EXCLUSIVE: PETER STEVENS PAINTS THE PERFECT F1 CAR

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Issue No9/F1 Comeback Special

Stitch or staple

A local lockdown special from the publishers of The Road Rat Price: A lot less than a Sky subscription
Stitch or staple

F1 vs covid
STEVE ETHERINGTON FOR MERCEDES-BENZ GRAND PRIX LTD.

what could pos-

sibly go wrong?
Missed that sinking, guilty, ‘why did I waste two hours on
that?’ feeling? Time to lock yourself in again this Sunday “I can hear you
By Richard Porter @sniffpetrol perfectly, Bono…”

STEVE ETHERINGTON FOR MERCEDES-BENZ GRAND PRIX LTD.
“F1 is the virus and I’m the
cure,” Hamilton never said
W
elcome to the Formula
One Now Wash Your
Hands 2020 Grand
Prix of Austria, live
from the Dettolring.
It’s Friday morning, and ahead
of the first free practise session,
the paddock is positively
buzzing. This is traced to a
faulty ozone generator which is
then switched off, restoring the
air of creepy silence.
08:04 First driver to arrive
at the track is Lewis Hamilton.
The reigning champion has
been repeatedly telling
interviewers that he has “total
focus”, something he underlines
by arriving in an actual Ford
Focus. The team say his
chauffeur driven S-Class
was impounded after someone
coughed near it.
09:00 Preparations continue
for first practise, but there are
problems at Renault where
staff have been instructed not
to say anything that might make
Daniel Ricciardo smile, as this
will cause his mouth to breach
the sides of his face mask.
Fortunately there is little
risk of Ricciardo smiling, on
account of still being at Renault.
09:30 Hygiene is being taken
very seriously here, as you would
expect. Looks like the McLaren
team have scrubbed their car so
furiously they’ve rubbed off a lot
of sponsor decals.
10:00 First practise starts,
and immediately Daniil Kvyat
is out on the track, up to the first
corner, and straight on into the
run-off area. Reports from the
AlphaTauri-Honda pit say F1
has been away so long Kvyat had
simply “forgotten” about some
of the basics, e.g. steering.
10:15 Still no sign of Romain
2 3
Grosjean in the Haas pit,
fuelling rumours that he forgot
to put this re-scheduled race in
his diary and has accidentally
gone on holiday. These
unconfirmed reports tally with
claims that last weekend he was
seen wandering around the
deserted paddock at Circuit Paul
Ricard “looking confused”.
10:20 More trouble for Haas
as it emerges that a pre-practise
garage inspection found the
‘hand-sanitiser station’ was
being fed from a bowser of
leftover Rich Energy.
10:25 Haas are in the clear
as the FIA confirms that Rich
Energy seems to kill more
germs than the stuff the crew
were supposed to be using,
although it also tastes worse.
10:28 A panicked Esteban
Ocon returns to the pits
complaining that his head
feels hot. The team remind
him that for the first time in
four months he is simply
wearing a crash helmet.
10:44 Trouble for Charles
Leclerc in the Ferrari as his
front wing comes loose. That’s
the fourth front-wing problem
so far. Sources say attaching the
wing is normally a two-person
job, but is impossible with social
distancing. Teams have come up
with creative solutions to hold
the wing in position while the
cams are turned to lock it in
place. Mercedes, for example,
have an intricate 3D-printed
mounting stand, while Williams
use a pile of old library books.
11:00 Panic spreads at
rumours coming from the
Alfa Romeo garage that one
of their team is delirious,
unable to form words properly
or focus on tasks at hand.
11:30 Session ends.
11:37 Consummate
professionalism from Alex
Albon as his mandatory Covid
test time coincides with a Zoom
interview with Martin Brundle,
and yet he continues to talk
about tyre choices while having
