Reply With QuoteA breath of fresh air!
From a recent interview being widely reported.
“Formula 1 has always been a war, and in a war all's fair. When I was in various teams you'd do anything to win – you'd push people off, you'd do whatever you could do to win the race. This probably is slightly on the wrong side of the cheating thing, but if you look back to all the days gone past in Formula 1, every team has done everything they could – bend the rules, break the rules, do whatever they could, sabotage opponents. That's the way I see it.Well said that man!“The greats of motor racing like Colin Chapman and Enzo Ferrari, they would do anything to win; nothing was beyond the realms of decency, and that's what Formula 1 always was. Formula 1 is not a pure sport; it's gladiatorial more than anything else, and I believe that's the way it should be – not this politically correct thing where the cars go round and round like in Scalextric and the fastest car wins. In the last few years there's been this huge thing to make Formula 1 politically correct and wonderful and beautifully-packaged for manufacturers – but there's actually no point in watching because it's so boring.”
A breath of fresh air!
In that case, I would like to sell a winning formula to any team willing the pay the highest. My idea? After the warm-lap, when all the cars are on the grid waiting for the red lights to illuminate, a couple of mechanics could run out with stanley knives and slash the tyres of all the other cars; or perhaps spray paint in the face of the other drivers, or why not just crack them over the head with a baseball bat.
There, the true gladiatorial 'win at any cost' spirit.
And as for Eddie Irvine - 148 starts, 4 wins. Not well placed to give out advice about winning.
ouch :blackeye: :blackeye:Originally Posted by SimonK
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
I know bugger all about F1 and have little interest but I recommend that before Mr Irvine starts lecturing on motor-racing history he reads George Eystons biography, Flat Out. Eyston used to race Aston Martins in the 20s (and MGs and Bentleys if I remember correctly) and tells the story of one race that he was winning and and recounted that he was particularly chuffed that he actually had enough fuel to finish the race. Apparently nobody ever turned up with a full fuel ration in those days and the practice was for those who failed due to mechanical deficiency to offer their unused fuel to those still in the game.
It's a book I recommend and I believe he still holds an endurance record for cars under 750cc which he completed in an early MG. There is one hilarious account of him completing one of these records in a car on fire and he finished the feat sitting on the boot steering with his feet.
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
Irvine is an utter tool. It isn't 'political correctness' to expect some sense of fair play and adherence to the rules in sport. If the whole idea of sport as contest is too much for him he should watch American wrestling and the like and leave F1 to better men.
He is a bit of a tool but it was more excting with himin the sport, for me at any rate
Respect the past, live the present, protect the future
There were possibly more characters around at that time all over, really.
They are ALL trying to win. Mostly by sticking (just about) within the rules.
Precisely.
He was the only driver who actually accepted a contractual obligation not to beat his team mate (Schumacher) FFS. Not so much win at all costs, more like completely prostituting yourself.
Yes he was a bit of a geezer, with more personality than most on the grid then or now, but what a load of old bull.
Andy
Wanted - Damasko DC57
For Irvine, it could be said that what is excessive is generally insignificant.
But F1 has been, at least over the last 30 years, all about studying the rules book with an electronic microscope to find the most minute loophole, and strecht each possible rule sometimes beyond breaking point.
Sportsmanship has clearly be trampled in Singapour. Yet I believe it is a fairly common occurence in most professional sports. I do not know if Renault actually broke any specific F1rule (apart from sportmanship :roll: ). Yes, having an accident puts the driver's safety at risk, and that of other drivers coming behind him. But it could be argued that chosing WHEN and WHERE you'll have an accident allows you to take those points into account to minimise risks.
We are only starting to put our foot down when footballers try and emulate Tom Daley, when rugby players are using fake blood, when athletes and cyclists believe that small hard testies are a small price to pay... And those are clearly breaches of the rules of the sport, not just philosophical ones.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
The halcyon days of motorsport were over before Irvine raced if you ask me. These days it's not all about winning, it's all about money... and Irvine was the same, if not worse, as commented above. To call it "political correctness" not to cheat is meaningless. I think it's embarrasing that the off-the-cuff rantings of an incorrigible loudmouth get taken so seriously, but they've got to print something I guess.
