inch-perfect, and complete lap times consistent to a couple of tenths of a second.

It astonishes me. These drivers are super-human. Extraordinary achievements are being made routine. Yet, what is the media coverage reduced to? “Let’s support Lewis Hamilton because he’s British, and let’s throw stones at Alonso because he’s foreign.” It sickens me. To do certain drivers down because of where they happen to come from, when they are every bit as much of a hero, is just not on.

The media’s fixation with nationalities offends me. To me, “Britain’s Lewis Hamilton” (as the media apparently has to call him, by law) does not exist. Nor does “Spain’s Fernando Alonso”, “Finland’s Kimi Räikkönen” or even “Japan’s Sakon Yamamoto”. They are Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Räikkönen and Sakon Yamamoto: extraordinary, super-human, heroic motor racing drivers. Every single one of them. No matter where they came from.

40 comments

Too many thoughts on Fuji

2 October 2007 23:15

Categories: Formula 1

Firstly — apologies for the lateness of my review of the Japanese Grand Prix. Another busy weekend spilled over into Monday, and is spilling over into Tuesday and Wednesday as well. (I am being very naughty by writing this post.)

There are so many talking points that it is difficult to know where to start.

I guess I should start by noting that it looks as though Lewis Hamilton will be this year’s World Champion. On the basis of his performance in treacherous conditions at Fuji, he fully deserves it. I still think that Fernando Alonso deserves to be World Champion more because I think he has been on balance the better driver. But it’s points that matter.

Hamilton’s drive at Fuji was solid and impressive. In a lot of ways it was a basic pole-to-flag drive for Hamilton. Besides a little run-in with Kubica, he had no real challenges to face. Not much impressive in that, dreadful conditions aside of course. This does not rank alongside, for instance, Senna at Donington in 1993, or even with Alonso at Hungaroring in 2006.

But Hamilton’s race showed firstly that he can drive in the wet. As his engineer noted at the end of the race, he has ticked the “driving in the wet” box that he so conspicuously failed to tick earlier this year at the Nürburgring. It also shows just how quickly he is learning. He made no obvious clangers at Nürburgring, but it was overall a pretty scrappy and unimpressive race. Fuji put that to bed.

It was exactly the opposite for Alonso. It is difficult to know exactly what was wrong with Alonso at Fuji. The conditions should have worked in his favour. Driving in the wet is a major strength of his, as last year’s Hungarian GP demonstrated. At Fuji, though, he was all over the place (certainly in comparison to Hamilton). Seemingly, Hamilton got pole with a heavier car as well.

For another reminder of how well Hamilton is doing, you just had to look from the back of Hamilton’s car on lap 45. Behind the safety car, Sebastian Vettel caused one of the most embarrassing crashes of the season. Mark Webber was running second for Red Bull, and he felt like he was in with a chance of winning. Sebastian Vettel was in third for the Red Bull sister car, Toro Rosso. It would be a historic finish for Red Bull, and for Toro Rosso who were on line for their first ever podium, and their first points of the season.

Then Vettel lost his concentration behind the safety car and slammed straight into the back of Webber. Both cars had to retire from the race. Vettel was distraught — crying in the garage upon his sheepish return to the pitlane. How does he explain to the boss what happened?

Webber was noticeably furious, and threw the steering wheel from his car as though he were an Olympic shot put competitor. ITV reported that early on in the race Webber had been sick in his helmet. Lesser men would give up when their stomachs empty themselves. That’s what separates us from Grand Prix racing drivers. The decision to continue was being paid off in the form of second place.

I bet while he was running in second he had forgotten all about the vomit in his helmet. Being slammed in the rear by a driver of his sister team was probably enough to make him sick all over again. Take a sip of water to calm yourself down. Oh no, you were sick into your straw.

Furious Webber stormed back to the pitlane and blasted Vettel in the strongest possible terms. It provided the funniest moment of the race. On live Saturday morning television, in the same slot where Pocoyo is normally shown, he blasted, voice noticeably trembling with rage:

It’s kids, isn’t it. It’s kids with not enough experience, and they just go and FUCK IT ALL UP!

Here it is on YouTube — enjoy it while you can, before FOM remove it.

Vettel has probably lost a lot of his reputation with that moment. Usually it would be forgiven as a rookie mistake, but the problem is that this year there is a rookie who you cannot envisage making that kind of mistake. More evidence of what a good job Hamilton is doing. (Having said that, I can’t think of Kovalainen dropping any similar clangers either.)

