Formula One is the most over-the-top car racing ever conceived of by man. No, really. It is what happens when guys with unlimited budgets race cars. It is nuts! And, for me at least, hugely fun to follow. the first line of a post from my blog dated February 4, 2010.
Michele and I spent a wonderful Thanksgiving at Richard and Tracy’s home and after a Disney perfect turkey with superb, potluckish, sidedishes, we talked a little about what each of us is thankful for this year. One thing I didn’t mention at first, but I am thankful for, is this year’s Formula One season and, it turned out I wasn’t the only one that had that on their list. This has been the most exciting season that I can remember. Now, we are down to the last two races with RedBull/Honda leading Patronis/Mercedes by five points for the Manufacturer’s Championship (for scale, a win is worth twenty-five points and a second is worth eighteen points down to tenth for one).
RedBull/Honda and Patronis/Mercedes are big organizations supported by even bigger organizations with yearly budgets capped at $145m (excluding according to the F1 website, all marketing costs, race driver fees/salaries and the costs of the team’s three highest paid personnel. I’m sure that last exclusion was needed to sell any budget cap.) Formula One wasn’t always like that, for a while, after Mercedes dropped out in the mid-50s, it was a bunch of small racecar builders from England against Ferrari.
The most successful of all of them was a young garagista1 named Frank Williams. Actually, he did so well that he was Knighted by the Queen. Sir Frank Willims passed away at 79 over the Thanksgiving weekend and the Formula One community will miss him, he was one of the giants. Williams was a great judge of talent and Williams Racing always fought above their weight being one of only four teams that have won nine Manufacturer’s Championships. But he was also the past, now Mercedes is back, Renault is in the fray and McLaren became a manufacturer, now a different set of skills are needed to have a winning team and the luster of the Williams Racing name has faded. When Williams finally sold his team in 2020, it had been in the cellar for something like five years. That and a horrendous one-car accident that left Williams so physically damaged that he was no longer physically independent make his story seem sadder than it was. It says more than a little about William’s constant optimism that he won the Manufactures’ Championship the same year he broke his back and then, again, the next year. Below is a gratuitous video of Lewis Hamilton driving Frank Williams around the Silverston Racetrack.
What makes Formula One a unique form of motor racing is that each team must build their own car (although they can use somebody else’s engine). There are huge egos involved, both national and personal, with the main manufacturers, besides Mercedes (Germany) and RedBull/Honda (Austria/Japan), being Renault (France), Ferrari (Italy – duh!), and McLaren (England). The drivers may be easier to relate to but they come and go, the cars are stars. If that sounds strange think of football or baseball teams.
The cars are powered by a hybrid power unit consisting of a 1.6 liter, turbocharged, V-6 engine along with an electric motor that, together, put out about 1050 horsepower. The cars, themselves, are aerodynamic and technological wonders; they have upsidedown wings at both ends to keep them glued to the track, and glued is the right word, the tires are preheated to 212°F with tire heaters before they even go on the car and that makes the tires incredibly sticky. That stickyness means that the tires wear out quickly, usually lasting less than 50 miles on a fully fueled car.
Because the cars have different designers with different design philosophies, they have different personalities and different tire wear characteristics. Some cars are easier to drive on slow, very curvy, tracks and some like faster tracks better, so, as they race at different tracks around the world, from tight city streets in the principality of Monaco to a flowing purpose-built racetrack at Spa-Francorchamps in the hills of Belgium, or a night race in Singapore, different cars have different advantages or disadvantages. Formula One is data-driven, the cars have sensors everywhere and are constantly sending information to the engineers in the cars’ pits – racing lingo for garage, BTW – and, more importantly, to the team Strategists.
Strategy is a big part of Formula One and a big part of the joy of watching a race, especially a tight race. Strategizing how the different scenarios will play out based on data like tire wear is the job of the head Strategist and, somewhat surprisingly, they are, at both RedBull/Honda and Mercedes, women. At RedBull, the Head of Strategy is Hannah Schmitz – who, at her Linked-in account writes I am passionate about understanding and interpreting data and excel in a high pressure, fast-paced environment – and, at Mercedes, it is Rosie Wait. Also, it is a little surprising that both of these women went to Cambridge.
