Formula 1 and other stuff

I knew it was too good to be true. The sun was shining as I brought the mighty Skoda to a shuddering halt behind a silver Mercedes at the gates of Silverstone and a cheerful security guard waved me through, saying, “Just follow David Coulthard…”

First, the good news: Silverstone is ready to host the 2010 British Grand Prix and the revised layout has been granted FIA Grade One status pending what circuit boss Richard Phillips describes as “a couple of tweaks”. This in itself is a remarkable achievement given the severity of the last winter; my local sports centre has been retiling its swimming pool since November and it still hasn’t reopened yet.

The chief motivation for amending the layout was Silverstone’s new contract to host Britain’s MotoGP round. Bridge corner was adjudged too dangerous – you wouldn’t want a bike to have the same shunt as Andrea de Cesaris did in the Jordan in 1991 – but the bridge itself is integral to the circuit infrastructure, and for reasons too boring to go into at length they couldn’t just build a bigger one. Ron and Leon Haslam essayed several laps on a pair of roadgoing superbikes, while David Coulthard appeared in the Red Bull demo car (which I think is a 2006 Toro Rosso chassis with the 2009 RBR nose and rear wing), and Damon Hill took HRH the Duke of York round in the Santander two-seater.

It’s too early to call the possible effects of the new section but it represents an effective and imaginative use of existing space. Village corner has a tricky approach (complicated for the demo runs yesterday by ‘green’ asphalt, lots of dust, and a large stage directly in the drivers’ sight line), the effects of which were more pronounced for the bikes, which had a very gradual turn-in phase. The short squirt to the Loop will emphasise traction and may provide a further overtaking opportunity if someone has overcooked their approach to Village and run wide.

True to form for this part of the world, almost as soon as the engines were fired up after lunch the skies began to bruise. I was due to have a run in the Santander two-seater once the BBC finished filming, and after commiserating with one of the Motorcycle News testers (green surface? Dust? Rain? On a GSX-R1000? After you, Claude) I donned my flameproof garb. As I finished lacing up my Sparcos I realised it had all gone rather quiet. Enter the two-seater, on the back of a truck.

David Coulthard had been driving Martin Brundle round at the time, and apparently the radio conversation went something like this:

MB: I think there’s something wrong with the engine.

DC: No, it seems okay.

[PAUSE]

[**GRAUNCH**]

DC: Yeah, there’s something wrong with the engine…

A very long afternoon ensued as the mechanics traced the fault – a blown crank oil seal – and finally had to give up and call for a new engine. Still, there was amusement to be had. I learned that my otherwise risible phone insists on trying to substitute “Trundle” for “Brundle”.

My optimism ebbed and flowed as the clock ticked around towards the curfew point of 7pm. At around four o’clock the skies cleared and the sun shone once more. Almost everyone else except the various camera crews had gone home. I felt as if I was going to have the last laugh on this one. What a shame the car was still in several pieces, on axles stands, with a puddle of oil underneath.

It was half past six before the beast was reassembled and Martin set out for an installation lap with Sky’s John Desborough shoehorned into the back seat. In very short order a man in a suit appeared brandishing a walkie talkie. This is never a good sign, and indeed he seemed very put out that the car had sallied forth without appropriate clearance. Off he flounced, still gesticulating with his walkie talkie, muttering darkly that at 7pm the ambulance (an insurance requirement) was going to leave and that would be that.

The vindictive clouds chose this moment to gather again and deposit their contents upon this hallowed loop of Northamptonshire asphalt. Cue further delay as the car, now with James Allen strapped in the back, took wet tyres. You can see the video of their journey, including the new section of track, on James’s site.

I had the fireproof gear on and was about to slip on my crash helmet when the grumpy troll in his ambulance arrived at the back of the garage to signify that playtime was over.

So, a disappointing end to the day, but nothing that a restorative pint of Kingfisher, a deluxe mixed starter and a chicken jalfrezi at Farnham’s finest curry house couldn’t sort out. And there’s always a next time…

The indefatigable Fernando Alonso. Photo by Darren Heath

A couple of months ago, when I was interviewing Sir Stirling Moss for my next book, he was keen to draw a distinction between those drivers who can simply conduct a car quickly and those who have a special mindset – a sort of heroic indomitability, if you like:

There are very few real racers in the world, as opposed to mere racing drivers. They’re the people who have a ruddy good go. I don’t mean to say that the others aren’t trying, because they are; but they don’t have the mental ability to push to the same extent, to really take it to a higher level. In my day it would be Juan Manuel Fangio, who to my mind was the best driver there has ever been; and Jean Behra was a real racer, too. Today you would say that people such as Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton are the real racers.

Lewis Hamilton’s combative drive to sixth position from 20^th on the grid in the Malaysian Grand Prix last week demonstrated precisely those qualities, although many observers (including, perhaps, Moss himself) would have frowned upon his abrupt treatment of Vitaly Petrov. For any race fan with a soul, though, the most impressive drive of last weekend ended with a result that will not trouble the statisticians’ figures: 13^th place for Fernando Alonso.

Hindered from the off by a recalcitrant gearbox and a clutch that appeared to have turned into chocolate, Alonso just drove around the problem, booting the throttle to persuade each gear to engage. Surely it’s not possible to drive a modern F1 car like this? On Sunday Alonso proved that it is.

There was overtaking, too; while anyone in possession of a laptop, some fingers and enough brain cells to rub together has spent the past few weeks venting spleen on the internet about the lack of passing in F1, when the need arose Alonso just got on with it. And when his engine cried enough he was attacking Jenson Button – for what? Eighth place?

Here is the real weakness of the reliability formula in which each driver has a restricted quota of engines and gearboxes to last the season. A driver taking a more corporate, long-term view of the championship would have coasted back to the garage and parked in the hope that his engine and gearbox could be salvaged.

Not Alonso, though. He was having, in the words of Moss, “A ruddy good go.” He is a real racer, as was the man who gave Alonso’s team its name. At any point in the Malaysian Grand Prix Ferrari could have ordered Alonso to retire. They didn’t; Enzo would never have stood for it…