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lewisinho · 7 months

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felipe massa and the championship that got away: an analysis

prompted mostly by massa pissing me off so bad with his campaign of misinformation (like bro sue the weather while you’re at it); this involved rewatching absolute disasterclasses and a few snoozefests during my free wednesday (the weather was terrible as well so took the time to refresh my memory on some of the less memorable 2008 races and compile this mess) and my eyes were bleeding so please show some love

ok, so on a more serious note, he wasn’t absolutely dreadful (apart from in the wet); my biggest issue is that we probably don’t know just how good that 2008 ferrari really was; in the hands of someone with much better quali/race pace it could probably have dominated much more strongly; i think his performance was quite average considering the potential the car had; he had some brilliant weekends as well, but i think they are quite significantly overshadowed by the dreadful ones; then again, 2008 wasn’t lewis’ best season either, and this analysis isn’t really to compare the two, it’s mostly to showcase that massa’s assertion of it being a ‘perfect’ championship isn’t quite true…is all this necessary? ofc not, but i’m going to have some fun with it anyhow;

i also made this because the concept of ‘deserving’ something is one i deeply deeply despise in sport; the only thing you can bring to the table with such discourse is your own subjective opinion; you win or you don’t, end of; you can, of course, be robbed of something when a rule is indeed broken, but the concept of ‘deserving a championship due to how you performed over the course of a season’ is frankly stupid; and do i think massa was robbed? no. he can’t prove that crashgate was the very thing that cost him the championship because it conveniently ignores everything else that happens afterwards. there’s a clear break in the chain of causation. he neither ‘deserves’ it in my opinion, nor was he robbed of it and i also don’t like the historical revisionism he’s campaigning for either so here’s a full rundown of felipe massa’s season (i tried to be as impartial as i could in this):

top 2 in the driver’s standings (included only for the sake of completeness, please don’t cite toto’s 'wikipedia statistics' quote at me):

some background information:

the 2008 championship comes right after the spygate shitshow of the previous season; fernando alonso leaves mclaren for renault after one year; heikki kovalainen replaces him to drive alongside lewis hamilton at mclaren; felipe massa and kimi raikkonen (the reigning world champion) are teammates at ferrari (kimi’s 2008 season is also interesting to revisit considering the internal ferrari politics at play but i’ll save it for a different time); it's an eighteen race season, and for this season traction control has been banned! (it's important to mention considering the ban had been brought up several times over the season as a reason to explain some of felipe's performances considering he had never driven a formula one car without traction control before);

moreover, the fia’s decision-making this season was questionable to say the least; this is obviously not felipe's fault ofc, but there were a few decisions which he had certainly benefited from at lewis’ expense (spa comes to mind…);

2008 scoring system quick refresher: p1: 10 points, p2: 8 pts, p3: 6 pts; scoring only up to eighth place;

for the race results i will only include the top 3 as well as lewis if he finishes off the podium; for the championship standings i will include the top 3 in the championship as they were after every race (+ HAM/MAS/RAI if they were outside) and on how many points they were after every race;

australian gp (0 points, dnf)

bit of an embarrassing start tbh…massa qualifies p4 but spins in the first corner of the first lap all on his own and hits the barrier; he manages to get back into the pits though and get a front wing change; however, on lap 26 he collides with DC when trying to overtake him; DC retires, but massa continues only to retire from an engine failure a few laps later; pretty shit start to the season

race result: lewis hamilton p1, nick heidfeld p2, nico rosberg p3 (the infamous brocedes podium btw)

malaysian gp (0 points, dnf)

much better qualifying, ferrari clearly has pace as massa qualifies on pole, with raikkonen in p2; however on lap 31 felipe spins off and gets trapped in the gravel; this race was a masterclass from kimi btw, he won by nearly twenty seconds from kubica in p2; also before massa crashed, kimi also managed to get ahead of felipe in the first round of pit stops after pitting a lap after felipe by producing a brilliant in-lap

race result: kimi raikkonen p1, robert kubica p2, heikki kovalainen p3 (lewis p5- qualifying penalty for impeding drivers in quali and had started p8 + slow pitstop by mclaren in the race)

championship standings: HAM (14 points), RAI (11), HEI (11) + MAS (0)

bahrain gp (10 points, p1)

it’s kubica on pole (who i also need to mention because he arguably was the best driver of the 2008 season) and massa starts p2; felipe overtakes kubica in the first corner and then maintains the lead for the rest of the race; very good performance for him and good bounce-back from the first two races

race result: felipe massa p1, kimi raikkonen p2, robert kubica p3 (lewis p13- bit of a disaterclass from him this time around, as he went into anti-stall at the start due to going into a wrong engine mode and dropped positions; he then drives right into the back of fernando’s renault and had to get a nose change, dropping him to p18)

championship: RAI (19), HEI (16), HAM (14) + MAS (10)

spanish gp (8 points, p2)

ferrari are dominating the past few races and the same happens in spain; kimi pole, felipe p3; massa overtakes alonso at the start and it's a ferrari 1-2 procession to the end basically; the race was basically sorted with the overtakes made at the start; also a literal snoozefest;

race result: kimi raikkonen p1, felipe massa p2, lewis hamilton p3

championship: RAI (19), HAM (20), KUB (19) + MAS p4 (18)

turkish gp (10 points, p1)

