Ayrton Senna - His Final Hours, by Ibrar Malik

Here is the latest guest blog posts by Ibrar Malik, about his forthcoming book 1994 – The Untold Story of a Tragic and Controversial F1 Season. This book will aim to offer much additional insight into this turbulent season and much else besides. You can find much more detail on this on his website at: www.1994f1.com.

Twenty-four years ago today Formula One lost one of its greatest ever drivers. Ayrton Senna's passing was felt across the globe, especially Brazil, which declared three days of official mourning. He had been the world's most famous racing driver and his death was broadcast live on television in front of millions. The grief felt was on par with the deaths of Princess Diana or JFK, and he is still sorely missed among F1 fans even 24 years on. The loss of Roland Ratzenberger a day earlier had been profoundly shocking, however, Senna's passing was another order of magnitude. It turned a shocking situation into the biggest crisis F1 had faced in recent times.

Ayrton Senna was a unique champion and is still adored by F1 fans today.

Senna was a complex, charismatic yet contradictory character who evoked strong emotions within others - qualities which were evident during the final hours of his tragically short life. The death of Roland Ratzenberger during qualifying for the 1994 San Marino GP, the first death at a race meeting in 12 years, deeply affected Senna. Indeed, the Brazilian commandeered an official FIA car to visit the accident himself as he wanted to understand what lessons could be learnt for the safety of others. It was something the triple world champion would be chastised for before the race.

Inside Line F1 Podcast - Donald Trump Should Hire Bernie Ecclestone

Bernie Ecclestone was fired from Formula 1. What should he do next? We think he could be a TV commentator, so he gets to travel to the races for free (since he's known to be cheap!). Or his good friend Donald Trump could hire him as an government relations expert? Current affairs indicate that Mr. Trump might need Ecclestone's service immediately! Or maybe he could start up a business with his fellow unemployed men from the paddock, Nico Rosberg and Ron Dennis.

We always knew that Formula 1 would find it hard to replace Bernie – that's why the new owners have replaced him with three people. The new management also thinks Formula 1's existing offices are too small – obviously, they were made for a one-man team only! And should Formula 1 hire a circuits expert too?

2017 may not be Bernie’s year, but in all other sports, it is fast becoming the Year of the Oldies. Does this mean that Kimi Raikkonen will finally win some races this season? Likewise for Ferrari and McLaren too? In this week's episode of the Inside Line F1 Podcast, we talk about Lewis Hamilton’s helmet design competition (what would it look like if Adrian Newey designed it?) and Daniel Ricciardo's oral tinea thanks to the shoeys (seriously). Tune in!

(Season 2017, Episode 05)

Why F1 shouldn't beat itself up over Newey

F1 is a sport that rather likes to beat itself up; to look inwardly with a degree of disgust; to self-recriminate. At least certain factions within it do. We've seen it rather a lot this season especially.

Adrian Newey's announced side step
from F1 caused some recrimination
Photo: Octane Photography

And there's been a bit more of it about since last Sunday in Montreal, following the news that Adrian Newey plans to side step F1 in order to do other things. 'What does this say about modern F1?' was the gist. It's a terrible indictment of the sport, of the regulations, that the design standard bearer should chose to go off and pen boats or whatever it is to be. It was all given a bit of encouragement by Newey earlier in the year having made some critical comments about the 2014 spec of rules.

Perhaps though - without meaning any disrespect to Newey - such criticism from him has a touch of Mandy Rice-Davies's 'he would say that wouldn't he?' about it. After all, Newey was and is the aerodynamicist supreme, so is unlikely to be too keen on anything that dilutes the importance of aero, and the increased (and probably temporary) variation of power unit performance has indeed done that this season. And plenty of others expressed the view that the balance of importance had been tilted rather too far in favour of aero in 2013 and previously.

But also one way in which F1 history can be helpful is that in many matters it provides some oil of perspective to pour on the troubled waters of the moment; demonstrate that a lot of things aren't as peculiar to the here and now as you might think. And it does in this case, both for Newey's personal tale and those for F1's technical stars more generally.

An end of an era, in more ways than one

For all that the goings-on of the Canadian Grand Prix dazzled, probably the most important happening of the weekend - in terms of its implications in the broadest context - had already come and gone, before the race had even got started. Arguably nothing in the Montreal race would have trumped it.

Adrian Newey - saying goodbye
Photo: Octane Photography

The rumblings over the future of Red Bull's (and F1's) design genius Adrian Newey was resolved. He wasn't going to Ferrari, he was instead staying at Red Bull. The team's announcement couched it in the language of triumph, and a few media outlets it seemed read the statement only as far as the end of the opening line and reported it initially as such too. But gradually those who read all the way to the end started to counter them. The devil was in the detail. He was staying at Red Bull, but not as we know it.

