Piling on Max

Max is starting to feel the heat of the stakeholders in F1. You would expect Jackie Stewart to jump on this, and Niki Lauda never missed a chance to talk to the press, but I thought John Watson’s comments comparing him to Robert Mugabe were spot on and caught the real point: Max can fight as much as wants and he may even win and retain the presidency, but is he doing the best thing for the FIA and the sport? With four of F1’s manufacturers calling for him to step down, event organizers asking him not to attend races, Max should just do the right thing. But he can’t because everything he has been taught is that what is good for the dictator is good for the state. So, it is OK to fight because if Max sees prostitution as a good thing for the presidency of the FIA, then it is good for all constituents including the Middle East, India, Germany. It doesn’t matter if prostitution is illegal there or that their constituents are offended by the practice.

The FIA has been a positive thing for Max. Some of the things that he has done has been good for the FIA. But now it is over and he will need to be forced to see that, because he won’t do the right or classy thing on his own.

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Massa Wins In Bahrain

Massa took a well deserved win today. He drove a pretty smooth race and didn’t really put a wheel wrong more than a couple times. His pit strategy seemed designed to prevent a repeat of what happened in Malaysia. With all the Ferrari folks and even Schumi saying Massa was OK, you knew they would do all they could to help him, or at least not hinder him. Having said that, though, Massa did everything he could to help himself and never gave the team an excuse to favor Kimi, so a big hand for Massa. Kimi had some fast laps so he wasn’t off the pace, it is seemed that Fillipe was the better driver today.

It is a shame that Kubica could not capitalize on his popular pole position, but there is no question that leading up the European season, that car has the pace and that barring bad luck, they should get a win at some point this season.

I knew Lewis would disappoint. He had no choice really, because every driver I pick to win on my fantasy team fails. It’s rather consistent. But, you have to wonder now with two bad races in a row what he is thinking and what we should think about him. There really was no excuse for him today, he lost that race when the lights went out. It will be interesting to see how long before the non-Spanish press starts to cool on him and praise Alonso if this inconsistency continues. Of course, it does not hurt to remember that a) he was not that consistent last year really and b) he is barely old enough to vote. If he stays with McLaren, he should be a champion someday, but perhaps his path has been a little too easy and he needs a little more seasoning.

In other observations: it is nice to see Toyota being a bit racy because frankly wasting all that money is a sin if you don’t get results. They would get better marketing impact from donating that money to Darfur or some other struggling nation. Has Honda caught the scent? Is that car improving? Finally, someone please make DC quit. No-one was a bigger fan than me, but he looks lost this year. Was Button over-optimistic? Hell yes, but the fact is he was alongside and DC did not have absolute rights to that part of the track. If Button was too hot, better to let him go off on his own. Turning in to him did DC no good at all. 

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Pole Position

OK, so everyone and their brother has wanted to get their pun in when Pole Robert Kubica finally got a pole position. Because it was only a matter of time. Kubica has been fast since he got in the car, he doesn’t make many mistakes and he doesn’t moan to the press. The way he captured pole on a day when Massa looked like he was unstoppable, made the whole thing more dramatic. Congratulations to Robert and Sauber-BMW.

What is it with the FIA Presidency?

 

So, now that the claims are starting that Mad Max is the subject of witch hunt, I seem to recall some witch hunting in the way that Max got to be president in the first place, so I did some research on Jean-Marie Balestre, the last FIA president. And what do I find? A background in fascism. What it is with these guys and Hitler? C’mon, we are talking about the presidency of a motorsports organization, not NATO.

It is time to start thinking of a new president, so here are some criteria I think the FIA should adopt.

• No candidates that know how to goose step
• No candidates with a predilection for arm bands
• Successful candidates should be able to quote Locke on command
• Successful candidates should be able to clearly demonstrate the relationship between rule stability and costs
• Successful candidate should not have any affiliations with existing teams. Especially if their initials are JT or RD. 
• Successful candidate should be able to clearly articulate the idea that a mop top haircut and large sunglasses haven’t been in style in years and that a memo needs to be sent to Bernie immediately.
• Repeat after me: slicks, wide cars and limited aero! Tattoo it on your forehead.

There must be more. Help me by commenting on this one.

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Lack of Traction

So, the Mad Mod recently told us that Lewis doesn’t make mistakes. But he did at the second practice session at Bahrain earlier today. I must admit I like the new rules re: traction control. Bahrain is notoriously slippery with lots of sand on the track and Bernie is right, Hamilton does not make many mistakes, so this just highlights how the new rules are having an effect on the drivers and their results.

And of course, since I have picked Lewis on my fantasy team this week, he is almost certainly guaranteed to fall off the track again tomorrow while qualifying.

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Max The Swinger

Well, we all knew Max was a little different. And now that we know the boundaries of Max’s judgement, I find myself on the edge of my seat to see how he deals with this latest crisis. Step 1: call an emergency meeting of the FIA council. It would seem that Max is prepared to fight for this on principle. I thought he was prepared to step down next year anyway, why this unnecessary inconvenience to the entire motorsports world? Why drag all these people from their home countries to a meeting?

Because Max is once again missing the point. He is informed by the dictatorial notion that that the dictator is above the standard rules, indeed above reproach entirely. Perhaps his stance is informed by his father’s philosophy of government. Or perhaps he is just a moron.

The shot at his father may seem easy and cheap, but I think it is significant. Max’s response is legalistic in nature and seems to be based on two points. One is that the filming and subsequent report was illegal. The other is that the orgy was not racist in nature. Still the fact remains that the head of the FIA was in an orgy.

Max’s defense might make sense if he was an elected MP or government official. But as the head of a huge and very valuable entertainment property, his response is irresponsible at best. The interests of the FIA are certainly not served by this as the letter from the Bahraini crown prince demonstrates.

That is because F1 is based on image. Bernie “The Mad Mod” Ecclestone should have taught him this. Bernie at least demanded and continues to demand certain image and brand standards for the tracks and teams (remember when he weeded out the minnows in an effort to upgrade the “professionalism” of the teams?). Max’s image is tarnished whether or not the prostitutes were supposed to be Nazis or not and by proxy the entire sport is tarnished. Whether the News of the World had a legal right is beside the point and will play itself out in court. We are offended by the act, not its legal consequences.

Max should just step down a year early and just save everyone the trouble. “Everyone” in this case are the teams, manufacturers and tracks. Oh yeah and also that forgotten lot: the fans. Instead Max will just drag everyone one down into the mud with him to protect his “rights”, rights that are not absolute, divinely granted or justified by the greater efficiency of fascism. They are based, as are the responsibilities of the president of the FIA, on the needs of the FIA’s constituent stakeholders. And they do not include the right to orgies.

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