Someone else who lost a lot of reputation — as if he had any left to lose — was Ralf Schumacher. During qualifying 1 he was seemingly worried about not making the cut. For whatever reason he felt the need to take an ambitious move alongside a Spyker. Unfortunately, instead of going alongside the Spyker, he just went straight into it and damaged his car so badly that he wouldn’t have been able to go into Q2 anyway. To rub salt into the wound, he qualified for it. Yesterday, Ralf Schumacher was sacked left Toyota.

I suppose this is the thing about wet races. It makes some people look like complete idiots. It makes other people look like superheroes. So many drivers put in amazing performances at Fuji. I have already noted Hamilton, Webber and Vettel (before his boo-boo moment).

But Kimi Räikkönen was probably the most impressive driver on the track. He suffered badly from Ferrari’s strategic (and rule-breaking) blunder to start the race on intermediates while everyone else was on full wets. It was a nonsensical decision in the first place, and after just a few laps behind the safety car both Ferrari drivers had to pit in to change to full wets, relegating them to dead last.

Despite this, and in those crazy conditions as well, Räikkönen and Massa both managed to get themselves into potential podium positions. Räikkönen in particular had a stunning race, with a notable move on the outside of David Coulthard being the highlight. It really is the stuff that champions are made of. I hope Räikkönen’s career won’t finish as a case of “if only” as it has been so far.

Kudos also to Massa who was ahead of Räikkönen which is really inconvenient for Ferrari’s hopes in the Drivers’ Championship. And team orders don’t exist, especially from Ferrari. So it was time for a suspicious “splash n dash” to let Räikkönen ahead of Massa, who dropped straight back to 7th.

I suppose we shouldn’t be so cynical. It did let us see a truly amazing last-lap ding-dong battle between Massa and Kubica. There was an uncomfortably high amount of the run-off areas being used. I feel that Massa’s wide line through the run-off at the final corner is what gave him the edge over Kubica in the end, but they were both guilty of using the run-off areas. It provided some damn fun racing, but you can’t help feeling that they were both… cheating?

Ah yes cheating. What about that business with starting on intermediates when they were told to go on wets? Ferrari didn’t get the email apparently! Hah! Yeah right. All of the other teams and even the commentators knew the deal, but Ferrari didn’t. Likely story. Of course, FIArrari believed them.

I should also mention Jenson Button. After his torrid season in a shitbox Honda, he qualifying performance was truly encouraging and I was hoping that he could get a good result. Unfortunately he lost his front wing early on and had to get it replaced.

Rather alarmingly, though, he ran sans front wing for a few laps without any major drop-off in performance. An illustration of just how bad that Honda is — it can lose its front wing and you wouldn’t be able to tell from the times being set.

Liuzzi almost scored a point for Torro Rosso. It would have been scant consolation for Vettel’s lost podium, but it would have been something. Yup, it would have been, had he not passed Sutil under a yellow flag! Doh!

So instead, Adrian Sutil scored his first point, and Spyker’s first point as well. Just in time to impress their latest new owner (they must have had four owners in as many years!). In seriousness, Sutil is seriously impressing this season. A drive at a better team for 2009 surely beckons.

History also for Heikki Kovalainen, who took Renault’s first podium of the year, and his first podium of the career. Apparently it is also the first time two Finns have been on the podium, so a good day to remember for Finland.

A shockingly awful day for Japan though. On their home territory, all of the teams with Japanese links did awfully. I have already mentioned Schumacher and Button. Barrichello was 10th, Trulli finished dead last of the runners, both Williams-Toyotas and both Super Aguris failed to finish. Sakon Yamamoto was 12th. Who would be a Japanese F1 fan?

This is just a bit of what I have been thinking. I could go on and on and on about that race, but I have to stop somewhere. The championship looks like it’s nearly over, but I can’t wait for the Chinese Grand Prix. Luckily, we only have to wait a few days for it.

Update: As soon as I published this, I spotted this on Sidepodcast. It provides very convincing evidence that Hamilton could have caused the collision between Webber and Vettel. It also backs up Vettel’s post-race comments about how he was being put off by Hamilton. Commentators noted Hamilton’s erratic driving behind the safety car, and it does look a little bit like Hamilton was taking things rather over the line with his excessive start–stop driving.

You can only assume that he was deliberately trying to cause an accident, or rattle his opponents. (As Sidepodcast notes, it can’t have been warming brakes, because that involves abrupt changes in speed, not the gradual halt that Hamilton comes to.) What do you think? Watch quickly, before FOM take it down.

