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Speaking of Peter Windsor, and SPEED TV, here is an interesting interview with the entire F1 broadcasting team covering several hot topics in F1 right now:
SPEED Live From Brazil With F1 Season Finale as Three Drivers Battle for Crown, History
Posted on 10/15/2007 on SPEEDtv.com
SPEED Live From Brazil With F1 Season Finale as Three Drivers Battle for Crown, History
Posted on 10/15/2007 on SPEEDtv.com
SPEED will have live and exclusive coverage of the Formula 1 World Championship finale, with the title coming down to a three-way shootout for the first time in more than two decades. Going into the Brazilian Grand Prix (Oct. 21, 11:30 a.m. ET on SPEED), rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton leads McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso by three points and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen by just seven – with each driver looking for his place in history.
Hamilton can become the youngest-ever World Champion at age 22, as well as the first rookie F1 champ in history. A title for Alonso would make him the first driver in 50 years to win back-to-back titles for different teams (he won in 2005 and 2006 with Renault). Raikkonen would be the first Ferrari driver other than Michael Schumacher to win the crown since 1979.
With so much on the line, we asked the SPEED Formula 1 broadcast team to put the headline-filled season in perspective:
1) Who has the edge going into the season finale – the chasers or the chasee? Harder to take the top spot or hold the top spot?
David Hobbs: For some reason the chaser usually has the edge and Alonso has the experience. But, Hamilton has proved to be so consistent, and the top four are so equal that Hamilton only has to be one place behind Alonso if they are in the top three and three places behind from third down and three places behind Raikkonen, so really like last week, it really is his to lose.
His China gaffe aside, Hamilton has demonstrated repeatedly that he can stand up to pressure from his more experienced rivals. (LAT photo) MORE PHOTOS
Steve Matchett: It would make for a most unexpected end to this season if the two McLaren chaps took each other out with some stupid horseplay and we saw Kimi’s Ferrari slip between the pair of them and disappear into the sunset to clinch his first drivers’ championship ... and I’m not ruling anything out after the quirks of this most bizarre season.
Bob Varsha: I’d have to say Hamilton has the advantage. Despite his disaster in China, he still has that 4-point lead over teammate Fernando Alonso, and 7 over Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen. If you told Lewis back in March that he’d be in this position come October, I bet he’d have taken it gladly. All he needs in Brazil is a high points finish, and he has produced those in spades in this, his rookie season. In fact, I was astonished that he and the McLaren team raced as hard as they did in China, because they didn’t need to. I’m guessing they won’t make that mistake again.
Peter Windsor: I think the chasee (Lewis Hamilton) has the harder job – if only because Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso know exactly what they have to do – i.e., win the race. There is another thing, though: the McLaren situation is complicated massively by the FIA factor – by which I mean the FIA’s insistence that they will be “ensuring” that both VMM drivers are treated equally in every respect. Although I have no doubt that McLaren would do this anyway, and that their record proves this, what we’re actually talking about is the FIA ensuring that Fernando – their “adopted son”, post-Stepneygate – is not compromised in any way. We have seen from Fernando’s behavior in both Japan and China that he is quite ready to raise his hand if Lewis deigns to be faster or better organized (as he usually is). This is a huge, massive burden for Lewis to carry – let alone for the team to have to worry about -- and I think it could be their undoing. While no one will apparently care if Felipe Massa Massa magically slows in the closing stages of Brazil to give the necessary points to Kimi, everyone will be focused on McLaren. That makes the weekend much easier for Ferrari.
2) With Lewis Hamilton’s rookie success and the F1 “cheating” scandal, what other story has gotten LESS attention than it normally would have?
David Hobbs: The demise of Renault has been a bit glossed over and the terrible performance of Honda. Vettel has been a good story that might have made more ink too.
Steve Matchett: The curious fall from grace by reigning world champions, Renault. Even before the season was flagged underway we began to see signs that all was not well with the Enstone-based squad. Nothing to do with the loss of Alonso to McLaren, this was all down to the inability of the aero department to comes to terms with the new car, the R27, in their wind tunnel. All year they have suffered with aerodynamic inefficiencies, and all year long they have worked to cure the problem and, quite frankly, they have looked distinctly average at best.
