British bias and other things
A gossip discussion
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It’s been a while since I did one of these, so it’s a long one. On the menu today is a discussion around British bias, the FIA getting their firing pants on, and the new not-Andretti F1 team. There’ll be a brief palate cleanser in the form of a Will Buxton Poetry Corner, followed by a wild prediction. Enjoy!
British Bias
Max Verstappen had a whinge recently about the perceived bias against him from the British media. I don’t know what kind of media diet he has, but Max has apparently missed the British press taking pot shots at Lando for being an imperfect human instead of an automaton. More specifically about Max, to me it looks like most of the British F1 media is talking almost non-stop about how wonderful he is. Hey, look, here’s a photo of a British journalist getting “M4X” shaved into his hair.
I’ve heard that Max’s complaints could be derived from how the Dutch media enthuses about him no end while talking badly about his competitors, race stewarding, etc, so Max is assuming the British media does the same to Lando. I choose not to verify this for myself; 1) because I don’t speak Dutch, and 2) because the Dutch are more casually racist than the British (on average) and I don’t want to read that shit. I also don’t want to go through the British newspapers because: refer to point 2 above.
There is little escaping the British exceptionalism, however. Subtly different to any bias (racism) toward British drivers and against anyone else, there is a tendency to amplify the importance of British stuff. By which I mean suggestions, actions and, at times, outright statements that, for example, all British universities are better than all foreign universities, etc. To the extent that you can basically insult anything by calling it “foreign.”
NB: I am not British. I live in the UK. I am from New Zealand. I have met these opinions in the wild. “But they’re not being racist, so don’t worry about it.”
I came across a stunning example of this exceptionalism while reading a biography of Lewis Hamilton. This biography is from 2007, and by Frank Worrall if you want to go and find my references. You might recall that Hamilton only started F1 in 2007, so to make up for this lack of things to talk about, the author takes the reader on a journey through McLaren’s history, Ron Dennis’ back story, and previous British F1 drivers and champions.
While talking about James Hunt’s victory in the 1976 Drivers’ championship over Niki Lauda, he says:
“Nonetheless, the title win made him a hero in the eyes of those who matter most in the sport […] the British Formula One fans.”
I shit you not. The author actually stated that British fans are most important. And there is nothing around this to indicate that he is trying to make a funny here; this isn’t a joke. There’s being proud of your country and stuff but… bejeebus.
One basis for the perceived British bias has been the presence of Johnny Herbert on the stewarding panel. He’s a former F1 driver, some time pundit, and now part time F1 race steward. He’s also British. One thing I very much dislike about Herbert is his habit of talking to the media about all the stewarding calls of the previous race. But because of this habit we know what he thought about different instances of penalties being applied or not. After the Verstappen-Lando collision all the way back in Austria, Herbert spoke to the media about how he loved Verstappen’s aggressive driving style. It could be summed up from those comments that driving a rival off the track, with all involved getting punctures, wasn’t beyond the line of acceptable racing.
Then, after Verstappen was given 20 seconds in time penalties, and 2 penalty points, for taking issue with Norris’ existence in front of him and driving Norris off the road, Herbert changed his tune. Now, such actions were, “an absolute no-no.” Based on Herbert’s media comments, I take issue with his stewarding. Not because he’s showing any bias towards British drivers, but because he just seems to be letting his own opinion define the rules on the day.
Verstappen has tried to keep the drama rumbling with pointing out the lack of British media in post race press conferences, when the British media usually don’t attend those. And, since Verstappen won the championship he’s said things like:
“It’s not bad for a guy from Holland. I hope it inspires a lot of kids as well. It doesn’t matter where you come from, you can achieve great things.”
Because the Dutch are an oppressed nationality who struggle to be taken seriously on the world stage. /sarcasm
FIA on a firing spree
This started off with race director Niels Wittich “voluntarily resigning with immediate effect” after the São Paulo Grand Prix. This has since been clarified with him saying he was fired and it wasn't voluntary. Most teams and drivers responded with something asking the lines of “?”
But I did notice Christian Horner said something about it being for the best because there'd been some biased stewarding calls recently. I think this was a reference to the VSC being called in the sprint race after an odd delay and the McLarens had switched places, and the timing of the red flag being called in qualifying, which personally offended Max Verstappen.
