SofaF1

Last weekend we were confronted by a friend who declared that F1 was not a sport. What do you think? His main problem was a common one: the machine. If the best driver had the best car he would win. That, for him, didn’t make it a sport. The problem is that there are so many variables in the driver and the car that to call one the best, over the course of a whole season, is very hard. Frequently the best will change from track to track.

An even more significant rebuttal, however, is to argue that men are no different from machines. The human body is a piece of technology, only slightly more complicated, and moister, than an F1 car. It can be manipulated by its manager, its fitness coach, and its other players in a team the same way a car can. If you had the best players all in one team, wouldn’t you win? I think the chances are the same as if you had the best driver and the best car. What if you had the best player in the worst team? Isn’t that the same as putting Schumacher in a Spyker?

The ‘human’ element of a sport is a myth, I believe. A group of men might as well be a machine, or men building a machine. In the end, I think the closer you look the fewer boundaries you find between F1 and football, and the less capable you are of distinguishing one from the other, saying that one is categorically better, or purer, as a sport.

#38, has commented back on Three times a driver about how he feels De La Rosa would have been as good as Hamilton. I thought I’d drag my reply up to the top.

I think that Hamilton is very good, but I’m pretty sure he isn’t as good as Alonso. He might have the potential to be, but as they say one swallow does not make a summer. The last race might have made it out that way but it was a clearly a matter of the drive suiting one driver more than the other.

I don’t however think that De La Rosa would have done as well. He was pretty good but I have never seen him do anything like the first corner heroics that Hamilton has done. That’s what’s impressed everyone. He has innate racing nous. Some people can drive cars quickly and reliably (and almost every F1 driver counts in that category they have to) but some of them are born racers and I think that’s what gives them the edge (Kimi, Alonso and Hamilton seem to have this).

Well the new tires seem to have the resounding backing of the SofaF1 readers. Clearly we think that there are still ways that Formula 1 can be improved. And it is on that topic that we focus for this week’s poll.

This week Flav has been sounding off about how Formula 1 has become boring. And that he thinks F1 should look to the popularity of GP2. He wants two shorter races in a weekend, the second of which should have a reversed grid to encourage overtaking just like GP2. What do we think? Should F1 copy GP2s race weekend of 2 shorter races and a reversed grid?

Our Brazilian correspondent has recently returned from Rio de Janeiro with the news that the country is really getting behind Massa. He is obviously not as popular (yet) as Senna or Piquet, but people believe in him a lot more than they ever did Barrichello – who has almost been forgotten. They’re encouraged by his ability to challenge Raikkonen, to not be willing to settle for second, and are backing him for the title (against the advice of us here at SofaF1). He certainly does seem a lot more comfortable at Ferrari than Kimi at the moment. The whole Michael phoning after every race is a bit weird, and as Ted Kravitz says, it probably helps Massa and makes Kimi uncomfortable. Can Kimi begin to turn it around as this week we head into the European races?

Were you surprised to read Ross Brawn’s comments that the British TV coverage of F1 is not good enough? On one level, seeing as I had understood him to be friendly with the presenters, yes. But on another, of course not. He was the technical director of a multi-championship winning team. I don’t think there was anyone on that grid who had more information available to them at any one time. As Alex and I have long since known, though, the TV coverage is simply not enough to follow a race. At the very least, you need to be viewing the live-timing from F1.com. But there is more out there, much more, that could help: the telemetry, for instance, and accurate pit-timings would ease a lot of confusion. When watching it on TV, I often feel the commentators are as lost as me – when really they should be guiding us through what is happening.

The question is, though, are Ross Brawn’s comments aimed at British TV in particular, or TV in general? It could be possible that, working for Ferrari, he has seen a lot of Italian TV coverage, and generally approved – I believe they normally show every session of a weekend live, for instance. Anyway, what all of this points toward is a very strange picture we couldn’t have imagined 5 years ago: Michael and Ross sitting on a couch watching F1. Surely we should ask them to join sofaF1?

Nurture has just edged out Nature in our poll (which I must admit ran for a bit longer than I was expecting – sorry about that). I, personally think that it really takes both but. It’s difficult to seperate because without natural talent you won’t get anywhere at all, but the same could be said for a lack of hard work.

Moving on to this weeks poll, This year we have a single tyre supplier and multiple tyres per race. Has this made racing Better, Worse or has there been no change?

Well in this period of enforced boredom I may as well do the only sensible thing left and kick off the silly season. The magic roundabout of who goes where is starting to get in full swing (behind closed doors) so why not make up some stuff about it and see what sticks?

Quite seriously I think the end of this season could herald another massive change in driver line ups. So much will depend on how everyone’s season goes that it’s probably a bit early to start guessing – but here goes.

Prodrive, the introduction of a new team means guaranteed new drivers in the field but will the new drivers be here or in another team? Don’t be suprised to see 2MB driver (and current McLaren test driver) Gary Paffett at the team. That McLaren chasis doesn’t come cheap. And it might even mean Pedro de la Rosa as well but I think that’s less likely. Old Dave Richards will want to pick at least one of his own but will want to play it reasonably safe. He probably wants somebody he’s worked with before. Somebody who is currently under valued (or at least think they are). How about Jenson Button. He hired him before after all. And Jenson must be desperate for a chance to prove he can be as good as Hamilton given the same machinery.