actually a pretty good race from massa; starts on pole and wins the race; lewis comes in second, executing a three-stopper (arguably this strategy cost mclaren the chance of fighting for the win but they were worried about tyres…still i think, a bit on the conservative side from mclaren in terms of strategy and considering lewis’ amazing pace relative to massa bit of a missed opportunity)

race result: felipe massa p1, lewis hamilton p2, kimi raikkonen p3

championship: RAI (35), MAS (28), HAM (28)

monaco gp (6 points, p3)

wet monaco and absolute chaos! (great race to rewatch btw); massa qualified on pole, but then lost the lead because of a mistake in the wet; lewis wins, and also brilliant race by kubica;

race result: lewis hamilton p1, robert kubica p2, felipe massa p3

championship: HAM (38), RAI (35), MAS (34)

canadian gp (4 points, p5)

massa qualifies p6, ferrari fuel rig problem in the pit lane meant he dropped down to p17; he fights back to p5; and because hamilton crashed into raikkonen in the pit lane, he managed to outscore the both of them that weekend; also robert wins! relative to the others, a pretty good weekend for massa;

race result: robert kubica p1, nick heidfeld p2, david coulthard p3 (every time i remember DC raced in 2008 it’s like a shock to my system)

championship: KUB (42), MAS (38), HAM (38) + RAI, p4 (35)

french gp (10 points, p1)

again, ferrari are pretty much dominating in quali; kimi takes pole, felipe p2; it was kimi’s race to win and he was comfortably leading however he then had to slow down due to his car suffering from an exhaust pipe breaking and hence, loss of engine power; felipe therefore, inherits the lead and wins the race;

race result: felipe massa p1, kimi raikkonen p2, jarno trulli p3 (lewis- p10, he had to take a grid drop for the incident in the pitlane in canada when he ran into the back of kimi; in the race he has to serve a drive-through penalty for cutting a corner and gaining an advantage)

championship: MAS (48), KUB (46), RAI (43) + HAM, p4 (38)

british gp (0 points, p13)

eyeee think this race is best summarised with pictures? allow me:

an all-timer of a race, lewis hamilton masterclass;

race result: lewis hamilton p1, nick heidfeld p2, rubens barichello p3

championship: HAM (48), MAS (48), RAI (48)

german gp (6 points, p3)

massa qualified p2 alongside lewis; this is one of lewis’ best drives of the season i think; he was leading the race comfortably in the beginning stages, pulling away from felipe like crazy (he gained 1.8 sec in the first lap, had a 3.7 sec lead by lap 4, 11 sec by lap 18, clearly on a mission); mclaren don’t pit him under safety car when everyone else around him does, so he has eight laps to build a large gap before having to eventually pit himself; he does on lap 50 and overtakes massa and piquet jr for the win (some really nice overtakes btw); massa really just didn’t have the pace to compete;

race result: lewis hamilton p1, nelson piquet jr p2, felipe massa p3

championship: HAM (58), MAS (54), RAI (51)

hungarian gp (0 points, p17/dnf)

this one was bad luck because massa suffered an engine failure when leading the race; it would have probably been his best win of his career had he not dnf'ed- good overtake on lewis at the start

race result: heikki kovalainen p1, timo glock p2, kimi raikkonen p3 (lewis- p5, suffered a tyre puncture on lap 40; tbf the early seasons also show lewis is still learning about tyre management and that he’s still prone to overcooking his tyres making them vulnerable to punctures)

championship: HAM (62), RAI (57), MAS (54)

european gp (10 points, p1)

qualifies on pole and wins the race; he nearly manages to crash into sutil when released into the pit lane after his pit stop; the team is charged with 10,000 euros after the race but felipe keeps his win (it would be dealt with so differently these days lmao but can’t really blame him)

race result: felipe massa p1, lewis hamilton p2, robert kubica p3

championship: HAM (70), MAS (64), RAI (57)

belgian gp (10 points, p1)

this race still makes my blood boil; funnily enough felipe wins after not leading a single lap in this race! lewis gets handed a 25-second penalty by the stewards and gets demoted to p3; quick recap: lewis tried to pass kimi at the bus stop chicane, but he cut the corner and got into the lead; he allowed kimi to re-pass him because he gained an advantage by going off track; but smartly, he passes kimi again at la source; post-race he’s handed a penalty; mclaren then appeal and say that charlie whiting himself said that lewis had given the place back to kimi completely legally; thing is, charlie isn’t the stewards, who say that lewis didn’t give kimi enough of an advantage; it causes a bit of a storm in the media, niki lauda goes off and calls it the ‘worst judgment in the history of f1’; thing is, it's a really grey area, to some extent i can understand the stewards’ reasoning, but the severity of the punishment is absolutely ridiculous and also points to how inconsistent the fia is...handing him 25 seconds just doesn’t fit the crime at all; (also the last four laps are just pure drama in general! worth a watch);

(if i had a nickel for every time felipe massa got handed a lucky win in 2008, i’d have two nickels. which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice)

race result: felipe massa p1, nick heidfeld p2, lewis hamilton p3

championship: HAM (76), MAS (74), KUB (58) + RAI, p4 (57)

italian gp (3 points, p6)

bit of a disasterclass, qualifies p6, finishes p6; but funnily enough, he still finished ahead of both kimi and lewis as the both of them were sent out on the wrong tyres in qualifying and only managed to qualify p14 and p15; btw beautiful overtakes by lewis (he finished p7- just one place behind felipe); also seb wins!

