#Fernando and Lewis are the only other with working class beginnings and both of them are over 35 and ridiculously talented

[topnotchquark]

Behind F1's Velvet Curtain

This article by Kate Wagner on her INEOS sponsored trip to the Austin GP at COTA last year was commissioned by Road and Track magazine and then taken down. Presumably because Kate has was pretty staunch in her opinions about what was essentially a paid trip.

It is exactly the kind of thing I have wanted to read about the felt experience of the money business of F1. It doesn't get into technicalities and does not produce any spreadsheets for reference. It's just, her experience of the presence of wealth in the sport.

She starts off by talking about how she has been covering cycling and NASCAR for a while now and both of those, in comparison, are scrappier sports with smaller sponsors and cheaper tickets.

What I also especially loved was how fascinated she was with the cars themselves, and how they seem like a true marvel of human engineering. She almost described the cars like these alien beasts that came into this dimension out of nowhere and were being constantly monitored and dueled with to furnish wins and glory (and shareholder value for sponsors).

I think I always had an understanding of the weird myth making surrounding F1 and the kind of media attention it attracts, but someone like Kate (who I have loved reading for a while now) putting it into perspective really made it click for me. This sport thrives off of the kind of cocoon it has built around it and understands exactly the certain exclusiveness it needs to maintain to keep the story alive.

Anyway, give it a read, especially because Road and Track is trying to bury it to not piss off sponsors.

#I think matt oxley was talking about how motogp has been struggling with money and hence dorna is trying to woo the American market #and the american tech sponsors #but bikes don't require as much data driven performance engineering as f1 cars do #Ducati is probably leading the operation in this regard because they have audi behind them #anyway I knew motogp does not produce the same level of wealth but I still decided to check numbers #Marc's net worth is $25Mn and he is arguably the best driver of his generation with enough sponsors behind him #Max's net worth in comparison is $165Mn easily over 6 times that of Marc #Vale's net worth is $200Mn but he is still somewhat of an outlier because his popularity far outweighs that of motogp itself #Lewis is still around $300Mn and he hasn't even retired yet #Schumacher was around $800Mn #I know net worth is a very stupid number to consider but driver net worth is an easy way to translate impact ig #the current Max to Mercedes rumours caused Merc valuation to rise by $11Bn #Billion! 11 of them! #honestly I frequently get desensitized to money just purely as a number because I am exposed to businesses with large valuations but #I still wanted a moment to reconsider how much money rides on this sport #and how that ties to how rich people function #just made me remember that Ocon is the last driver from a working class background #Fernando and Lewis are the only other with working class beginnings and both of them are over 35 and ridiculously talented #its not a sport for regular people to break into #Vale also started with karts and had to shift to bikes #anyway I love Kate Wagner please read this #and talk to me about money and F1 #Kate wagner #f1 #formula 1 #road and track magazine #lewis hamiton #mercedes amg petronas f1 team #Mercedes #INEOS

[grandpxnews-blog]

Column: Already a winner

New Post has been published on https://grandpx.news/column-already-a-winner/

Column: Already a winner

  2019 sees one of the most exciting shake-ups of the driver market in recent years, but one name that will be returning to the F1 fold stands out above them all. Having completed only a handful of laps in the first pre-season test at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya, the jury is very much still out on Robert Kubica’s anxiously awaited return to full-time F1 racing. However, before we learn how much Williams has been able to improve on last season’s offering, or how much of the scintillating performance- from his first career- Robert Kubica can rekindle. Let’s consider the scale of his gargantuan comeback and celebrate the rarity of such an achievement.

  Cast your mind back- if you can- to the 2010 F1 season. In the U.K, Gordon Brown was succeeded by David Cameron at No.10, in the U.S, Obama was 2 years into his first term as president of the United States of America and in F1- Sebastian Vettel won the first of his four World Championships to date, snatching the title away from Fernando Alonso at the final race in Abu Dhabi. Aside from the beginning of an incredible winning streak for Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull and the return of Michael Schumacher into the F1 Paddock in 2010- we also witnessed a simply astonishing season of driving from one Robert Kubica, qualifying and racing his Renault into positions it had absolutely no right to be in. At Monaco, a track where overcoming car deficiencies with driver skill is still very much possible, he managed to qualify his Renault 2nd on the grid, a mere 3 tenths of a second behind pole-sitter and Monaco specialist, Mark Webber, and a full second and a half ahead of team-mate Vitaly Petrov (who qualified 14th). There are numerous Kubica 2010 achievements to consider, but in terms of pure speed, talent and ability; none do him a better service than qualifying 2nd and converting that to a finishing position of 3rd in the race with a car that in other hands failed to reach the top 10 in qualifying. Often praised by the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso as one of the very best, his efforts in F1 had not gone unnoticed by the top tier teams- it has since been revealed that he had even signed a pre-agreement to drive for Ferrari in 2012. Back in early 2011, it looked as if Robert Kubica along with Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel was going to dominate F1 for the foreseeable future. However, these hopes and expectations were suddenly and violently put on hold when in February 2011, Robert- competing of his own volition in an Italian Rally- suffered life-changing injuries as his car collided with an Armco-barrier that pierced into the cabin, impaling Robert in the process. His consequent injuries were horrendous- nearly losing his right hand alongside compound fractures to his elbow and leg. The same rugged determination that served Kubica so well in racing undoubtedly contributed to his remarkably speedy return to racing. Despite breaking the same leg again slipping on ice near his home in early 2012- as if to prove a point- Robert got into a rally car again on the 9th of September that same year! His competitive spirit and skills behind the wheel seemed undiminished as he went on to win the event by well over a minute, nonetheless, the confines of a single-seater did not give his right arm and hand enough space to operate. Undeterred, he went on to make successful appearances in other forms of motorsport, such as winning the 2013 title in the World Rally Championship’s WRC2 class and the ’14 European Rally Championship season-opener, Tests in GP3, Formula E and LMP2 machinery followed before a return to F1 machinery in a test for his old Renault team at Valencia in June of 2017. Lewis Hamilton summed up his thoughts on the Pole’s talents before a test later that year at Hungary’s tight and twisty Hungouring, “Robert’s one of the quickest drivers I’ve ever raced against, If he was still racing he’d be up in contention for the world title if not have won one. Just raw natural talent which in the sport is a shame we don’t have here with us. Not a lot of great, great drivers come through. It filters and then filters down, you have some that are much better than the rest but then still not the greatest. Then you have real special drivers like him.”

