Colin McRae, the WRC, and Team Orders

I’ve been sitting in bed watching “Colin McRae Pedal to the Metal” tonight. You know, instead of doing my massive piles of other news/feature story assignments for school…

For those of you who don’t know, Scotsman Colin McRae was one of the world’s best rally drivers (WRC World Champion for Subaru in 1995) before his tragic death in a helicopter accident in 2007. His name may be familiar to some of you gamers as the namesake of the original DiRT rallying video games.

The documentary got me thinking about the dreaded topic in Formula One: team orders.

In 1995, McRae was embroiled in a bitter title fight with his own Subaru teammate Carlos Sainz. At the penultimate round of the World Rally Championship, Sainz held a few second lead over McRae the entire rally. McRae was trying like hell to beat Sainz’s stage times throughout the final day of the rally when Prodrive team boss David Richards pulled him aside at a service park. He told Colin to back off and stay in second-position so Sainz would win the rally.

Colin didn’t like that, so he disobeyed team orders and went flat out over the second-to-last stage, which put him ahead of Sainz in the running order, and one step closer to another rally victory that year, which meant one step closer to the coveted WRC crown.

Dave Richards then gave Colin the ultimatum: ‘You disobeyed team orders. You check in to your final control point late (to receive a time penalty and fall back behind Sainz) or this will be your last rally with Subaru, ever.’ (paraphrase)

Facing the termination of his contract, Colin wisely obeyed Richards’ wishes and incurred a time penalty that enabled Sainz to win the rally… At the final round of the year, Colin’s home round – the RAC Rally of Great Britain – he pushed as hard as possible and won the rally, and hence, the World Rally Championship for 1995. Colin McRae was now immortalized.

This circumstance begs the question though: Why team orders at all?

In Formula One, where team orders (in various guises) have been around since the inception of Grand Prix racing, I’ve always found that team orders were acceptable. 1.) It’s tradition 2.)If I was a team principle, I wouldn’t want my two drivers to battle so hard that they take each other out of a race and have the entire team score no points at all…

It’s different in the sport of rallying, though. Cars do not compete wheel-to-wheel. They are only out on closed public roads, one stage at a time, one CAR at a time (usually cars launch into a stage at two-minute intervals), only battling the clock. Whoever has the lowest stage time when all cars have run is the winner of the stage. Combine all the times and whoever has the lowest total time wins the rally.

If there is no risk of teammates taking each other out completely, why on Earth invoke those team orders at all? I don’t understand it. McRae and Sainz could have both gone flat-chat and potentially have been perfectly fine in the end. OK, I’ll admit that Colin always did have a penchant for throwing his car off the road – sometimes multiple times in the same day – but he did that all the time. Colin never drove harder to try and beat the time of his opponents – he ALWAYS was flat out.

So I’d like to know, what are your thoughts on team orders? They’re legal again in F1; the WRC has seen them often as well. As covert as they may be sometimes, they’re even carried out in NASCAR, IndyCar, and every other series that has multi-car teams.

@reply me on Twitter (@TheSAABwriter), comment below, Facebook me (Cody Globig). Help me understand WHY!

Guest Blog – F1 Driver Mike Beuttler Remembered

This week Queers4Gears welcomes guest blogger Richard Bailey from www.RichardsF1.com. Richard pays tribute to F1 Driver Mike Beuttler two plus decades after his death. Bailey is an openly gay motorsport fan and journalist based in Australia, Queers4Gears hopes that you enjoy his tribute to a unique figure in the history of motorsports…

credit Mike Beuttler Tribute Page

Twenty-four years ago, former F1 driver Mike Beuttler passed away. His name might only be of significance to true F1 aficionados, but his colorful and all-too-brief life is worth paying tribute to, for he remains the only F1 driver known to be gay.

His death in 1988 to AIDS makes him one of the many of his era to succumb to the crippling (and then, little-known) disease, but it was not just his sexuality – unique in the world of motorsport – that marked him out from his peers.

Beuttler was also a dedicated amateur in the then-semi-professional world of Formula 1, an all-but-extinct species in the now highly professional, corporate world that Formula 1 has become.

