Date: November 24 2009

Currently: Reading F1 Magazine (December 2001 edition)

Mood: Thoughtful O=:)

Joe Saward's blog has a very interesting entry today, quoting Carlos Ghosn's perspective on F1. It is not exactly sweetness and light. Charles seems rather annoyed about a variety of things.

Firstly, he is unhappy about unequal treatment in F1. Renault of all F1 teams should know, since it's experienced that unfairness from both sides. On the one hand, Renault has benefitted from a surprisingly lenient decision with regard to its acquiring McLaren information in 2007, alongside a relatively light (if logical from a certain point of view) penalty from the Nelsinho Defence. On the other hand, Renault has lost out on such matters as the mass damper case in 2006 (where the justification for the technology ban implicitly banned all F1 cars which have ever raced) and has also seen other teams - notably Ferrari - receive concessions that could be deemed unequal.

After Crashgate, Renault must know that at the Bank of Luck (or at least the Bank of FIA Leniency) it's hit the credit limit. As a racing team and a business, Renault naturally looks for advantage wherever it can find it. If there is zero possibility of special favours coming its way, then it can call for the cessation of special favours to others and advance its cause that way. Whether the bartering of special favours is appropriate behaviour for a racing team is for those of us who worry about ethics to debate, but from a strictly logical point of view, it makes sense for the Renault team to fight this particular battle despite the inevitable accusations of hypocrisy.

Part of that battle is internal. This is made clear from the strong emphasis on the environment that Carlos placed. The only reason I can see for casting doubt on the FIA's environmental policies is if the team's controlling influences doubt the possibility of their success soon enough to help Renault out of recession. A F1 racing team may be an attractive accessory for a broader company but ultimately it is only an accessory. If Renault has decided that the environment is the next big selling point that will convince people to buy cars, then they will insist that their marketing aligns with that concept. If F1 is seen as a waste of time, energy and fuel, then it will be jettisoned. After all, it's not like Renault can point to recent success as justification to stay.

After three years of struggle in the mid-field, slipping down the table despite talisman Alonso coming back to aid them, Renault need a strong justification to avoid having their funding cut by the board. Worse still for them, Alonso is leaving again, implying that something is seriously wrong with Renault (else why would someone so successful and determined leave it for Ferrari?) If it can't be found, Enstone and Viry-Chatillon will face an uncertain future. F1 has become known for cheating and dodgy behaviour - ironically due to scandals including the Nelsinho Defence - and perhaps being seen as part of the reason for the improvement of F1 will help Carlos justify to the rest of the board why Renault should stay in F1.

Carlos came into Renault with a reputation for being "The Cost-Cutter" and for a long time there was concern that the F1 programme would be cut. Then came the championships and everyone stopped worrying. However, Renault could easily have walked away last year and didn't, despite Honda doing so. This gives me a certain amount of hope that Carlos has become pro-F1, even if other members of the Renault board are anti-F1 and could out-vote him.

However, this outburst probably won't help Carlos get the answers it wants. The FIA is perhaps the only body able to answer these questions and it is likely to keep its silence until Renault leaves it with implicit permission to gloat at the folly of manufacturers who believed its words and then leave despite contracts when they are proven wrong. It will probably say this means commitment, development and competition mean nothing to manufacturers. What it really means is that sensible rule-making, protection of the sport and the needs of other stakeholders mean little if anything to the FIA.

I want Jean Todt to prove me wrong. Time will tell.

I have completed a season review podcast for your listening pleasure. It's available to download for free at last.fm and consists of a team-by-team view of the events of the 2009 F1 season. The running time is 37:08, so it should keep you well-occupied.

Excerpts of this podcast appeared in the Sidepodcast 2009 Season Review Megamix, which is also recommended listening.

There is a transcript below:

Date: 29 April 2009

Warning! Long entry alert!

This time last year, I wrote about Renault's long-term driver strategy. It seems not a lot has changed since then. This is unfortunate, because it means that Renault still doesn't have a particularly good car (though it wasn't too bad at the end of last year), Alonso's still not getting the results he wants (though he won twice during the last phase of 2008) and Piquet Jr still hasn't surmounted the F1 learning curve.

In other words, it now has a confirmed driver problem in addition to the car problem it had when I started doing this series of entries in 2007. Piquet Jr poses a driver problem because he is too slow and Alonso poses one because he is too fast.