race result: sebastian vettel p1, keikki kovalainen p2, robert kubica p3

championship: HAM (78), MAS (77), KUB (64) + RAI, p4 (57)

singapore gp (0 points, p13)

crashgate! he gets pole (quite an impressive pole lap i must admit) and leads the race until piquet jr crashes, and felipe pits, ferrari release him too early and he drives off with the fuel hose still attached to his car…to that i say, maybe sue your pit crew as well

race result: fernando alonso p1, nico rosberg p2, lewis hamilton p3

championship: HAM (84), MAS (77), KUB (64) + RAI, p4 (57)

japanese gp (2 points, p7)

now this one is a disasterclass on all fronts, but if you want drama i recommend watching it; felipe qualified p5; he managed to crash into hamilton and got himself a drive-through penalty; he also tangled with bourdais when attempting to overtake him on lap 50; bourdais was blamed for it and got a 25-second penalty after the race; thing is, i don’t see how it’s only bourdais’ fault tbh? massa squeezed bourdais as he attempted to pass him going into the first corner and bourdais couldn’t just disappear…anyway the decision to penalise bourdais was criticised a lot, also considering that penalising him went against charlie whiting’s pre-race direction that the car exiting the pit-lane has the right of way (which bourdais was);

race result: fernando alonso p1, robert kubica p2, kimi raikkonen p3 (lewis hamilton- p12, bit of a disasterclass from him as well)

championship: HAM (84), MAS (79), KUB (72) + RAI, p4 (63)

chinese gp (8 points, p2)

qualifies p3, behind lewis and kimi; lewis comfortably leads the race and wins it fifteen seconds ahead of p2; massa finished second after raikkonen is instructed to let him through (ferrari team orders, bit of a deja vu)

race result: lewis hamilton p1, felipe massa p2, kimi raikkonen p3

championship: HAM (94), MAS (87), KUB (75) + RAI, p4 (69)

brazilian gp (10 points, p1)

ahead of the last race of the season, massa could still win the title if he wins the race and lewis finishes p6 or lower; massa did all he could: he got pole and won the race; mclaren opted for an incredibly conservative strategy in the race (they only needed to secure p5, and considering how they lost the title only the year before, it’s explicable): for e.g. waiting for a relatively long time to get lewis off the inters when it began to dry during the first part of the race;

race result: felipe massa p1, fernando alonso p2, kimi raikkonen p3 (lewis- p5 and world champion!)

championship: HAM (98), MAS (97), RAI (75); shoutout to robert kubica who had an absolutely amazing season and who also finished on 75 points, but ended up p4 on countback.

hope this was somewhat informative :)

#lewis hamilton #felipe massa #2008 f1 world championship #f1 #crashgate

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milflewis · 6 months

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Omg what's up with the peach & Nando 🤣🤣 pls someone tell me

ok so. this is one of my favourite pieces of formula one lore. it started in 2007 when ron dennis had the Genius Idea to put fernando alonso who has a reigning two time world championship in mclaren with rookie lewis hamilton. if you are in any way familiar with the two of them you’re probably thinking. girl you did what.

shit went so sideways it was upside down. fernando was Convinced that lewis had the better car and that’s why he was faster and that dennis was prioritising him etc. dennis was like baby no <3 i love u the most now pls stfu and drive

fernando bc he is three gremlin neuroses in a racesuit was like i’m going to mindfuck with this bitch and bc ron dennis was famously very particular about mess and things being neat. fernando was all. i am seeing shrimp colours. and during a team briefing he sat by him and ate a peach as messily as possible just to irritate his tp. he then did blackmail him and spygate happened and all that jazz. fernando was always one to girlboss too close to the sun

#at any given time fernando is scheming. one of the laws of nature #anon tag #niamh.asks

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maxemilianverstappen · 2 years

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A thing I noticed about the cost cap thing is that it says the 'rumors' are based according to Ferrari and Mercedes calculations not FIA. Of course Ferrari and Mercedes are going to say things like that, when you're incompetent of course you are going to blame everyone but yourself for your mistakes. By that logic I could just say, according to my calculations everyone in the paddock exceeded the cost limit 🤓. People believing in this rumor really forgot about Valtteri last year, huh? Isn't AMuS the same magazine that said the flexi floor was rbr cheating, that it could cost Max? Weren't they the same magazine that said Alpine was in the right with the Oscar fiasco and that he wouldn't get a f1 seat?

How much do you wanna bet that the self righteous people wanting permanent disqualification of Max and rbr for this rumor will change their tone if it gets revealed that it was Mercedes 🙃? Shouldn't Lewis' championship also get disqualified because of the crashgate scandal? That isn't a rumor, it's proven.

Would they want disqualification of Lewis and Merc? Probably not, their agenda to have a "fair and fun" competition only applies if it is in anyone but rbr's favour. For now it is what it is, just a rumor, look up the dictionary in case you forgot what it's definition is. For now let's leave it there and wait to see FIA has to say.

Auto-motor-und-sport is generally a reliable source but recently their "rumours" are all proven shit. So, I take what they say with a huge grain of salt.

