Okay right then, errrrrrrrrrrrrr Canada errrrrrrrrrrr Vettel, okay or maybe Hamilton if he can keep his cool. Maybe the Mercs will go well here and I suppose Alonso has a good shout.
Canada is a couple of long fast flat out straight bits connected by silly little hairpins and other stuff to slow the cars down.
By rights it should be a McLaren walk over, but given Vettels inability to lose anything this year I guess you have to go with the cheeky German scamp yet again.
I suspect that a lot of the teams have already given up the championship. Williams have fired their manager and design chap. Ferrari has fired their design chap and now Virgin (Moruissia) have fired their owner! Well the chap that owns the design side of the company at any rate. Nick Wirth was told in no uncertain terms that he was no longer required on the pit wall or anywhere near the car after Monaco. What the Russians are planning to do for a car next year is anyone guess. Wirth has actually designed some of the more successful cars in endurance racing, working with Honda, Porsche, they’ve also built numerous Indy 500 winners so Mr Wirth and his team are not mugs. But when they designed the car last year with a fuel tank too small to last a race, the writing may well have been on the wall. Still I’m sure the Russians know what they’re doing.
Meanwhile if anyone in the world missed the Bahrain GP, AND IF YOU DID YOU ARE AN IDIOT. They will be ever so happy that the damn thing will now take place at the end of the year. Which means the season is now going to end on the 11th of December in India of all places !!!. Like the season wasn't long enough already.
This is after all the teams said, “No Bernie we are not going to finish the championship in December and no we are not comfortable going to Bahrain”.
To which Bernie replied “ Don’t worry lads ... it’s not about the money. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to see some men about a camel full of cash”
Back to the Canadian GP... Vettel will win it ... no Hamilton .... Vettel .. probably.
Who cares about all that though? The FIA and the Automobile Club de L’Ouest (ACO) have agreed to a joint WORLD ENDURANCE CHAMPIONSHIP. Hurrah and back slaps all round. The big wigs have got round the table and thrashed out a deal ... about bloody time.
Vettel ... or ..... Hamilton ... button ... no not button ... Vettel, or, definably Hamilton.
The reason the FIA-ACO deal is important, is because of the real power in motorsport and the real power in motor sport is not F1.
Formula 1 is for the sharp suits and the hospitality boxed select few who schmooze and cruise big business for money. They like to think it’s them that make F1 what it is, without their money there would be no F1 they think. But they’re wrong so very very wrong.
The Real power in motorsport are the huddled muddy masses sitting on the banking, the ones that have stumped up £150 to be herded like sheep and treated like scum, the ones still on the banking watching the Renault sport race and the Fiesta Challenge long after the hospitality boxes have emptied of the slightly tipsy middle management on a jolly with the free tickets from the jolly nice cable rep chap.
The muddy masses watch with their eyes because it’s bright and easy and will do whatever it has to do to keep their attention, for the right price of course.
But their hearts are far away in a field in France, which will forever be hallowed ground. The names of Bentley, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Ford and Porsche and now names like Audi, Peugeot, Corvette and Mazda are given heritage and substance there. This is where heroes are made and legends are forged in the dark hours before dawn.
The muddy masses return to give thanks and praise the name of Karl Benz for giving us the Internal Combustion Engine and Motor Sport.
The masses return for the greatest race on earth.
24 hours of the Circuit de la Sarthe
Le Mans.
The FIA knows this and it’s why they tried to shut the ACO out 20 years ago, but still the muddy masses came to prey to party to drink and to watch. The teams still came to prove they could beat everyone else, still the manufactures came to prove their car was better than the next guys. The FIA tried to create their own endurance series, but it failed without Le Mans.
Now the FIA is back at Le Mans accepting that the Automobile Club de L’Ouest knows what it is doing and that the power in motor sport comes from the muddy spectators paying for all of this to happen. Because if they left, there would be no one to pay for the rich boys to have fun. Turkey is finding out that it needs to have paying punters to have a race. China is spending more and more money to keep a race that no one goes to watch.
And now Bahrain is shooting its citizens, arresting its doctors and paying Bernie to come back with the circus so they can bring the punters back and their bright shiny coins.
Watch the race in Canada, if you’re happy for the circus to go back to Bahrain.
This weekend 250,000 souls will travel to France to prey at the altar of motorsport. The race will be seen around the world. On Saturday at 3pm CET all those petrol heads will turn to the Mecca to four stoke power and catch their breath for just a second as it starts again, as it has been starting for 79 races since 1923.
The Flag will drop and the petrol cars will try to catch the diesels cars. The exotic Audi and Peugeot prototypes will have four or five laps before they’re weaving past the Porsche, Ferrari and Lotus GT cars. For 24 hours the drivers will battle to be crowned the winner of the greatest race on earth.
Watch the race at Le Mans if you know that motor sport should be about passion, not money.
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