I have watched, with great interest, the on-track developments of the 2009 Formula One World championship.
I was so excited in March for the season to begin and to see just what affect the heavily-revised rules had on the sport (other than the massive reduction in sexiness from the look of the cars). Sure enough, Melbourne brought the excitement to life in the form of Brawn GP taking a shocking 1-2 on the team's grand prix debut.
It wasn't long, however, before the attention was off the remarkable events on track and focused firmly on the drama in the stewards' room. The Mclaren team once again found themselves in the middle of controversy after Lewis Hamilton told a little white lie.
This entire event was blown completely out of proportion because anyone who has ever been in a competitive environment, even one that is fractionally as competitive as F1, knows that sometimes you 'adjust' your side of the story for your benefit. So you take the podium away, slap the wrist and move on. The fact that this situation blew up to the point of courtrooms and firings of loyal employees, all for the sake of protecting Mclaren's 'ironed shirt' image, is appalling. It's about the racing gentlemen, not this.
It seemed that the Mclaren scandal didn't even have a chance to clear off the magazine columns to make way for racing news when the FIA/FOTA budget cap 'war' took off. Once again, the monumental on-track achievements of Brawn GP and Jenson Button were seemingly second-rate news to the soap opera happenings between Max Mosely and the team bosses. More and more racing websites and magazines covered less and less about the racing and the drivers – the things that actually matter and mean something to the paying public, without whom there would not be a series whose cost you could argue over – and dedicated miles of print to the ego-driven 'Which side will back down first?' game. News flash: the fans don't care.
People do not follow – and not just follow, but love – F1 because of the happenings inside courtrooms and boardrooms. They love the racing, the cars, the drivers, the passion. If there are issues going on, keep your dirty laundry in the closet. All of these internal fights cause unrest among sponsors and make fans just plain uninterested. I, after a winter of seething anticipation, barely follow F1 after only seven races. And it has nothing to do with Jenson winning everything.
Moreover, this melodramatic urine-dispensing-unit measuring contest between the FIA and FOTA is so sterile. Mosley writes a letter, then the FOTA announce they are going to discuss possible times and locations to deliberate on an appropriate response, to be typed, and faxed back to the FIA. Where's the fun in that?! Let's hear some name-calling, some insults, throw a punch! Why not just have Max take on the eight team principals of FOTA in a
Battle Royale (Max does have experience taking on groups of five single handedly, after all)? Bernie Ecclestone can referee. At least that would give the fans something to watch.
From the outside, it appears that the Mosley of late seems to love creating drama and winding up the teams as much as physically possible. He has certainly done some amazing things for the sport, most notably in the area of safety, but his continuing push for incredibly questionable rule changes might be an indicator that he has sat too long atop the FIA throne.
Let's sort this out, in private as much as possible, and let people enjoy the racing. I never would have thought, as I sat through winter waiting to see how the 2009 regs changed the racing, that disputes surrounding the 2010 regs would stop me from caring anymore.
Hinch
