Drive the New Jersey F1 track with Lewis Hamilton!

I was tweeted a link earlier today of a track sim of the New Jersey Port Imperial F1 track, home of the Grand Prix of America, which will make its debut on the calendar in 2013. This fabulous first peek at the track was created by “nothke” on racedepartment.com

I’m sure you’ll agree that in just a few days, “nothke” has done a pretty fabulous job.

The circuit looks tremendous. Incredibly high speed, some tricky corners… it’s going to be a thriller. Colleagues I have shown it to in the media centre here in India today have all been hugely impressed, whooping that at parts it looks like Montreal, Montjuic Park, Spa and Monaco. Overall, I think the best comment I heard was this. “My God. It’s like Monza in a city.”

With a rough laptime estimate of 1:38 for a 3.2 mile track, it’s certainly not going to be slow.

Enjoy

Another Retro Williams in 2012?

Something struck me today, and it’s kinda cool.

So we all know the Kimi Raikkonen to Williams rumours for 2012, right? Of course we do. The thing is though, they are gathering pace with every passing week. The latest rumour is that Sir Frank Williams has spent the last few weeks in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, trying to drum up enough cash to lure the 2007 World Champion back to the sport.

Anyway, here’s where it gets cool.

It is rumoured that Williams, along with finding some finance from the Qatar National Bank, is trying to get a few old sponsors back on board… namely Saudia, Albilad and TAG.

This year, Williams is running a pretty mega livery, in homage to the Rothmans livery of the mid 1990s.

Pastor Maldonado : 2011 Japanese Grand Prix
c/o www.sutton-images.com

Damon Hill : 1994 Portuguese Grand Prix
c/o www.sutton-images.com

What chances the 2012 Williams features a Green and White livery, with the old boys back on the sidepods?

And you know the even cooler thing? Think back to this photo… 1982. 2012 will be the 30th anniversary of Keke Rosberg, the Flying Finn, taking the title for Team Willie. A mega fast Finn? In a Green and White Williams? Thirty years on?

It’s too tasty, isn’t it?

Keke Rosberg : 1982 Brazilian Grand Prix
c/o www.sutton-images.com

Indycar – An outsider looking in

Indy 500 c/o www.sutton-images.com

I am a Formula 1 reporter, and a GP2 and GP3 commentator. I am in no way the most qualified person to discuss the events of last weekend in Las Vegas. I never had the honour of meeting Dan Wheldon. I have never been to an Indycar race.

But my interest in the championship is real. Anyone who follows me on twitter will be able to recall instances this season when I have been somewhat vocal over aspects of the championship’s organisation and its regulations which, to me, seem frustrating. My opinions are often met with staunch resistance from Indycar fans, who want to defend their championship to the hilt.

As a journalist who now broadcasts predominantly to the United States, however, I have had many messages asking for my take on what happened this weekend past. But I didn’t want to write something as a direct reaction to what unfolded on that tragic day in Las Vegas. I wanted to take the time and think it through.

Oddly enough, I was going to write something at the end of the Indycar season about where I saw the championship heading and the things I thought it could do with changing. Dan’s tragic passing means that the web is now littered with such articles from people you wouldn’t normally expect to see writing about Indycar, each one picking up various elements of that Las Vegas weekend and trying to find a reason for what happened. For many of those closely involved with the sport, this is part of the cycle of grief: to attempt to understand that which they are finding hard to accept. As Karun Chandhok wrote this morning, as a racing driver, for him to understand how and why something like this happened is hugely important, too.

Even before last weekend, Indycar had many elements which I believed needed addressing. Elements which, depending on my severity of feeling, I believed could be judged as being anywhere from archaic to asinine. This season just passed, the 100th of open wheel racing in America, is one which has been edged with controversy. NASCAR style two-wide restarts were adopted at the start of the season and were met with almost instant disapproval from the drivers after repeated contact race after race.

The decisions of the stewards were heavily questioned throughout the season, with Brian Barnhart coming in for pointed criticism from teams and drivers alike, in particular for his handling of the restarts on a wet track at the MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in August.

And there was even controversy going into the final weekend. The maximum number of cars permitted for Indycar races in 2011 had been set at 26, with the exception of the Indy 500 which would see 33 cars as a maximum. And yet at Las Vegas, an oval track one mile shorter than the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 34 cars would take the start, four over the pre-season agreement of a maximum of 30 for the season finale.

My own personal bugbear, as regards Indycar however, is with pitstops. There is far too wide a scope for pit crews to get injured in what is an overcrowded pitlane. Pit stalls are too close together, crews running into the pitlane and around their cars are at huge risk, equipment is often hit by cars. Watch the video below from the penultimate race of the season. It’s one of the worst examples I saw this year. Compare that to the slick work seen in F1 where we regularly see sub three second stops (albeit without refuelling) carried out with little risk to those involved.