a cotton-tipped broom handle
inserted two feet into his nose.
11:40 From its lofty position
at the top of Toto Wolff, Toto
Wolff’s nose is irritated by
some brake dust and issues an
unmasked sneeze in the pitlane,
dispersing particles as far as
the distant Williams garage.
The entire weekend is
immediately cancelled.
Circus
ring
In keeping with the times,
the Austrian GP has produced
some truly surreal moments
By Matt Bishop @TheBishF1
The Austrian always was a weird
Grand Prix. It was first held at
Zeltweg Air Base, now known
as Fliegerhorst Hinterstoisser –
perhaps the dullest circuit ever
to host a championship F1 race.
As a dinky L-shaped course of
just four turns, it was lapped
by Graham Hill’s BRM in a
smidgen over a minute to take
pole in 1964. Lewis Hamilton
and his Merc would dispatch it
today in less time than it would
take even a chastened Bernie
Ecclestone to say, “Black lives
matter.” It soon moved to
Österreichring, one of the
most majestic racetracks in
the history of motor racing.
Many greats won Grands Prix
there – Jacky Ickx, Emerson
Fittipaldi, Ronnie Peterson,
Carlos Reutemann, Alain
Prost, Niki Lauda, Nigel
Mansell – but in the mid-1970s
it gained a reputation, as did
Anderstorp (Sweden), for
springing surprises. In 1975
Vittorio Brambilla took the pole
at Anderstorp in a March 751,
an achievement that neither
driver nor car ever looked liked
repeating, and which cynics
have suggested may have been
earned by team boss Max
Mosley swinging a pit-board in
front of the timing beam while
Brambilla was still a hundred
yards away, but I would never
dream of suggesting such a
thing. Besides, Brambilla
consummately led the race for
15 laps until tyre blisters spoiled
it and transmission glitches
ended it. Anderstorp is the only
circuit to host a Grand Prix won
by either a six-wheeled car (Jody
Scheckter’s Tyrrell P34 in 1976)
or a ‘fan car’ (Lauda’s Brabham-
Alfa BT46B in 1978).
But Österreichring was
weirder yet. In 1975 it rained
FOTO_SPU_1976-07-31
Vittorio Brambilla wins,
then crashes, in the March
 #RatTales
We always saw The Road Rat as all cars: classic cars, racing cars, new cars and seriously old cars. We wanted
to attempt some context for all 130-odd years of this adventure, but we recognised that raised some challenges;
pre-war cars, which can seem a little alien to a lot of people. Jon Claydon – a partner in the business with Guy
and I – had a long-held fascination with the 1935 German GP, when Nuvolari and Alfa Romeo humiliated the Nazi-
supported Mercedes and Auto Union teams on the Nürburgring. It’s a great tale. But how to bring it back to life
LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC
heavily on Austrian GP day, so
heavily that the race was stopped
after less than an hour, at which
point it was being led by our old
friend Brambilla, who was so
astonished by his serendipity
that he lost control of his March
751 as he crossed the line, and
nerfed the barrier. He kept the
dented nose cone in his garage
in Monza, where he lived until
he died at nearby Lesmo in 2001.
Penske don’t compete in F1,
right? Er, wrong. They did
between 1974 and 1976,
although they rarely looked like
winning a Grand Prix. But they
did at Österreichring in ’76, the
bearded John Watson driving a
corker of a race, after which
Roger Penske made him shave,
their having agreed that in the
unlikely event of their winning,
Watson would remove his facial
hair, which the meticulous
FB.COM/F1 CLASSIC
Aussie Alan Jones
lurking in the Shadow
A bearded John Watson
in the Penske in 1976
Penske regarded as de trop. Wattie
G
has been clean shaven ever since.
A year later, Österreichring
served up its last major surprise;
a maiden Grand Prix victory for
Alan Jones, then regarded as a
dogged journeyman, and known