The first problem is the more pressing; word has it that Renault's board is fed up of Piquet Jr being slow and crash-prone (a three-nosecone strategy in China would have been forgiveable had decent performances elsewhere been provided, but with the possible exception of Bahrain, none have been forthcoming in 2009). Action may be underway; if the rumours are correct, Monaco would see a new face in the No. 8 Renault.

Alonso is a growing problem because he wants a championship-challenging car to match his championship-challenging talent. He's been at Renault for over a year and no such car appears forthcoming. They were caught on the hop on the subject of double diffusers - hardly unique, but then Flavio, the true lynchpin of the team, spent so long bemoaning the legitimate interpretation of the "diffuser three" that one wonders whether he had any faith in his own department's ability to fashion a good diffuser of its own. Precedent suggests he should; on items as diverse as traction control in 2001 and seamless shift gearboxes in 2007, the Renault department has been late to the party, but with a near-perfect interpretation of the concept. There is no reason to believe that double diffusers will be any different.

This development strategy should ensure that Renault returns to the top at some point. The question is whether Alonso will have the patience to be there when it happens. The persistent rumours that he will go to Ferrari remain, though after the troubles he had at McLaren, Fernando might be wary of a repeat. Then there's the small matter of Renault having two more points and considerably more reliability than Ferrari to consider.

Still, there's one more thing that could cause Alonso to move. The board's rumoured impatience with Piquet Jr could point to a need for results. This is understandable in the current climate, but if the board's schedule no longer matches the team management schedule, it may be possible that Renault leaves Renault. Should this happen, the team will have serious problems. Even the rumbles of doubt might make Alonso look at his options carefully - he's left Renault on the grounds of long-term instability before and he could do it again.

In that case, Flavio definitely needs one new face and possibly two. If Romain Grosjean's manager has had the intelligence to make him the reserve driver in contract as well as in effect, then he will have the rest of the season to prove he's better than Piquet Jr. If he has more talent than connections, then I can see that happening. The trouble is that I know little about him and junior records don't always indicate F1 success reliably. Sebastien Buemi has a much, much worse record in junior series than Sebastién Bourdais, but even the biggest Bourdais fan would not suggest that Bourdais was steamrollering his rookie team-mate in the way that their respective CVs suggested would happen.

Possible Alonso replacements are at once plentiful and non-existent. They're plentiful because Alonso is not going to walk mid-season whatever happens. This means that Renault can bring someone in during what is likely to be a transfer season of high movement. It's not even clear who will be available, except that Jenson Button cannot be selected due to his three-year contract with Brawn. Perhaps Flavio's frustration with the situation was what prompted him to compare Jenson with a milepost. All I can say is that Flavio's mileposts would be so fast that you'd hardly ever see any...

Somehow, I don't feel particularly worried about Renault's ability to get a good No. 1 driver, if only because at Renault's core is a group of engineers that really know their stuff. When people like Pat Symonds are on the team, it is certain to get through any track-related challenge in a reasonably useful state.

The "non-existent" element of replacements for Alonso comes from Flavio's perception of Fernando as Renault's talisman. Last time Fernando left, Flavio opened negotiations for him to return before the 2007 season even began, despite not being consulted over the original move. That's how much Fernando means to Flavio. Since it is Flavio who has the power at Renault, any driver in an Alonso-free situation will have to deal with the unseen, intangible presence of Fernando on top of whatever challenges 2010 presents Renault. As such, I can see whoever is picked to replace Fernando failing purely because the perceived No. 1 driver will be elsewhere. The best a replacement could hope to be, whatever their talent, is a No. 2. Poor Romain would probably end up as a No. 3 in this case.

If Alonso stays, then Grosjean will simply need to be better than Piquet Jr. If he's so much better as to threaten Fernando, then a swift transfer to Red Bull (swapping with the Flavio-managed Webber, perhaps?) would solve the problem in the short term - or if the situation is stable enough, a sale to whichever team looks most pleasing to Romain would be even better.

Renault's current driver line-up looks destined to fail. Getting a better driver strategy is largely dependent on Renault's management having the courage to back their F1 team even through a recession.