Since the accusers are Ferrari and Mercedes, the certified cheaters of Formula 1, it makes one think. Ferrari had put their 2020 and 2021 in the bin, so I don't think they'd gone over the cap, but Mercedes makes me laugh, considering all the engines they had tested/destroyed in Valtteri's car to find their limit to safely turn Lewis' car into a rocket ship last year... Even to the point that they weren't able to provide their customers with new engines at the races they had planned to give them (remember Aston Martin and McLaren's delayed new engines).

And ah, the Spygate.... The way ppl are still using it to discredit Kimi winning the WDC on his own merit, because according to the know-it-all fanboys FIA forbid McLaren from winning as a compensation/punishment for the scandal and if it wasn't for that Nando or Lewis would certainly win it instead of Kimi, conveniently forgetting that they were driving copied cars.

Sounds very familiar.

#🙄🙄🙄

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sir-lancelot-strulovich · 3 years

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a little f1 history lesson about lewis championship with mclaren (i say a lesson because i am writing a paper about a part of the history of f1 and i am finishing my history degree, if anyone wants more info on that, hit me up)

when lewis won his first championship with mclaren in 2008, it was completely different to the ones he has won with mercedes. and i am here to tell you about it.

i am not taking the credit away from him in anyway whatsoever, but f1 has changed a lot in those 13 years, cars have changed, regulations have changed and drivers have changed.

in 2007, in lewis' rookie year, he came second in the championship, 1 point behind kimi and tied in the points with fernando (he was tied in wins, but had more second places than the spanish driver, so that put him above in the championship). some say that because of spygate that year, both lewis and fernando were not allowed to win the driver's championship as a punishment, so they lost on purpose. mclaren was a dominant car, having both drivers in the top 3, but were disqualified from constructors' championship because of spygate.

in 2008, when lewis won the championship, he won by a point from massa. massa actually had driven the perfect championship but was fucked but due to exterior circumstances and ended up being the second driver most affected by crashgate (only behind nelsinho). Brazil 2008 was a representation of felipe's championship (do everything perfectly, but still lose due to something that was not under your control). mclaren was again one of the best cars (according to the constructors' standings, the second best), and it was the year that lewis probably had his weakest teammate in heikki kovalainen (sorry heikki fans, but i think he finished 7th or 8th in the standings compared to lewis 1st, and again, i am not taking away the merit of lewis' dominance over his teammate).

from 2009 to 2012, the years in which lewis was in mclaren, things started to change in mclaren and started to change to lewis as well. in the f1 world, brawn gp showed up in 2009, with their double diffusers, and took the paddock by storm. red bull racing also started to show strength having their first f1 win (also, fun fact, in 2008, when seb won with Toro Rosso in monza, it wasn't decided yet if red bull or toro rosso would be the number 1 team in the red bull family), and mclaren wasn't a dominatn car anymore. lewis still dominated his teammate (heikki finished in 12th) but he finished 5th in the championship, behind both brawns and red bulls. mclaren finished 3rd in the constructors (throw back to the controversial lance statement, being the goat might mean you can get 3 or 4 places more in the car, but still is tough af, specially to do that consistently due to the car you have. but lewis is a goat, and did get more out of the car). in 2010 jenson joined as his teammate, a breath of fresh air for lewis having another defending champion as his teammate so he was back to having someone to fight against. lewish finished 4th that year, behind 2 red bulls and a ferrari, jenson right behind him in 5th. this was the beggining of red bull dominance era. mclaren wasn't a dominant car.

2011 was a strange year for lewis (@formulinos wrote about it beautifully, detailing lewis and nicole's relationship and how all of that was a huge mess, so go read that). i guess this was the year in which all that mess affected him the most, cause for the first time he was beaten by a teammate. lewis finished in 5th in the championship, while jenson was 2nd. this was probably lewis' worst season since his debut in 2007 and it also shows that even the best of the bests can have a tough time sometimes (and still become a fucking goat a couple of years later). according to the constructors, mclaren had the second best car

In 2012 lewis was back to beating his teammate (by 2 points, lewis in 4th, jenson in 5th). Kimi was back in f1 with lotus, both ferrari and mclaren were being shitshows, but ferrari was the better shit show and came in second in the standings (or also, Fernando was in his best form of his life, made a shit ton of points, and if he was in the dominating car *cough cough rbr which he could have gone to instead of seb in 2009 but I can tell you all about it on another day* he would have won that championship). that is another example of a fucking great driver unfortunately not winning the championship due to an inferior car.

from 2013 on, lewis was in mercedes and we all know how that went with mercedes taking dominance in the hybrid era and lewis only being beaten again by a teammate in 2016, which is a whole other story. but what i wanted to say from this is, lewis is (in numbers he is of all times but also in many other ways) the best f1 driver of this generation (i won’t say of all times in general just so i don’t have to get In another argument because it ends up being much more subjective), even tho there was a 5 year gap between his first championship and his second (which if I am not wrong, its a record in f1 for being the longest gap, or is it schumacher’s? my math is really bad when it comes to years), because it is impossible to be dominant and win a championship if you don’t have the best car on the grid. just like in 1993, which you had senna in the form of his life, but he still lost on the championship to prost who was in a williams that can be considered one of the best f1 cars of all times, not even the fastest driver of all times (talking about raw speed) could beat Williams electronic suspension that was driven by another fucking great driver.

this is also to warn people that, if for whatever reason, in 2022, mercedes loses its dominance due to regulation changes, or lewis goes to another team (you never know, he might want to partner seb in aston martin), or even he decides to drive in another category just for the sake of it (imagine lewis in formula e), he might not be the champion because it is FUCKING HARD to do that if you don’t have the best/dominant machinery, and lewis not winning in the near future will not mean that he is losing his speed.

