I know zero about car racing, so somebody help me out.
I just heard an NBC sports break that had a short blurb about Vettel getting into trouble for beating Webber in a Formula 1 race in Malaysia. Apparently Webber was supposed to be allowed to win. I googled it and found this
which leaves me as baffled as ever. I’ve never heard of him before today, but the article says that with the win, Vettel tied a record set by some guy so good they knighted him, so it’s not like he’s some last minute substitute.
So what’s the deal? Why are drivers not supposed to win? Why is his team mad at him for winning?
Err… this is hard to explain, and it’s one of the reasons I strenuously dislike certain race formats, including F1.
The basic idea is that in you’ve got teams, and on each team only one driver gets to be the “star”; the teammate is basically there just to cock-block other teams and help the “star”. Sometimes they alternate and sometimes one personality dominates everything, and yes, it can cause as many problems as you imagine and more. This wouldn’t be the first time.
You see something similar in bicycle races. The star goes down or gets stopped and his teammates just sit around like braying jackasses because they’re not supposed to win. They just carry water* for the big name. Frankly, this isn’t an idea I like, it’s not one I endorse, so I’m not exactly the fairest reporter on the issue.
Thanks. I thought it might be something like that, but then they said that the guy who wasn’t supposed to win had already won 37 times or whatever, so it sounds like he’s the star.
It’s like being assigned the goalie position. If you run down the field and score a goal, it sounds like you did a good thing on the surface. But you actually hurt your team by leaving your position open.
There’s a bit more to it in this case, though. In F1, while drivers winning races and championships makes the headlines, the big money is in the team championship. So teams want to make sure both of their drivers maximize their points day. The Red Bull team was in positions one and two, which is the best you could hope for.
At that point in the race, it was unlikely that the third place car would be able to catch either of them–unless they did something stupid. Wrecking each other while trying to race for first place would be one example, but even if they don’t wreck, F1 tires can degrade so much that if they seriously raced one another, it might allow the third place car to catch up.
As you noted, Vettel is their number one driver, and he was told to stay in second–so it wasn’t a matter of favoring the preferred driver, it was purely a team championship deal. Vettel disagreed with the orders, took the position (apparently after Webber had already backed off into preservation mode, not expecting the challenge), and while they still managed to keep their team 1-2 positions, he pissed of pretty much his entire team in doing so.
The two Red Bulls had a big lead on the third-place car, so they were instructed by their team to slow down and cruise to an easy one-two without taking any risks. Webber obeyed those instructions and Vettel didn’t. Presumably Webber could have put up a better fight if he also was willing to disobey team instructions, so Vettel’s pass wasn’t really a case of him out-driving Webber.
Also, they are only allowed 8 engines per season and whenever the race situation allows they turn them “down” so as to reduce power and wear etc. Webber did so as instructed but Vettel decided against it.
The problem with not following orders is not necessarily apparent in this race but, had they let them both race hell for leather at this point in season you risk a collision now and a major loss of team points (as has happened to them before), and you may run out of engines later or suffer an avoidable failure (and so loss of grid position).
All this at a time when no-one has a solid lead over any other of the drivers. It makes no sense. If a driver is attacked he is going to react, only by trusting them both to follow orders can you be fairly certain of avoiding disaster.
The 3rd/4th placed drivers were of the same team and did exactly the same. They had the added issues of marginal fuel and so took a sensible decision to hold position.
Now all of that will change later in the season and the gloves will be off but, as many drivers have shown before, to finish first, first you have to finish.
And specifically to the OP. The “some guy” you refer to is Sir Jackie Stewart. One of the great F1 champions and a pivotal figure in sport. The fact that you’ve never heard of him (or Sebastian Vettel!) is pretty surprising.
Anyhow, to fight your ignoranceI suggest you watch this, It is a great documentary.