His support came from a group of London stockbroking friends (some of who were also gay), and while he may not have achieved the results that his talent perhaps warranted, his story is still fascinating.

Beuttler was born to English parents in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, where his family lived while his father served in the British Army during World War II.

His interest in motorsport was apparent throughout his childhood, and as soon as he left school at the age of sixteen, he took up an administrative role with racing enthusiast Graham Warner, whose Chequered Flag team was a regular entrant on the Formula 3 landscape.

Warner was interested in a little more than racing, it seems, and it was believed that Beuttler also captured his attentions…
Beuttler earned the odd opportunity to to pilot the team’s front-engined Gemini challenger, but it took until he was in his mid-twenties before his motor-racing career started in earnest.

It was in 1968 that he was finally able to drive a full season in Formula 3, courtesy of the backing of high-profile (and openly gay) stockbroker Ralph Clarke.

credit Mike Beuttler Tribute Page

Over the next few years, Beuttler won several major races in his bright yellow Brabham – including the British Grand Prix support race – against the likes of fellow F1 up-and-comers James Hunt, Dave Walker, Dave Morgan and Tony Trimmer.

Beuttler’s desire to move up through the ranks had one unfortunate consequence: his tendency to regularly close the door on his pursuing rivals earned him the nickname ‘Blocker’, which stuck until his retirement from racing.

Beuttler now gained additional backing from the likes of other stockbrokers David Mordaunt, Alistair Guthrie and Jack Durlacher, and plans were laid to move into Formula 1 with a customer March chassis.

In the meantime, he competed in Formula 2, although the car was beset by a host of problems, and one of his few highlights was a win at the season-ending race at Vallelunga in Italy.

While he never confirmed the rumors, many of his contemporaries suspected that Beuttler and his backers enjoyed particularly close relationships on and off the track, although Beuttler would occasionally try and throw some off the scent by bringing along some rather busty young ladies to selected events! He wasn’t fooling anyone…

Beuttler’s F1 debut came at the 1971 British Grand Prix in a works March. He qualified twentieth of the twenty-four qualifiers, and retired with oil pressure problems. The remainder of his season was little better: he retired twice more, and in the other two races he failed to complete the minimum 90% of the race distance to be classified as a finisher.

He stayed for a full season in 1972, acquiring more backers but not achieving the race results that perhaps justified his friends’ continued investment. With March ruling that only its two works cars could field the latest chassis, Beuttler and his team took a modified March 722 Formula 2 chassis, which proved quicker than the works car!

His best finish that year was an eighth at the German Grand Prix, while he never managed to qualify inside the top-twenty.

Beuttler and his partners decided to give it another shot in 1973 – again with a March chassis – but his results were again discouraging. In fourteen races, his best qualifying result was an eleventh at Austria, while his best finish was seventh at the Spanish Grand Prix.

When the London financial scene suffered a dramatic collapse towards the end of the year, it effectively brought an end to Beuttler’s F1 foray, which totaled 28 championship starts.

Beuttler contested one more race – in sports cars, at the Brands Hatch 1000Km event – before quitting motorsport entirely and heading into business, and later trying his hand at journalism.

A shy, brooding and handsome man, Beuttler was well-regarded by many in the motorsport fraternity.
He later moved to San Francisco, and his passing (at age 48) just days before the end of 1988 brought a sad end to an all-too-short, yet very colorful, life.

You can learn more about this incredible man on the Mike Beuttler Tribute Page on Facebook.

This article was written by Richard Bailey – you can visit Richard’s site here:

It’s Official: Kimi is Back!

As I reported just last night in my Formula One rumor mill, the talk of Kimi Raikkonen coming back to the F1 circus is true. Kimi signed a two-year deal with Lotus Renault GP (next year known as Team Lotus).

SPEEDtv.com’s Adam Cooper has the story:

LRGP confirmed today that Kimi Raikkonen has signed a two-year deal with the team. The outfit that is set to change its name to Team Lotus thus has a World Champion on its hands.

Raikkonen said that racing in NASCAR gave him a taste for the wheel to wheel competition that he’d been missing in rallying.

The news was not unexpected after negotiations moved rapidly when Kimi’s talks with Williams broke down, and it became clear that Robert Kubica was out of the frame for the start of the season.