(sorry for any spelling mistakes or runover sentences, i did not proofread this and I haven’t written this much in english in a while)

#Lewis hamilton #F1 #formula 1 #mercedes

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formulatrash · 3 years

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Lewis just got his 7th title. I'm happy for him.

Me too. What Lewis has done is so almost incomprehensibly titanic, in any sport, that it feels like something that needs contextualising again and again.

It’s easy, if you remember Lewis in the hybrid era, in Mercedes, since Rosberg left - whatever the recency is that creates the illusion it’s almost straightforward for him to perform at this extraordinary level - to minimise his achievements, even if you don’t intend to. Lewis now is a force of nature so impossible to rival that it wouldn’t really matter if you gave everyone GP3 cars and told them to go, the rest of the field would just be closer together behind him.

I am, as Tumblr constantly likes to remind me, very old - nearly as old as Lewis himself - so I remember him arriving in the junior formulas and hoping that he’d get to F1. He was goofy and nerdy and awkward and a bit of a gamer - actually way more like Lando than you’d believe, in retrospect but he had this burning, furious defiance that he was going to get there and win. Because that was what he needed, to overcome the barriers and my god, there were a lot of people openly saying what they try to at least code these days, back then.

Lewis when he was young was a Verstappen-esque firecracker of teammate beef. I don’t know that anyone other than maybe Max could have taken on Alonso, at that point, in his junior year - he’d destroy Nelson Piquet Jr, despite all his weight of racing heritage, the next - and it took a level of pretended self-assurance that I don’t think Lewis had, then, at all.

He’d proven himself all the way up, was still proving it. Licking his and McLaren’s wounds, meekly apologising after the end of the spygate scandal he’d had nothing to do with while Fernando pranced off from the smouldering remnants, there were plenty of people who were so pleased to see Lewis humbled.

He took the championship, instead. Which made a lot of people very angry, despite really it only being Felipe Massa who had a right to be. It was very underrated, in the British press; made more striking because Jenson Button’s win, the following season, really wasn’t and the ludicrous bar that Lewis would have to jump to prove himself was moved again.

Not just good enough for F1. Not just good enough to take on a two-time champion. Not just good enough to become a champion himself in his second season. Lewis was regarded as a sort of curious celebrity most people barely considered an athlete or British, in the press.

He’s never gone a single season without winning a race. Even in dog cars, biding his time for an opportunity. Olden times McLaren was a different, dysfunctional beast to the one Andreas Seidl has somehow steered back to success and especially the Dennis era was run with a pretty iron fist* so it wasn’t necessarily somewhere the drivers had much ability to steer developing the car and you can see how badly that affected them in the KERS and ERS era.

Comparatively, joining Mercedes, Lewis walked into an opportunity where instead of having to furiously fight for that, he could work on it as a project for the whole team. People really underestimate how hard he works, in terms of factory hours and how it wasn’t always the fastest car.

The team pitted him and Nico against each other to force the project forwards and that turned into a destructive mess, backfiring on them quite badly. It’s probably the worst call Mercedes have made, in their modern F1 existence, although a cynic would say: it worked.

Yes, they trod a line of near-implosion for years that was only steadied by Nico’s retirement but they became, unquestionably, the best, in the inter-garage arms race. Lewis didn’t necessarily become a better driver in the sense of having more brilliant race craft for it but things like qualifying laps, at which he is now without doubt the GOAT, became so crucial that he learned to take on more and more feedback from engineers without ever forgetting it.

When they tell them, on the radio, that their teammate is finding more speed through corner X and braking later - and they’ll show them more detailed telemetry - then Lewis can, like any driver, take that on and do it. But he can also make hundreds of micro-adjustments per lap without ever forgetting them or dropping one - again, they all can do it, sometimes, perfectly but he just doesn’t ever not.

Since 2016 he’s been able to grow as a driver without being in the pressure-cooker of mind games with his teammate and that shows, too. A more outward-looking, globally-focussed Lewis, a Lewis who’s more comfortable sharing elements of himself, treating himself less like an industrial espionage project.

(some irony, for a man who started his career amidst spy gate)

If Lewis was a white boy from a millionaire or billionaire family, his achievements in sporting terms would still be staggering. He’s neither of those things, so they’re placed on a different scale.

It is now, even for the most racist, the most close-minded alleged fan of the sport, impossible to deny that he has the records on paper. They can’t take away the seven titles and 94 wins, no matter how they try to minimise them. The bar that was constantly set higher has been met and exceeded and a driver who, for a lot of years, looked set to be a one-off champion whose brilliance could be more easily swept away as a footnote to diversity, has become the benchmark against whom other achievements can be measured.

That Lewis did that despite the odds against him? The racists won’t see that and sadly can and do try to deny it but that is a world-changing, sport-transforming moment that’s been a decade-and-a-half in the making, since F1 started looking achievable for him.