Still, after all the design decisions, all the strategy decisions, the championship has come down to two very different drivers who have been battling it out all year. Not only have they been close to equal all year, all year they have also been way better than anyone else. More than once, the two of them have finished a race more than thirty seconds ahead of third place, an unheard of time for a sport that measures time in 1/1,000th of a second.
Max Verstappen is in the lead of the Driver’s Championship by eight points and, up until very recently, the smart money has been on him. Max is only 24 but he has been racing in Formula One since he was 17 and is the youngest driver to win an F1 race (which he did when he was only 18). Verstappen is brash, arrogant – in a Mohammed Ali way – very serious, and a marvelous, aggressive, driver. He is the kind of high-risk driver that pulls off the big risks. Max is sort of like an F1 monk cloistered in the F1 bubble. His dad, Jos Verstappen, was a Formula One driver, and his girlfriend, Kelly Piquet, is the daughter of Nelson Piquet, a three-time Formula One Champion.
Lewis Hamilton is Formula One’s youngest Champion and has now won the Championship a record seven times. During about the third quarter of this season, however, it seemed as though Hamilton was no longer hungry enough to win another Championship. He was fast but not as fast or aggressive as Max and when Max won the Grand Prix of the United States, and then Mexico, the Championship seemed to be slipping away. Then Lewis came back with the most dominant race of the year, easily winning in Brazil, where he came from the back of the grid, and then winning in Qatar. Lewis is anything but an F1 monk, he is very active on both Instagram and Twitter showing pictures of himself surfing in Southern California or skiing at Aspen. The day after Hamilton and Verstappen were in a major accident at the Italian Grand Prix, Hamilton went to the Met Gala in New York where he promoted four, young, Black clothing designers.
Like Sir Frank Williams, Lewis Hamilton has been knighted and he strongly feels that his accomplishments give him a public platform that he wants to take advantage of. In Qatar, a conservative, Muslim, country in which homosexuality is illegal, Hamilton wore a helmet featuring the Progress Pride Flag with We stand together on the back and love is love on the side. He plans to wear it this weekend in Saudi Arabia. I started the season thinking that it would be better for everybody if Max won but, as they went back and forth during the season, I kept rooting for Lewis. Then Max started to pull away and I was OK with it. Now, with Lewis coming back strong, I’m definitely rooting for him. He is just such a decent human being that it is hard not to.
- roughly, garage owner, a term used haughtaly by Enzo Ferrari after he lost another Championship to Williams.
This is fun. I love the way you write about Formula One racing. I trust you will keep us apprised of how this competition goes if I miss it.
Thanks, Linda. I don’t know about the last race but the race this weekend in Saudi Arabia starts at 12:30 Sunday.
Delighted to learn that women are vital in this macho activity (still have difficulty in calling it a sport). Of all the racers/drivers Lewis Hamilton is the most extraordinary. He started out as a small black boy and he became king of the road (track). The engineering involved may be brilliant but surely for most fans it’s the sound and the fury and the glamour that appeals.
I agree Marion, the fury – great word – and the glamour are big draws…and I think that rooting for a driver and/or team from a given country is a big draw. As for Lewis, he is just such a decent human being. I like that he considers Williams’ best virtue his “kindness”. Hamilton is a man who has his values right.
Nice piece, Steve. With no satellite dish I was accepting of a wait until March and the new season of F1: Drive to Survive. Then a few weeks ago, flipping through the channels on a boring football Sunday, there was the U.S. GP in Texas. What good fun! I almost don’t want to know who comes out on top so that Dive to Survive will have more suspense this Spring.
Thanks, Malcolm. This Sunday, the Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia will be on at 9:30am, it is a new track so nobody has driven it before and that, almost always, favors Lewis. He is a fast learner.