It remains to be seen who will partner the 2007 champion. Vitaly Petrov has a contract while both Bruno Senna and Romain Grosjean are on standby. Against the odds there has also been contact with Adrian Sutil, despite the German’s issue with Eric Lux earlier in the year.

When he went to the WRC Kimi had ambitions to return with Red Bull Racing – something he openly admitted to this writer last year – but Mark Webber’s ongoing contract extensions put a stop that.

“I never really lost the passion in racing in F1, but maybe all the other things around it,” he said Raikkonen in a video interview. “But I did some NASCAR races this year in the States and I started to miss more and more the racing side, to race against each other, because in rallying it’s against the clock, really. That’s what I was missing.

“Then I got the call from certain people in Formula 1 and then also sorts of things happened and then in the end we managed to have a nice conversation with Lotus Renault, and ended up making a deal with them. So I’m very happy with that.

“There were two options. It was this team or Williams, and in the end everything worked out with Lotus Renault GP as we wanted, so that’s really the reason.”

Kimi insisted that there was no problem with his motivation: “I wouldn’t come back if I wouldn’t be motivated. There is always a lot of talk about the motivation, but nobody really knows what I do or what I think, apart from myself, so I don’t really care about what people say.

“I wouldn’t put my name in a contract if I wouldn’t think I would enjoy it. It will be interesting. It will be exciting to get back.”

Raikkonen said he would feel more at home in F1 after struggling to come to terms with the WRC.

“It’s been really nice in the last few years, trying to learn it. It’s been easier this year than it was last year, but still it’s a very difficult. But I’m really looking forward to coming back, at least F1 is something that I know how everything works.

“I’ve been there for many years. When I went to rallying I didn’t really know what would happen, and when I went to NASCAR I had no clue how it would be. In that way it should be much, much easier to come back. It should be pretty normal.”

Team owner Gerard Lopez added: “All year long, we kept saying that our team was at the start of a brand new cycle. Backstage we’ve been working hard to build the foundations of a successful structure and to ensure that we would soon be able to fight at the highest level. Kimi’s decision to come back to Formula 1 with us is the first step of several announcements which should turn us into an even more serious contender in the future.

“Of course, we are all looking forward to working with a world champion. On behalf of our staff, I’d like to welcome Kimi to Enstone, a setting that has always been known for its human approach to Formula 1.”

Now, I’ve always been a huge fan of the Iceman, as Kimi’s known. He may not be the most well-spoken man in the history of motorsport, but he’s a damn good driver and he’s Finnish – I have a love affair with all things Finland. So here’s to having Kimi back, the boring one-word interview answers, the ease with which he can pilot a car quicker than everyone else, and the overall cool factor that is Kimi Raikkonen.

F1 Brazilian Grand Prix – The Season Finale

First off, sorry for my absence of late. Since I work in retail and am a senior in college I’ve been busier than a fly on a carcass… -Cody

After a long Formula One season of very much the same old thing, the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday provided us with a bit of a change of pace.

Sebastian Vettel aced qualifying as usual, so the weekend started out pretty much as usual. Oh, except for the record breaking that is. Coming into the Brazilian GP, Vettel had gone P1 in qualifying 14 times this year, tying the record set by Nigel Mansell in 1992. Seb remarked simply, “Just call me Nigel,” after winning his 15th and final pole of the year on Saturday at Interlagos. And he said he didn’t care about records… Ha!

The race set off to notices sent by race director Charlie Whiting that rain was possible by half-distance. Steve Matchett on the SPEEDtv broadcast also remarked that the various teams’ weathermen were Tweeting updates on the rain movement nearing the circuit just 10 or so laps in. The first round of pit stops , for most teams, was being delayed as long as it could so teams would only have to change from the soft tire to wets (by rule negating the need to run the Prime hard tire).

Ferrari Tweeted that rain was 10 minutes out, then Alonso promptly pitted and changed onto Primes. Matchett was rather humorously flustered at the boneheaded decision, but the strategy worked out for the Scuderia as the rain never came.