Lewis has nothing left to prove, so all that furious energy he’s used for years to get this will take other outlets - he still, after all, as everyone, has a lot to change. I am so excited to get to work in the sport during this era, to see what kind of transformative effects he’ll have, has already had. The work shouldn’t be on Lewis and mustn’t be on him alone but you do absolutely fucking love to see it getting done.

Anyway, I’m so proud of him. I’m so astounded by the skill and focus - the relentless pursuit that’s driven him all this time and that isn’t diminished at all by having got here. I truly believe Lewis is gonna carry on awhile yet and it’s fucking exciting just to think about what we’re going to witness this short-ass nerd kid who looked kind of sulky and defensive in press conferences for years do.

(and, of course, the first driver accused of being a social media poseur who didn’t pay enough attention to the sport. Plus ca change...)

*This is a really petty example but you had to wear a tie if you went to MTC, as a visiting journalist, in the beforetime.

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wristwatchjournal · 4 years

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The Petrolhead Corner – Busted! Caught Cheating at Racing – Part 2

As we’ve seen last week, cheating is a part of life, part of racing. Human nature taking over and not resisting the urge to get an unfair advantage over other competitors. When stakes are high, things like greed or pride creep up on us. I’m sure we’ve all had the sensation of doing something that goes against rules once or twice in our lives. The important thing is, what do you do with that sensation? Do you give in, or do you stand firm and obey the rules? Here are some more examples of cheaters in racing that got caught.

I once again turn to both Formula 1 and the World Rally Championship for the tastiest stories. In this second episode, I go into espionage and bribes (sort of). Years apart and very different in nature, it is interesting stuff to read!

Grand Prix racing – rigged lottery & payed-off drivers

For this story, we have to go back in time several decades, and it isn’t even certain the event went down as transcribed. Source for the story is a book written by Alfred Neubauer, the famed Mercedes-Benz team manager in the pre-war era (yes, under Nazi regime). Regardless if it is true to the word like Neubauer penned in his book, the story is incredible and worth a mention here.

Tripoli was under Italian ruling as a colony from 1911 to 1943 and racing being a very popular sport in Italy, the Italian government first organised a Grand Prix in Tripoli in 1925. The intention was to gather interest from Italians to visit the race, spend time in the city as tourists and eventually settle in Tripolitania, as it was known. Not much came of it and the local governor, General Emilio de Bono had to intervene a few times to even host a Grand Prix at all.

With the exception of 1931 and 1932, the race was held every year between 1925 and 1940, the reason it ended probably needs no explaining. During this 15 year span, the race was won by an Italian driver 9 times and a German driver 4 times. The first few years the drivers raced just outside of the city of Tripoli on public roads. After the break in 1931, 1932 it was decided to create a European style track known as the Mellaha Lake Track, a 13-kilometre long track with sharp kinks and very long straights. The first venue was 1933 as mentioned, and to get the public (mainly Italians) going, a lottery was organised in conjunction with the race. For about 6 months leading up to the race, people could buy tickets for 11 lire a piece, which could win you three million lire. A couple of days before the Grand Prix 30 ticket-holders were randomly selected and paired with a driver and it’s number, and were flown in to attend the race. So ticket number 1 would be paired with driver number 1, ticket number 2 to driver number 2 and so on. The three million lire top prize issued by the lottery would be granted the one with the ticket matched to the eventual race winner.

Left to right, Unberto Borzacchini, Tazio Nuvolari and Achille Varzi.

And that is where trouble began. An Italian timber merchant from Pisa, who bought a ticket, was matched to Achille Varzi’s car. The evening before the race he met up with Varzi in his hotel and wished him well and hoped he would win. Chances were slim though because the Mellaha Lake Track was quite a tricky and dangerous circuit, to begin with, and the competition was fierce. The timber merchant hatched a plan to share the winnings from the lottery with Varzi, but it would only work if he managed to win and that took some serious convincing.

From the start of the race, Achille Varzi was nowhere near the front of the pack. Drivers like Tazio Nuvolari, Baconin Borzacchini, Sir Henry Birkin and Louis Chiron were off to a great start and led the rest of the field. After only 5 laps Varzi was almost a minute adrift from race leader Giuseppe Campari. Only a few laps later the leader dove into the pits with engine trouble and was out of the race. Twenty laps into the thirty lap race, Nuvolari was in first position, Borzacchini second, and Chiron and Birkin in third and fourth place. Varzi was still nowhere to be seen.

At that point, he did start to push his Bugatti and quickly caught up with the leading pack and in five laps time, he was third, with Chiron and Birkin dropping back. The engine in his Bugatti began to sputter though so this remarkable story could have come to an end premature, hadn’t it been for the agreement between multiple drivers over the outcome.

Nuvolari was still in control of the race, with Varzi suffering from two failed cylinders. What happened in those final few laps seems straight out of a comic book, or a movie. Borzacchini hit an oil drum marker in a corner and had to enter the pits with a blown tire as a result and was out of contention. Nuvolari was thirty seconds ahead of Varzi, now second in his limping Bugatti, when entering the last lap of the race. On the final lap, coming out of the final corner, his car started to slow down significantly, as the crowd was still cheering him on. A few hundred meters before the finish he came to a dead stop, screaming he was out of fuel. Two cars came crawling around the last corner; Varzi and Chiron. Receiving help from mechanics to fuel up his car and get it going again, Nuvolari joined the two as they crept to the finish line. Eventually, Varzi was only inches ahead of the others and won! Chiron was a full lap down so, in the end, Nuvolari was second, with Birkin a distant third. Multiple accusations were made as to who was involved in rigging the race but had no effect on the outcome. A motion to disqualify the accused was never even put to a vote.