Perhaps i should have emphasised the particular part I was applauding -Yes, motor sport at all levels has traditionally been finding ways to beat the other guy, within the rules or not, from junior karting with nitrous sprays down the sleeves of the drivers leathers and nitrogen in the tyres thru to F1 every time there is a chance to create an advantage -Formula 1 is not a pure sport; it's gladiatorial more than anything else, and I believe that's the way it should be – not this politically correct thing where the cars go round and round like in Scalextric and the fastest car wins. In the last few years there's been this huge thing to make Formula 1 politically correct and wonderful and beautifully-packaged for manufacturers – but there's actually no point in watching because it's so boringHowever my big issue with recent F1 is the eradication of the passion and the gladiator spirit.cars which generate downforce from cooling fans; underbody skirts which are hydraulically-raised prior to ground-clearance measurements; water-cooled brakes whose water tanks are replenished prior to car-weight measurements; 'rocket' fuels; cars which are underweight in qualifying; wings which deform under load to reduce drag down the straight; hidden launch control and traction control software at times when such electronic driver aids are banned; mass-dampers; teams that utilise design information stolen from other teams; double-diffusers; drivers who crash into other drivers to win championships; drivers who fake injuries to get races red-flagged; drivers who drag damaged cars onto the track to get races red-flagged; drivers who deliberately crash to bring out the safety car, etc etc. It's all part of the game, and has been virtually since the inception of the sport
The potentially deadly duels between Senna and Prost, drivers like Mansell with more balls than brains, even Eddie Irvine, unlapping himself from Senna, leading to the punch-up in the motor home!
It's a sad affair when the only 'excitement' is off the track.
I spent most of my adult working life in and around motorsport and can only suggest that those who think that recent affairs that the FIA chose to put in the spotlight were a new thing, read the biographies of some of the leading characters of F1 over the last 50 years where they freely discuss the amount of rule bending and downright cheating that has always been a part of motorsport.
Bring back the passion and the spectacle. Bring back the heroes.
:D
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
+1
"The Swerve" is a bit of a mouth, but no question things are too PC and corporate these days.
Mid- to late-90s was the highlight of F1 for me - Schumi/Mika battles especially. :)
(of course Senna in 1993 chasing in a crap car being the best season ever!)
Computer based system design, signal processing, simulation and modelling, sensor based data acquisition. These are all things I have done for a living but have become far to much the life of modern F1. Who wins, the driver, the master tactician or is it the 20 geeky engineers looking at computer screens out the back? Things have definitely gone way to far, in the past an F1 team could start up in a shed (Tyrell, ok big shed like construction but still looked like a shed to me), or a back street garage (Chevron) and still get to the top. This is what creates the panache, the romance, its the dream that someone or a small group of ppl with little more then talent and a lot energy can make it.
What does "too PC" actually mean? There's still plenty of racism and sexism in F1, surely? Playing by the rules is not political correctness.
The reason these accusations of cheating matter is because sponsors don't like it. They pay for positive associations, and recently they're not getting them from people like Briatore.
IMO F1 is now all about rules. Rules that change too often and from faulty reasoning. They are just paint over the cracks to try and look good to the outside.What does "too PC" actually mean? There's still plenty of racism and sexism in F1, surely? Playing by the rules is not political correctness.
The FIA makes loud noises about cutting costs but teams have to come up with completely new design concept cars almost every year rather than evolving one design. This years completely new cars came from aero regs that were supposed to allow cars to run closer together and encourage overtaking but it hasn't worked, they still hit a wall of dirty air at about 6-8 car lengths away and most teams then had the huge costs to redesign their cars again after the start of the season to compete with the double diffuser cars. For Red Bull this was a massive project as it also meant changing the rear suspension design philosophy that was the cornerstone of the design.
Millions have been spent on KERS by Mclaren and Ferrari in particular, only to have it abandoned after a year (but now perhaps allowed again?).
Banning refuelling for 2010 is a good thing in my eyes as it should help improve the racing but again the cars need significant redesign to allow for the new weight distribution from the larger fuel cells and to change how the tyres are used with the larger variations in car weight as the fuel load decreases.
There are known simple answers to a lot of the current problems such as limiting the maximum amount of aero loading, but until the politics settle there is no chance of getting them agreed by all.
F1 needs more freedom for creativity not more rules. Can you imagine Colin Chapman in today's F1?
I agree with all that ^ but I don't think political correctness has anything to do with it. If we want to pin an unpopular-with-the-daily-mail label on it, health and safety would be better.
I can only make the parallel with my own engineering experience in the Defence Industry. There is no doubt that in general to improve something you either need to do something a bit unusual that no one else has thought of (innovate) or put a lot of resources into refining every little detail. The second route is very expensive but without the freedom to innovate its the only route open to the engineers.
Regulations are a funny thing, we have been building a car (well my money and my brothers effort) to compete in the PCGB championship, although it is possible I will start in the CSCC Future Classics series instead. The PCGB approach is very sensible, we have a set of regulations but ultimately it boils down to the weight of the car and its power output as tested on their chosen rollers. F1 IMHO needs to get back to something simple and similar to such grass routes motorsport.
Fair play Eddie!!!!!
This is the most exciting F1 season we had now for almost a decade with unpredicatable winners and small teams dominating the front row.
I felt that a lot of established drivers had got away with murder in the past and all these new rules and changes will add a lot of benifits to the sports.
Posting Permissions