Why does this matter now? That 2017 test came at a relatively mature point in Robert’s comeback to F1. Rather tellingly, after an intense assessment from Renault, he was not offered a seat with Renault for 2018. It’s hard not to imagine that Renault would have snapped him up if he had fully recaptured the abilities that secured him 2nd place in qualifying at the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix. Late in 2017, Kubica had already begun testing for Williams, but after an inconclusive end of season in Abu-Dhabi, where his qualifying runs were not on a par with the heavily inexperienced Sergey Sirotkin, Robert had to make do with operating as reserve driver for Williams during the 2018 season before being confirmed as part of the 2019 Williams driver line-up. The pertinent and obvious question is, how much of the 2010 vintage Robert Kubica are we likely to see this year? Will he continue to improve with more time? Or will we need to be satisfied with the fact that it’s an absolute miracle, comparable with Alex Zanardi’s come back to full-time racing after losing both legs racing in a CART (formerly a rival series to Indycar) event, that Robert has made it this far?

Reflecting on his return to F1 late last year Robert intimated that “From the human point of view, I understand and see the point that it is a story that probably nobody has believed. Probably the only one who never gave up was myself and the people around me. We all knew that it might be something not achievable. This shows that somehow nothing is impossible. From the driving point of view, you just have to wait a few months and you will see. If I would not be able to drive competitively enough, I would not be here. It is a normal way of thinking that people see my limitations and ask how it is possible I can do it, and I know it is hard to believe. But Williams has seen it this year and I have seen it in the last 16 or 18 months since I first drove an F1 car in Valencia last year that I can do it, thanks to work, but also that my limitations are not limiting me as most people are thinking. Deputy team principal Claire Williams further endorsed the Pole’s incredible comeback: “It is a great credit to his strength of character and tenacity to return to Formula 1. He has a level of determination that is remarkable to see.” There can be no doubting the magnitude of Robert’s return to F1, his levels of determination to drive- to all intents and purposes- with one hand is obviously remarkable. But what would be fascinating to learn, is whether Renault would pass again on the opportunity to sign their former “Monaco Magician” if they assessed him now in 2019, with Robert having had more time to recover and gain knowledge of current F1 machinery. Remember, a lot has changed since he last competed in 2010- much wider cars with possibly the highest levels of downforce ever seen, totally different power units with various elements of hybrid technology and perhaps most importantly- entirely different tyres (the rock solid “Bridgestone” Tyres of 2010 required an entirely different style of driving to the still comparably fragile Pirelli tyres of today, Robert was a master of braking late whilst steering into the corner- certainly not a good idea in current F1). In an interview with F1’s in house podcast “Beyond the Grid” with Tom Clarkson, Kubica remarked that the muscle memory of driving the narrower-bodied cars from his first stint in F1 served him very well in his 2017 Valencia test for Renault in their 2012 car but that the wider dimensions of the 2017 and onward cars put him into the position of almost being a rookie. Evidently, there has been a re-learning process for Kubica, both in terms of coming to terms with an altered body and also vastly different F1 machinery.

  What can we expect from Robert in 2019? Undoubtedly, he will not be picking up where he left off in 2010, just the time away from F1 without his injuries would make that impossible (one only has to think of how long it took Michael Schumacher to get up to speed following his 4-year hiatus from the sport), but as he remarks above- he wouldn’t be on the grid if he wasn’t up to the required standard. Instead of lamenting the untimely curtailing of his first career in F1, let’s celebrate an unlikely comeback that ranks alongside any in the world of sport. Welcome back Robert, we’ve missed you.

#formula1