Bob Varsha: Lewis Hamilton’s historic season has eclipsed a couple of good stories. One is the rise of a new generation of grand prix drivers such as Sebastian Vettel, Adrian Sutil and Robert Kubica. Another is the success of the transition to the spec Bridgestone tire, which I think has been remarkably smooth, and has not detracted from the racing anywhere near as much as people thought it might. Yet another story worth following has been the effort to craft a new Concorde Agreement between the teams and the FOM/FIA; which will set the road map for the future of Formula 1 with regard to such things as customer cars and new technologies in F1.
Peter Windsor: This is a good question – a bit like wondering why CNN suddenly forgets to pontificate about Iraq because of some local issue in Atlanta. If news is genuinely important, it’s important. Period. Except that someone forgot to say this to the 24-hour news channels … In my view – and I know you will think this is part of the “cheating” scandal – Nigel Stepney’s back-stabbing of Ferrari, of the team that made him wealthy and famous, and, therefore, his disrespect for Michael Schumacher, got nothing like the publicity it deserved. Here was a guy who was an integral part of Michael’s winning system – a Ferrari man, through and through – here he was, stealing drawings and telling other teams that Ferrari were “cheating.” In the murky vagueness of everything that resulted from that, we actually forgot to appreciate the enormity of Stepney’s actions. For one thing, no one has ever asked him – or Ferrari – “why?”
3) What is the biggest obstacle to F1 returning to the U.S.?
David Hobbs: The only obstacle is the demand from Bernie Ecclestone for the $35 million he needs, per race, from the promoter. He now deals only with governments and local authorities whose egos let them afford taxpayer money. No business can afford the fee and I don’t think that he will have any better luck in Vegas either.
Steve Matchett: It’s just a hunch but I suspect that Bernie is somewhat out of his element when dealing with American business. From what I’ve seen, the whole structure of U.S. business revolves around “doing a deal,” thrashing out the terms and details of an agreement that both parties are happy with. It’s the American way (and a very laudable way it is too). This, however, creates a situation that is, perhaps, different to most of Bernie’s other negotiations, where countries (and their governments) are so keen to host a round of the World Championship that they will bend over backwards, do all they can to make it happen. But the American government isn’t involved with any negotiations here, in the U.S. it’s all private business. And private business needs to turn a buck. Certainly, F1 wants to be in America, from the Beatles to BMW, every company in the world wants to be selling to the American market; it’s always been that way and, I guess, it still is that way too; so, companies like Ferrari, Mercedes, BMW, Honda, Toyota, et al, they will all be pushing for one (if not two) rounds of the F1 championship to be held in North America. The only stumbling block is in the negotiations, the thrashing out of the deal, but F1 will be back, I feel sure of it.
Bob Varsha: The short answer is money. I believe Bernie Ecclestone would dearly love to remain in the United States; he cannot claim to be a true world championship without a round here. The problem is that his manipulation of the commercial rights to Formula 1, which has made him personally a billionaire several times over, has come with a price: several massive rounds of borrowing that now have come due to BE and his partners to the tune of millions of dollars a year in debt service. This in turn means that they must get something on the order of $30 million a year from each race just to bring the circus to town, which is a price that an entrepreneur like Tony George cannot afford without a strong team of sponsors. If such a group could be brought together, I bet we’d have another USGP in a heartbeat.
Peter Windsor: Money. Pure and simple – which is an irony, of course, for a continent as big as the US of A. The problem with staging an F1 race in America is that “sports event promotion” is a huge industry in the U.S. Look at football, baseball, basketball and you see a system that works. The promoter makes money, the sports make money, the fans have fun. F1, because of the way it is structured as a global TV sport, defies that template. Instead, the promoter loses money, the sport makes money and the fans – an affluent TV audience – have fun. F1 has, in recent years, brilliantly solved the problem of “the promoter” by selling itself to governments of countries – budget controllers who can justify their expenses with balance sheets that include such terms as “prestige for the country” rather than boring little details like “revenue from the gate.” I think most F1 people imagined that Tony George and Indy were the U.S. equivalent of the federal government – and in some respects they were not wrong, of course. Tony knew otherwise, however. To his credit, he tried to make it work. Inevitably, though, the sums just failed to add up.