I have to say, well done to the person who took the footage. It’s better than anything the actual TV director took of the incident, and reveals a whole lot more of what was going on in the incident.

Update: The original video has, as predicted, been removed by FOM. For the benefit of the many visitors still reading this post, here is another copy of the video. This will probably get pulled down as well.

Via Telegraph Technology.

45 comments

2006 Chinese Grand Prix

1 October 2006 17:41

Categories: Formula 1

An entertaining race, well worth getting up at 6am for. Even if it’s zombified me for the rest of the day. It seemed as though Renault were going to walk away with it today. With the changeable conditions, the Michelins were clearly coping better in the wet.

At least that was the case in qualifying. You could literally have split the running order in two — the top half was of Michelin runners, the backmarkers were all on Bridgestones. The only person to spoil it was Michael Schumacher who incredibly qualified his car in 6th. The next Bridgestone runner was his team mate Felipe Massa way back in 13th. Imagine if everybody was on the same tyres! Schumacher would have completely blitzed the field.

So the buildup to the race this morning went pretty much along the lines of, ‘Schumacher is great. Just a shame his tyres are useless.’ James Allen said that somebody up there was being kind to Fernando Alonso this weekend. Well today that person up there must have decided that he was too kind yesterday, and conspired to give Alonso the lion’s share of bad luck in the race.

It looked good to start off with. Alonso was absolutely supreme in the first corner, as was Kimi Räikkönen. Alonso built up a big lead in the first stint, but problems came after his first pitstop. The front tyres needed changing, but they kept the old rear tyres on. It seemed like a strange decision, and it turned out to be the wrong one indeed as Alonso’s lead was cut to zero before he had to relent to Giancarlo Fisichella and Schumacher.

It wasn’t over for Alonso though. On a decent set of tyres he was still the fastest driver. But during his pitstop where he changed to dry tyres a wheel nut got stuck, adding at least 10 seconds to his time. Were it not for that, Alonso could well have won.

As it was, Schumacher was able to take the victory. The first lap out on dry tyres was clearly crucial. The track was still damp and cold in spots, and we clearly saw that those who fully committed — Alonso, Schumacher — benefited. Meanwhile drivers who tentatively tiptoed out of the pits — Fisichella, Kubica (who changed to dries too early anyway) — lost ground big time. Schumacher’s move on Fisichella into turn 1 on Fisi’s out lap was outstanding.

It was a weekend of good drives. Not only had Schumacher and Alonso excelled themselves, but Jenson Button also shone in the final phase of the race with the drying track. After a little off where he lost a place to Pedro de la Rosa, Button came back in the final laps to spectacularly climb his way up to 4th which culminated in an amazing scrap at the penultimate corner of the race.

Six cars into one corner doesn’t go. But Button drove smartly to take Barrichello, then Heidfeld. The latter two were both disadvantaged by the traffic, and de la Rosa was able to take 5th. Takuma Sato was subsequently disqualified for “blocking faster drivers”. Yes, it’s funny how his presence benefited his pseudo-team mate Button. But Sato’s team mate, Sakon Yamamoto, can congratulate himself for finally finishing a race for the first time!

As for the tyre war, during the race it seemed as though the Michelins weren’t quite as dominant as they were in qualifying. Looking at the results, I am no longer so sure. The only Bridgestone runners to get a decent result were Schumacher and Mark Webber (who scored an increasingly rare point for Williams).

Schumacher’s team mate, Massa, had a torrid race which culminated in a clumsy crash with David Coulthard. I am now absolutely convinced that Michael Schumacher drove out of his skin today. He was ecstatic at the end of the race. He obviously desperately wants to end his career on a high.

But Alonso will also be determined to win the Championship this year. He must be looking on at his future team, McLaren, with trepidation. Räikkönen’s car failed yet again today. Reliability is still a major problem for McLaren. This could be Alonso’s last chance to win the Championship for a while.

Anyway, today’s result leaves Schumacher and Alonso tied at the top with 116 points each. But officially Schumacher leads the championship because he’s won more races. Contrary to what most people are saying, the championship is not guaranteed to go down to the wire.

If Alonso fails to score and Schumacher wins in Japan, Schumi’s lead will be unassailable. Even though Alonso could win in Brazil to level the scoring again, Schumacher would still win the championship because he has won more races this year. That would be the closest championship in history. It’s certainly a pleasure to be watching it, even at silly o’clock.

Full race result

Update: F1 Fanatic Keith Collantine points out:

Fernando Alonso would be leading this year’s championship by 15 points if it weren’t for the man who changes his right-rear wheel.