by fans as the stocky Aussie who
raced with the word ‘Durex’
emblazoned on the flanks of
his otherwise virginal white
Surtees TS19. But by 1977
he was racing for Shadow. At
Österreichring he qualified
14th yet managed to win a
wet-then-dry race, beating
Lauda’s pole-sitting Ferrari into
second place, Jonesy’s winning
margin 20 seconds. Shadow
never won again.
This year’s race will be run on
the Red Bull Ring, a neat little
track but a pale shadow (pun
intended) of Österreichring,
within whose curves it nestles.
Red Bull won there last year and
the year before. But I am hoping
for a 1970s-style weird result
this year. How about Kevin
Magnussen (Haas) from Pierre
Gasly (AlphaTauri) and Kimi
Räikkönen (Alfa Romeo)?
Vorsprung durch Verrücktheit!
4 5
85 years later? Well, take the old b/w
images and give them to London SFX
geeks Smoke & Mirrors and presto! 1935
German GP in colour for the first time ever.
Michael Harvey @mikeyharvey
the colour
of money
Sponsors used to enhance
iconic race cars. Now we
barely recognise them Works Honda
By Peter Stevens @peterstevensdesign
rand Prix racing was ‘Willard Battery Special’. These necessity for brand loyalty was entry, although the more
straightforward in the names, beautifully sign-written behind the marketing pitches complex red spot was also
1920s and ’30s; a German using gold leaf with bright- to companies from most meant to imply Lucky Strike
car was painted white coloured outlines, were part of sponsor hunters, and still is. cigarettes when fagvertising
(later silver), a French the great presentation of Indy When a motor company such had been banned.
car was blue, an Italian was red, race cars. In Europe it was not as Honda first decided to enter Into the 1970s and ’80s,
Belgian yellow and a British car until the late 1960s that Lotus Formula One races, it was Formula One racing was
was painted green, although introduced the concept of the in effect sponsoring itself becoming more and more
there are as many claims as to visual appearance of the whole and so had a very simple expensive. Next year’s budget
what ‘British Racing Green’ car being ‘sold’, in its case message to get across to was always considerably more
is, as there are shades of green. to the cigarette company John prospective Honda customers: than last year’s. If the entrant
Sponsorship, or ‘Trade Deals’ Player’s ‘Gold Leaf’ brand, “Hey look, we are at the top was a motor manufacturer,
as they were called, were either as sponsor of the Grand Prix level of racing and are great at the sale of road cars was never
for product or cash, but there team. Apparently at that time engineering, so buy one of our enough for the appetite of the
was seldom any indication it was thought that smokers cars.” A white car with a large- race team, and independent
on the cars. The French oil were a fickle lot with no ‘brand diameter red spot (suggesting team owners almost always
company Yacco was almost loyalty’, and by being reminded Japan) and clean black lettering survived by spending next
unique in having its yellow, of one particular make every was all it needed. The cars year’s sponsorship during
green and white graphic logo two weeks they would keep looked great. Honda briefly the current year. Therefore
PETER STEVENS
painted on the Voisins and buying Gold Leaf. This followed that same path with sponsor deals became ever-
Citroëns that it funded for questionable belief in the the 2007 BAR-Honda F1 more crucial, but the concept
world speed or endurance
records in the 1930s. Gitanes Ligier
Long before European
Grand Prix cars wore sponsors’
logos, American Indianapolis
car owners had deals with
companies such that a race car
built by Miller or later by A.J.
Watson were called ‘The Bowes
Seal Fast Special’ or the

