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When seeing all of this talk about dangerous driving, and the heroes that have died in this sport, I seem to recall seeing vids of Ayrton Senna parking his car DURING A RACE to help a crashed driver.
I believe that deep down, all of these men understand that their lives are in each others hands while on track. I think that Alonso also deserves some praise because with all of the trash talk that went on last year, Hamilton gave Nando "THE" opportunity to end his race with a vindictive move when coming down the straight at Monza, and Fernando showed every ounce of class that he posesses by not simply ending Lewis' race.
I think it comes down to the "Class" that the drivers posess, and how much that class influences their on-track actions.
It is one thing to be completely consumed by winning, it is another to allow that consumption to rob you of your class.
All F1 drivers have class, but only the greats have shown that there are more important things than winning, like the life of another driver.
I wonder how the teams today would react to the race leader parking his car to help a crashed driver? I believe that of all of the footage that I have seen of Senna, him throwing his race away to help an injured driver is by far the GREATEST race finish that he has ever had. True Class.
Totally agree about Senna - he was truly a legend.
About Alonso though, let us not forget the sometimes rocky road that he has traveled to get to where he is. He didn't lift in that Brazillian race where he drove into a waved yellow flag situation in damp conditions (if I remember correctly) with his foot flat to the floor - crashing somewhat spectacularly into another cars debris. He's also had a few instances of putting other drivers off the track, including on a straight, and of having been accused of brake testing drivers.
Now though I think all the drivers are pretty fair with each other. There are occasions where they will shut the door on each other, sometimes rather forcefully, but I can't remember the last time there was an incident where I thought one driver deliberately took another out of the race. Probably have to go back to Schumachers infamous escapades for that.
First off I'm not critising Ayrton Senna, I'm a HUGE fan of his, watching him and Mansell is what made a 3year old me the fan of F1 that I am today, so please don't take the next couple of lines as some sort of attack on the great man, it's not...
I totally agree with you conceptual about Ayrton, he was a true great with utter class, HOWEVER, it's very easy to applaude Senna for stopping his car to tend to an injured driver, and for holding an austrian flag in his car in that fateful race at Imola in 1994, but if we're talking about dangerous drivig on track I'm afarid Ayrton is one of the last people we should be reffering to as some sort of good example. By today's stupid standards whereby the slightest attempt to push eachother to the limit is repremanded by a draconian penalty of some sort accompanied with a vauge reason of justification; Ayrton would be seen like the anti-christ by these idiotic stewards we have who simply do not understand a racing drivers perspective. Lets not forget Suzuka 1990 where even the most hardcore Ayrton fan can't really (in their hearts) believe that he didn't simply drive Prost clean off the road, or at race (I cannot remember exactly, Portugal or Hungary maybe, in 1988 I think) where he squeezed Prost up against the pitwall.
To me that latter event was AWESOME racing...not safe at all (but since when has racing a car ever been?!)...but great racing action none-the-less.
The Alonso incident in Brazil 2003 mentioned above, and the actions of hard racers like Ayrton and Schumi (who, yes, sometimes let the heat of the moment get the better of them) just go to show that these guys are SUPER competative, and sometimes bend the rules a bit too far. But guess what, they're human, and like any of use, they have to learn from thir mistakes. You notice how schmi never drove somebody off the road (quite so blatantly) since Jerez 1997? Or how Alonso hasn't gone speeding thought yellow flags simply assuming he'll be alright since Brazil 2003? Coinscidence? I think not.
We complain that there isn't enough overtaking, well I'm sorry but how is there ever going to be any overtaking if everytime a driver goes for a move and fails he's punished so badly?
It's time to ease up and them them battle wheel-to-wheel...until then the drivers will just get more and more scared to overtake, because loosing 5seconds recovering from a botched overtake is nothing compared to loosing that PLUS 25seconds coasting through the pits. And so what if the two drivers both have to retire...unfortunate yes but frankly that's racing. You cannot have 22cars speeding round a challenging racetrack at speeds of upto 230mph for nearly two hours and not expect a couple of them to bump into eachother!