I know many of the drivers in Indycar, either through contacts I have made in my time in the sport who have introduced me to their drivers, or as drivers I have had the pleasure of working with myself over the years. And while I love that they get to go out and race in the sport, I have to admit my fears for them when they went out to race in an Indycar. Because you don’t have small accidents in those things.

But Indycar was aware that changes needed to be made, and for 2012 had commissioned not one but two brand new cars from Dallara. One car will be used for road courses, and one will be used for ovals. The oval car has heavily protected rear wheels, and while some previously said it didn’t look all that nice (I always rather liked the design to be honest), frankly I think that’s the last of anyone’s issues right now. The capability of cars being launched over each other is high enough in open wheel racing, and is especially so on ovals. This new car should seriously reduce that potential. The driver who led the development work on the new Dallara had openly praised the increased levels of safety the new cars would bring. The car was, in its formative stages, dubbed the “Indycar Safety Cell.”

As a mark of respect, the car will now carry the initials of the very man who helped develop it, and whose life it might well have saved. Dan Wheldon.

Dan Wheldon and the DW01 c/o www.sutton-images.com

Going into the weekend in Vegas, www.autosport.com ran a fascinating article looking at the season finale and how it was crunchtime for the sport of Indycar, which has been losing fans and viewers in recent years. Randy Bernard had even threatened to quit if the Vegas race didn’t get the percentage share he’d been hoping for.

Following the Vegas race, it would seem that Indycar has some soul searching to do. Some have called to drop oval tracks all together. Some have called to replace the catch fencing at ovals with plexi-glass. It is worth remembering that the SAFER barriers, now used in Formula 1, have been commonplace in American open wheel racing for years. Indycar is safety conscious. It does push forward with innovation. Now is the time for it to redouble its efforts.

Its new Dallara DW01, is the first step on that path. Where it goes next, only the bosses, with the input of teams and drivers, can decide. I think we’ll most likely see two-wide restarts abandoned next year, and quite possibly a limited field on short course ovals. Pitstops, to my mind, need an almighty overhaul, too.

I can’t claim to sit here and know the answers. I’m not going to debate what happened in Vegas because there is an investigation going on and frankly, I just don’t know enough about oval racing to make a comment that would be of any worth. But as an outsider looking in, I have thought throughout this season that Indycar needs to get back to basics, to drop gimmicks intended to spice up the show and just get back to the simple things.

Hard racing, on proper tracks, in safe cars.

Although I never met Dan, I’m sure that a safe and prosperous future for his friends and his rivals, in the championship he loved, would be the greatest tribute anyone could pay to his memory.

Made me smile…

Last year I wrote a blog about the Lotus name mess, and how Tony Fernandes could still have called his squad Lotus, even if Group Lotus had won the legal battle over the use of the name in Formula 1.

My solution, as silly as it seemed, was for Tony to simply bring on board Lotus sanitary products or Lotus Bakeries as a team supplier and give them team naming rights. Thus he could call his team whatever he wanted, and preface it with the word Lotus.

Well, look what I spied in the Team Lotus hospitality unit this morning… next to the coffee machine. And no, I don’t think my silly suggestion was taken seriously or that Team Lotus will try to remain as Lotus next season. I think we’re all pretty much sure that if the teams can agree unanimously to the change, then green Lotus will become Caterham and black Lotus will stay Lotus.

Still, it made me smile…

Lotus at Lotus

A question of integrity

Spending 20 weeks of the year with the same people creates something of a bond between the folk of the F1 paddock, and particularly between colleagues in the same job role. Sure there are often tensions, but for the most part we tend to stick together.

So when you read one of your own kind being laid into, it takes you by surprise. And it saddens you.

An article was posted this morning on a Formula 1 website, which I found distasteful in the extreme. Not only did it attempt to pull apart the reputation and call into question the abilities of one of the most respected writers and newshounds in this paddock, but from a personal perspective, it also had a pop at me. Charming!

For this article to refer to the journalist in question as a “blogger” is to attempt to belittle him and his work as being of little import, and for him to be little more than one of a number of writers on the subject of this sport who pen their opinions without the access to provide informed insight.

To quote from the offending piece itself:

There is no doubt that the market is flooded with F1 blogs and the majority offer little real insight into what is really going on in the sport. A few of them do break early news, which later proves to be accurate, but these are in the minority.

There tend to be multiple problems with the bulk of the blogs: they are verbosely written by people with little or no training in print journalism and often slip into rambles about the personal experience of the blogger.

To refer to the journalist in question as having “little or no training in print journalism” is a scandal. He has worked for almost every major motorsport print publication in the British language and has been writing about this sport for decades.

