Formula 1's drama filled 2007 season has finally come to an end. Although I'm appalled at the behavior of some of the teams this season (cough...Mercedes McLaren... cough), I am happy that Kimi and Ferrari ended up on top. Not that Ferrari doesn't have the biggest budget (pure speculation) for their F1 teams, but they at least weren't caught outright cheating.
But the "boys behaving badly" fest is not over yet. As if they hadn't completely disgraced themselves already, McLaren lodged one last protest to attempt to place their own Lewis Hamilton atop the points standing.
Don't get me wrong, Hamilton did a great job this season, especially since he was a rookie, but when a top team like McLaren gets caught stealing design secrets from their main rival, Ferrari, it tarnishes even the most valiant efforts.
McLaren is protesting the temperature of the fuel that was used in the Williams and BMW cars, saying it was too cool (ultimately making it more dense and allowing more fuel into the tank...). If the FIA decides to grant them this protest and disqualify the Williams and BMW entries, Lewis Hamilton would ultimately triumph in the points standings. As a side note, McLaren lost the team competition after being disqualified, stripped of all its constructors points and being fined $100 million.
This begs the question in my mind, has racing always been wrought with cheating? I remember reading a book about racing in the era of Mark Donahue when everyone cheated in little ways. Specifically, there was a certain story where he and his team erected a 30 foot fueling tower that used a gravity feed to fuel his race car quicker than other teams... or where they acid dipped their chassis to make it lighter than the competitors. When the race officials caught on to either tactic, they quickly adapted the rules to outlaw said behaviors, yet the racing continued. As technology increases, the rules get tighter, budgets increase, the cheating gets more and more "clever." But stealing another team's design book? That's neither inventive nor original. It's flat out cheating. Come on Ron Dennis, are you out of ideas?
In other news, the Spiker team has been sold to some Indian Billionaires, and will be renamed Team "Force India". Good luck gentlemen with the ex Jordan-Midland-Spiker cars. May the Force of Shah Rukh Kahn's rock hard abs and ad-nausium dance sequences be with you.
1 comment:
Obviously if you're motivated enough to go racing, you're motivated enough to try and find an edge, no matter what that might be (I guess you could say that about a lot of competition). I believe that the former instances of 'cheating', acid bath , fuel rig, etc, were demonstrations of ingenuity. The stealing of secrets though is far from the true spirit of racing.
I wish I could say that I'll be tuning in to F1 races next year, but I really don't see that happening. For me it was never about the on track racing, because lets face it, there is none. It was all about the technology on display. I enjoyed reading about how clever each team was, and to see a top-tier team make a mid season comeback due to one of their new chassis features.
Nope, the best racing I can hope to watch these days is sports car racing. Give me a good ALMS or even Grand AM race at a beautiful and challenging natural road course *cough* Road America *cough* Mid-Ohio *cough*.
Until F1 can either drop the incessant whining, or bring back some semblance of racing, I'll be keeping my distance from Bernie's rolling soap opera parade.
/rant. Sounds like you guys are still having the time of your life. Nice haircut Steve!
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