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Drivers

RWA

By now most people have heard the term DWA or Driving While Asian.  If not, look it up in the Urban Dictionary and take it for a spin on Youtube.  Chances are you have been a victim of a DWA.  While it can be construed as being a racist claim, I tend to look at life through a humorous lens and find it rather amusing.  Living in San Francisco, being able to quickly identify a DWA in progress can be a matter of life or death.  It’s amazing how the human evolves and develops an acute awareness of potential threats in their environment. Like the prehistoric man who had the ability to tap into all five senses to learn of the presence of a predator, the modern city dweller can spot a DWA upwind at 200 hundred yards while texting and watching an episode of Breaking Bad at a bus stop.

A .2 second example of the brain at work processing a DWA:

  • Car three blocks away going 18mph and straddling two lanes, just ran a red light

  • Driver behind the wheel: short, dark hair in bangs, over-sized glasses, Asian features, torso too close to wheel, no spatial awareness

  • Conclusion- RUN for Cover!

Sure it’s fun to laugh and celebrate all things DWA, but RWA or Racing While Asian, now we are delving into another matter altogether.  In fact, is there a more noble pursuit than RWA?  Particularly the brave men who risk life and limb to race under the Flag of the Rising Sun.  In my humble opinion, a Japanese F1 driver is to be cherished and held in the highest buzzardly regard.  

For years I’ve been waiting for a Japanese driver to arrive on the scene and take F1 by storm.  Some sort of mythical character with rock star sensibilities and a nasty cigarette habit plucked out of the drift car wars of the Tokyo underworld and hand delivered by Honda to the McLaren young driver program.  So far, I’ve had to be content with just a few podiums spread out of the years.

It’s a head scratcher as to why this hasn’t happened yet.  Japan is a car crazy nation with a passionate F1 fan base.  Honda, and to a lesser degree Toyota and Yamaha, have played a major role in the sport the last 30 years. They have a multitude of sophisticated national racing series with big horsepower and high downforce.  When their economy is healthy, drivers are able to find sponsorship money.  But still no Akira Senna.

One would probably need a PhD in Sociology to unlock this answer, so in the name of time and money, I will grant myself an honorary degree from Texas Southern University and volunteer three of my own theories:

Theory 1:  Japan, like the USA, doesn’t have the level of karting that is prevalent in Europe and Brazil.  The average 14 year old kart kid running the CIK-FIA series all over the European continent is essentially a professional driver.  Making F1 by 20 is just the natural progression for those with skills or huge bucks.  By the time the Japanese driver hits the scene in his late teens, he’s already too far behind the development curve catch up.

Theory 2:  Even if a Japanese driver has all the natural abilities in the world, the cultural polite factor and the language barrier between driver and engineers is just too big of an obstacle to overcome.  I just haven’t seen a Japanese driver with the me first mentality of say, a Nigel Mansell, be the dominant personality within the team and dictate to the engineers exactly what he needs the car to do in order to get results.  Look at all the greats and you will see an enormous personality orchestrating the entire operation like Leonard Bernstein presiding over the New York Philharmonic.    

Theory 3:   I have a friend who lived half her life in Japan explain that in school Japanese kids are taught to strictly memorize and recite.  Improvising and thinking outside the box are not encouraged.  When applied to this conversation, there could be something there.  After all, isn’t  driving an F1 car on the limit with constantly changing conditions best suited for an improvisational artist ala Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost or Michael Schumacher?  In watching the Olympics from Sochi, I see Japanese athletes winning medals in figure skating and ski jumping, sports that require extreme repetition.  But where are the Alpine skiers, a feat that is all improvising on the ragged edge?*

*Authors internal debate: Ahh maybe there are no Japanese winning downhill skiers because they don’t have great skiing mountains??

Even if a single F1 driving championship never materializes, Japan’s place in the history books is secure.  From the Godfather Satoru Nakajima, to Aguri Suzuki to the current ace Kamui Kobayashi, here are my 5 favorite Japanese F1 Drivers or カーレーサー:

 

5.  Toranosuke “Tiger” Takagi:  Tora burst on to the international scene in 1998 as a driver for legendary team owner Ken Tyrrell with enough hype to whip me into a frenzy.  He had The Godfather, Satoru Nakajima, proclaiming him as the best yet to come from Japan.  He had a mullet.  His name was just plain old fun to say.  I was Tigersold.  I’m still sold.  When I first laid eyes on Tora Tiger Takagi at the 1998 Canadian GP, I was instantly a fan.  His Friday morning hairpin exits reminded me of a 1980’s high school kid in a ‘69 Camaro leaving the AM-PM after receiving word of a keg being tapped just two miles away.  He was all right foot and blackies through 3-4 gears.  In two seasons in subpar equipment, Triple T never managed to score a world championship point, but you always had the sense that he was giving the car a proper thrashing. After returning home to capture the 2000 Formula Nippon title, Tora raced Stateside for two seasons in a deep CART field, managing a couple of 4th place finishes and a Rookie of the Year at Indy.