The thing is, the people in this press room, if they have a problem with a colleague, would take it up with them in person. Not via a vitriolic post on a website.

You may well ask why, then, I am not doing the same. And the answer is simple.

Because the writer who claims the moral high ground and questions the integrity of a friend and colleague, has no accreditation. He does not attend Formula 1 races. In ten years of reporting on this sport I genuinely cannot recall seeing him at a single Grand Prix.

This is the man pontificating on journalistic standards?

Where does he get his quotes, his information, his stories? I can only assume it is from those on the ground. From those who spend every penny they have to fly to 20 races a year. Life as a freelancer has never been tougher. But we carry on, because we love this sport and because we want to bring you closer to it.

I don’t really care if the writer in question has a problem with me and calls me out in his articles. If he ever comes to a race he can bring it up with me in person. But what I do have an issue with is him pulling apart a journalist I greatly respect, in a public forum, in such unashamed fashion. And yes, I do see the irony.

A few days ago, a former journalist who was regarded as one of the finest newshounds in this sport, referred to the journalist at the centre of the writer’s odious post thus:

“I came into F1 with the mantra ‘believe nothing until you know it to be true’, and, through reading this journalist’s work, I quickly altered that mindset to: ‘believe everything until you know it to be false’ because my eyes were widened to the scope and breadth of Formula 1 by reading his investigative reports – something that he continues to do to this day….”

I, for one, could not agree more wholeheartedly with that statement. Sure, it means that sometimes his stories are close to the edge. Sometimes they’re spot on. Sometimes they’re there but not quite. And sometimes they’re a bit off centre. But they are written from the heart, and having come from a list of contacts and sources accrued over decades. People who work in this sport and in this paddock and trust in this journalist because he is one of the best.

How a writer can sit at home and attempt to rip apart a journalist at the track, especially this journalist, leaves me aghast.

As one final point, I was interested to read the writer in question’s biog on his website. In it, there is the claim that he “still gets that special tingle when he hears an F1 engine burst into life.”

Must be one hell of a sound system on that TV.

Where has Lewis Hamilton gone?

Lewis Hamilton c/o www.sutton-images.com

Lewis Hamilton. 2008 Formula 1 World Champion.

Is that how the history books will record the career of one of the greatest enigmas of the modern era of our sport? It is a question being asked for the first time not in hushed tones, but in open conversation in the Formula 1 paddock. Was that one season as good as it is ever going to get for him?

We’re a cynical lot, and we always look for a story. But this isn’t one that brings along any sense of satisfaction. Because the guy looks lost. He looks dejected, desolate… destroyed.

The Japanese Grand Prix was a microcosm of the situation at McLaren. Hamilton pushing above and beyond; Button serene and imperious. How times have changed at the team.

Jenson Button’s move to McLaren in 2010 was considered by most in the F1 paddock to be a brave one. Going one on one with Lewis Hamilton, at a team which had been built around the 2008 world champion, where the youngster had been a part of the furniture since he was a child… that’s no easy task. But it made perfect sense for Jenson. It was his best opportunity to get to a guaranteed top team, and the expectation would be that Hamilton would tear him apart. Anything Button did of worth at the team would look good.

So when it was Button, not Hamilton, who took the first (and second) McLaren victory that year, Jenson didn’t just look good. He looked mega. He’s continued to look just that.

Jenson Button has settled in well at McLaren. c/o www.sutton-images.com

Button’s stock has risen and risen. His racing has improved every week, to the extent that in my opinion he is driving better now and is more complete a driver than he was when he won the title in 2009. And McLaren know it. They’ve signed him up on a multi year contract to extend their relationship up to an as yet unspecified date.

Lewis Hamilton meanwhile is out of contract at the end of 2012. This is Lewis Hamilton we’re talking about here. Hamilton IS McLaren. At least, he was. By extending Jenson’s contract, he now has the longer term future at the team. In the war of F1 psychology that is huge. By signing that contract, McLaren has essentially said that Button is their man. And you can bet that hit Hamilton where it hurts.

It’s why I believe Hamilton was so gutted to miss out on pole. Button, with a new contract, had been top of every session in Suzuka. If Hamilton could have taken pole, it would have been more than just P1 on the grid. It was a message of intent. A message that this was still his team. But he choked. He went against the requests of the team not to leave a gap to Button and he missed the cut. Far from showing the team that he was still top dog, he made a basic error while his team-mate was only denied by the slimmest of margins and after a little bit of magic from the world champion.

The race itself saw Button take an emotional victory in a country which has always embraced him. But it saw another Hamilton implosion. Not seeing Massa in his mirrors, running the wheels off his McLaren in that first stint. That wasn’t the Hamilton that blasted onto the scene in 2007 and made such an impression as an aggressive but classy driver. It had all the hallmarks of a drive from a guy with so much to prove that he’s pushing beyond the sweet spot. Hamilton himself described the race as “shocking.” And it was. But not so much for the gap between Button and Hamilton, but for how much Hamilton seemed to have let himself go.