Leyton House March
Marlboro McLaren
was always to have a ‘named
sponsor’ who would have the
entire surface of the car, with
small logos for suppliers, or
companies that the team hoped
to seduce into becoming the
named sponsor in future years.
Teams such as Ligier, ATS and
Brabham had individual team
owners such as Bernie
Ecclestone of Brabham, who
believed that the car had to look
good in order to highlight the
fine taste of the sponsor and the
quality of the product. ATS was
owned by Günter Schmid, the
‘somewhat difficult’ boss of
both the alloy-wheel company
ATS and the race team. He had
very strong views about most
things, but particularly the way
Scuderia AlphaTauri
Parmalat Brabham
the cars looked. A strong
contrast of black and yellow was
his thing. Guy Ligier, owner of
the Ligier team, left the look
of the cars to cigarette company
Gitanes, which had a simple
message and a very restricted
range of colours – always a
good starting point for graphic
identity. Simple times, simple
budgets and good-looking cars.
Colin Chapman, owner of
Lotus, was more interested in
the money coming in, and so
allowed the extremely dodgy
David Thieme to take full
responsibility for the
appearance of the Essex
Petroleum-sponsored cars.
I went to the ludicrously
extravagant launch of the
6 7
Mild Seven/Bitburger Benetton
cars at the Royal Albert
Hall and was appalled by the
vulgarity of the event, the cars
and the stupidity of the entire
side-pods being covered in
gold-foil stickers – a material
that always looks crap on a
surface as rough as an F1 car.
During the 1980s and ’90s,
Formula One budgets were still
sufficiently under control that
there was still the chance that a
fine-looking car resulted. “We
are at the top level of motorsport
so our product has to be good,”
sponsors would say, and with
one simple marketing message
from 7up, Marlboro or
Leyton House (whatever that is/
was), the cars did look great on
track. The fleeting glimpse of a
Lucky Strike BAR-Honda
high-speed race car, either
at the circuit or on television,
needed a quickly assimilated
subliminal message to reach
and stay with the viewer. TV
exposure was the mantra for
the marketing men at the
sponsoring companies, but
until the late 1980s the vast
majority of viewers worldwide
watched black and white
televisions, where the complex,
Orlen Alfa Romeo
multi-coloured visual identities
of many teams were lost.
Quite often a major
sponsoring company did not
actually put as much money
into a race team as appearances
suggested. Benetton was a good
example of this. As money
from the Benetton family
arrived less and less frequently,
a multitude of minor sponsors
appeared on the cars. By 1995,
under Flavio Briatore’s
leadership, they looked like
cheap fairground rides. In
1998, I was brought in by then-
current team director David
Richards to try to rescue the
graphic identity of the cars,
Mild Seven/FedEx Benetton
to satisfy the new sponsors
FedEx, Korean Air and Mild
Seven cigarettes. I used
Ecclestone’s philosophy: “If
you want to join us then here
is the simple palette of colours
that you will be represented
by, like it or forget it!” To a
degree it worked, but with the
exception of Ferrari the days
of a clear design messaging
were almost gone.
So what is ‘sponsorship’ for
these days? That becomes less
and less clear. It used to be a
simple way of selling cars. “Win
on Sunday, sell on Monday,”
is what Henry Ford said, and
probably lots of others, too.
Then it was to raise the profile
or visibility of a product, then
to appear in a glamorous show.
But now I find it hard to see the
commercial advantage for most
sponsors. There was also a
lucrative side-line in tax
avoidance and the business
of moving money around, but
that has all disappeared now.
And what do we have for
2020? In a so-called ‘poll’
of F1 fans it seems that the most
popular visual identity, for cars
that no one has yet seen racing,
is the AlphaTauri, previously
known as Toro Rosso and
before that Minardi. Quite
what AlphaTauri is, or plans
to be, is not that clear at the
moment. It is just possible that
those F1 fans thought they were
voting for a car that is the best
looking of an ugly bunch of
ill-proportioned current cars,
the Alfa Romeo – Alpha and
Alfa sound the same to the
casual, mobile-phone-watching
follower of F1 racing. The dark
metallic red upper body, clean
white mid-section and lower
black, that hides the ridiculously
complex, myriad aerodynamic
elements of the Alfa Romeo
– from what was previously the
Swiss-based Sauber team –
looks particularly sophisticated
in bright sunlight. We might
even get a chance to watch it
racing soon – but only on TV,
so make sure your colour
balance, brightness and
contrast are set just right!