For the future, we have to think in terms of a part of America that can afford to stage an F1 race – i.e., can afford to lose money but gain in other ways through the staging (not promoting!) of an F1 race. Vegas? Maybe. One of the richer state governments? Perhaps.
4) Biggest surprise of the 2007 season?
David Hobbs: Got to be Hamilton in every respect, especially being a match for Alonso, which is where all of Alonso’s angst is coming from. Also the poor form of Honda and Renault has been quite a surprise. I guess a $100 million fine was a bit of a shock too!
Steve Matchett: For me it has to be Hamilton. Not once in Formula 1’s 58 years of intense competition has a driver won the championship in his rookie year. Never been done. Well, now we are right on the brink of seeing it happen. It will be a first for the sport and, should it happen, it will be a thrill. I delight in firsts, new records, achievements that raise the bar. I never thought I’d be around to witness a rookie win the crown in his maiden year, just as I never thought I’d see any driver beat Fangio’s longstanding record of five world titles ... but Michael Schumacher did exactly that, retiring with seven crowns in his display cabinet: an awesome tally ... and now, well, we may be about to witness another staggering result.
Bob Varsha: To me the biggest surprise of the year has been the rise of Lewis Hamilton, who came in with a glittering resumé, but has delivered an astonishing level of performance.
Peter Windsor: I can’t say Lewis because in April, 2006, after seeing him drive for the first time, I predicted that Lewis would win a lot of F1 races in 2007. And nor can I say McLaren and Fernando, because later in 2006 I also predicted that Alonso would win the ’07 championship. For me, then, it would have to be the size of the fine imposed on McLaren. I am still astonished that every other F1 team did not go on strike in support of Ron Dennis – if only because Ron was not guilty of anything more than any of them have done or would have done in the same circumstances. No surprise that hypocrisy still rules, however!
5) Biggest disappointment of the 2007 season?
David Hobbs: Alonso’s reaction to the speed of Hamilton, and the loss of the Indy race for ’08. That was a great event and everyone in F1 enjoyed it … the setting, the history of the facility … a terrible loss to not just the USA, but F1 too.
Steve Matchett: There’s no question, the low point of 2007 has to be the whole horrid spying affair, the resulting legal action, and the discredit and disruption to the sport. The constructors’ championship was wrecked as a result and, personally, I feel physically ill just thinking about all that has happened this year. People I thought I knew reasonably well, former colleagues, longtime F1 acquaintances are embroiled in the most ghastly mess I can ever recall happening to F1: a sport and a business I care deeply for. Two of the greatest names in the business: Ferrari and McLaren, two teams I have the greatest admiration and respect for are now at each other’s throats. Their longtime sporting rivalry, something that over the years has given us some mighty competitive on-track battles, has degenerated to become nothing more that open, vile hostility: Lawyers; police; courtrooms; charges; fines; snide comments and tears. All very terrible, and all very, very lamentable.
Bob Varsha: The biggest disappointment has been the apparent willingness of the sport to allow itself to be slimed by partisan politics and bureaucratic abuse of fundamental legal process, all the while assuming that all of us looking on are stupid enough to swallow the illogical press releases and casual explanations as some kind of shining, unvarnished truth.
Peter Windsor: Honda. Jenson Button has driven really well in recent races and could have added further luster to the championship. Instead – and despite the facilities of Honda in the UK and Japan and the huge budget of the team overall – the car has been a dog. This just shows that starting a team the wrong way – with the wrong people and with too much money (Pollock/Villeneuve/BAT) – will have long-lasting knock-on effects. Start a team the right way – on a shoestring budget, but with the right people and the right sense of organic growth (Super Aguri) – and you will, by contrast, have more than an even chance of success.
the great Nick 👍
