Weird Goings On In Istanbul
No sooner did the Super Aguri team announce that it had hopes a deal would come through to save the team than the word from Istanbul, where the next race takes place next weekend, is that the Super Aguri trucks and cars have been stopped at the gate of the circuit and not allowed in.
The story goes that Nick Fry, who runs the Honda team, has told Bernie Ecclestone, who runs the F1 show, that Super Aguri's deal - which depends on continued help from Honda - will not go through. Aguri Suzuki, the team owner, is to meet with Honda people on Tuesday to discuss the deal. The Honda team, meanwhile, is not necessarily keen on seeing the deal happen because without Super Aguri on the paddock, there would be more resources given over to the Honda team - or at least, lets say, fewer things to distract the team in its efforts to return to a winning power.
But since when does a team director from one team get to speak for another team? I'd like to see Ron Dennis, the director of McLaren, tell Bernie that Ferrari has decided it will not race in Istanbul. Would he lock the doors on Ferrari? Sounds like a promising weekend on the news front!
Comments
Is this sort of behaviour indicative of what really goes on behind the scenes in F1?
If with the sheer amount of the money flowing through the veins of the sport or if the ability or freedom to acquire and dispense it equals unabashed power, then the audacity of Mr. Fry’s behaviour is at once, somewhat predictable and ballsy.
F1 does have a cut-throat nature due to the stakes and its very essence. It is a sport where putting it all on the line, and I mean everything, to finish first has got to be about as purely cut-throat as it gets. This leads to racing people doing things which are outside of the usually polite and cooperative everyday reality most of us experience; I live in Canada.
I’m not just talking about big fish swallowing smaller fish; these guys are sharks swimming with sharks. It was not just that Mr. Fry did what he did because he could, it was also about how the racing ethic permeates the whole. As in real life, eventually these things happen.
One must only go back five years to recall what befell Arrows and Prost and a FIA denied resurrection proposed by Phoenix France. Sharks, indeed.
I am sorry to see the sport lose a team and particularly one that seemed to try really hard to make it work. Seeing the crew doing group hugs with Anthony Davidson in Spain after it was all over just showed how this sport is like most others, that along with the emotional highs we also get to feel just a little sad from time to time; a driver you want to see succeed falls by the way, or your favourite team loses its playoff spot.
What F1 has that no other sport has bragging rights to, save bull-fighting, are the feelings of sheer apprehension and foreboding we felt as we watched Heikki punching under the tire wall outside Turn 9. Just simply, heart-stopping.
Enough said.
Well put, Stephen. Did you notice that Aguri Suzuki said he had no intention of being involved in what he called - as others have - the Piranha Club ever again? So your shark references are appropriate.