fast food
Enhance the Austrian vibe
with a Wiener Schnitzel
By Michael Harvey @mikeyharvey
Even if you had the money,
you won’t get near the Paddock
Club this year. But you can treat
yourself to your own ‘stay-at-
home paddock club experience’
with a bit of planning and self
discipline. Forget the pizza
– instead, slip on your smart
casuals and enjoy a delicious
Wiener Schnitzel.
Friday: Put half a dozen slices
of thick white bread on the side.
You want it a bit stale by Sunday.
Saturday: You’ll need two rose
veal or pork escalopes. Support
your local butcher if you can.
Sunday: Take your escalopes
out of the fridge. Blitz the stale
bread in a food processor then
dry in the oven if still too damp.
Don’t overdo it, though. Spread
on a plate. Season the flour and
spread on another plate. Beat
the eggs and pour on to a third.
Meanwhile, cut the spuds into
2cm cubes, heat a mix of olive oil
and another (to stop it burning)
in the pan and toss in the spuds.
Keep tossing and season as you
go. They will take 30mins max.
You will need:
2 Rose veal or pork escalopes
2 Eggs
Plain flour
Clarified butter (ghee) and vegetable oil
500g waxy potatoes like Desirée
Salad
Heat the ghee and veg oil in
a pan big enough to hold both
escalopes. It needs to be quite
deep, about 1cm. Then dip the
escalopes in first the flour, then
the egg, then the crumbs and put
into the hot pan. They take less
than two minutes on each side.
Blot on kitchen roll and serve
with the spuds and salad. Start
around 1pm; you can comfortably
sit down after the theme
tune but before the start.
As Ultravox famously
sang, ‘Ooooh Wiener!’
6
8 7
OFF THE
BEATEN
TRACK
With racing tracks in short
supply, it’s time to seek out
some radical alternatives
By Nick Trott @NickTrott27
T
he 2020 Formula One
World Championship
you say? The one that,
as we write, visits just six
countries – all in Europe?
OK, so let’s open this up and
look at it through the mildly
contorted lens of countries
that have low reported cases of
Covid (or some semblance of
control). And let’s not let the
small matter of FIA circuit
grading get in the way. Or
even if the circuit still exists.
So to Africa, Libya (802
Covid cases) and Tripoli –
where Farina, Lang, Varzi,
Caracciola and Nuvolari slid
between the palm trees on the
eight-mile Mellaha Lake track
in the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s. No?
OK, how’s about the Western
Pacific (WHO’s lowest-ranking
region). Now imagine Danny
Ric and Max belting down
Conrod Straight, through bbq
smoke and transecendent
swearing. Ahh, Bathurst...
Then, hell, since we’re in
the neighbourhood, let’s have
a mini-Tasman series and head
to Teretonga Park in New
Zealand. If it was good enough
for Moss, Clark, Hill, Stewart,
Brabham, McLaren, Hulme
and Amon, and it was good
enough for *checks list* Stroll,
it’s good enough for us.
And Greece! Who could
forget the famous Athens
Hippodrome? And you thought
Brooklands had history. Damn,
the Greeks even invented the
term (hippos + dromos =
horse course). OK, so the
Hippodrome doesn’t actually
exist, but neither does this
writer’s sense of reality.
Speaking of which, let’s scrape
the unsold Vauxhalls from
Rockingham Motor Speedway
in the UK and hit the tri-oval.
After all, who doesn’t want to
see Lewis Hamilton attempt
to beat Champ Car legend
Tony Kanaan’s 24.719-second
lap record? Actually, that
last fact is true.
Bathurst. Jenson Button Nicks album (the one that first
knows it makes sense
Music for
the open
cockpit
Fleetwood Mac,
‘The Chain’
By Jason Barlow @jasonbarlowuk
Cricket has Booker T and The
MGs’ ‘Soul Limbo’, snooker
‘Drag Racer’ by The Doug Wood
Band. Chelsea FC is forever
wedded to the magnificent
‘Liquidator’ by the Harry J
Allstars. But no sport delivers
a more vivid Proustian musical
rush than F1 and ‘The Chain’
by Fleetwood Mac.
Originally track one, side two
on the band’s ’77 blockbuster
Rumours, it’s credited to all five
members of the group because
it’s made up of fragments
each had been working on
individually. Listen to the intro
of ‘Lola’, on 1973’s Buckingham
piqued Mick Fleetwood’s
interest in the duo) and it’ll
sound familiar. Christine
McVie later added a melodic
idea, Stevie Nicks the lyrics.
But it’s that immense bass riff
that sends it stratospheric.
“It was very much a band
composition. The riff is John
McVie’s contribution – a major
contribution,” Fleetwood
later recalled. “It was really
9
something that just came out
of us playing in the studio.
Originally, we had no words to
it. And it really only became a
song when Stevie [Nicks] wrote
some. She walked in one day
and said, ‘I’ve written some
words that might be good for
that thing you were doing in the
studio the other day.’ Lindsey
arranged and made a song out of
the bits and pieces that we were
putting down on to tape. And
then once it was arranged and
we knew what we were doing,
we went in and recorded it.”
A year later, BBC Sportsnight
editor Jonathan Martin was
looking for the right music
to accompany its F1 coverage.
He credits an assistant editor
called Bob Abrahams with
spotting potential in ‘The
Chain’. “Bob had been a film
editor and had a long history
of adroitly choosing pieces of
music,” he said. “‘The Chain’
throbs with menace to begin
with, then explodes into
life. I often referred to F1 as
‘fantasy TV’, and I wanted
music that reflected the intense
drama.” (NB: the song is also
on the Guardians of the Galaxy 2
soundtrack. For those of
you under the age of 30.)
 10 11

