A random moment from the 2020 season
I can't think of a subtitle
I’ve been rewatching the 2020 Formula 1 season during the autumn race break. Why? No reason in particular, I just seem to have no memory of F1 that year. To be fair, I changed jobs that year and a previously stable medical condition worsened, so no wonder I didn’t have a lot of spare capacity for racing. Ok, yea, the world seemed like it was ending for a bit there. (I hear the world just lived indoors for months? idk, I was a key worker at the time who still had to leave the house.)
But there was also F1 that year. Eventually. I’ve a plan to make a podcast series talking about my adventures in recent history, so I won’t do something sensible like start at the beginning of the season. No, but there was one thing in particular that seemed oddly timely to see, and I want to tell you about it.
No fans were allowed in the first few races, and the number that could attend at all varied depending on the local rules of the country the F1 circus was visiting. In an effort to get fans involved there were ‘fan cams’ broadcast on the circuit big screens. I have no idea how this worked, was it a competition or did you just have to be watching with your web cam turned on and if you were lucky a producer would pick you? I don’t know, I don’t particularly care. But fan cams, there were.
I can’t show you an image of this, or rather, I chose not to breach someone else’s copyright to show you. This is also from the F1TV archive, which is behind a paywall, and while the chances are they’ll never know because Formula Curious is tiny just now, I don’t want to risk it.
So. Imagine the Belgian Grand Prix. It’s bright and sunny but also cloudy day in the Ardennes. The stands are empty, but F1 needs to happen.
There’s a giant screen at the far end of the Kemmel Straight, that is, the end closest to Eau Rouge. A common camera shot is watching the cars come along the Kemmel Straight towards Les Combes, away from the screen. The screen was switching between advertising and fan cam. People cheering, fists pumping, thumbs up, jumping around. Fans being fans.
On lap 25 of 44 the camera cuts to cars driving along the Kemmel Straight. Lewis Hamilton is leading; no surprises, he did a lot of that that year. The camera cuts to Helmut Marko sitting in the Red Bull garage with his nose sticking out from his mask, negating the point of wearing a mask at all. Not that that has anything to do with the picture I’m trying to paint here, I just thought that it was a fitting kind of piece of information to have about Helmut Marko. Back to the race…
Hamilton, Bottas and Verstappen have arrived on the Kemmel Straight. The fan cam behind them comes up with a guy wearing a Red Bull team shirt and cap, a banner across the bottom of the screen says “Go Verstappen!” He waves his fist in excitement for a bit then he bends down, disappearing for a moment. He reappears holding his shoe, a blue sneaker, and proceeds to pretend to drink out of it. Pretending is the keyword there; his shoe isn’t even touching his lips, and there is clearly no liquid in the shoe. After a couple of moments of this… this event, he quickly drops his shoe down to his side and out of camera shot, turns his face to the camera and shouts something like “Go Verstappen!” He raises his right arm, as if to show off his muscles, shouts some more. Then, without warning, the shoe reappears. He raises it again to his lips, without the shoe touching them, and pretends again to drink from it. He then drops it to his side, shouts a bit and does another faux shoey sequence. Apparently he wasn’t prepared to have such a long stint on the fan cam? His enthusiasm is dropping by the end. Eventually, his suffering is ended as the screen goes to black before encouraging us to drink Heineken responsibly.
I’m not trying to shame this guy for being a fan, or for having a moment of excite. Whatever. But he was a Max Verstappen fan, so, why was he doing a shoey? Daniel Ricciardo was racing with Renault in 2020, having left Red Bull at the end of the 2018 season. Verstappen has never done a shoey, at least not without encouragement. So.. why? And it was so clearly a pretend shoey. And mid-race? I just don’t understand.
Was it a not so subtle dig at either Max or Daniel? Maybe at both Max and Daniel? They seem to get on alright now, but - cut to that moment at Azerbaijan 2018 where Max did the wiggle under braking and Daniel hit him. I think there were some tense moments. But that was still years before the 2020 season, I… I don’t get it.
The commentators didn’t mention this fan cam moment. Actually, I think the only time during the whole season the commentators did mention the fan cams was at the British GP. #BritishBias. Note: The F1TV archive uses the international coverage, and at that time, had the UK Sky F1 commentary (i.e. David Croft and Martin Brundle).
So there you have it. My learnings from re-watching the 2020 championship is being confused by a guy do a fake shoey to support Daniel Ricciardo’s former teammate.
Do you remember much about the 2020 season? My highlights are Lewis won title number 7 and Checo won a Grand Prix! Everything else was a blur.
Hey, are you enjoying Formula Curious? Wanna tell a friend about it? Or maybe just an acquaintance or colleague?
Take care of yourselves!