Lewis Hamilton c/o www.sutton-images.com

He’s had a rough season, everything considered. He’s had decisions go against him and has felt the weight of expectation more keenly than ever. And all the while he seems to have lacked the guidance to deal with these situations in the correct fashion. His Monaco outburst against his fellow drivers, his ill judged quip over his colour, his post-race moment with Massa in Singapore.

Personally, I though he handled Singapore fabulously. He took himself away to cool off rather than react. Very mature. He’d learned from Monaco. The problem was he never came back. And so all the quotes after the race were from Massa and were negative. Why on earth did nobody from McLaren or from 19 Management tell Lewis to get back outside and talk to the press? To give his side of the story? Why did nobody advise him to take Massa to one side and talk it out as men on Thursday in Suzuka?

All Lewis Hamilton wants to do is concentrate on racing and winning Grands Prix. But the external pressures are a necessary evil of the sport. And those pressures are showing.

It is interesting to read the two McLaren drivers’ twitter feeds. Jenson tweets photos of himself, his mates, his girlfriend Jessica. Always smiling, always laughing, at race weekends. He is so comfortable at McLaren, so comfortable in himself. Lewis meanwhile will make a few post race comments, and little else. Sitting in the McLaren motorhome and people watching has been interesting this season. Lewis is the one who will skulk in, shades on under his cap, barely registering those around him. Jenson is quite the opposite.

Is that focus? Perhaps. But I’m not sure.

The 2011 spec Lewis Hamilton is not the same person I met at the tail end of 2005 on a windy day at Circuit Paul Ricard. He’s a Formula 1 world champion now. But he also strikes me as a troubled soul, and one who is not enjoying his racing as much as his incredible talent should allow him to.

Hamilton appears to be a troubled soul of late. c/o www.sutton-images.com

The ultimate question remains, if he cannot pull himself out of this funk, and if his management continue to apparently let him get on with things of his own accord rather than putting their arm around him and giving him the emotional support he so clearly requires, could Lewis Hamilton leave McLaren? His contract is up at the end of next season, and so are many others. If McLaren is now Button’s team, will Hamilton leave the nest of the squad that created him?

I’m sure that 19 Management would love to put Hamilton in a Red Bull, and I’m sure it is something Hamilton would relish, too. Put him into the team alongside Vettel, give him the best car in F1 and allow him the chance to do to the German, what Button did to him. Go into his team, where he’s been since he was a child, and take it away from him.

There’s just one problem. As we understand it, Red Bull doesn’t want him. Neither does Ferrari. Which leaves only one real option… Mercedes. Michael Schumacher’s contract runs out at the same time as Hamilton’s. Might we yet see Hamilton link up with his former karting team-mate and good friend Nico Rosberg? Or might Rosberg jump into Hamilton’s vacant McLaren?

Nico and Lewis at the 2004 Bahrain Superprix. c/o www.sutton-images.com

Or, and this is a thought myself and a colleague had over lunch today, might Hamilton just throw his hands up and say, “Sod it. I’m not enjoying this. I’ve had enough.” Could he simply walk away? Would he simply walk away? There seems little doubt that he would be a huge star in the States, whether he was racing in Indycar or, as might be more likely, NASCAR. He could live in LA, hang out with his hip hop mates and spend more time with Nicole. 19 Management would turn him into motorsport’s David Beckham.

I’m sure all of us hope that the final option does not happen. Because there’s got to be more to come, right? That 2008 title… that can’t be it. Can it?

I’ve seen Lewis Hamilton pick himself up after crushing disappointment and put in the performances of his life, time and time again. But over the last two seasons that self-belief, that resilience, just seems to have slipped.

It’s got to the point where I almost want to grab him and slap him and ask where the hell Lewis Hamilton is? Where’s the friendly, open, passionate racer, who used to laugh off adversity and show the kind of racecraft on track that left you with your jaw on the floor? Would he thank me? Probably not. He’d probably slap me back and I’d deserve it. But I just feel for the guy. I want to see him back to his best. We all do.

But right now, he is far away from being at his best. And I worry that Japan could have been a tipping point for him. Drivers like Lewis who are driven by emotion are the kind of drivers who split opinion. But they are the kind of drivers that you want in the sport. History shows us, however, that the passionate ones are often the ones to make rash, hasty decisions.

For his sake, and for ours, I hope he’s getting the right support, and that somebody, somewhere, can be the motivating factor that gets him back to basics and gives him the wake-up call he so clearly requires.

Because if that 2008 title is to be the only one of his F1 career, it’s not just Lewis that’ll be short changed. It’ll be all of us.