Actually, that would be literally. It’s the job of the lesser-known cyclists to go back and forth between some of the team cars and the peloton or some significant part of it and pick up water bottles for them and their team mates. You’ll sometimes see them riding around with 10 water bottles shoved up their pants and jersey. Here’s a photoof Cavendish doing this in his World Champions jersey, kind of undermining what I said about it being the lesser-known riders. The reason someone took a picture of Cavendish, though, is that world champions don’t usually do this. Obviously, this was in a stage that would not end in a mass sprint so they knew he wasn’t going to win.
I see from the blurb under the video box that Jackie Stewart was racing nearly 50 years ago, so your surprise that I never heard of him would be like me being surprised somebody didn’t know who Orville Moody was. In other words, it would say more about my egocentrism than his “ignorance.”
But I do thank you for the additional explanation, and the link.
Jackie Stewart wasn’t just the greatest racer of his era, he was (and is) also a pitchman, announcer, and safety advocate. His presence permeates all of motorsport in some way, if only because his fight for safety for the drivers has saved countless lives. In fact, since his wins record in F1 has long been eclipsed and (as you note) he hasn’t raced competitively in 40 years, he’s far more well-known by younger people for his F1 announcing, which is a crying shame. His insights mean a lot more when you know that he’s one of the best drivers that ever lived.
You would be amazed at the range of things I don’t know. I know absolutely nothing about rap or hip hop, I have no clue about half of the events in the Olympics, and I don’t understand most art from the last 100 years or so. Actually, I probably don’t understand most art at all, but at least I have a general idea of what the older paintings and sculptures are about.
But I know a lot about golf history, and I compare favorably in general knowledge with most of the people I see on “Jaywalking.”
Please don’t take it as snarky. I use the word ignorance in a neutral way. It isn’t a problem that motorsport is not your thing but my surprise is simply because of his lasting legacy and ongoing sporting involvement.
His legacy and fame is a good step above Orville Moody. He is a motorsport legend whereas Orville Moody is not a golfing legend.
To let you calibrate his fame, If Fangio, Schumacher, Clark and Senna are on a level with Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, then Jackie Stewart is Gary Player/Tom Watson/Nick Faldo/Sevvy.
LOL, don’t throw anything at me, but I’ve never heard of Fangio, Clark, or Senna either. Schumacher rings a bell, but all I know is he’s some kind of race car driver, and I would have spelled his name wrong.
I think the people that are surprised that someone would not know (of) Jackie Stewart need a bit of a reality check on how popular F1 really is (not very popular) and also how far the fame of Stewart travelled beyond the UK (not very far). I would not be the least bit surprised if far greater names in sports (like Cruijff or Maradona) would not be identified by a good portion of the people on this board.
Any lack of recognition is probably due to the insular nature of US sports and the high number of US board members. Not a criticism, just a fact.
Objectively it is one of the biggest sports in the world with a massive and geographically diverse audience. The big stars are well known, the races take place all over the world, the TV rights are worth billions.
Well, in your favour, should F1 ever pique your interest you are going to have a massive backlog of biographies and other literature regarding some of the most interesting sporting characters to walk the earth.
Facing death on a monthly basis (and having a 60:40 chance of dying in a crash) tends to breed a rather singular and intriguing type of person.
Should you get the chance I recommend the documentary I linked to. Anyone with any feel for sport will be moved by it. Also the “Senna” documentary is excellent and as a side project, perhaps read up on the 1955 Mille Miglia. Such things are legends made of.
One small quote from Jenkinson’s report of the race
F1 was at least moderately popular in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s – while it certainly wasn’t on a par with Indy car racing (in those days) or what NASCAR is today, it also wasn’t the highly niche sport in the U.S. that it is today. There were several F1 races held in the U.S. every season, and an American (Mario Andretti) won the F1 championship in 1978.
As for Stewart, while his level of fame in the U.S. today is pretty low, in the 1970s, when I was first following auto racing, he really was one of the best-known names in the sport (probably on a par, at that point in time, with Andretti, Richard Petty, A.J. Foyt, etc.) Granted, this was at least as much a function of Stewart’s ubiquity as an announcer on ABC Sports as his actual racing achievements, but even so, if you followed auto racing in that era in the U.S., you knew who Jackie Stewart was.