Instead after the fundamentals of the 2015 car are in place his role in F1 will be restricted to 'advising and mentoring'. Newey will be more enveloped in 'new Red Bull Technology projects' - presumably exploring design projects in fields other than F1. In other words, if the Red Bull team couldn't have him on the Grand Prix frontline then it was making sure that no one else was going to have him either. An auxiliary benefit also is if Newey's love for F1 ever is rekindled then Red Bull will still have him under lock and key. Smart move on both counts.

Silly season latest part 1 - Adrian Newey to Ferrari rumour

The world has changed. Not sure when or how, but it has.

As the name might suggest, 'silly season' in F1 used to actually be a season. Time was it used to start sometime around mid-summer and continue roughly to the campaign's end. Indeed the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim was once upon a time viewed as the traditional silly season starting gun; some said that in these pre Schumi-mania days the fact that this meeting, at a rather soulless venue given to tepid races, tended to give not much to talk about on-track so speculation about who was going where would fill the gap (the old Hockenheim seems to have established a curious popularity in hindsight which it never actually had at the time - though I digress).

Hockenheim - the former scene of the start of silly season
Credit: AnRo0002 / CC

Silly season was finite in other words. With a beginning and an end. Meaning we had some respite from it. But it is not a season any more, instead it seems a perpetual, 12 months of the year, presence.

Most likely this is down to the fact that the 'who goes where' activities of an F1 team - be it for drivers or for other staff - is now also a never-ending activity. These days those suggesting waiting until July to think about firming up your various contracts for the following year would be considered close to certifiable by any team principal. And to take an extreme example, Fernando Alonso's deal to take him to Ferrari, originally intended to come into force for the 2011 season, was thought to have been signed all the way back in the July of 2008.

The plot thickens: What we learned in Jerez

We know. We're constantly reminded. But we never learn.

Yes, F1 and pre-season testing. We have no excuse to not be at one with all of the usual disclaimers regarding interpreting it and its lap times. We don't know the respective programmes, fuel loads, state of the tyres and the like, all of which can skew a car's behaviour as well as what the stopwatch shows by several seconds and make who's actually looking good and who's not a particular riddle. And this is at the best of times: add in that in this the 2014 variety there's reason to think that such interpretation is significantly more complex even than is ordinarily so.

The F1 fraternity gathered in Jerez
Photo: Octane Photography

This time there's an added expanse of obfuscation provided by the fact that between seasons we've had perhaps the most significant simultaneous shift of engine and chassis regulations that the sport has ever faced. As a consequence everyone returns to base camp; previous years' pecking orders therefore count for not much. There may also be more scope for variation in the testing programmes as teams explore the new and uncharted landscape. And you can add to the disclaimers of the previous paragraph that now too there's a proscribed 100kg per hour fuel flow limit in the book of regs, a limit which might not necessarily be heeded in testing. This time more than most, you might be better served seeking to predict the world championship outcome by reading tea leaves than by poring over a pre-season test.

Further thoughts on the the Indian Grand Prix

The most valuable man in Formula One
Martin Brundle after the Indian race called him 'the most valuable man in Formula One'. And not for nothing, last weekend he increased his personal count of world championship crowns to 20, claimed in a mere 22 season spell and with three separate teams. He's not a driver, nor is he a team boss. Heck with this attempt to create tension, you've probably long since worked out who I'm on about: one Adrian Newey, Red Bull's Technical Director.

The days of an F1 car being the creation of one guy at a drawing board are long in the past; modern design teams encompass scores of people and Newey more than anyone resists the idea that - at Red Bull or anywhere else he's been - it's all about him. But even with this the magic dust that Newey sprinkles is obvious; for various reasons he more than deserves to detain us for a few paragraphs.

Adrian Newey - an astonishing man
with astonishing achievements
Credit: Morio / CC

Of course, I was cheating ever so slightly with the championships total above, in that Newey unlike a driver can aim for two crowns per year (drivers' and constructors'). But close to a 50% strike rate is not to be sniffed at - not even Schumi matches it (though he wasn't too far off pre-comeback). And even the equivalent totals of other revered technical heads from F1 history pale somewhat: Colin Chapman has 13 championships; Mauro Forghieri 11; Ross Brawn 16; Rory Byrne 14. It doesn't seem hyperbole to state that Newey is F1's best and most remarkable technical brain ever. Bar none.

