All good sport needs drama, a certain level of intrigue, someone to root against and personalities.
If you’re English and follow football it’s easy, the Germans provide all of these (unless the game goes to penalties, then England looses, it’s just how it is).
Journalist Nigel Robuck once said racing always used to be better than it is now. Maybe there is an element of that with me, but when it comes to F1 I do find the races more processional and less interesting now (though vastly improved over 4 or 5 years ago) then when I was involved in the 90’s.
Today I find it difficult to find a driver with enough personality to care enough about; they are pretty much all corporate clones that give the same sound bites. Having said that Jenson Button still seems endearingly rough around the edges compared to many of his colleagues, but he is tallest of the pigmies. However if I see him called a “plucky underdog” one more time the “endearing” label is pretty much done.
The moments of high drama seem to be relegated to history; I doubt we’ll ever see anything like Ayrton Senna starting a fight with Eddie Irvine for some perceived slight, or Guy Ligier throwing fire extinguishers through car windows. The teams’ media handlers would never let Nelson Piquet (senior) give an interview where he discusses Ayrton Senna dating men and how Nigel Mansell has an ugly wife and two ugly children.
And the sport is poorer for it.
Today sees the departure of another one of those larger than life personalities – Flav Briatore – leave the sport. Loath him or hate him, his fake tan, designer sunglasses and sweater thrown nonchalantly over his shoulders made the pit lane a more interesting place. In the “finding an edge” stakes having driver stick the car into the wall is a little extreme, but it’s only shades of grey different to the things other drivers, engineers and principals have been doing since the first two cars raced each other.
In the last few of years also we’ve lost a few of the people who turned F1 politics into an art form in Ron Dennis, Eddie Jordan (who was a very quick learner in how to thrive in the “piranha club”) and Jean Todt. Add the impending departure of Max Mosley (the combined F1 press brought him a riding crop as a going away present) and we are only really left with Bernie to continue the political drama that makes F1 so special.