MICHAEL SCOTT
GPversus Social Distancing
This coronavirus thing could just end up spoiling bike racing. You might think it already has. By stopping it happening. This is just the beginning. Even when we do get going again (we will, surely?), the implications are long-lasting.
It will (the wise men say) change the way we live. We will have to apply social distancing to everything. Including racing. Imagine a British GP (remember them?) with social distancing rules. No overtaking, unless by prior written agreement, always preserving a gap of at least two metres. A disappointment, when you think back to classic touch-andgo Silverstone battles, up to and including last-year’s Rins versus Marquez win by 0.013 of a second. Compulsory processional racing. An echo of a past best forgotten. Those intimate heads-together chats between riders and their crew chiefs? History. They’ll have to consult one another by WhatsApp. Leaving them open to spying by rival teams’ electronics boffins. Or worse still, by Russian hackers, fiddling maliciously with their suspension settings just for the fun of it. Umbrella girls? No thanks. That’s asking for trouble. They’d have to stand so far away that they might get mixed up with the wrong rider. And they would need such big umbrellas! In any case, the grid will have to be spaced right out. Maybe send them off one at a time, to race against the clock. Could that work? Oh, yes. That’s how they do it at the TT. Then there’s all that touchy-feely on the handlebars. Safest to stop every five laps to sanitise. While (of course) singing Happy Birthday. Twice. The Chief Steward can supervise.
You can forget the winning team hugs. They will, however, be permitted to smile and nod. At least riders who professionally need to hate one another’s guts needn’t feel obliged to pretend otherwise. Staring angrily from a distance will be the new norm.
But there is another bright side. Imagine the merchandising. Face masks, with the riders’ actual faces on them. Want to look like Rossi? Or maybe Dovi, or Crutchlow? It’ll be pretty much compulsory, so make the most of it. Maybe it won’t be that bad, come to think of it. Better than having to pretend to be interested in the riders playing computer games.
‘Umbrella girls? That’s asking for trouble’