4.  Hideki Noda:  Noda first caught my attention when I read in Autosport that he had won a round of the British F3 series, becoming the first Japanese to do so.  (Funny to think that the only way to get motorsports news just a few years back was to wait for magazines to arrive in the mail)  What really sold me on Noda wasn’t the fact that he drove in 3 GP’s for Larrousse to close out the ‘94 season, it was a quote in Autosport from his race engineer proclaiming him the hardest braker in F1 history.  Supposedly his telemetry showed him pulling over 4g’s in the heavy braking zones.  Whether that claim has any validity or not, it was all the ammo I needed to be a fanhideki_noda for life.  And to add the icing on the cake, I was fortunate enough to witness Noda score a brilliant Indy Lights win in the wet at Portland in ‘97 over the likes of Castro Neves, Kaanan and Da Matta.  In honor of the feat, a friend even managed to invent “The Noda Dance” that left a few Pacific Northwestern open wheel fans scratching their heads in the grandstand that day.

3.  Kamui Kobayashi:  I’ll admit, I was slow to warm up to Kobe.  Watching him languish as a backmarker for two seasons in GP2, I wasn’t very excited when Toyota promoted him to replace the injured Timo Glock for the 2009 Brazilian GP.  But by the end of the race he had won me over after a spirited battle with the ‘09 champ, Jenson Button.  Button was driving to secure the title and Kobe couldn’t care less.  He fought Button for every inch Kobeof track like he was trying to take the crown for himself and had Button yelling into the radio that Kobe was “mad” and “crazy”.  As a fan, I always want my drivers to be first and foremost, mad and crazy!  From that day on Kobe has not relented.  He is a master at finding a way by under braking.  Hamilton and Alonso often get credited as being pass masters and rightly so, but Kobe is the best in the business.  

2.  Takuma Sato:  Sato had my buzzard antennas on full alert when he won the British F3 title, Macau GP and Zandvoort Masters in 2001.  I remember his engineers at Carlin Motorsports claiming that they had never worked with a driver who was better through the high speed stuff than Sato-san. In his first season in F1, he scored a glorious 5th place finish in his home GP in a poor Jordan chassis that essentially saved the sato03beloved team from having to close their doors.  I like to give myself credit for being somewhat of a good luck charm, or lucky buzzard, for Sato.  I was at Indy in 2004 when he scored a podium for BAR-Honda.  I was at Montreal in 2007 when he scored a remarkable 6th place for Super Aguri, highlighted with an outside pass of Alonso with just a few laps left!  And just this past year, I got to witness Sato win the Long Beach GP with an inch perfect drive.  
1.  Ukyo Katayama:  I fell hard for Katayama in ‘94.  A year when my unrelenting thirst for buzzardry may have equaled or surpassed my interest in women.  A year when on track tragedy left us vulnerable and looking for something to latch on to.  Ukyo, with his helmet bouncing around like a bobblehead in the cockpit, became my salvation.  His speed in the Tyrrell- Yamaha was a thing of beauty and he was regularly UKYOgetting the better of his highly regarded teammate, Mark Blundell.  I was in the Hockenheim stadium marveling at his commitment as he qualified 5th, sandwiched between Schumacher and Coulthard in the mighty Williams.  His style always looked ragged, like a rodeo rider hanging on to a wild bronco.  I recall Schumacher being astounded how Katayama could go into a fast corner, turn it into a 3-4 apex mess, and still come out flying on the exit.  He is a one of a kind and worthy of a place in the buzzard hall of fame.

