Bright Spark?

Some press releases are too good to ignore. Back in August the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) agreed to licence commercial rights of its Formula E Championship to, “a consortium of international investors, Formula E Holdings Ltd (FEH).” Formula E is for electric “Formula” cars, presumably open-wheelers. “It represents a vision for the future of the motor industry over the coming decades.”

Well, maybe. That's what Camille Jenatzy (right) thought in 1899.

Behind FEH is London-based entrepreneur Enrique Bañuelos, CEO and shareholder is former MEP and racing team owner Alejandro Agag. Also associated are Lord Drayson, Labour’s old Minister for Science, and Eric Barbaroux, Chairman of the French electric automotive company "Electric Formula". Demonstrations of Formula E cars start next year, followed by a championship in 2014 with an objective of 10 teams and 20 drivers. The races "will be ideally" staged in the heart of the world’s leading cities, around their main landmarks. Well, maybe.

With luminaries like Drayson and an ex MEP involved, they'll be looking for subsidies from greenies. Paying customers would never make an electric grand prix commercial, yet expect FEH to be awash with taxpayer cash. And expect more announcements like: FOUNDATION OF SPARK RACING TECHNOLOGY. OFFICIAL SUPPLIER OF THE FIA FORMULA E CHAMPONSHIP. PARIS, 12th November 2012: Frédéric Vasseur is pleased to announce the birth of Spark Racing Technology, a company dedicated to the creation and assembly of cars participating in the FIA World Championship Formula E. E for electric, exciting, efficiency, environment, and last but not least, a new era. Well, maybe.

Spark Racing Technology will be part of a newly founded consortium whose purpose is to design the most efficient electric cars possible, in regard to mechanical, electrical, electronics and engine. Frédéric Vasseur is proud to announce that McLaren is among the key players in the said consortium. The collaboration of Spark Racing Technology with a major car manufacturer whose reputation and success speak for themselves is a guarantee of success and innovation. McLaren will provide the engine, transmission and electronics for the cars being assembled by Spark Racing Technology.

The FIA Formula E Championship will be launched in 2014.

The press release waxes lyrical. It will run exclusively in major international cities and it has all the assets needed to reach a worldwide audience, becoming a bridge between the old and new era of industry and motorsport. Frédéric Vasseur (CEO, Spark Racing Technology): “I am proud and happy to give birth to this project that is innovative and extremely rewarding for a company both technically and philosophically. Personally, I can write a new chapter, regardless of my other ventures in motorsport. Confidence and commitment from our partner McLaren is a guarantee of quality and reliability without which this project would not have been possible. The association with a globally recognized car manufacturer is definitely the right way to go. Sport and society are evolving and Spark Racing Technology is proud to be the pioneer and leader in the new field of electric cars that will revolutionize the motor racing industry and attitude.”

You can only hope that Martin Whitmarsh (Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes) had his tongue in his cheek: “I’m a passionate believer in the role that motorsport can play in showcasing and spearheading the development of future technologies, and regard the Formula E concept as an exciting innovation for global motorsport. McLaren has worked with Frédéric Vasseur for many years, and our association has been very successful. Working together in Formula E, McLaren’s world-class technology and Spark Racing Technology’s expert knowledge will combine to allow both companies to stay at the forefront of technical innovation and hopefully open up great opportunities for the racing cars of tomorrow.”

Or maybe not. Thought of a London Grand Prix in 1981 for Sunday Magazine

Four Wheel Drift

Pom liked analyses. This illustrated the forces working on a mid-engined Cooper-Climax

Road test cars in lurid skids are so 1950s. Only louts and motoring hacks drive cars sideways in clouds of smoke. Power slides, what Stirling Moss used to call four wheel drifts, went out with skinny tyres.  Jack Brabham was still “hanging the tail out” with the Cooper-Climax in 1960 but it now looks a quaint relic of a bygone age.

Up to about 1937 racing drivers tended to brake before a corner, go round on half throttle, and then accelerate. With more power they could spin the back wheels, skidding out the tail, keeping control by steering on opposite lock. When independent suspension came in wheels had more grip and for the first time understeered. In Design and Behaviour of the Racing Car (Kimber 1963) by Stirling Moss (left) and the late and much lamented Laurence Pomeroy, Moss says: “It was now possible to produce a halfway house between the trailing throttle and power slide techniques. At Rheims in 1938 spectators saw cars set up for right hand corners by turning the front wheels well to the right then feeding power into the rear wheels with such control that wheelspin, and a power slide, was avoided, but at the same time the cornering power of the tyres was so reduced that the tail came out without the wheels spinning. The car then went round, pointing well in-field, so that a photographer standing back might have it pointing straight at him. Thus was the four wheel drift initiated.”