Now, again, it’s not certain this story is 100% true and Neubauer is known to spruce up a story for entertainment purposes. But I still thought it was worth to include it. Sources like Grandprixhistory.org and Hotcars.com describe the event in detail.

Formula 1 – Spygate, a story of espionage in the paddock

Everyone who is a bit of long-term motorsport and Formula 1 fan knows about this dark page in modern history. In 2007 the season was tense, with multiple title contenders fighting at every race; Following the first retirement of legend Michael Schumacher, various drivers changed teams; McLaren was running with rookie Lewis Hamilton and the newly signed two-time champion Fernando Alonso while Ferrari had Felipe Massa and new recruit Kimi Raikkonen behind the wheel.

Both McLaren and Ferrari had a troublesome few years failing to really challenge for the title. Renault dominated the previous two years with Fernando Alonso taking the drivers championships. Both teams needed to assert themselves back on top. After only a couple of races Alonso, Raikkonen and Massa had all taken a win, with Lewis Hamilton in the lead with consistently strong performances. Hamilton’s first win came at Montreal, Canada which pretty much cemented him as a future star, winning in your first season in F1 is a rare achievement. Lewis Hamilton is also the only driver in history to score at least one race win in every season of competing.

Ferrari Technical Race Manager Nigel Stepney

During the weekend of the United States Grand Prix, held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway things started to unravel into something eventually dubbed Spygate, or Stepney-gate. Ferrari filed an official complaint against McLaren which led to a formal criminal investigation by the Modena District Attorney in Italy. Despite seemingly blowing over at first things went from bad to worse. During the next few races, internal investigations within the team led to the dismissal of Nigel Stepney, lead engineer and mechanic for Ferrari for years and part of the dream team that led to the domination of Michael Schumacher and Ferrari just a few years prior. The official statement was “irregularities discovered in the Ferrari factory prior to the Monaco Grand Prix”. Up until that point it was still only a political game, something the Formula 1 paddock is used to.

The tantalizing plot-twist in this whole saga is that on the same day Ferrari issued a statement it had also launched a formal complaint against an engineer from the Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes team. The engineer was suspended by the team as investigations went on. The accusations by Ferrari involved stealing technical information, corporate espionage basically. The internal investigations at McLaren revealed that indeed technical information was handed to one of their engineers by Nigel Stepney, but seen as an act of whistle-blowing instead of espionage. McLaren also stated no technical information was passed on to others of the team or even ended up as developments on or for the car. The search conducted by the FIA acquitted McLaren at first as indeed no parts on the 2007 car had any connection to the shared information. Not content with the outcome, Ferrari launched an appeal.

McLaren’s Ron Dennis at the World Motor Sport Council Hearing into the McLaren Spy Row

As the season went on, and the championship beginning to look like a showdown between the two McLaren boys, that Hamilton-Alonso relationship quickly went down the drain. During various races frustrations rose, only to come to a breaking point during the Hungarian Grand Prix. One thing led to another and eventually Alonso was fed up and told McLaren team boss Ron Dennis to intentionally run Hamilton’s car out of fuel or else he would disclose information about the McLaren team spying on Ferrari to the FIA. McLaren refused, and it remains unclear if Alonso made a false claim in an attempt to get the edge on his teammate or if he had any information to back it up.

Things only got further out of hand within the McLaren team. On the 5th of September of that year, the FIA stated it had received new information about the espionage. Up until that point, nothing of consequences or an official verdict was issued by the FIA’s research comity and the appeal from Ferrari was still being reviewed. The FIA reopened the investigation due to the new evidence, which turned out to be emails sent from a driver to Bernie Ecclestone, the man in charge of Formula 1. Only 8 days later the FIA issued a verdict and found McLaren guilty, as a team, to “illicitly collecting and holding information from Ferrari to confer a dishonest and fraudulent sporting advantage upon McLaren”. The consequences for this were staggering; not only was McLaren excluded from the constructor’s championship, but it was also told it wouldn’t share in prize money at the end of the season and on top of that received a fine for 100.000.000 dollar.

In the midst of all this on the political side of Formula 1, the season was an incredible one in terms of racing. Four drivers competing for the win every single race, exchanging wins and podiums between them, eventually being decided over only a single point between rookie Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen in favour of the Fin. The full story of the 2007 season, one of the most epic seasons in modern F1 history for multiple reasons, is penned in detail by DriveTribe. They also describe the standings and battles between the drivers on track in detail, so make sure to read that.

Epilogue: I originally intended to make this into a two-piece coverage of cheaters in the world of motorsport. But as I wrote the first and second chapter, I found too many interesting stories. It would be impossible to fit it all in two articles as they would end up being much too long. So, as a little bonus, a third (and this time final) instalment is on its way for next week.