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Drivers

The Amazing Schumacher’s

Last night while enjoying a nice relaxing bubble bath, my mind started drifting off to a Montreal memory in 2003 when the Amazing Schumacher Brothers were entertaining F1 fans the world over with a little family squabble to decide the Canadian GP.  The race was under a safety car period with only a handful of laps remaining.  Michael was in the lead, Ralf was second, but Ralf clearly had the better car as evidenced by the chunks of time that he had been making up prior to the caution period.  The atmosphere in the stands was electric with anticipation over the crucial restart.  Michael was attempting a little gamesmanship to get the jump on his younger sibling, who was glued to his gearbox as they were about to go back to green.  Big Brother Michael slowed the pace way down to let the safety car vanish off into the distance, setting the scene for a mano-a-mano battle.  Montoya, Alonso and Raikkonen were lurking but for all their collective brilliance, they were not in the Schumacher’s league on this day at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

As Michael exited the final hairpin he dropped the hammer, but Ralf was right there with him, Ferrari and BMW V10’s screaming in unison.  Michael, sensing that Ralf would have had a tow down the long final straight, decided to abort the getaway and brake tested the field.  He then swerved from side to side to get more heat in the tires.  Ralf was having none of it.  He was sitting on the Ferrari’s gearbox with a twitchy right foot.  I swear I could see Michael’s eyes watching Ralf in the mirror and could feel the brotherly love.  Michael then faked like he was going to swerve again and this time Ralf took the bait and tossed his car into a slide.  Instantly, I heard the rev limiter and saw wheel smoke and black rubber being laid down by the Ferrari.  Just like that, the Maestro was gone!

Watching those two rocket off along the St Lawrence river played out in my mind like a movie scene where the characters are gradually transported back in time from the glamorous world of F1 to their youthful days of innocence at the family run karting track in Kerpen, Germany.  To a time when a young Ralf would have no doubt been cursing in his helmet as he strained every sinew in his 9 year old body to keep up with his older brother, who in turn would be cracking up over duping his little brother yet again.  To a time when their mother would be standing at the fence motioning to pit the karts for the night so the boys could have supper and tend to their studies.

I made a pilgrimage to this historical little piece of track in 1997.  On an epic day of buzzardry that included driving a rental car through Eau Rouge at Spa (at 52mph – yes my dad was driving) and witnessing the famed Nordschleife at the Nurburgring, our party headed to Kerpen to get a firsthand look at where the dynasty began. Arriving in town in the early afternoon, we went into a bank where a teller, who could have passed as a Schumacher sister, knew the general location and sent us on our way.  After ten minutes of cruising narrow two lane farm roads, we were beginning to second guess our guide until we came around a corner and were treated to the unmistakable buzz of two-stroke kart engines at full tilt on the other side of a tree grove.  The anticipation of what we were about to witness rivaled the feelings I had when Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s secret vault on live TV in 1986.  To be honest, what we discovered was a track that resembled the kart tracks in Dixon, CA or Medford, OR, but I still felt like I was standing in front of the stage where the Beatles played their first gig.

The sheer unlikelihood that two brothers would go from this rather ordinary karting track in the middle of a farming community to the pinnacle of motorsport on raw talent alone is one of the great stories of modern racing.  Everybody knows the gaudy stats that Michael produced, but as the only two siblings to both win a GP, they made quite the brother act.  Four 1-2 finishes.  A three year stretch (2001-2003) where they both placed in the top 5 in the championship each season, winning a remarkable 64% of the races run (MS – 26 and RS -6).  And with uber manager Wili Webber negotiating their salaries, the brothers earned enough money to buy Luxembourg.

The thought of two brothers going after the same prize at the pinnacle of their chosen profession is interesting to ponder.  Obviously, the Manning brothers are the gold standard, having both quarterbacked teams to Super Bowl wins.  In racing, Al and Bobby Unser come to mind as a very successful tandem.  But the norm seems to be one alpha dog per family while the other is grinding just to stay in the game.  Examples: Bernard vs Albert King, Emerson vs Wilson Fittipaldi, Cal vs Billy Ripkin, John vs Patrick McEnroe, Gilles vs Jacques Villeneuve, Dominique vs Gerald Wilkins, Bill vs Brian Doyle-Murray, Michael vs Tito, The Bee Gees (Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb) vs Andy Gibb, Marv vs Steve Albert.  The list goes on and on.  I’m having a chuckle over the thought of Larry Bird having a brother named Perry Bird who averaged 7 pts/gm for the Atlanta Hawks over 5 seasons before heading back to the farm in French Lick, IN.

Ralf often gets incorrectly labeled as a bust and, granted, his career did end with a thud at Toyota, but in his 4 seasons alongside the revered Juan Pablo Montoya, Ralph won 6 races to JPM’s 4.  He was a match alongside Giancarlo Fisichella and Damon Hill at Jordan.  He easily handled Alex Zanardi and a young Jensen Button at Williams.  Tied for 38th on the all time win list is a great career if your last name isn’t Schumacher.