Date: April 29 2008

[ Mood: Rolling Eyes ]

[ Currently: Reading F1 Magazine (January 2002 edition) ]

AKA Mosley On TV

AKA Mosley On TV

Date: November 1 2007

 

[ Mood: Muddy Talker ]

[ Currently: Reading Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology by James MacKillock ]

The latest part of my analysis was prompted by an interesting 22-minute interview of Max Mosely by BBC's Hardtalk programme. The interview was largely about the McLaren/Ferrari case, and it does indicate that the off-line press can be a lot slower to wield their big guns than their on-line equivalents.

Before I give my own opinion, I thought it would be interesting to give you an exercise. The interview was broadcast on TV, but it is also available as a video on the BBC site. Listen to it throughout, forgetting any comments you may already have seen on this particular interview. The exercise is to see how well you think Max Mosely copes with this style of interviewing.

Hardtalk usually deals with politicians, which is why the interview style is so uncompromising. It is not a style seen or encouraged in the F1 paddock. Once the interview is over, then have a think as to how Max's answers would play out to the people watching who, as the interviewer puts it, "have no interest in Formula 1 but are very interested about the integrity of the major sports".

If you can't get the link to work, here are some choice quotes from the early part of the interview, to give you a flavour of Max's responses:

"Although it was very annoying for us and for the people involved, for the public, it just really adds to the general interest"

"Luca gets a bit carried away"

"I'm afraid one can only conclude they [McLaren] did [lie to the FIA about the confidential information]"

"Once we discovered that it was the case [that Pedro de la Rosa had e-mailed Fernando Alonso] it was not credible that no-one else in the organisation knew about it [the information]"

"There had been a stream of 300 messages for two or three months, then came the document"

The whole exchange about whether not taking away driver points for cheating is fair at the 5-minute mark is really interesting. Max says (or rather agrees) that Pedro de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso's exchange of Ferrari information was itself clear cheating (regardless of what led up to it), and then has an intricate debate about why Fernando (and, for that matter, Lewis) was allowed to keep his points. He didn't come out of it too well, with two distinct attempts to wriggle out of the interviewer's conclusions from his own previous statements.

"There's a strong Spanish and South American element in the World Council"

"Bernie isn't the main man in Formula 1...On 14 separate occasions, Bernie has advocated something which he didn't get in the World Council"

"Even if they excluded the cars, we are not obliged to alter the position of those below. Certainly we don't have to for very minor technical infringements"

I could go further, but you get the flavour of it from there. These are not answers that sound particularly good for Formula 1. We who are used to F1 probably shake our heads and regard this as typical Max. To a newcomer, these would be quite astonishing revelations.

Luckily for Max, Hardtalk is a late-evening programme which usually doesn't get massive audiences. However the audiences it does get are well-educated and knowledgeable. They are also used to seeing politicians on the programme who are trained for just this sort of interview. They would not have known whether Max had been trained for this.

The reason why the audience of the TV programme is important is because well-educated, knowledgeable people tend to rise to power in their own circles. In particular, this sort of programme gets watched by political commentators, so when Max was interviewed, the results quickly percolated through relatively unsympathetic political commentators through to the paper's sports departments. Their critical opinions would surely have accompanied the news.

Perhaps the sports people would not have been quite so keen to put this story front and centre if Max had found a way to not mention Mr Hamilton's name. He didn't. [url=http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpa...s_art_id=33339]
By criticising Lewis, he guaranteed a bad press for himself[/url]. You would have thought he'd learned something from Fernando Alonso's bad treatment in the hands of the British press. Apparently he hasn't.

Max's bizarre comments on the appeals courts won't help him either. If you want to maintain the neutrality of an appeals court, you do not cite your opinion - especially not if you are being questioned on the neutrality of said court. Nobody likes to see internal contradiction, especially from people who have influence over anything important to them.

The moment the off-line press decided to take a piece out of Max Mosely, the on-line world heard about it - and complained about it. Off-line papers generally have on-line vectors to their empires now, so even people who live in countries that do not get the interview will find out the salient points. The succession of Spanish interviews we've been "treated" to this year bear testament to this - again, Fernando Alonso would have had a more sympathetic audience had the on-line world not carried his messages across linguistic and geographical boundaries.

Of course, this is all entirely predictable to anyone who's been following F1 for a long time.

Max is used to quite cushy paddock interviews, where he can largely get away with vague and contradictory answers due to a combination of power and time constraints.