Drama played out throughout the race starting from only 5 laps in when Vettel’s gearbox quickly began to lose oil. Seb nursed the car home, taking each corner a gear higher than normal and short-shifting. He let 2nd placed teammate Mark Webber by going into turn 1 so as to not screw up Red Bull’s chances of a good race.

Webber went on to score his first and only win of the season. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner remarked after the race that Vettel’s gearbox was actually completely out of oil by the time the race had ended. No one knows how he made it work, but Vettel finished 2nd anyway.

The World Championship was wrapped up with 4 races left in the season, but the battle for the remaining positions went down to the wire. The biggest win of the Brazilian GP was Team Lotus’ (next year “Team Caterham”) placement in 10th of the Constructors’ World Championship. Placing 10th means that Team Lotus/Caterham goes from receiving around $8 million to nearly $30 million in Championship payouts.

Final Driver Point Standings

Final Constructor Point Standings

In other F1 news, silly season has now kicked into high gear. TodayPatrick Head, co-founder of Williams GP announced his retirement from F1. He will now be focused on Williams’ Hybrid Power division of the company. The rumor mill is going crazy about Kimi Raikkonen being close to signing a deal to come back to Formula One next year with either Williams or Lotus-Renault GP. LRGP boss Eric Boullier said over the weekend that their final announcement is imminent. Adrian Sutil is most likely headed out to pasture as his contract with Force India F1 is over. Jerome D’Ambrisio is out at Marussia Virgin Racing as the team has signed Charles Pic to drive alongside veteran Timo Glock in 2012. Rubens Barrichello is hell bent on driving for Williams again in 2012, but we’re waiting to see what will become of that.

F1 and V8 News and Notes

by Cody Globig – Q4G F1 and V8 Contributor

Indian GP:
Well, another brand new race in the FIA Formula One World Championship is under our belts. There were on track battles, some well-publicized skirmishes, and somewhere in the ungodly haze of New Delhi a race broke out.
I’m not going to go into an analysis of the race this time ‘round, because let’s face it, it’s an F1 race… They’re not all that exciting, and even I’ll admit that. I’m just too fascinated by the cars and engineering to look away (and it’s the same with LeMans each year too). Sadly, it was rather hard to look at the cars because one could barely see the length of the front straight through the awful haze that permeates that part of India. I think it’s great that a developing country like India has the opportunity to host a grand prix, but dayum! I couldn’t imagine breathing that air, let alone eating the food and risking “Delhi Belly”.
The excitement of the weekend once again involved a row between Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton. This time, Massa rather blatantly drove into the side of Hamilton as they were entering a corner, and driver-representative to the stewards Johnny Herbert agreed. Race control penalized him appropriately (in my opinion).
As per the usual par for the course, the media went crazy over the situation. Jenson Button was even questioned about this ongoing hate-fest between Massa and Hamilton; a story which you can read here, in which you can read Jenson’s reply of, “I don’t give a f***!” to the Massa/Hamilton question.
Oh yeah, remember that race that I mentioned? Reigning and this year’s World Champion Sebastian Vettle won again. And he set the fastest lap on the last lap (much to the political chagrin of his boss!).
V8 Supercar Silly Season Starts
Silly Season down under has swung into full gear with just a couple rounds left in the 2011 V8 Supercar season. It was announced the other day that Stone Brothers Racing has signed Lee Holdsworth away from Gary Rogers Motorsport. 2012 will mark the first year in the main game that Holdsworth will be in the Ford camp, piloting the IRWIN Tools Falcon seat vacated by Alex Davison. Davison, younger brother of Ford Performance Racing’s Will, is now looking for a ride for next year.

Formula One Comes to New Jersey in 2013

by Cody Globig – Q4G F1 Contributor

credit The Daily Mail

Over the weekend I began hearing (well, reading on Twitter…) rumors about how Bernie Ecclestone’s dream-come-true race in New York City was a reality and that it would be announced on Tuesday. Now, I’m the biggest Formula One fan (read, techy nerd) there is, but I’m always a skeptic when it comes to rumors about a race in the US. I went to the USGP at IMS in ’06 and ’07 (so sad I missed the great days of the V10s) and I know much about what went down between Tony George and Bernie and how the deal to run a USGP at the Brickyard fell apart. My hopes and dreams (and 2-hour drive access) were shattered when Indy lost the Grand Prix. Now I’ve allegedly got something to be excited about once again…

The glitz and glamour (yes, it’s even classy in the stands and spectator areas in the infield at IMS for the most part too!) of the F1 circus is coming back to our shores next year. The Circuit of the Americas will be hosting a Formula One race that I may actually be able to go to, and now, lo and behold, today we get an announcement that the US will be getting a second race in 2013!