Jenson must be seriously looking around but who would take him. I’ve seen Red Bull suggested but I think Coulthard will get another year. It would be really mean for him to get a Newey transition car put all the work in and never get to drive the finished product. But this is Formula One I guess.

But still David doesn’t look the oldest. Toyota look the oldest. I think both might make a graceful exit from Formula One to allow new talent in. But who to replace them?

How about Rubens. He also sounds like he’s really stopped enjoying it. I thought he would do a Coulthard and mellow a bit but if anything he’s got more frustrated. So I think he’ll probably go.

What about Speed and Liuzzi they have both under delivered so far and we haven’t yet seen the dramatic improvement, that we were promised.

And what of Fisi? He seems to be doing better that Heikki so far but can that last? Renault may want to pay big bucks to secure somebody decent but who would they hire. But certainly Fisi looks like the past rather than the future.

So that might mean seven new drivers in Formula One next year. Nine if you think David and Fisi are going. And the thing is that in itself probably means that at least some of this won’t happen. Some of these drivers will cut their pay to stay in Formula One and find themselves at a lesser team. But the more old grandees at the back the less decent places there are. They can’t all drive for the two Red Bull teams.

But I think the uncertainty will at the very least create a large game of musical chairs. The main pressure points are Jenson at Honda and three drivers into two spaces at BMW. We should not be suprised to find, when the music stops, some big names missing from next year.

But who do you think will be shoved asside, and for those of you who follow GP2, who do you think might take their place?

A town in Sussex has renamed itself Lewis in Lewis Hamilton’s honor because of his unique contribution to Formula 1. And they say the hype’s gone too far? I say not far enough. I think we should rename Britain.

Okay so I may have made some of that up. The other week I was predicting to some of my non formula one fan friends that by the end of the summer they would all be drinking Bulmers instead of Magners and watching Formula 1 instead of cricket. I even made a bet about it.

After the grand prix the friend I’d laid my five pence bet with contacted me to say, “you b@rstard you didn’t tell me one of the English chaps was actually quite good”.

This told me two things first that this friend doesn’t listen very well because I had actually explained my reasoning at the time of the bet. And second that I was right. If this guy knew that an Englishman was doing well in Formula 1 then the story had properly broken out.

Often a formula one season can come and go and some of my friends won’t know who won. But this was just an individual race, Lewis hadn’t even won and yet he was on the front page of all of the news papers*.

So yes I think Ron does have to be careful with him. Lewis is fast and people seem to be fascinated by him. And if he says, “I need to concentrate on the grid” then I can see why Ron will let him. I wish he did force him to talk to the fans because I too love the grid walk. But if he doesn’t want it then I can understand why Ron would let him off.

*As a little aside sport should never be on the front of a newspaper. On the day that England won the World Cup of Football back in 1966 the story didn’t make the front page of any of the newspapers it was on the back like normal.

Except for MotoGP, the only other sport besides F1 that I watch with any modicum of regularity is Baseball (that of the ‘cap’ fame). It occurred to me that our two sports are similar in many respects. The amount of money spent on players, teams, and branding is phenomenal. More interesting is the level of secrecy. As in F1, Baseball teams attempt to maintain the secrecy of their performance as long as possible. I was reminded of this by the new Boston Red Sox signing Daisuke Matsuzaka: apparently he throws a ‘gyro’ ball, but no one has really been able to figure it out yet. Is it a change up? A fast ball? A slider that doesn’t slide? Or a nothing ball? The bluff and counter-bluff that went on pre-season about this seemed pretty similar to some of the stuff we hear from F1 teams. Beside this rivalry, however, is also a friendship between all the teams, in the same way you’ll see F1 mechanics and team managers mingling indiscriminately. Players will leave their dugout pre-game to go say hello to players on the opposing side, and runners on base will chat and joke with fielders in-between pitches. Of course, you could say that all sports are like this, or all people, but then that wouldn’t make a very interesting post. For no other reason than I like the colour green, I support the Oakland Athletics.

Well, not really, but it’s interesting what Eddie Jordan says about Ron Dennis being over-protective of Hamilton. This is exactly what I thought when I saw Dennis huddling round Hamilton on the Melbourne grid, and Martin being forced to keep his distance. I think, in fact, I laughed: what tips did Dennis have to offer about driving Albert Park? Yes, Dennis could help him with managing the media, but does he know how to drive a current F1 car? That was my main problem with the situation: Hamilton needed to be talking to his mechanics about how the car will behave, or an ex-driver (like Martin), not a team manager. But Jordan’s point is good too: it isolates the fans. If Martin Brundle can’t speak to Hamilton, it feels like no one can. I think his grid-walk is one of the greatest things about the media coverage of the sport. When he talks to drivers on the grid it is literally minutes before they start racing – and you sense that immediacy, and often the friendship between him and them, which radiates onto the audience. Schumacher would never do it, and it was always like a silent, bitter place on the grid. Now, I think, Alonso is starting to do the same thing, which is a shame. Anyway, the better thing is surely for Hamilton to be exposed to everything and see how he copes. Everyone else has had to. It’s part of being a driver.