If there was ever a weekend to solidify both brothers as courageous top notch professionals, the San Marino GP weekend of 2003 did so for me.  On this dark weekend, the Schumacher brothers were racing while their mother, Elisabeth, lay dying in a hospital in Cologne after suffering a freak head injury from a fall.  The boys strapped their helmets on and did what they were born to do in qualifying, placing their cars 1-2 on the grid and then rushed off to Germany to be by her side.  The next morning, just 2 hours prior to the race, Elisabeth perished.  Rather than withdraw to mourn, Michael and Ralf honored her by racing.

And what a beautiful display it was!  At the start they held a sibling drag race down to the first corner where Ralf prevailed.  For the next 15 laps, Michael tried every trick in the book to get by to no avail.  They were back in Kerpen with their mother on the fence willing them on.  I was on my couch at 5:00am with tears of inspiration in my eyes.  In the end Michael prevailed and Ralf faded to 4th, but the mental fortitude that they displayed and the emotions that came out after the race will forever be imprinted in F1 lore.  “Schumacher!!!”

Categories
Drivers

Formula Facial Hair

What do you get when you have a wealthy young man involved in a glamorous yet extremely dangerous profession that sends him around the world to race the finest cars and rub shoulders with royalty, business tycoons, politicians, rock stars, Hollywood glitterati and throngs of beautiful women?  What happens when a young man becomes a hero to his countrymen and is asked to demonstrate incomprehensible courage by strapping back into a car after witnessing one of his colleagues or friends perish? My answer, of course, is some really cool facial hair.

 

Here is a brief look back at some of the drivers who took personal grooming to a whole new level from the swashbuckling 60’s and 70’s to the impeccably clean corporate image of the 21st century.

 

Mustaches:

Clay Regazzoni:  I have to admit that I never got to see Mr. Regazzoni drive a car in person but I’ve always been a fan based on the pictures.  I mean, is the man in the photo below a factory Ferrari F1 driver or Brando in the Godfather?  That ‘stache and steely glare would drill holes into back of the helmet of the driver trying to keep him at bay.  And after a day at the track I envision Clay driving his Ferrari up to the front of a fine restaurant with a beautiful companion on his arm and entertaining the patrons with stories over fine cognac and Cuban cigars late into the evening.

 

Worlds Most Interesting Man
Worlds Most Interesting Man

 

Keke Rosberg: The casual observer may look at the picture below and mistake it as a promotional poster for a new porno movie titled, “Formula Wonderdong”, but it is in fact 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg chilling in Rio.  When Keke wasn’t taking a drag off a Marlboro he was pushing his car to the limit as I witnessed at The Peraltada 180 degree corner in Mexico City.  Lap after lap he would make me flinch as he dealt with 150mph oversteer while hurling right at our grandstand.  Study the photo!  He was the epitome of cool!

 

 

Sure
Sure

 

Nigel Mansell: The Peoples Champion!  The Isle of Man Iron Man!  Il Leone!  Nigel had the look of your next door neighboor but don’t let those bushy brows and woolly stache fool you.  When he put his visor down he drove like a man posessed and could wring a cars neck with the best of them.  He was one of the few drivers whose emotions in the cockpit were evident for all to see and when he had the team and the crowd on his side, he could produce charges and results that seemed unfathomable.  Also prone to public whining and theatrical displays of pain, Nigel was sublime entertainment.

 

Peoples Champ
Peoples Champ

 

Graham Hill: Another driver before my time but I would place Graham, an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, on the “Most Interesting Man” list every day of the week.  A two time world champion, Indy 500 and Le Mans winner, Graham always looked like he had his audience captivated with his wit and stories of danger and hi jinks.  Oh that and a beautifully manicured mustache!

 

Classic
Classic

 

Honorable Mention: Fernando Alonso- Fernando is one of the all time great drivers and arguably one of the all time fastest growers of facial hair.  He can be standing on the podium clean shaven in Barcelona and a fortnight later can be seen sporting a solid stache in the Royal Box in Monaco.  The problem is he just doesn’t have the courage to keep one for long when that may be just what he needs to finally cause Vettel to crack.

 

Not Too Shabby
Not Too Shabby

 

 

 

Beards:

John Watson: Watson was always a personal favorite of mine after watching him win the 1983 Long Beach GP from 22nd on the grid and later that summer I was lucky enough to witness his charge from 15th on the grid to 3rd at Zandvoort with a normally aspirated Cosworth!  Looking at this photo, if somebody told me that this was the former bass player for Jethro Tull I wouldn’t have doubted it.  Sadly, Watson had to shave this beauty after losing a bet with his team owner Roger Penske after winning the ’76 Austrian GP.

