Exciting finish at Suzuka for local fans
John Floyd reports on the action in Japan and controversy surrounding the new F1 engines
RED Bull’s Sebastian Vettel dominated qualifying as well as the race at the weekend in Japan, and has now placed himself within four points of championship leader Fernando Alonso of Ferrari.
A first corner incident saw the carnage that one has come to expect this year as many of the drivers try to win the race in the first few 100m. Romain Grosjean was in the mix again and received a stop/go penalty for his efforts, while Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus just touched the right rear of Alonso’s car, puncturing the tyre and causing him to spin out of the race.
From then on, the race was a little lacklustre with the McLarens seeming to be off the pace. Ferrari benefited from Felipe Massa’s best drive of the season to take second, albeit more than 20 seconds behind Vettel. Third place delighted the home crowd when Kamui Kobayashi drove his Sauber to a podium position.
So this week it is off to Korea, and it is still anyone’s game.
With several of the teams already testing the new engines for 2014, it appears that others want to stop the change to the rules as laid down by all concerned. The new engines are to be 1.6l V6 turbocharged units, to make Grand Prix racing greener, but Bernie Ecclestone has again come out against the change.
Ecclestone was against dropping the current 2.4l V8’s originally, saying that the sound will not excite the fans and that audiences will wane, but now his reasoning is one of finance.
In an interview with the Hindustan Times, Ecclestone said: “I listened to the noise of the engines in Maranello the other day, the new engine and the old engine, and even Luca di Montezemolo said it sounded terrible. I think the FIA will get rid of it. I think Luca is also saying we should suspend it for two or three years. I think it is sensible to get rid of it and stick with what we have got. It is much cheaper than the new one. It probably could be 30% of the price.”
“I blame the FIA for this stupid engine formula. It really wasn’t (Jean) Todt’s fault, Max Mosley started the engine and then he got carried away, Todt really hasn’t interfered with us. He has been travelling the world and seeing the different federations but he hasn’t bothered us,” said Ecclestone.
This whole scenario is a little strange. Firstly, if cost is worrying Ecclestone, why was there not a more assertive attempt to prevent the change from both himself and the teams when it was accepted last year? Why has he waited for the teams to go ahead with development of the new engine and invest the amounts of money required, estimated to be between €40m and €60m per team, and then used the costs as a reason for scrapping it?
Secondly, I find the statement that FIA president Jean Todt “hasn’t bothered us” rather strange. Perhaps it is time that the former Peugeot and Ferrari team boss showed some of the strength of character, management skills and personality that took those teams to multiple world championships and put a halt to the enormous influence the commercial rights holder has over a sport, supposedly governed by his own organisation, the FIA.
In times of hardship, people do strange things, mainly due to desperation. For example, the need for money often leads those with a little bit of cash to gamble on the off chance of making the big time, unfortunately nearly all fail and they are worse off than before.
I use this example to try and make sense of the Greek government’s intention to release €30m towards the building of an F1 specification circuit at Xalandritsa near Patras.
The total is expected to be about three times that, but private enterprise must invest the balance.
For a country that will probably need further bailouts, it makes no sense at all. One only has to look at the experience of other countries to realise that hosting a round of the championship is not a way to get rich quick.