And his title total has been accumulated despite a conspicuous fallow period. It seems scarcely believable, but for the whole of the 2000-2009 decade for Newey there was not a single title. There were of course mitigating circumstances: he was up against the mighty Ferrari 'dream team' for much of it; moreover Newey and McLaren were hardly helped during this period by many of Newey's ideas being shot down by the FIA, some before they'd even been raced (including something akin to KERS long before it became famous). This was the same FIA that just so happened to have a close relationship with the Scuderia at the time, as well as a highly adversarial one with McLaren's head honcho Ron Dennis. We found out some time later that the Italian team had a technical regulation veto too (and indeed still does). Not that I draw conclusions from this, you understand.

Further thoughts on the Indian Grand Prix

Bulls' run
It's been anticipated for a good while now, and in India title double four indeed fell the way of the Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull partnership. Their preponderance may be familiar by now. It may even be wearisome. It almost certainly is predictable. But it cannot be denied. Nor can it be belittled. Contemporary F1 is their time and emphatically so.

And it's tempting to ask where it all might end. That's not to wish ill on them, more that it's an inevitability. After all, that is the way of the world and not just of F1. As George Harrison once noted: all things must pass.

A familiar sight in recent times
Photo: Octane Photography

Looking at history for more probable sources of this indicates that at least as often as opponents defeat a dominant team, the dominant team in large part defeats itself. Achieving success in F1 is difficult. Sustaining success is doubly so. As Oscar Wilde once opined: 'There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.' To put this more into terms directly applicable to F1 we turn to Jackie Stewart: 'Undoubtedly there is an infectious disease which afflicts every World Champion and team, and it’s been going on for years. It's not right to say that the guy who's champion loses his edge, or that the designer relaxes, the mechanics lose interest of whatever. But somewhere along the line these things occur - I'm talking about decimal points but they add up.'

Further thoughts on the British Grand Prix

No one emerges with credit
'You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.'

No, these are not the words of Paul Hembery - rather they were uttered by Rahm Emanuel, currently Mayor of Chicago - but they could have been. They're very apt.

It probably seemed impossible at the time, but at least some good has come of the British Grand Prix last weekend. It's whipped the notoriously difficult to herd F1 fraternity into order, in-season tyre testing to help Pirelli is to come back, first at the Young Drivers' Test and possibly at Brazil too, as well as that changes to the tyres are to be made incrementally in the next two rounds.

Adrian Newey - wide of the mark
Credit: Morio / CC

I've noticed however a certain amount of finger pointing at three teams - Ferrari, Lotus and Force India - who'd sought to minimise the changes before now, including the two changes to the tyres that we've now ended up with: reintroduction of the Kevlar belt and having 2013 compounds with 2012 tyre construction. Surprisingly, such finger pointing has also come from Red Bull's Adrian Newey - I say 'surprisingly' as Newey's public comments are usually considered, even-handed. But in this case he said: 'It's a sad state of affairs but such is the nature of Formula 1, really. It's been fairly clear that there's been a number of worrying tyre failures through the year. Pirelli came up with a solution for that, with a different construction, and that was being offered initially for Montreal. But two or three teams vetoed that because they were worried it would suit some other teams more than it would suit them. As a result of that short-sightedness, Formula 1 ended up putting up the worrying performance it did and concerns about driver safety.'

Looking back: Haas Lola - a study in what might have been

If, if, if. Life is full of them. Counterfactuals. What might have been. How things just might have turned out differently had x, y or z not, or had, happened. And F1 is especially laden with this sort of thing, as is befitting a sport where the distinction between success and failure has a particularly knife-edge quality. To coin the saying, 'F1' is 'if' spelled backwards.

And while we're on the subject of the things that lay alongside actuality, imagine that you could select any two technical brains for your very own F1 'dream team'. Ross Brawn and Adrian Newey are the two that many of us would pick. And why not? They've been (with Rory Byrne) F1's technical stars on the modern age, with only four on the last 21 constructors' champions' cars not having involvement from one or other of them. But while their being brought together to produce a car sounds strictly like it is from the realms of fantasy, it actually very nearly happened, before the plug was unceremoniously pulled on the squad they were part of. The team in question is Haas Lola, the team that ever so fleetingly was F1's next big thing.

'Who?' you might be forgiven was asking, as while both the Haas and Lola names are famous in motorsport more widely neither is central in F1 folklore. But in 1985 it was a team apparently poised to have the same impact on F1 as a bowling ball has on a set of pins. In the event however the team lasted but a single full season, 1986, and in that its cars were usually nowhere near the front. Six points were won via attrition, but that was its lot.