 

 

Well Groomed
Well Groomed

Harald Ertl:  I have to admit I know next to nothing about Harald Ertl the F1 driver but that beard elevates him to the top of the Formula Facial Hair list.  He looks like a man that would be more at home in the beer halls of Munich sporting lederhosen than trying to stuff all that hair into a balaclava.  But the records show that he did score 6 top 10 finishes and was one the brave men on the scene who pulled Niki Lauda from his flaming wreck at the Nurburgring.

 

The Winner
The Winner

Honorable Mention: Nick Heidfield- I always thought that Quick Nick was an underrated driver who held his own against teammates such as Raikkonen, Alesi, Kubica, Webber, Massa and Frentzen.  In fact he has the dubious record of scoring the most points without a win in F1 history.  Towards the end of his career when it was clear that he was never going to win a title, Nick went a little hippie-grunge and let it all just grow.

 

Done with being corporate
Done with being corporate

 

Chops/Side Burns:

Jackie Stewart: Everybody knows Jackie as one of the all time greats, a successful team owner, ABC Wide World of Sports announcer, corporate pitchman, and one of the pioneers of the safety movement that led to major track improvements, but few speak about Jackie the fashion maven.  Back in the day Jackie was as cool as anybody on the grid and I still quote an old GP VHS tape where he states,

 

“A race car is like a woman. It’s very sensitive. It’s very nervous. It’s very highly strung. Sometimes it responds very nicely. Sometimes it responds very viciously. Sometimes, to get the best out of it, you have to coax it and almost caress it to do the things you want it to do. And even after you’ve done all these things and the car is doing exactly as you want it to do, it will immediately and with no warning change its mind and do something very suddenly and very abruptly.”

Brilliant!

3 Time Champ
3 Time Champ

 

Francois Cevert:  Francois had the world at his fingertips.  With his silver screen looks, French accent and top notch driving skills, Francois was the very essence of a playboy.  Tragically his life was cut short at Watkins Glen in ‘74 but a few friends and I honored him by inventing a cocktail in his name and had it served at the Royal Oak in San Francisco, CA back in the late ‘90’s.  It felt pretty damn cool to walk up to the bar and say, “I’ll have 3 more Francois Cevert’s please.”

The Protege
The Protege

 

Emerson Fittipaldi:  I was too young to witness Emmo’s F1 years when he looked like a character out of Planet of the Apes and scooped two titles but I did get a heavy dose of the legend in his CART years.  He was the man who inspired a generation of Brazilians to become race drivers and built an empire back home in Brazil.  I still laugh over Emmo refusing the ceremonial milk in the Indy 500 winners circle so he could drink orange juice to promote the citrus industry back home.  “No Milk, no Milk!”

 

Neil Young's Cousin?
Neil Young’s Cousin?

 

Honorable Mention: Heinz Harald Frentzen- I’ve always been a fan Frentzen, the son of an undertaker who rose up the ladder as Schumacher’s main rival on and off the track.  Schumi may have beat Heniz to land a GP drive and had a bit more success in the premier category,  but HHF did manage to beat Michael to win the love of Corinna Betsch, who eventually became Corinna Schumacher. Frentzen was always a cool customer and had a great year with Jordan in 1999 when he unexpectedly took third in the championship, sideburns and all.

 

Modern Cool
Modern Cool

 

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Drivers

Jean Alesi

Jean Alesi is my favorite driver of all time.  You may scoff at the notion of me idolizing a driver with 1 F1 victory when luminaries such as Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher or Fernando Alonso are there for the taking but to my buzzardly eyes, Alesi was the cat’s pajamas.  He was all heart, all passion, and he was one of the few who realized that he was more than just a driver.  He was an entertainer with millions around the globe living vicariously through him.

I once spent a Thursday night in the parking lot at Magny-Cours listening to thousands of delirious Frenchmen yelling “oui oui oui Alesi” into the wee hours of the morning and the next day when the sun arose, Alesi wasted no time fueling our passion.  He had his Ferrari primed at the pit exit revving to go the split second the track went green and for a few seconds we were treated to the glorious sound of a V-12 F1 engine at 19,000rpm all alone on a track.  For those in the know, this sound alone can trigger the spread of goose bumps throughout the body and can occasionally lead to tears and/or uncontrollable laughter.  We waited tensely listening to his throttle modulations from the distance until he came barreling down to our corner at amazing speeds for the first lap of a weekend on cold tires.  At the apex he started waving enthusiastically, turned his head to look at the crowd and almost incited a riot as he dropped the hammer and gave us a 1st,2nd and 3rd gear rev limiter burnout with one hand in the air.  There is no other driver that I’ve ever seen that would contemplate such behavior.

