What The Hell Is Going On in F1?

Formula 1 racing is boring. Really boring. High powered machines parading around at 200 MPH with virtually no passing. The real race might as well be the qualifying. 50 laps around long, tight courses and Michael Schumacher wins. Yay. Even NASCAR, with it’s never-ending left turns, is more interesting. (Yes, I realize Schumacher is long retired and NASCAR has a couple of road course races a year. It’s called generalization for effect.)

So, the only way to liven up things in F1 is off the track. Stealing a competitor’s secrets. “Team Orders” to let the favoured driver pass and win the race. Threats by many teams to leave. Bernie Ecclestone. Lying to race stewards. And the latest, more “Team Orders” to have a driver purposely crash to help a teammate win a race.

Without too many details, it went a little like this. Driver 1 pits very early for fuel. Now behind, his teammate, Driver 2, crashes in a convenient place that brings out a safety car. Driver 1 makes up the distance he lost, rolling up to the back of the pack. Everybody else pits. Driver 1 holds lead. Genius, but stupid at the same time. Too many coincidences. Oh, and if you’re going to do something like this, don’t unceremoniously dump Driver 2 from the team.

So, while one team gets fined $100 million for stealing ideas from a competitor, Renault, the race team that pulled these shenanigans, gets off with a two-year suspended sentence because the parties involved left the team. They endangered the crashing driver, all the other racers, officials, and spectators in a reckless fashion.

Vince McMahon couldn’t do it better.