Yes, my pessimism was proven wrong while I was at work today. Luckily I sell electronics for a living at a major department store and I had my one TV that has a satellite connection on the SPEED Channel at 2 p.m. to see the press conference from – wait for it – Weehawken, NJ.

I guess I should have noticed the signs of the imminent announcement today. You know, those gay-boy signs we get every so often… In this case, it was my latest obsession of listening to Ellie Goulding’s “Lights” over and over again on YouTube while I did homework last night (and as I write this). I should have noticed that I was compulsively listening to a song about shiny lights on the eve of a major announcement by a major metropolitan area in the US talking about coming to a 10 year deal with FOM to stage a street race with Manhattan as a backdrop.

The circuit looks absolutely fantastic. No streets will have to be redone, no part of the course will go through a parking lot (i.e. the Dallas GP in the ‘80s), and the pit complex will be permanent and is already being built. This means that the track will be cheap to setup, only requiring barriers/fencing and temporary stands to be erected. This is great news for the promoters (Humpy Wheeler apparently) because every person was adamant at the press conference that, “No taxpayer subsidies will be used for this event. It is 100% privately funded by the promoters.”

Now herein lies my skepticism… Formula One is continuing to lose their races at the storied circuits of the world because all of these new races in the Middle and Far-East are paid for almost entirely with government money. It really has to be that way in today’s F1 race market because of Bernie’s astronomical (read $25m) sanctioning fee (with a +10% hike each year), and how FOM garners all of the profits from the sale of anything at the race except ticket sales. That is the only revenue stream the promoters have at their disposal. I will be perfectly honest with you guys, gals, and everything in between: I don’t think a privately funded F1 race will last more than its first year. COTA has the Major Events Fund in Texas to help pay the bills, but their bills are also astronomical because of the cost of creating the circuit in the first place. Hopefully their revenue from other racing series (like my baby: the V8 Supercar Series in 2013, and also MotoGP, among others to be added) and rent for the industrial park they’re building on site will be enough to let the facility survive.

So here’s a synopsis of the feasibility of the two American Formula One events we have to look forward to:

COTA, Permanent Circuit
Pros

Mildly exciting Tilkedrome circuit design
Massive industrial park on the grounds
Basis of technology and automotive education initiatives
Green technology and sustainability (apparently)
Multiple racing series
Can hold events year round
Has confirmed government subsidy

Cons

Mildly exciting Tilkedrome circuit design
Freakishly expensive to build
Must be maintained year round
Massive sanctioning fee for F1

Weehawken, NJ, Street Circuit
Pros

Very exciting circuit design
Reasonably cheap to erect b/c of no street modifications
Great metro location near Manhattan
Green transportation (all access to circuit is by public transport)

Cons

Massive sanctioning fee for the only event it will have
No government subsidy (Where the hell is all that money coming from?!)

Lastly, The Odds of the US keeping either or both races? COTA = 50% NJ = 50%
I’m waiting with baited breath!

Meet Cody Globig – Q4G F1 and V8 Contributor

Queers4Gears is excited to announce we continue our expansion into covering other forms of motorsports. I started it all in 2009 with a primary focus on NASCAR – we now have a few folks covering stock cars and in the past year we have added Indy Car and NHRA contributors to the site. Now we add Formula 1 and V8 Super Cars to the site. Both series have announced plans to race in the US in the coming years – so the timing could not be better. Join me in welcome Cody Globig. You can follow Cody on Twitter: @theSAABwriter or email him: globigcy AT mail.uc.edu

I’m Cody Globig. I’m a 21 year old English and Journalism student at the University of Cincinnati, I’m gay, and I am obsessed (which is putting it very lightly) with cars and motor racing.

