Not to be discouraged, we moved on farther down the paddock in search of victims to play the Grand Master. I had not given up on press attaches, and I found a victim despite herself. Silvia Hoffer, the press attache of the Williams team, came into the media center handing out press releases after Friday practice, and she passed by my desk and noticed the chessboard.
"I see it has been a busy weekend for you," she said, ironically.
"No, no," I said. "One of the world's greatest chess players is here in the paddock as a VIP and he is a fan of F1."
I explained that I had been looking all over for someone at one of the teams to play a game against the Grand Master. I asked if she had anyone on her team who was interested in chess. She looked pensive and said she thought one of the drivers, either Nico Rosberg or Alexander Wurz played chess. She said she would ask them.
As with all the others, however, it turned out that Silvia was too busy and the drivers were too busy for her to ask them the question either later that day or the next.
Alex Wurz Interviews Almasi:
Saturday afternoon, I was trying to persuade Almasi that he should not leave the paddock just yet. In 15 minutes I would interview Alex Wurz at Williams, I said. I was telling him that Wurz was intelligent, curious, and certain to be interested to meet him and he could sit in on my interview.
Before Almasi had a chance to decide, Wurz himself came walking down the paddock in front of us on his way to the motor home.
"Alex," I said, drawing him aside and speaking to him about the result of our last interview - an article I did on racing and road safety, and Alex's own road safety business. After a minute of that, I said, "Alex, do you play chess?"
"I learned in school and know how to play, but I'm not good," he said.
"Well," I said, "I would like to introduce you to one of the world's greatest chess players. This is Zoltan Almasi, he is No. 3 in Hungary, No. 29 in the world and he has been as high as No. 17 in the world."
Immediately, before I finished my introduction, Alex began to interview Almasi, with real interest and enthusiasm:
Wurz: When you're in the top 20 to 40 players in the world, how many moves in advance can you think out in advance in your mind?
Almasi (my memory was foggy here on Almasi, so these are only his probable answers): About 10, or maybe one or two more....
Wurz: Can you see as many, or imagine as many, moves ahead for the opponent's moves?
Almasi: Yes....
Wurz: If you make a mistake, do you try to hide your emotions and look normal? And does the other player read your face? And know?
Almasi: Yes you try to, but your opponents are good players too and they know....
Wurz also showed his limited understanding of how chess competition works when he asked if Almasi preferred to play the game with or without a time clock. Almasi happily and without condescending explained that the game was played with a clock according to the international rules.
I saw that Wurz could relate to this, since his own sport is governed by international rules – a racing formula.
There was a very good vibe between the two top competitors. Wurz had to run because he was late for the beginning of his press sessions, from which he had taken time out to talk to us. Zoltan remarked that Wurz was a great guy, normal and not a huge ego, and that when you're not at the No. 1 team and at the top of the championship yourself you are so much more human, it seemed.
Indeed, that was one of the differences that the chess player found between the world of F1 and the world of chess:
"The people here are not so open - I mean in the top teams - unlike in chess," he said. "It's not easy to get to them. In chess this does not happen. It's much more friendly and open."
F1 Driver and Pianist, Meets Chess Virtuoso:
We found another interested driver in Adrian Sutil, the German driver for the Spyker team who discovered racing at 14 after spending his childhood as a concert pianist. He was fascinated to meet the Grand Master, but he was also on his way to the garage for a track session.
Sutil said he would like to play a game against the Grand Master just to see how quickly he could be beaten. We arranged to meet him after qualifying. But in the end, we failed to show up at his team at a time when he was available, and we never did have the confrontation.
Still, right up to race time we did not give up on the idea of a match - at least I didn't give up on it. Half an hour before the race, Silvia invited us to cool off in the Williams motor home. She said she had found out that the real chess player at the team was, in fact, Nico Rosberg. I remembered that Nico had scored high marks in school and been accepted to one of the best engineering universities, but had not enrolled since he took up a racing career.
Almasi vs. F1 Journalist:
In the Williams motor home, an hour before the race, we waited for Nico to return from the drivers' parade. While we waited, I decided that I would challenge Almasi to a game myself. It was my own secret ambition all weekend, for like Sutil, I wanted to see how long I could last.
I played a Queen's Gambit opening. Almasi soon had me down, though, as I began to give away pieces. He refused to take the first one, pointing out my error after I made my Knight available. But I soon quit. It also turned out that Nico passed us, glanced down with interest at the board, but continued into his private room in the motor home.
Master Identifies with Racer:
I asked Silvia to invite him out, but she hesitated. It was now about half an hour before the drivers would leave for the grid.
"Wait," said Almasi. "He's going to the grid for the race in 30 minutes? Oh, no. We can't ask him out. I know what that is like, I'm a professional competitor too. He needs to be left alone."
And there it was, finally. The moment where the slow moving strategic world of chess and the fast moving strategic world of Formula 1 finally came together - in an understanding of the stresses of high-level competition by the master, who would never want to disturb a driver's need for concentration before the match.