closer; the safety record has economy to an F1 car).

A Prayer improved infinitely – whilst, of
course, the manufacturers, huge
And, as for 2m-wide
‘sculpted’ front wings

for Purity corporate sponsors, promoters

Could the privations imposed
by Covid return Formula
One to its former glories?
By Manish Pandey
with gleaming new circuits and
paddocks, and TV have thrived.
I understand that F1 has always
been about bringing a gun to a
knife fight (from ‘Fan cars’, to
‘F ducts’) but, for me, modern
F1 has become an arms race with
the winner buying the biggest
“which cleverly direct
the airflow over the
front wheels and
around the modified
Coke bottle sidepods”
– what? Who even has
the time to cover this?
Modern TV, of course,
because they have to

T
here is an onboard video
of Fangio, in a Maserati
250F, gliding around a
potholed Modena in 1957
– perhaps, correcting once
or twice, and sliding for the
cameras. You can see the simple
steering wheel and the suspension
working on the front-right
wheel. He is wearing an open
helmet, goggles and a T-shirt,
and his bare arms are exposed.
And the car… well, externally,
she’s little more than a crimson
cylinder with an elliptical
mouth, flanked by four wheels.
I can trace a line, in my mind,
from this video right through
to Senna’s wonderful onboard
laps, manhandling his McLaren
through the unforgiving streets
of Monaco. His McLaren was
turbocharged and, like him,
covered in sponsorship, but the
images maintain a purity, for me.
Then the images become
hazy – dare I use the word, even
‘polluted’. Something happened
to F1 in the mid-to-late ’90s
and has endured. Arguably,
actually, the racing has been
ICBM and using it to nuke fish
in a barrel. You could come
second, albeit begrudgingly,
in Ron Dennis and Frank
Williams’s heydays – and live
to fight again. You could even
compete on what, today, would
be a catering budget. But you
can’t do that, now. Not when
there is a boardroom that has
invested $500m into an engine
and chassis programme over a
year, because coming second
reflects badly on that
boardroom’s cars and to that
manufacturer’s modern maxim
– ‘road car relevance’.
Nothing has made my
shoulders sag more in F1 than
the Siamese Twins of ‘road car
relevance’ and ‘beautifully
crafted works of aero’. The
concept of the turbo hybrid
engine being so much more
‘green’ than the last generation
of V10s (they still use 100kg of
fuel to race 300km at Monza)
is akin to arguing that your
marriage is better now because
you’re cheating on your wife
with six women and not 50
(about the ratio of a road car’s
produce endless hours
of something called
‘content’ to justify
their hundreds of
millions of dollars of The 1970
investment. Sadly, British GP
these fragile pieces of at Brands
aero-art are invisible Hatch
to the drivers and
smash off at an alarming rate,
only to be followed by nasal TV
commentary which states, “That’s
his race done – what a shame.”
That’s our race done, too.
My favourite paddock
experience of all time was
at Interlagos in 2010 because,
although it ran the length of the
pitlane, the paddock itself was
only five metres wide. If you
wanted to walk down it, you had