I always got the sense that he was driving for the pure pleasure of pushing an F1 car to the limit.  Who else would sign to drive a back of the grid Prost F1 after having been a Ferrari driver?  While some such as Senna or Schumi raced to quench their insatiable competitiveness and others raced to gain extreme personal wealth, Alesi was more akin to the big wave soul surfer who everybody deeply respects but is never considered a threat to be a contest winner.   He wasn’t in the cockpit tabulating championship point

Another Day at the Office
Another Day at the Office

scenarios and thinking about making ride height adjustments.  If there was a problem he would simply just drive around it, offer a quick assessment to his engineer through the international driver sign language of wild hand gesticulations and leave the track early for an evening at leisure.  I seriously doubt he ever stayed in the garage with the mechanics and engineers pouring over data until midnight ala Schumacher.  He was an artist in a type-A world.  Sicilian in heritage and French by birth, Alesi barely even spoke English while all of his contemporaries were fluent.  In many ways, I feel like he was a continuation of another brilliant natural talent that occupied the scarlet red #27 a decade earlier.

My first hero was Gilles Villeneuve.  Standing at the bottom of the Linden Ave plunge for the first Friday morning practice of the 1981 Long Beach GP, I was instructed by my father to watch for the red 27.  Sure enough, while most drivers were taking their sweet time getting heat into their slicks on the dirty street surface, Gilles crested the hill with opposite lock and the Ferrari turbo bouncing off the rev limiter.  A few laps later he spun right in front of us but instantly flicked the car into a 180 spin and set off in a white cloud of tire smoke.  I was hooked.

It was a similar feeling being one of the proud few in the grandstands for the season opening race of the 1990 season through the streets of downtown Phoenix, Az.  Of course we were all there to see Senna, Prost, Mansell and Piquet.  These four men had dominated the 80’s, winning a combined 7 championships and 87 of the 156 races held over the 10 year span.  But it was the young Alesi that had his nimble Tyrrell Cosworth dancing on the ragged edge on the low grip, bumpy street surface.  He was a known commodity having won the F3000 title and scoring a 4th place finish in his first ever GP the year before, but as the lights went green and Alesi pounced from 4th to 1st into turn one, he was suddenly a revelation.

Alesi quickly built a big advantage but as the race settled into a rhythm, Senna was there in second managing his tires and looming just a little bit larger each time Alesi looked in his mirrors.  Alesi was still driving qualifying laps and would often kiss the exit wall of the last corner with a little flick oversteer, but the all too familiar site of Senna on a charge was about to become a reality.  On lap 34 Senna

Stalked by Ayrton
Stalked by Ayrton

was on the gearbox of Alesi as they crossed the stripe and used the grunt of the Honda V10 to get into the slipstream and reach the apex of turn 1 in the lead but by turn two, Alesi miraculously turned the tables and reclaimed the lead with a forceful move up the inside that even the mighty Senna could not have anticipated.  This was like an unknown boxer getting floored by Ali only to get up off the canvas and floor Ali seconds later.  The next lap Senna made the same move and again Alesi fought him for every inch of track for 4 corners like a back alley street brawler.  It was a dazzling display that earned the praise of Senna and vaulted Alesi immediately to the top of my list.

It was also a performance worthy of being offered contracts to drive for Ferrari or Williams in 1991. We all know which way this turned out.  Passion overrode practicality and Alesi signed to drive for the Scuderia just as Adrian Newey designed Williams cars were poised to embark on world domination by winning the constructors titles in ’92, 93, 94, 96 and 97.  Meanwhile Ferrari were entering a period of technical incompetence that even the brilliant Alain Prost could not overcome and subsequently led to him being fired after he publicly stated that his Ferrari handled worse than a truck!

Alesi was just a bit player in a messy Italian soap opera over the next few years but he still drove with passion and a heavy right foot that endeared him to the legions of Tifosi around the world.  There were the occasional displays of brilliance in tricky rain conditions or lightning quick starts, but the all too familiar sight of a red car going backwards across a gravel trap or pulling off the circuit with smoking exhausts was the reality. And then there were the heartbreaks.  He had Spa ’91 in the bag until his Ferrari gave up with just a

It must have been that bump again
It must have been that bump again

handful of laps left.  He had Monza ’94 under control until the gearbox seized while trying to exit the pits.  True to character, Alesi stormed through the garage and jumped into his Alfa with his brother while still dressed in his race overalls and left the track to return to France.  Out on the on Autostrada with the race only at ¾ distance, he was stopped by the law doing 140 mph but was sent on his way by the star struck polizia.