On a side note I agree with Ray also, I'm a huge Lewis fan (bet none of you ever guessed lol!), but you'll also note I've never said he IS as good as Schumi, Senna, Fangio, Clark, Prost, Stewart etc. I may have said he has the potential to be but that's different, any driver with that skill could become a great...people said it about Schumi, and they said it about Fernando and they said it about Senna. But also agree with myurr in that at least he has the balls to make some moves (like Kimi and Fernando do)...
...on that note, when Lewis and Heikki touched at Silverstone...nowadays people see this as bad?! What happened to the days when this was considred amazing, Anybody else remember seeeing that famous clip (so famous I don't remember exaxtly where its from (LOL!)...i think its the pit straight at Catalunya in 91 or 92) Senna & Mansell wheel to wheel, even touching wheels occasionally, with sparks flyng at 180mph....this event is seen as a textbook example of great F1 racing, its part of F1 folklore...the same cut & thrust wheel-to-wheel on-track action at Silverstone this year is now being viewed as something bad.
Now I could understand if what happened was Lewis braged into Heikki, ripped off his suspension and put them both out of the race. But all that happened was a little touch, a twitch from both cars and then...nothing. Oh how terrible. What is ths world comming to? In this increasingly health & safety obsessed global nanny-state that we live in soon Boxing or Weastling will be outlawed as too dangerous, then at the next Olpympic games the javelin will have to be thrown in an empty statium (in case the wind blows it into the stands you see) and Michael Phelps won't be allowed to break any records or achieve any goals or dreams because the swimming pool will be deamed some sort of drowning hazzard.
Silence is golden when you don't know a good answer.
I agree with the other drivers, Blewitt drives like he is owed a WCC and doesn't care that other drivers happen to be on the track too!!! His driving style when under pressure is plain dirty!
djos wrote:I agree with the other drivers, Blewitt drives like he is owed a WCC and doesn't care that other drivers happen to be on the track too!!! His driving style when under pressure is plain dirty!
Presumably you prefer your drivers to just sit back and watch the race. Sorry but that isn't racing - Lewis, Kimi, Alonso are all racing drivers and long may it continue.
djos wrote:I agree with the other drivers, Blewitt drives like he is owed a WCC and doesn't care that other drivers happen to be on the track too!!! His driving style when under pressure is plain dirty!
Presumably you prefer your drivers to just sit back and watch the race. Sorry but that isn't racing - Lewis, Kimi, Alonso are all racing drivers and long may it continue.
Spencifer_Murphy fantastic post.
Considering Nando was one of the drivers to condemn Blewitt's unsportsmanlike conduct, I'll take his opinion over yours!
Love him or hate him, you can't deny his talent. He may be arrogant, but he's got what it takes. And besides, why bash on him when some other drivers are worse than him. Peace!
Spencifer, let me congratulate you for this excellent post!
I agree with you in many many things.
Racing is racing, drivers, engineers and fans must accept the risks!
Let me quote your last sentence:
Spencifer_Murphy wrote:
In this increasingly health & safety obsessed global nanny-state that we live in soon Boxing or Weastling will be outlawed as too dangerous, then at the next Olpympic games the javelin will have to be thrown in an empty statium (in case the wind blows it into the stands you see) ...
I work for the chemical industry and beleive me, the obsessed global nanny-state we live in is overexagerated. We have to design processes and machines as if operators were idiots (sometimes, they are). Its OK to do all we can to minimize risks, but lets face it: since you are born there is a risk to die, per se.
Think of me as a person that thinks that in a certain level, risk = fun as long is risk for me and doenst include other persons.
At least I enjoy very much what this guy LH is doing. He is agresive but he is young and he has much to learn. His attitude is that of a person with glory hunger.
I hope that he gets what he is looking for.
"You need great passion, because everything you do with great pleasure, you do well." -Juan Manuel Fangio
"I have no idols. I admire work, dedication and competence." -Ayrton Senna
djos wrote:
Considering Nando was one of the drivers to condemn Blewitt's unsportsmanlike conduct, I'll take his opinion over yours!
Erm Pot meet Kettle.
Nando has always been good at making his car as wide as possible even when fighting Shumi he was never ever dirty or unsporting! His racing style has always been very clean and fair!