to be prepared to dodge actual
tyres, cans of fuel, gangs of
mechanics – and to rub
shoulders with everyone. I
saw Vettel and Webber pose
grudgingly for a team photo
outside the Red Bull garage,
their smiles disintegrating after
the flash as they walked their
separate ways, barely able to look
at each other. There were no
Maybe fans will be able to bask
in the sport for its own sake
identikit metal and plastic
‘technology centres’ to retreat
to (just small team offices) and
it would have been impossible
to shield anyone with a posse
of bodyguards in a place so
confined. In short, the place
looked, smelt and felt as if I was
at a glorious racetrack about to
witness real combat. That’s not
to take away from the majesty of
Yas Marina, in the afterglow of
a desert sunset; nor from the
insanity of Monaco or the lack
of mud at Silverstone. Each have
their place. Each has its character.
And it is that character, with
all the unpredictability which
character entails, that money
– let’s use the right word – that
money cannot allow.
Yet, as I contemplate the
delayed and, doubtless, abridged
2020 F1 season, I’m genuinely
excited for the first time in
years. What was going to be
a $175m capped-spend for the
year has been reduced to $145m
because of Covid-19, with
further small reductions ahead.
The cap excludes marketing fees
(so teams who want to can keep
‘glamorous’ yachts, parties and
tech centres going); driver
salaries (so Lewis can still try to
negotiate a $50m retainer); and
the top three personnel can still
be paid whatever (so Toto doesn’t
have to fight the wolf at the door).
But if manufacturers can’t
bring a nuclear missile to a knife
fight, if they have to spend much
less on iterative technology in
the sport, perhaps its relevance
to their road cars will begin to
recede. Perhaps, if there is less
iterative technology to pore
over, the F1 media will have
to find stories, not content.
Human stories, even. Perhaps,
with $145m at stake – not
$500m (and the multibillion-
dollar corporate image behind
that) and the existential crisis in
which all teams, therefore, exist
– those superhumans, who put
their lives on the line, will relax
a little and open up a lot. Maybe
there’s a little of Lewis in every
one of them? And maybe the
manufacturers, the sponsors,
the promoters and the fans
will be able to bask in the
sport for its own sake.
A group of humans, of
generous but not unlimited
means, will come together
to compete, on and off the
track, week in, week out.
As pure and as simple as
that. It’s a real possibility.
It’s a hope. It’s a prayer.
Black Lives
Matter

With just eight races on the calendar and a

still-precarious situation across the globe, it’s
hard to find a sense of relevance, of meaning,
in this year’s F1 championship. So we salute
Mercedes’ powerful statement on racism and
its commitment to improving diversity in a
sport that can look anything but. But if its
initiative is to be seen as more than PR, it will
need to be transparent about the success, or
THE ROAD RAT
otherwise, of its campaign. Real change is
needed everywhere — and we don’t exclude ONLY AVAILABLE FROM
ourselves in that necessary commitment. THEROADRAT.COM