Well, it’s different now. Any grand prix driver getting that far out of shape is either wasting time or having an accident. The fastest way through a corner is a precise line, yet surprisingly editors still like pictures of Ferraris, or any fast car it seems, in a tyre-screeching skid. It does not prove road testers are clever drivers. There’s no skill to it. But it makes me wary.  It looks as though motoring magazines are designed for juveniles and not for Ferrari-buying classes at all. Exemplary road test picture: Jaguar (right)

Nothing new about a London Grand Prix

There’s nothing new about a London Grand Prix. Sunday Magazine in 1981 wasn’t first to suggest it and now, apparently, Bernie is encouraging the idea of one round the Olympic Stadium. Thirty years ago I revived a 1930s proposal. Innes Ireland came to lunch and agreed a Hyde Park Grand Prix course with racing cars tearing down Park Lane at 180mph, braking hard for a sharp right hander at the Hilton, flat-out in fifth past the Serpentine.

Grand Prix cars only had five gears then and were racing round some unlikely places, like the Caesar’s Palace car park, Las Vegas, and street courses in Montreal, Long Beach and Detroit. Lunch with Innes was always entertaining.

Maybe Whitehall, Birdcage Walk and The Mall was a bit ambitious. Hyde Park was probably more practical; Grosvenor House and The Dorchester would have been good viewing points. Decent breakfast and all-day bar. Parliament Square was a product of artist Geoff Hunt’s imagination.

On Wednesday Telegraph Sport revealed that a bid, tabled by Intelligent Transport Solutions Ltd, was among the shortlist of four accepted. According to the formal documentation, it was listed as being “on behalf of Formula One”, though Ecclestone said on Thursday he “had not put his name to it”.

The plan is thought to propose a track running into the stadium and then around the Olympic Park, which has considerable wide-open spaces, though designed for pedestrians rather than F1 cars. Intelligent Transport Solutions Ltd was founded last year, with headquarters listed as Wanstead, east London.

Santander is sponsoring a competition to envisage a London grand prix circuit. Nothing’s new.

Ecurie Ecosse - World Cup

Describing Ecurie Ecosse as a, “two-time Le Mans 24 Hours-winning squad” is as disingenuous as calling England FIFA World Cup winners. Ecurie Ecosse won Le Mans in 1956 and 1957, England the World Cup in 1966. I suppose stretching credulity is what publicists do. It’s nice to see Ecurie Ecosse racing again and I’m delighted it managed a “… solid finish” in the “challenging Blancpain Endurance race at Silverstone.” It races Barwell BMW Z4 GT3s and while 34th overall can’t match two Le Mans wins on the trot, it was probably quite hard work, “after battling tricky weather conditions at the British Grand Prix venue.” Not quite the debut win by Alasdair McCaig and Roger Bryant at Oulton Park, but satisfactory.

This is not the Ecurie Ecosse BMW. This is another BMW winning the 2010 24 Hours race at the Nurburgring

I don’t much envy Andrew Smith, Ecurie Ecosse’s publicist. Roy Hodgson, England manager, had a similar problem at the Donbass Arena when a French journalist quipped that England was no longer a major football power. “Of course we feel the weight of history," Hodgson said. "It was a facetious question but there was an element of truth in what he was saying. As a top nation we haven't won as many tournaments as we should or done as well as we should."

It was the same with Ecurie Ecosse. Founded in 1952 it was well presented, highly competitive and successful. Winning Le Mans barely four years later, almost the only private team that ever managed it, was astonishing even with covert support from Jaguar. It was, alas, downhill from then, except for a few minor triumphs such as almost inventing (with John Tojeiro) the mid-engined coupe and spotting the potential of both the Buick V8 and Jackie Stewart.

Nearly all that 1950s “squad” are gone; David Murray the team patron, Wilkie Wilkinson, all the drivers Ron Flockhart, Ninian Sanderson and Ivor Bueb, although happily mechanics survive, Stan Sproat and Ron Gaudion, from whom I heard only the other week. He lives in Australia and endorsed some of the views I took in Ecurie Ecosse, David Murray and the Legendary Scottish Motor Racing Team (PJ Publishing 2007), about Wilkie, whose role as an engineering expert I thought much exaggerated.

Ron confirmed that Wilkie’s Snetterton crash in XKD 501 (MWS 301)was entirely his own fault and XKD 603 (RSF 303 second Le Mans 1957 was prepared by Ron and Stan Sproat, while 606 (RSF 301) the fuel injected 1957 winner, was rebuilt at the works. Lofty England would not countenance it returning to Edinburgh because he had no confidence in Wilkie. Likeable enough but self-serving, it was all very well Wilkie tuning MG carburettors with a stethoscope at the Evans’s Bellevue Garage in the 1930s. Twenty years later he was well out of his depth.

What a tangled web they wove.

Sir Frank Williams

When Bernie was asked on the starting grid who he’d like to see win the Spanish Grand Prix, the hard-bitten old impresario said “Williams.” Winning for Sir Frank’s 70^th birthday party seemed a long shot. It had not won since 2004. Like Manchester City’s last-minute triumph you couldn’t make it up.

