F L A T C H A T FULL THROTTLE MUSINGS WITH
F1’S DOMINIC CUMMINGS MOMENT
STUART CODLING
If, like me, you’re delighted to see the 2020 Formula 1 season actually get going – and especially if, unlike me, you’re paid millions to be a leading light in it – you’d have to be pretty dumb to bring the whole thing to a shuddering halt again, wouldn’t you? And yet the actions of a few who ought to know better are threatening to destroy the effectiveness of the incredibly thorough precautions F1 has taken in order to return to business.
While many countries emerge from lockdown status in a process accelerated by economic expediency, F1 has been prudent, careful and scientific in its approach: all personnel are to observe their separate ‘bubbles’, masks to be worn in the paddock at all times, COVID-19 tests for all attendees twice a week. The integrity of the bubble is paramount, because it’s well-established that the virus is highly contagious and can be transmitted by carriers who aren’t presenting symptoms.
In the grand scheme of F1’s COVID plan, risking a bursting of their respective bubbles. To Lando
Norris, who flew to the UK to see a specialist about his chest pain, we might grudgingly give a pass.
Not only does this make a mockery of being seen to do the right thing, it actively increases the risk of the virus being transmitted into F1. And in getting away with little more than a slapped wrist, these individuals are setting a dangerous example. Indeed, between the Styrian and Hungarian GPS it appeared that Bottas flew the coop yet again, judging by the location tag on pictures posted to his social media feeds depicting him ‘enjoying’ a COVID test.
For F1 this is a Dominic Cummings moment. Cummings, you’ll recall, is the British political apparatchik who took himself and his family off on a 520-mile round trip to his ancestral seat in County Durham (even enjoying a picnic in the environs of Barnard Castle) at the height of lockdown – and avoided being summarily fired. Perhaps the lesson drawn in this case was that even the most inexcusable behaviour by prominent individuals can be survived by simply brazening it out.
Flouting the rules and escaping punishment sets a poor example and this was a missed opportunity for F1 and the FIA to establish clear and powerful boundaries – and deterrents. Other sports have acted with greater resolve: in cricket, the bowler Jofra Archer was dropped from the second test against the West Indies for breaching England’s biosecure protocols. Complacency cannot be allowed to creep in – the news of two F1 personnel testing positive ahead of the Hungarian GP demonstrates the need for constant vigilance.
If, say, Leclerc knew that next time he fancied a knees-up with his mates in Monaco one of the consequences would be Antonio Giovinazzi racing his car, he might think again. And if Esteban Gutierrez had been in Bottas’s Mercedes for the Styrian GP, would Valtteri still be a championship frontrunner? Ah – that’ll be the reason for the cotton-wool treatment, then… though, face masks aren’t doing the heavy lifting, as it were, of preventing contagion. They’re part of a broader suite of measures and, if anything, the insistence on wearing them outside is but window dressing, lest the cameras alight on someone sans face covering. It’s about being seen to be responsible as much as actually being responsible.
So while it was carelessly cavalier of Sebastian Vettel, Christian Horner and Helmut Marko to cross the bubble threshold without masks for a career pow-wow in the Red Bull motorhome during the very first event, it was downright ridiculous for Valtteri Bottas and Charles Leclerc to ship out back to Monaco between races,
FLOUTING THE RULES AND ESCAPING PUNISHMENT SETS A POOR EXAMPLE