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It's 1986 all over again.

  • Artykuł

A few minutes before yesterday's race in the Brazil began, I had a bad feeling about how the Formula one world championship would end. I know my F1 history (Recently I correctly dated each car in a display of F1 cars from the 1980s and 90s:  to the shock of some colleagues who were with me, and the chap who was showing us the cars). When ITVs commentator said this was the first time since 1986 that 3 drivers had a chance at the last race, I knew that was the year that Englishman Nigel Mansel went to the last race of the season expected to come home as champion. Over the season his team had insisted they were being fair to him and his team mate - Nelson Piquet, who had been champion twice before and expected number one status. (Some also suspected that Honda who were backing the team wanted Piquet.) Would Piquet snatch it ? In the end a failure on Mansel's car put him out of contention, Piquet couldn't do enough to take the title and Alain Prost came through and won.

Change the names and 2007 was the year Englishman Lewis Hamilton went to the last race of the season expected to come home as Champion. Over the Season his team had insisted they were being fair to him and his team mate -Fernando Alonso, who had been champion twice before and expected number one status. (would McLaren sponsor Banco Santander be happier seeing a Spaniard win ?) Would Alonso snatch it ? In the end a failure on Hamilton's car put him out of contention, Alonso couldn't do enough to take the title and Raikkonen came through and won.

With [a] England's football team looking like they won't make it to the next European finals and [b] the Rugby team proving that whilst you can beat a better team, but not if you give them more chances to kick penalties than they give you (ignoring officials who take very strange views) it made up a very nasty hat-trick, as a couple of this morning's papers have pointed out.

Since I mention officials, there is a ghost of chance that cars ahead of Hamilton will be disqualified - since both Williams and BMW had chilled their fuel to an illegal degree. Of course that would require the FIA to do something which worked against Ferrari. Since they didn't take points away when Ferrari were found to have run an illegal car in he first race the chances of that happening is infinitesimal. Indeed whilst I can name every world champion back to 1968 from memory, I can't recall the FIA ever punishing Ferrari, please post a comment if you can.  Pete at demotivate.org sent me a link to his Ferrari parody T-shirt after my last post about the organization lots of people think of as "Ferrari International Assistance". Looks like I might end up buying one.

 

Technorati tags: Lewis Hamilton, Nigel Mansel, McLaren, Ferrari

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
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  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
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  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Roberto, it didn't affect their championship did it ? Max Mosley was keen to point out that the $100M McLaren fine on was less than the difference between their budget (or Ferrari's) and team like Williams' so what's half a million split 3 ways. Is that the worst that Ferrari have had in 25 years ?

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
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  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Rob, you must have sat down an learned that :-) I've picked it up by Osmosis.

  • Anonymous
    October 22, 2007
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  • Anonymous
    October 23, 2007
    The first one I can remember is in 1982 at Long Beach, the driver was Gilles Villeneuve  and he was disqualified: his car had a rear asymmetric double wing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCGtHPCS6mk

  • Anonymous
    October 23, 2007
    James, If I remember correctly (had to double check via google) Ferrari were disqualified in Malaysia 1999 for some dodgy aerodynamics... but i think they were reinstated. So no ferrari probably haven't been punished for a long time. PS James, I am younger than you and I can recall the F1 champ back to the first champion in 1950, when cars were proper cars, not computers. Those were the good old days.

  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2007
    Ok less then 25 years ago ... I have to search, my memory is not as good as your: http://www.fia.com/mediacentre/Press_Releases/The_FIA/2002/260602-01.html

  • Anonymous
    October 25, 2007
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  • Anonymous
    October 26, 2007
    Crikey I've just had a thought, not only are Rosberg Jr and Nakajima Jr currently racing in F1, but Ayrton Senna's nephew is coming up throught the ranks, Nelson Piquet's son is Renault's test driver, Mario Andretti's grandson is racing has tested an F1 car, Niki Lauda's son is driving in DTM and Mansell's sons are in F3. Wow, in a couple of years time half the F1 grid could be full of sons of former f1 drivers!!

  • Anonymous
    October 28, 2007
    You're right, that fine didn't affect Ferrari's championship in 2002 and you may agree that even a $100M fine do not affect McLaren's 2007 championship. I'm simply bringing to your attention that there was times when Ferrari was punished by FIA. Of course I'm not trying to "win" this discussion, it's even too difficult for me to write in "english" ... every time I write I cross my fingers and hope that someone who really write in english don't laugh at me too loud :-) So that's it for me, I'm sure I couldn't add more.