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Articles by Darren Galpin
| Thar She Blows – Another Honda Bites the Dust - Sun 13th Jun 2004 |
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The latest F1 motor-race was at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal. I say race, but what I meant to say was there was a high speed procession punctuated with some pit-stops in which no-one actually managed to overtake anyone else. There was the odd lapping incident, but that was it as far as cars going past each other was concerned. It all came down to fuel strategy and passing in the pits. How boring – Y A W N !!!!!
Also quite boring was the live coverage of the Le Mans 24 Hour race on ITV. It’s not that the race wasn’t interesting – it was – but the nature of a race over 24 hours with cars laps apart means that there isn’t much racing to show. What it really needed was a highlights program which showed you the bits you missed, such as McNish’s accident which took him out of the race, which you only heard about in passing from the commentators. Good effort ITV, but you must try harder if you want to keep people watching this event. They also made a complete dogs dinner of the post race coverage, when the commentators were talking over driver interviews, making it difficult to hear either.
However, there was lots of motorsport to watch, what with the Moto GP race from Catalunya, and the World Superbikes in Silverstone also on the BBC. Having watched the motorbike racing, the Formula 1 race was always going to be on to a loser unless it could throw up a race as interesting as Monaco, and that was always unlikely to happen. It also suffered by being on before the England-France football match, which was guaranteed to be more exciting. Formula 1 has to be able to compete against these other sports for viewers, and at the moment it simply isn’t delivering the interest or the excitement. Viewers will vote with their feet, and then sponsors with their cash. They have been warned.
Ralf Schumacher managed to get pole position, and as is his wont, he had a good race and finished second to his brother. He always manages to have a good race from pole when he does not actually have to race anyone, and despite previous denials that this is the case, he did nothing to disprove this assertion. He pulled out a gap from Button at the start, and from there on he was always driving on his own, with his brother Michael taking advantage of a two-stop strategy and pit-stops to do his dirty work.
We also had what is almost becoming the customary sight of Sato’s engine letting go big time. Again, it was only his BAR which suffered the problem, and not Button’s. There must be something in Sato’s car setup which predisposes his engine to suffer more stress. Perhaps it is in how he sets up the traction control to come in, or the throttle mapping he uses. Whatever it is, it pushes his Honda engine over what must be a very close edge. Four blow-ups is going beyond coincidence.
What else happened in the race? Oh, Klien hit Coulthard and then Webber in the first corner of the first lap, causing his later retirement with dodgy suspension. Massa had a suspension failure late on in the race and disappeared at high speed into a tyre barrier, emerging OK. And Pantano couldn’t agree commercial terms with Jordan and was replaced by Timo Glock for the race. Nothing else really happened, or at least nothing memorable. Sad, but true.
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