I thought the bubbly, slightly devious but thoroughly likeable keep-fit fanatic we used to call W**k*r (rhyme it with Franker) Williams older than that. He had been in grand prix racing, it seemed, for ever and certainly most of the 1960s to the 1980s, when it was my job to cover it. I knew him as a hustler, a bustler always seemingly on the brink of financial disaster, who could sell sponsorship from a red kiosk owing, it was said, to a temporary anomaly over his domestic phone bill.

What a hero. Fidgety, mercurial, wiry, wide-eyed; we followed him from crisis to crisis, with unlikely sponsors and unlikely cars. You had to admire his cheek. He was up against the engineering genius of Colin Chapman, the cunning of Enzo Ferrari, the pragmatism of John and Charles Cooper and the stolid practicality of Jack Brabham. Well funded and well organised grand prix teams had come, with smooth-talking PROs - yes even then – and ignominiously gone.

Frank Williams didn’t need a PRO. He was available, loquacious even, in the paddock winning or, as often as not, losing. He once stopped me in my tracks with: “That was a nice piece you wrote about us in The Guardian.” Hardly anybody else ever did that. Graham Hill was one. None of the others read, registered or understood.

Williams’ setbacks were cruel and colossal. He had to come back after the bright star of Piers Courage was snuffed out at Zandvoort in 1970. He endured Ayrton Senna’s accident at Imola in 1994 to say nothing of the Italian police scapegoating afterwards. Frank’s own accident in 1986 one felt sure would paralyse his career, as well as him.

Well, it didn’t. Awards, such as the well deserved Helen Rollason for outstanding achievement in the face of adversity, and national recognition acknowledge as much. Congratulations Sir Franker; one of the motor racing greats along with Chapman and Ferrari. And if, who knows, Bernie does manipulate Formula 1 like some super telemetry Scalextric set, he couldn’t have written a better scene than this one.

Except maybe for the fire.

Red Bull and the Gearbox

Like no-balls from a Pakistani cricketer, Sebastian Vettel’s gearbox trouble in Brazil somehow didn’t ring true. Eddie Jordan predicted on Saturday that Vettel would concede to Mark Webber on Sunday. Red Bull’s entreaty on the team radio, “Remember we have a gearbox problem,” sounded like, “Remember what we said about Mark winning, slow down.” The Australian (above) gained an extra point to move one place up the world championship.
No oil in Vettel’s gearbox? Who was ever going to know? Calling on the intercom about feeling like Ayrton Senna in 1991 was a surprise. In 1991 Sebastian Vettel was four. Even the brightest driver (and Vettel is very bright) doesn’t have such recall in the heat and concentration of a grand prix. It sounded like a recent recollection. And although Peter Windsor’s cool analysis in Grand Prix Week that Vettel could (like Windsor’s hero Jim Clark) have been merely adjusting his driving and short-shifting gears, his lap times were so unaffected as to stretch credulity. Except for an uncharacteristic excursion at a late stage he looked perfectly capable of going faster and showed no sign of letting Jenson Button (below) catch him up. David Coulthard conceded that what he called the twitterati were sceptical about Red Bull’s gearbox crisis. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? A paid-up member of the grand prix circus, short of accusing Red Bull of being untruthful, he couldn’t do much else.

There’s nothing wrong in the brilliant bright-eyed Vettel allowing brave, skilled Webber past to go up a notch in the championship, securing his place in next year’s circus, not that there would have been much doubt about that. When Stirling Moss won from Fangio in the first grand prix I was at, (Aintree British in 1955 if you want to know) they were driving for Mercedes-Benz. Fangio had won all season, more or less as he pleased. Moss younger, newer, was content to drive in his shadow.

They were always within yards of one another, demonstrating the supremacy of Mercedes-Benz under team manager Neubauer. At Aintree Moss led quite a lot of the 90 laps but the expectation was that in the end Fangio would, as usual, win. On the last lap Moss slowed after Melling, slowing more after Tatt’s to provide the customary near-dead-heat. But this time Fangio did not quite draw level. Moss won a historic victory. Neither driver ever claimed the result was pre-ordained; certainly Mercedes-Benz wanted to sell more cars in Britain. But in 1955 the solidarity of the grand prix circus was as tight-lipped as ever it is now.

Sebastian Vettel, 2010 and 2011 world champion driver. Pictures National Motorsport Week.
For the record, in 1991 Senna (McLaren) lost fourth gear in the closing stages of the race, then third and fifth. Riccardo Patrese (Williams) was catching him and the gap came down from 20 sec on lap 65 to 3.6 on lap 70, the penultimate. Senna chose to remain in sixth, just as the rain started, and won by less than 3 sec but the strain was too much for the car. He stopped on the slowing-down lap to pick up a Brazilian flag and it would not restart. He was towed in and had to be lifted out of the car, totally spent by the struggle.