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.'

Famous five: F1's honourable acts

The debate about the Sebastian Vettel-Mark Webber case from the recent Malaysian race has indeed been an enduring one, as well as is more nuanced than many on both 'sides' of the debate are appreciating. But one notion that has been fairly commonly expressed in the discussions that I do refute is that ruthlessness is required to prevail in F1, and that Vettel's actions were commendable on these grounds.

I do not believe that is true. While I am not so naive to think that ruthlessness doesn't help you I also absolutely do not believe that it is necessary. And for various reasons I'd like to think that there's still room for honour in sport, including in F1. Indeed, we can cite many of F1's greatest champions and purest racers who - while their will to win cannot be questioned - were also always absolutely honourable: Fangio, Moss, Clark, Stewart, Villeneuve, Hakkinen among others, and the positivity of their legacies reflect their honour as well as their talents. And it troubles me the number of people who appear to take the view that honour can if anything be considered as a weakness. I don't know if it in this case represents partisan Vettel/Red Bull supporters falling into line, the dubious legacy of Senna and Schumacher (both notorious for their win at all costs attitude), or is a more general indictment of our age. But I for one will always rail against such a notion.

And in my attempt to redress the balance ever so slightly I have complied five examples from history wherein honour did prevail in F1 and drivers prioritised doing the right thing to the detriment of their own chances.

Peter Collins, 1956
When we are given cause to agonise over the rights and wrongs team orders in F1 some talk about it like it's a new thing. Indeed in Monaco in 2002, the race after that wherein Rubens Barrichello notoriously had slowed on the line to let Michael Schumacher through to win, a protest banner could be spotted among the crowd stating 'Fangio didn't need team orders'. Not so, on either point. Back in F1's good old days when men were men and racing was pure team orders were even more endemic, and applied much more vigorously, than they are now. Simply ceding position to your team mate was just the beginning of it, it was common to go so far to cede your car to a nominated team leader mid-race should he have broken down or crashed earlier (and any subsequent points from that race would be shared).