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othersportsnews-blog · 7 years

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10 decades on - When Fernando Alonso vs Lewis Hamilton went nuclear in Hungary

New Post has been published on https://othersportsnews.com/10-decades-on-when-fernando-alonso-vs-lewis-hamilton-went-nuclear-in-hungary/

10 decades on - When Fernando Alonso vs Lewis Hamilton went nuclear in Hungary

two:53 AM ET

Maurice Hamilton

Shut

• Veteran F1 journalist, covering the activity due to the fact 1977 • Motor racing correspondent for the Observer for twenty decades • Has composed numerous publications and protected F1 for BBC Radio 5 Live

From the exterior, the McLaren Manufacturer Centre appears to be exactly as it was 10 decades ago. Its situation may well have shifted toward the bad conclusion of the Hungaroring paddock (thanks to McLaren plummeting down the constructors’ championship in the latest decades) but the most visible variance lies inside the team’s travelling headquarters.

In 2007, the ambiance was poisonous. The ‘Spygate’ scandal had not only despatched McLaren and Ferrari spiralling into a maelstrom of bitterness and recrimination the like of which has not been observed either in advance of or due to the fact, but the accusation of espionage and its uncertain trigger was also tearing McLaren apart from inside.

If that was not negative more than enough, McLaren then imploded in a a lot more predictable path when Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso suddenly made community their mounting distrust and dislike by exhibiting individual but interlinked tantrums through Q3 in Hungary.

Moy/Sutton

If you believe F1 is intricate now, qualifying in 2007 took convoluted procedures to a amount that taxed even the most erudite commentator. The objective of the regulation was very simple more than enough. The gasoline with which you commenced Q3 was the total with which you would start out the race (prior to the initial refuelling quit, of study course). After qualifying had completed, the gasoline replenished would be a predetermined total centered on the selection of the laps finished in Q3.

A driver’s natural inclination would be to melt away off as considerably gasoline as probable in get to have the motor vehicle at its minimum amount fat when new tyres ended up equipped for the final lap of qualifying. On the other hand, by remaining cost-effective in the opening laps of Q3, that driver would have performed the exact selection of laps, employed a lot less gasoline than he was about to be credited for at the conclusion, as a result placing a lot more gasoline in the tank and possessing a extended and possibly a lot more effective initial phase of the race.

McLaren remaining McLaren, it was made the decision to be scrupulously good by possessing their drivers share this tactical alternative on rotation. For Hungary, it was agreed that Alonso would go initial, push flat out although Hamilton would conserve gasoline by operating slower through the initial six laps. So significantly, so superior.

It began to go pear-formed when Hamilton was initial on observe – and confirmed no intention of allowing Alonso as a result of, declaring the Spaniard was as well significantly driving. Alonso, miffed and feeling he had no substitute, went into overall economy method. Hamilton then went flat out and had the best of both worlds — or so he thought — as he dashed into the pits for his final established of tyres.

Lewis Hamilton forward of Fernando Alonso through qualifying for the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix. Moy/Sutton

There, he located Alonso, new tyres equipped and held by the lollipop. When given the all clear, Fernando ongoing to remain stationary in the pit box. When his teammate finally departed, Lewis acquired his tyres and rejoined a portion as well late to get in his final rapid lap. Alonso was on pole Hamilton 2nd. Now the pleasurable commenced. Besides it wasn’t funny.

McLaren had scheduled their common ‘Meet the Team’ media debrief immediately after qualifying. In the light of these bewildering situations on observe, the Manufacturer Centre was packed as journalists waited for an rationalization. Ron Dennis, valiantly attempting to sustain quiet and an perception of even-handedness, would really make matters even worse.

Alonso, chewing a pear and staring straight forward, sat to a single side of the group principal. Hamilton’s seat remained empty. It was disclosed that Hamilton had failed to allow Alonso as a result of — which was the initial anyone exterior the group knew of Lewis’s uncharitable conduct. It was then stated that Fernando had been held in the pit box for twenty seconds in get to allow for his release on to a clear observe. When asked if this was proper, Alonso gave a thumbs up, ongoing to stare straight forward, chew his pear and say nothing at all.

By an regrettable piece of timing, Dennis was identified as in advance of the stewards just as Hamilton arrived at the briefing. With no group adjudicator present (the push officer was on getaway), the intensity of queries grew in immediate proportion to the variation in solutions from the drivers. The forum grew to become heated, considerably to Alonso’s apparent annoyance and Hamilton’s mounting obfuscation. Watching with rising horror from the gallery over, McLaren’s running director, Martin Whitmarsh, dashed downstairs and introduced the bloodletting to an immediate and merciful conclusion.

An angry Ron Dennis and an uncomfortable Fernando Alonso celebrate a controversial pole situation the Spaniard would later on lose in the stewards’ place. Bumstead/Sutton

The media may well have thought they had most of the solutions but, in truth, this episode would at some point exacerbate distrust and suspicion as economies of truth ended up gradually disclosed on all sides. McLaren grew to become a position to be prevented except if you entered putting on a suit of armour.

This weekend in the Manufacturer Centre, McLaren have grow to be accustomed to the efficiency elephant in the place, utilizing as considerably superior humour as might fairly be predicted beneath these types of hoping situations. Most likely Alonso and his group recognize that any problems they have now are nothing at all compared to these laying squander to the really exact position 10 decades in advance of. I mean, what is actually 90bhp concerning close friends? Time is indeed a exceptional healer.

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