Spot on. This was never ever dangerous. It was as controlled as when the F1 guys do a donut to face the right direction of traffic again.
Putting a car into a wall at, what, 100mph, doesn't endanger anyone? OK. We beg to differ. Of course he endangered people; That no one was hurt was just pure dumb luck, but will never, ever, in my mind anyway make it "acceptable" as you seem to be saying. That's as maybe. They'll throw the yellow if an ice cream wrapper hits the track. Whatever. I'd rather watch M&M's being flushed down the toilet personally. Symonds is back. The fat ****er should never, ever, be allowed near a motor race again IMO. What you guys seem to not understand is the premeditation involved. To even *discuss* the idea goes against everything motor racing is about. Telling one of your guys in a taxicab to "brush the wall" to bring out a fortuitous yellow in the heat of battle is one thing, sitting in the motorhome planning it ahead of time is something else entirely. My blood runs cold thinking about it. Ian
Cheating is premeditated most of the time, often by the technical staff using banned solutions to get their cars ahead. But you don't say anything about that. Most teams, team principals principals and designers have cheated at some point, from Colin Chapman to Ken Tyrrell, or from Gordon Murray to Toyota, and that's only those caught! Oversize engines, underweight cars, flexing wings dodgy fuels, unchecked ground clearance, oversized wings incidents, industrial spying, etc... have occured in F1.
Check the footage if you can get hold of it. I remember perfectly that Piquet Jr was all alone when he took his car onto the wall AT LOW SPEED, just to cause enough damage to necessitate a safety car period. Absolutely nobody was at risk, and Piquet wasn't stupid enough to put his personal safety at risk. In fact, no one at the time called that crash as anything else than a racing incident of no consequence. Nobody suspected it was anything else. Had the young Piquet chosen to keep his mouth shut, nobody would still suspect a brilliant bit of manipulation from Briatore, and you wouldn't be harping on and on about it !
Simple question: What has all this Schumacher/Piquet Jnr talk got to do with the subject matter of this thread? Neither Schumacher or Piquet Jnr are going to have anything to do with saving open-wheel racing so why don't you guys post it in a more suitable thread rather than hijacking and derailing this one?
Doesn't this presuppose that open wheel racing needs saving? Furthermore, that the need for saving is related to safety? I find neither of these conditions to be true.
Err..... Sure. No argument from me there. Honda's "hidden" gas tank was another "good one". But, I'll say again, ALL are a world away from ordering a guy to crash IMO. Cheers, Ian
I apologize. I thought, mistakenly it would seem, that some threads just sometimes wander off topic. Or they die. No big deal either way. Ian
Well, open wheel racing has issues with declining viewership and in the case of F1, grumbling fans. This isn't related to safety, at least not in the case of F1. Indy has had issues with safety but seems to have gotten things under control. No, the problem has to do with the product on the track which has become more homogenous and not as exciting to the senses (sight and sound). Open wheel racing needs to look at their closed wheel sports car brethren for ways to freshen things up. Less spec, more variety. That said, how is attendance/ratings for top tier sports car racing? -F
Brought this recent "story" to mind; +1 Outside of Le Mans, I'd guess there maybe a few thousand folk at a race. I believe there was over 140K at Silverstone....... Cheers, Ian
Attendance looks like it is good for a number of the GP's; I think down in some others? Hard to get figures. I think Canada, Austria and GB for example were excellent crowds. Indy has been all over the place with some embarrassingly low numbers at certain events. Some of the fields in Indy Lights have also been way too small. Indy has serious management problems IMO; but that is what you get when you bring someone over from Tennis to run motor racing. Viewership is much harder to determine for F1 - I haven't been able to find any real, current figures. It's subscription based in certain markets. Viewership for Indy has never been great (save the 500), and pales in comparison to the NFL as an example. Indy definitely needs help in a variety of areas IMHO, but there has been some excellent racing this year. The changes for F1 seem promising. But, it seems that the way they will focus on generating additional revenue to the pie is by adding venues in third-world countries. At least in the US though, I don't see open wheel dying. There are massive fields in F1600 and F2000, USF2000, Star Mazda, Vee, karting in particular, etc. The best talent goes to Europe for Formula Ford, Renault, etc. for some period of time. They are also adding new specs like Formula Lites and others. Plus we have the GP track in Texas and now a team (possibly 2) entering F1 again.
I never said that the Singapore incident was good and should have gone unpunished, but it was completely taken out of proportion and used to eliminate a team manager, a technical director and push a carmaker to pull out (albeit temporarily). My point is that the Piquet incident, as I call it, has been occuring many times, I suspect and gone undetected most of the time. As for hearing a DTM team principal shouting "Take him out" to his leading driver, and being betrayed by intercepted radio communication, that adds a new dimension. In fact, the driver, Scheider, took 2 cars out by crashing deliberately in one of them at least. In my view, an I may be alone in this, that's far worse than the (I repeat) low risk scenario played by Piquet. Let's see if Dr Ulrich is banned from motor racing for instruction his driver to elbow out his opponents on the track. But I won't hold my breath on that one. Fast_Ian, you may have your opinion, which I respect, but for me, aside that incident, Briatore was a good manager for steering his team to 4 WDC when it was notoriously less well funded than its rivals. When Renault took over Benetton and went through the books, they were amazed how little the 2 titles with Schumacher did cost, and they decided to keep Briatore at the helm. Renault never gave him unlimited finances, contrary to other teams, and he still managed to bag 2 titles with Alonso on a shoestring. For me, that's good management. In that, Briatore reminds me of Ecclestone with his Brabham owner hat; Bernie was never lavish with money and obtained much without spending what other teams would. He also was a good team manager - in my book.
Briatore managed to do a lot but for some reason his teams always start falling apart after two winning seasons. I suppose that you can´t catch the big guys off guard for longer than that.
All fair comments, and agreed. He did a fine job as a team principal. As did Bernie back in the day. Seems like a good guy to party with. But, I simply cannot get my head round what he orchestrated. I'm sorry to keep banging on about it, but to me anyway, it's just so wrong & completely indefensible. It simply goes against everything motor racing is about. Again, that no one was hurt is completely irrelevant. Cheers, Ian
Agreed, but that doesn't make Briatore the devil incarnated in my book. It just reveal a facet of his character. He is a sinner like most of us ...