I get that Horner is just looking out for his own team, but I would argue that Red Bull have been on the favoured end of more biased stewarding calls lately than any other team on the grid at this point. As this is the only team principal comment I've found that consists of anything other than confusion, it could *puts on conspiracy hat* suggest Red Bull had a role in getting rid of the previous race director.
The FIA have followed this up by also firing new F2 race director Janette Tan, and senior F1 race steward Tim Mayer. George Russell, in GPDA mode, had an excellent response to this:
“We’d love to get a little bit of clarity and understanding of what's going on and, you know, who’s getting fired next.”
With things the way they are, the teams and drivers are finding out about these firings the same way the rest of us are; through the media.
In a wild coincidence, Tim Mayer is son of McLaren co-founder Teddy Mayer, and for this fact the Dutch media have claimed a conflict of interest in the stewarding of Tim Mayer. To link in the previous section, the same Dutch media are also claiming that because Johnny Herbert used to be a pundit for Sky F1, he also has a conflict of interest. A quote from Jos Verstappen in De Telegraf, a Dutch media outlet:
“The FIA should take a good look at the staffing of the stewards, who they put there and whether there is no appearance of a conflict of interest.”
I’m not sure I even need to be thinking about my conspiracy hat after that comment.
An 11th team, just as the prophecy foretold
The not-Andretti-Cadillac F1 team have been given the go ahead by F1 to join the grid. Things aren’t 100% settled yet, but it looks like there’ll be another team for the 2026 season. Perhaps related to the US Department of Justice getting involved? Amongst other reactions, I've come across some commentators describing the present teams’ reluctance for another team as “pathetic.”
Some teams almost went bankrupt during the pandemic panic of 2020, including at least Williams and Haas. That was only four years ago, and they still remember that shitty place well. Say what you will about Liberty Media, but since they took over from Bernie Ecclestone the behind the scenes goings on have become more fair and democratic. For sure, Liberty Media are in this business for the money, but they’re being way better at sharing the prize money around than Ecclestone.
It’s not that long since there were 11 teams on the grid, but the prize money was only split with the top 10 teams. Bernie Collins has spoken of a hard fight for 10th place, which her team won by half a point. But it meant that the other team didn’t have the money for the next season. She went on to speak of how empty that victory of theirs felt knowing that their friends and rivals were out of their jobs because of it. This kind of scenario is what those “pathetic” teams are trying to avoid.
Christian Horner made a passing comment that there isn’t enough garage space for another team. In a previous iteration of F1, 11 teams would race at Monaco in the era of having spare T-cars. (Think late 90s, early 2000s.) Yea, the cars were smaller back then, but it looks like this problem is a case of where there’s a will there’s a way. That’s what Formula 1 is all about!
GM/Cadillac won’t have their own engines ready to go until 2028, so will use Ferrari engines when they join the grid, as did Haas. Speaking of Haas, I’ve noticed a lot of comments about how F1 needs an American team because of the sports growing popularity over there. I will respond to this on behalf of Haas with a meme.
Will Buxton Poetry Corner
It’s been a while, but the Will Buxton poetry corner is back! To explain my joke a wee bit here, he is a journalist and presenter for F1 TV, and he uses an abundance of dramatic pauses. Not always, but. There’s a lot. I choose to believe he isn’t frantically searching for words while people talk in his ear, but is trying to be poetic. So, here we are in the Will Buxton Poetry Corner.
This poem is called “Las Vegas”
There's no such thing As a sure thing In this City And yet There was always Likelihood That Mercedes were going To win This race. George Russell Peerless Perfect His best ever win
A wild prediction
The next race as I write is the Qatar Grand Prix. Last year we saw Oscar Piastri take his first petit prix win in the sprint, before Verstappen won the survival mode grand prix. This time around I think there’ll be a McLaren one-two in the grand prix. Ferrari do well and get Sainz on the podium. Mercedes have a mixed bag across the weekend. Red Bull actually help Pérez, and he’ll have a decent race. Wait, am I talking about the grand prix or the sprint? Yes…
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Take care of yourselves!
(This is a redundant exclamation point!)
P.S I wrote the wild prediction before FP1. Now, after sprint quali, I’m not sure Red Bull are going to help Pérez in the race afterall.