Finally in ’95 at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in the #27 Ferrari the racing Gods smiled on Alesi and he scored his one and only F1 victory.  I was at home watching the race that day on television but as he crossed the finish line I remember collapsing to the floor like I was Cristiano Ronaldo sending a game winner to the back of the net.  Of all the thousands of races that I’ve watched on TV or in person, that win gave me the warmest feeling inside.  I think I may have even held a one man dance party in the living room after the show went off the air.

I feel blessed to have been able to witness in person multiple times the love affair that Alesi had with Montreal and all the fans down in the turn 10 hairpin complex in his final years at Sauber and Prost.  He would often kick start our weekend with a salute and a doughnut that would get the heart racing and finish the weekend off much the same way leaving us heading for the subway in a state of delirium.  But it was the final time that I ever witnessed him that I will never forget.  After scoring an improbable 5th place in the uncompetitive Prost in 2001, Alesi charged down to our grandstand with both hands in the air and gave us one of his signature doughnuts.  Then instead of driving into the paddock he returned for an encore, got out of the car, ran around soaking up the applause and tossed his helmet into the crowd!  It felt more like a Stones concert than a motor race.  Mick Jagger would have been envious with the way Alesi had the crowd in the palm of his hand.  It was the perfect sendoff for the perfect driver.

Montreal Doughnut Farewell:  Au Revoir

 

 

 

Categories
Drivers

The Top 40 (1981-Present)

As silly as it is to compare drivers, athletes, songs, movies, etc. from different eras, the top xxx lists are always great for debates (I’m currently having a Jacques Laffitte vs Eddie Irvine internal debate) and inciting anger.  I remember the first time my friend Oliver and I were allowed to stay up to midnight on New Year’s Eve to listen to the top 100 songs of 1981 on our local AM station KFRC.  We were rooting for “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield but would have been satisfied with “Urgent” by Foreigner.  When “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes was named “Top Song” my friend and I went nutty and my parents almost had a 220px-Jessie's_Girl“Lord of the Flies” situation on their hands.

The difficulty I faced in putting together my Top 40 F1 drivers (1981-Present) was what to do with the top guys of the early 80’s (Jones, Reuteman, Laffitte, Villeneuve) that were only around for a couple of years?  My thought process was to take each one of the following drivers on their best day during this time frame, not when they were old and hanging on at the back of the grid (yes I’m talking about Rene Arnoux and Alan Jones) and rank them.  See if you agree.

 