7 comments

Turkish GP: Sorry for the delay

27 August 2006 17:46

Categories: Formula 1, General, Personal

I’m ashamed to say that I slept through most of today’s race. I don’t know what’s happening to me at the moment, but I have been very tired all weekend, and I haven’t even had a chance to get much sleep. I slept through qualifying aswell, although that usually happens.

I was okay before the race started, but just after Räikkönen’s crash I started to drift off. I woke up whenever something happened — I saw glimpses of Liuzzi and Yamamoto beached. But I found it so uncomfortable to watch, I had to close my eyes and go to sleep. I woke up with about fifteen laps to go, in time to see the incredible battle between Alonso and Schumacher.

I say I slept through the race and qualifying, although I caught snatches of it whenever I was able to wake up. Apparently the qualifying session was a thriller — the third ‘thriller’ in a row that I’ve missed aswell!

I know I am in a minority here, but I personally preferred the one lap qualifying system. It was exciting to see how a driver would cope under the full glare of the spotlight, with just one chance to set a time. Montoya stuffing it into the wall at the very last corner at last year’s qualifying session at Hockenheim is one of the most memorable moments from qualifying I have ever seen.

With the free-for-all system there are precious few memorable moments. Do you know why? Because nobody sees any actual driving. I heard that by the end of qualifying yesterday the director just stayed on the pit straight basically watching the cars go past as driver after driver crossed the line to set a time. This is pointless. You don’t see any actual driving here — and I watch Formula 1 because I want to see driving. If I just wanted to see a bunch of times scrolling across the screen, I would just visit Formula 1.com’s Live Timing section.

As I say though, I’ll have to watch the highlights programme before I write more about today’s race.

2 comments

Goodbye to Montoya and Montagny

16 July 2006 16:32

Categories: Formula 1

The United States Grand Prix was Juan Pablo Montoya’s last. He decided to move to Nascar — ridiculously boring stock car oval racing in the States — after no decent long-term opportunities within Formula 1 emerged. His team boss Ron Dennis dumped him immediately, and Pedro de la Rosa will take his place for the time being.

There is no doubt that Juan Pablo Montoya was a character. His ballsy racing style earned him a lot of fans. Unfortunately for him, it also earned him a lot of detractors. Many saw him as error-prone and perhaps even dangerous, causing too many accidents. Don’t forget that his last action as an F1 driver was to crash into his team mate and take out about a quarter of the entire field in one go.

In the press conference where Montoya announced his move to Nascar, he said that he couldn’t wait to get back to racing and touching wheels — because if you do that in F1 you are an animal.

A lot of people will miss him, but similar things were said when Eddie Irvine left F1 aswell. It will be very interesting to see how Montoya does in Nascar. Personally, I would be amazed if he could stay awake.

F1Fanatic has a good post on Montoya’s move to Nascar.

The French Grand Prix was Franck Montagny’s last — for the time being at least. He was brought in hastily as a replacement for the disastrous Yuji Ide at Super Aguri. Aguri seem determined to have an all-Japanese line-up, so the Frenchman’s place was never going to be secure.

Montagny’s season has gone largely unnoticed. But let’s face it — it’s difficult to be noticed in a Super Aguri unless you completely lose it like Yuji Ide or slam it into the wall like Takuma Sato. It is really easy to feel sorry for Montagny. He did Renault’s dirty work as a test driver, and no doubt he made important contributions to the incredible rise of the French team over the past three or four years.

Unfortunately, like many test drivers, he has never been given a decent chance at a proper race drive. And like many test drivers when he did get a chance it was in a piss-poor car. You would need more than your fingers and toes to count the number of drivers in such a situation — Pedro de la Rosa, Anthony Davidson, Alexander Wurz, Marc Gené, Luca Badoer, Ricardo Zonta… And who’s to say that people like Heikki Kovalainen, Robert Kubica, Lewis Hamilton and Gary Paffett won’t find themselves in a similar trap?

Franck Montagny showed just as much potential as the four promising youngsters I have just listed. Sadly it looks as though Montagny is just yet another one of those drivers who had to make do with the biscuit crumbs left over. In the weekend that France is celebrating 100 years of Grand Prix motor racing, it is sad that once again the nation is not being represented in the sport.

His replacement at Super Aguri? Sakon Yamamoto, who finished 10th overall in last year’s Formula Nippon championship. Considering Ide finished 2nd, that doesn’t look too good…

1 comment

« Newer posts