The Haas Lola THL1
Credit: Falcadore / CC

Of course, F1's not exactly short of teams arriving amid much fanfare only for it all to fizzle out when it meets the cold wind of bracing on-track reality. One can think of March, BAR, Caterham/Lotus and others, and thus Haas Lola seems just one example on a rather lengthy and inauspicious list (indeed, some wags later quipped that BAR stood for 'Beatrice Again Racing', in homage to the Haas Lola's chief sponsor). Yet such apparent potential at Team Haas, as the team was otherwise known, being squandered is worthy of its own investigation of what exactly went wrong.

Further thoughts on the Australian Grand Prix

What next?
In F1 there are no ends; it is a continuum. For weeks and months we predict with supreme confidence that the opening race weekend will answer the key questions of who's hot and who's not. And indeed it does answer many of them. But the trouble is that it creates a few more at the same time. And so it was at Melbourne.

Does Sebastian Vettel remain the title favourite?
Credit: Alex Comerford / CC

Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull didn't run and hide in the race after all, despite practice and qualifying suggesting that it would. Instead, Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus won dominantly, and Fernando Alonso's Ferrari cleared Seb too. And while it was a surprise triumph for the Enstone team, perhaps we should have seen it coming. Lotus can be considered the forgotten contenders in 2013 season previews: the E21 had after all looked to handle extremely well in Jerez testing, and Romain Grosjean undertook an ominously pacy longer run in Barcelona. Yet it seemed the car's reliability troubles diverted attention somewhat. And Alonso and Ferrari will also be well satisfied with their debut. It's early days of course, but even after one round a Raikkonen-Alonso-Vettel battle for title honours in 2013 looks by far most likely.

But, without wishing to play the role of the bad fairy at Sleeping Beauty's christening, did Melbourne's race contain a clue that Kimi and Lotus will suffer from the same overarching problem as last year, that while it may be the fastest car on race day it too often gives its drivers too much to do from low grid slots? Kimi after all qualified seventh in Melbourne, some 1.3 seconds over Seb's pace. As it was, circumstances meant that he wasn't held up much in the race, and indeed was right on the tail of Seb and the Ferraris from early on, but can he count on that every time?

Sebastian Vettel 2012 World Champion: What has he got to do?

What have I got to do to make you love me? What have I got to do to be heard?

Odd I know to start an article about F1 with an Elton John lyric (or, to be strict about it, a lyric by Bernie Taupin). But Sebastian Vettel would be forgiven for thinking such things right now. He won this year's world drivers' title, his third in total as well as his third in three years which only Fangio and Schumacher had done before, yet you'd hardly know it. Beyond the Red Bull team and Seb's/Red Bull's coteries of supporters much of the reaction has been rather muted, almost resentful in some quarters. To borrow a little more from Bernie (not the F1 one): it's a sad, sad situation, and it's getting more and more absurd.

Credit: Ryan Bayona / CC

What does he have to do, as I said? And further, the more you dig into the achievements the more remarkable they become: it's Seb's third championship from only five full years in the sport, and just four in a front-running car (indeed, had FIA's decision on the double diffuser gone the other way - and many thought it should have - Seb could be celebrating four from four). And Seb's done it from the front: he's triumphed 26 times (from just 101 starts) in a field that has good claim to being F1's most talented ever, and has almost always been a contender at the head of the pack. Seb is no cruise and collect points-gatherer.

All the while Seb has developed into a driver with just about everything. The speed and precision that he can turn on like it is on tap are well-established, and this is allied to intelligence, industry and increasing demonstration of his ability to race. Seb is a great ambassador for the sport too: a well brought up, friendly and responsible guy who is refreshingly open (for an F1 driver) with the media.

And while, yes, Seb has often had an excellent set of wheels to call on for much of that time, surely only a churl would argue that Seb isn't also personally bringing something to the party. If nothing else, where has Mark Webber (no slouch he) been when all this has been going on? Seb's up 25-9 on wins in their four years sharing a stable, as well as is 3-0 up on titles of course. If you're still not convinced, I invite you take a look at the entire list of F1 world champions since 1950, and count the number who won it without the best car (or close to the best). You'll likely not need more than the fingers of one hand.

And, oh yeah, did I mention that he's just 25? In F1 history only Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso had won any world championships at that age, and in either case it was just the one. If the past is any sort of guide then Seb's a good six or seven years shy of his peak even now. There's a long way to go of course and nobody knows what lays ahead, but it's not outrageous to say that even Schumi's stratospheric records might be vulnerable. One can only imagine what sort of force Seb might end up as.