  1. Ayrton Senna (3 WDC, 41 Wins):  I often imagine the scenario where Ayrton survives, wins 3 titles with Williams and then goes to Ferrari for a few more.  We the fans were robbed of what would have been an epic rivalry with Schumacher.
  2. Michael Schumacher (7 WDC, 91 Wins):  His numbers are absurd but I still can’t give him the edge over Senna because he was always the undisputed #1 in his team and usually made a mess of racing somebody close.
  3. Alain Prost (4 WDC, 51 Wins):  A brilliant tactician and as quick as anybody not named Ayrton.
  4. Fernando Alonso (2 WDC, 30 Wins): A relentless driver that never makes mistakes and always gets the max out of his car.
  5. Sebastian Vettel (3 WDC, 26 Wins): Tough to rate due to all his titles being won in a Newey car but to win three in a row and easily outclass his teammate is very impressive.
  6. Nigel Mansell (1 WDC, 31 Wins): Unlucky not to win titles in the 80’s, Nigel got his hands on the ’92 Newey car and trounced the field.
  7. Nelson Piquet (3 WDC, 23 Wins): Crafty and sly as a fox, Nelson would pile up the points and be there to scoop up the title when others would falter back in the days when DNF’s were more common.
  8. Mika Hakkinen (2 WDC, 20 Wins): Extremely fast and untouchable in the Newey-McLaren.  Also the best interview I’ve ever seen.
  9. Kimi Raikkonen (1 WDC, 20 Wins): Kimi has freakish natural talent that shines when he has a car to keep him interested.
  10. Niki Lauda (1 WDC, 8 Wins): Niki came out of retirement for 4 seasons to teach the youngsters a lesson and managed to beat Prost to the ’84 title.
  11. Gilles Villeneuve (2 Wins): Known as a maniac, Gilles had two amazing wins in a poor Ferrari in ’81 that sold me on his talent.
  12. Lewis Hamilton (1 WDC, 21 Wins):  May be one of the best talents of all time but hasn’t quite figured out how to be the best in the mental department.
  13. Damon Hill (1 WDC, 22 Wins):  Just kept getting better and better and became Schumacher’s only threat in the mid 90’s.
  14. Keke Rosberg (1 WDC, 5 Wins):  Another Finn with amazing car control and speed.
  15. Jensen Button (1 WDC, 15 Wins): After years of driving around for points, Jenson has blossomed into a star that can go toe to toe with the best of them.
  16. Jacques Villeneuve (1 WDC, 11 Wins):  Burst on to the scene like a meteor with speed and daring but vanished once he signed with BAR.
  17. Gerhard Berger (10 Wins):  Always competitive in the Ferrari, McLaren or Benetton, GB kept Senna honest when they were teammates.
  18. Michele Alboreto (5 Wins):  Michele was awesome in the little Tyrrell on the street circuits in ’81-‘82 and had a few great wins for Ferrari.
  19. John Watson (4 Wins):  Wattie was classy in the McLaren and hung it up in ’84 to make room for Prost.
  20. Rene Arnoux (5 Wins): Arnoux was a blindingly fast shoe in his youth and was a threat in the Renault and Ferrari.
  21. Jean Alesi (1 Win):  Unlucky and the victim of bad timing, Alesi gets my vote for best 1 win wonder.
  22. Juan Pablo Montoya (7 Wins): A phenomenal natural talent that wasn’t cut out for the pressures and politics of F1.
  23. Robert Kubica (1 Win): The Pole was clearly in the Alonso, Vettel, Lewis class when an amateur rally crash tragically cut short his F1 career.
  24. Rubens Barrichello (11 Wins): Very quick in his youth, Rubens became the perfect #2 for the Schumi/Ferrari blitz of the 21st century.
  25. Carlos Reuteman (2 Wins): I wish he stuck around longer but Carlos came 2nd in the championship in my first year as a fanatic.
  26. Felipe Massa (11 Wins): Pre Hungary crash Felipe was the equal of Kimi and kept Schumi honest at Ferrari.  He appears to be lost against Alonso.
  27. Alan Jones (2 Wins): 3rd in the ’81 title chase, Jones won the first GP that I attended and retired only to come back overweight and drive the Haas-Ford mess in the mid 80’s.
  28. David Coulthard (13 Wins): DC has a very impressive 13 wins to his credit but he was usually slower than his teammates.
  29. Ralph Schumacher (6 Wins): It must have been tough to live in his older brother’s shadow but Ralph was very quick and had a solid career.
  30. Mark Webber (9 Wins):  Nine wins is serious stuff but the problem is Mark is losing 9-25 to Vettel.
  31. Didier Peroni (2 Wins): Peroni was in line to win the ’82 title for Ferrari until he had a massive career ending crash at Hockenheim.  He still finished 2nd!
  32. Sandro Nannini (1 Win):  Another of the one win wonders, Nannini was very quick and looked to be ready to challenge the big boys until he almost lost his arm in a heli crash.
  33. Eddie Irvine (4 Wins):  Nobody had more fun than Eddie!  He didn’t seem to mind being the #2 at Ferrari and almost won the title after Schumi broke his legs at Silverstone.
  34. Heinz Harald Frentzen (3 Wins): Frentzen did not look very threatening next to Villeneuve but he had some great drives for Jordan and Sauber.
  35. Ricardo Patrese (6 Wins):  Patrese was a quick driver but he was buried by Mansell at Williams and Schumacher at Benetton.
  36. Thierry Boutsen (3 Wins):  The likeable Belgian was quick at Williams and had a memorable win at the Hungaroring where he held off the likes of Senna.
  37. Johnny Herbert (3 Wins): Herbert’s career was hampered by a massive foot injury in the lower formula but he still managed to win 2 races as Schumi’s #2 at Benetton and won a race for Jackie and Paul Stewart.
  38. Giancarlo Fisichella (3 wins):  Giancarlo seemed destined for greatness until he was paired with Alonso at Benetton and appeared pretty pedestrian.
  39. Patrick Tambay (2 Wins): Tambay had the tough task of stepping in the #27 after Gilles perished and did a nice job for a season and a half before moving over to Renault.
  40. Tie: Elio De Angelis (2 Wins) and Jacques Laffitte (2 Wins): Two steady drivers that could always be counted on for a solid result if the car saw the finish line.

Honorable Mention: (Martin Brundle, Stefan Belloff, Nick Heidfield, Olivier Panis, Jarno Trulli)