New Motorsport Week article: Why Kimi Raikkonen is proof F1 should give experience a chance

Photo: Octane Photography

We often lament that youth doesn't get a chance in F1. But is it in fact more so that those from the opposite end of the driver age range don't get their due look in?

The F1 driver on average is younger than ever. And we have the case of Kimi Raikkonen, who is an extreme outlier, about to become an aged-40-something active F1 pilot. He's still vastly out-scoring his young Alfa Romeo team-mate.

Do Raikkonen's strong showings this year suggest that, on the contrary to the common discourse, F1 discards experience too soon?

In my latest for Motorsport Week I make the case. You can have a read of it here: https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/24595

New Motorsport Week article: When Alfa Romeo set the pace - more recently than you think

By tomislav medak - originally posted to Flickr as
L'evoluzione dell'automobile: Alfa Romeo 179 F-1,
CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/
w/index.php?curid=7529003

Alfa Romeo is back in F1 for 2018. Sort of.

We know about about Alfa's F1 previous. Again, sort of. As while it bagging the first two F1 world championships in 1950 and '51 comes up readily in a word association test, it's less well known that Alfa in fact was an F1 pace-setter much more recently too.

In my latest for Motorsport Week I look at Alfa and its about as unlikely driver Bruno Giacomelli having its part-season in the sun in late 1980.

You can have a read here: https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/16646

And somehow I neglected to let you know about my previous Motorsport Week article, which was about the grid girls debate, Bette Hill's sad passing, and how the role of women in F1 in Bette's day was very different to what came next.

That one is available to read here: https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/16538

Looking back: Alfa Romeo's return to F1 - always leave them wanting more

Manufacturers have a tendency to come and go in F1 with remarkable frequency, appearing in a blaze of optimism and budget, only to disappear just as rapidly, usually when the board, no racing passion there, decides that the F1 programme can no longer be 'justified'.

Alfa Romeo have a typically sporadic presence in F1's history, though unlike many manufacturers they do have a famous legacy in the sport, having claimed the first two drivers' world championships, for Nino Farina in 1950 and for Juan Manual Fangio in 1951. However, in 1951 the Alfas were increasingly challenged by the burgeoning Scuderia Ferrari concern. Alfa concluded that it would require major investment to meet this, by replacing their long in the tooth 158 model (designed in the 1930s!), so they quit while they were ahead and withdrew from the sport.

Rolf Stommelen wrestles the the 1976 Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT45

Broadly, that's the way it stayed for Alfa for the next quarter century. Despite the odd appearance in F1 as an engine supplier, for McLaren in 1970 and March in 1971, the Alfa name remained as a revered and successful one from the sport's early days. Alfa Romeo did however have a second effort at a factory F1 team, between 1979 and 1985, which was altogether less successful than their first.