I’m just a lil’ (and at 5’3” I mean that very literally) old country boy from Hamilton, OH (about a half-hour North of Cincinnati) but with a particular proclivity to non-US motoring. Many of my family members have worked in the auto industry – most for Ford, hence I have a distinct bias toward the boys from Dearborn – so naturally I was immersed in all-things-automobile from a very young age. Most of the credit would have to go to my grandfather, bless his 91 year old heart! An insatiable tinkerer to this day, he gave me the foundations of my mechanical knowledge and fascination which I’ve grown and refined my entire life. These days, I actually teach my own father about cars more than he teaches me anything (except life lessons; he’s good at that – love you Mom and Dad!), but we still have a tight hobby-bond over our family’s other pastime: hunting. I’m not an obsessive white tailed deer hunter like my father, but I do have two bucks mounted in my bedroom from my pre-college days as a family venison provider.

Compared to my long-standing passion for road cars, my interest in racing is somewhat new. When I was younger, I always loved cars, yet I never got the point of racing. February 18, 2001 changed that though. The ’01 Daytona 500 was the first race I ever watched (nothing else good was on, and I liked cars, so I figured, “What the hell… Why not?!”). Over that 5 or so hours, I saw the power, speed, and excitement of motor racing. I saw the highest of highs in Michael Waltrip, then racing’s lowest of lows just minutes later. I’ve always been a fearless soul, and I suppose the realization of watching the most dangerous moments of a race sealed that passion into my heart. Ever since, I have been fascinated with the men and women who participate in one of the most dangerous sports in the world; their courage, tenacity, and undying will to win. Moreso, I am a massive nerd, and my obsessive fascination with the machinery involved is an absolute illness.

For that first year of my NASCAR fandom, I either didn’t realize or didn’t care that other racing series existed (that turned left and right!). During the ’01 off-season, though, I discovered the wonders of touring car racing from across the globe each weekend when Speedvision (God bless that long-forgotten channel format) showed the British Touring car Championship, European (now World) Touring Car Championship, Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, and my favorite: the Australian V8 Supercar series. Road racing tin-tops became my life’s passion that winter, and come March, I discovered the (at the time) 19,000rpm wonder that was the FIA Formula One World Championship. Oh yeah, and I’m also quite big into rallying (which is why my first car was a 1967 SAAB 96 two-stroke).

Now don’t get me wrong, I like all forms of racing, but at heart I’m a road racing guy, though I still follow NASCAR fairly closely. My specialties these days are my very close following of the Aussie V8s and Formula One, which is why I reached out to the great Michael Myers and asked if he’d like a contributor for F1 and the V8s since (respectively) one is returning to the US in 2012, and the other coming to our shores for the first time in 2013, both to Austin, TX and the magnificent Tavo Hellmund and Hermann Tilke lovechild: Circuit of the Americas. NOTE: Ross and Michael, you lucky b******s… Living so close and all…

Review: SENNA Documentary

SENNA is a documentary directed by Asif Kapadia that explores the life and death of F1 Driver Ayrton Senna. Spanning his years as a Formula One racing driver from 1984 to his untimely death a decade later, SENNA explores the life and work of the triple world champion, his physical and spiritual achievements on the track, his quest for perfection and the mythical status he has since attained. The film won the 2011 World Cinema Documentary Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Best Documentary in World Cinema Audience Award at the 2011 LA Film Festival. The film premieres in the US on August 12, 2011. You can learn more about the film here.

Every NASCAR fan needs to watch this film. There are countless parallels to this taken-to-soon F1 star and many of our own heroes.

Many NASCAR fans may start with the question – Who was Ayrton Senna? It is no secret that the typical stock car fan does not pay much attention to F1 so let me start my review of SENNA with a brief introduction about the man.

Ayrton Senna was a Brazilian born race car driver that many to this day say was the greatest driver to ever compete in Formula 1. A three-time world Champion (1989, 1990 and 1991) he amazed fans and other drivers alike with his ability to constantly drive on the edge of his car’s ability.

If you do not immediately recognize the man you will remember his car. Senna’s “Marlboro” paint scheme might be one of the most epic liveries in all of racing – along side the #43 STP paint scheme of NASCAR’s king Richard Petty.

Senna made his F1 debut in 1984 for Toleman-Hart Racing. Many current-day NASCAR fans would consider this a “start and park” team at best and Ayrton took his natural talent and jumped to Team Lotus his second year in the sport. While not a top-tier team, Senna won six races over three seasons at Lotus before jumping to F1 powerhouse McLaren.

It was at McLaren where Senna and his teammate Alain Prost started a feud that carried on for years and made the Kyle Busch / Kevin Harvick feud seem like tiddlywinks in comparison. The two drivers battled each other from circuit to circuit leaving others in the wake of their 7 combined championships.

The film does a wonderful job by making you feel like you were there. The combination of vintage footage and current interviews give a play-by-play of each season that Senna and Prost battled for the podium.

In 1994 at the San Marion Grand Prix on the famed Imola circuit the 34-year old superstar lost his life. To this day questions abound about what really happened to cause the crash but in the end a broken suspension part and six inches were all the separated life and death that day on the track. Experts say Senna could have walked away from the accident if that part had not struck his helmet.

His death draws the most immediate parallel to NASCAR in the death of Dale Earnhardt Sr. Both men, legends in their own worlds, lost their lives doing what they loved and their deaths changed both series in significant ways.

After Senna and Earnhardt’s deaths, both NASCAR and F1 embarked on unprecedented safety campaigns. The proactive measures taken have resulted in safer cars and no driver has lost his life in either series since.

Both men were also living legends. Popular with the fans both were also known to be fearless on the track. Neither would ever make apologies. The film shows Ayrton being interviewed by legend Jackie Stewart and Senna scolds Stewart for questioning his driving style. “If there is a gap, and you don’t go for it, then you are no longer a racing driver,” Senna said.

I actually think Senna’s life more parallels that of Tim Richmond than Dale Sr. While we did not lose Richmond on the track his battles with the France family are very similar to what Senna faced in his battles with the FIA – the sanctioning body of Formula 1.

There is no doubt that Richmond and Senna left us too soon and both would have won more championships. Many in NASCAR argue that Dale Earnhardt SR would not have won his seven championships had Richmond still be racing. Similarly, one can argue that 7-time world F1 Champion Michael Schumacher would have fewer crowns if Aryton hadn’t died that day at Imola.

One of the most striking things detailed in the film are the battles between the FIA and Senna. NASCAR fans today complain about seemingly inconsistent calls from race control, but these complaints seem insignificant compared to some of the “rulings” that were made against Senna.

In the 1989 Grand Prix of Japan, Senna’s nemesis Alain Prost squeezed Senna off his racing line and into the run-off road near a chicane. Prost’s car was terrible damaged and he was out of the race – the DNF would cost him the championship. Senna, while damaged, continued on to win the race and the championship.(as it was flagged)

His teammate Prost quickly jogged to race control to protest. Senna was stripped of the win, his championship and his license was suspended for 6 months. The FIA ruled that Senna used the run-off road instead of the chicane and that was a clear violation of the rules.

The problem was that the FIA had selectively enforced that rule in the past. There is footage from other races where other drivers took the same “escape” route without getting any penalty. The FIA at that time was ruled by Jean-Marie Balestre and he always seems to rule in favor of Prost who was also a Frenchman.

At the 1990 Grand Prix of Japan Senna had taken the pole position. Before the race, Balestre and the FIA moved the pole position to the dirty side of the track.

Can you imagine if that happened on a NASCAR restart?? Let’s say Dale Jr. was on the pole and wanted to start on the inside. Then at the last minute, Mike Helton called over the radio and said the rules changed and Junior would have to start on the outside.

In spite of these political battles with the FIA and his on track battles with Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna became one of the best drivers in history and a real hero in his native Brazil. When he died Senna was honored with a State Funeral.

Driven by his faith in God Senna’s life offers inspiration for even the most casual race fan. Formula 1 fan or not, every NASCAR fan needs to watch this movie. The in car footage showing Senna navigate the wet streets of Monaco is amazing and worth the price of admission!

WATCH THE TRAILER:

US SCHEDULE: see it near you!

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Category Archives: F1