Finally, a season that holds promise. After the worst scarlet red bloodbaths in history, a new contender has emerged out of the blue. In an historic debut, the Mild Seven Renault F1 Team have pulled a hat trick and dominated the first three rounds of the ’05 season, leaving Ferrari and the rest of pit lane scratching their heads and eating their carbon fiber brake dust. The Bahrain GP last Sunday celebrated the hundredth win for a Renault engine in Formula 1, the twentieth for a Renault chassis, and marks the first time in history that a Renault chassis has won three consecutive races.
Aside from the tifosi, the rest of the world waits breathlessly for a new champion to take his place in the sun. Could Spain finally deliver their first World Champion? Or will the more experienced Fisico, take away the young Spaniards’, and indeed the other hopefuls’ thunder? There are still a gruelling 16 races left on the calendar and the wise money wouldn’t write off Schumi just yet. And where are the BAR, McLaren and Williams drivers in all of this? They’re right there pushing harder than ever before. But as we all know, Formula One is a highly complex team effort. And you’re only as strong as your weakest link. Victory is only bestowed on the most complete and flawless package — no point having the most finely crafted race engine on earth with a seven time world champion behind the wheel if the brakes get fried on an ambitious lunge for the lead coming down a very fast straight. Then, of course, there’s F1’s new wild card: Toyota.
So, who’s doing what? How have the new driver’s fit in to their new respective teams? How have the teams adapted to the ever changing rules of the fickle minded FIA? When will Bernie Ecclestone find a decent barber? Armed with a Mild Seven Renault F1 pit pass, a camera and a clipboard, I set out to Melbourne to get some answers.
There are new faces in the paddock, as well as new outfits all together. Jordan is out. Midland F1 is in. Ford, as we know, pulled the plug, leaving Red Bull to pick up the pieces. Which, I may add, judging by their strong opening performances, is a nice tidy slap on the faces of the blue oval bean counters. But of the top three teams, only one has made any driver changes. After a three season absence, one of the sport’s most highly rated drivers, Giancarlo Fisichella, returns to a winning team. Keen eyes from the air-conditioned offices up above seem to agree that this has been a healthy separation for both parties, giving them much needed time to mature in a sport that demands so much and spits in the face of mediocrity. Yet, if you consider his previous relationship with his race engineer, Alan Permane, he may be just at home as Fernando — question is, can he still shine in a team where his team mate has hit superstar status and earned the blinded admiration of millions of adoring fans?
"The team gives equal support to both its drivers," Giancarlo says with his slightly crooked smile. Nice to know that one driver is not contractually obligated to kiss the other’s butt, without mentioning names, of course. "Considering your experience, do you see this as your last chance to make your mark in F1?" I ask without hostility. "To me, I see this as my first chance. Before, I simply did not have the right equipment underneath me. Now, I am ready to compete," he says, seemingly drawing on that photograph in his mind of Brazil, 2003, where he drove his mediocre Jordan to victory. "But the pressure on you now must be enormous?" I continue. "The Pressure is always there. Even in a non competitive team, you are still in a very competitive environment. You still need to beat your team mate and get noticed by the bigger teams. I am used to this pressure, it works well for me." He says, trailing off, and starts pumping an imaginary accelerator with his Puma driving shoe. And what about the new rules? "I am a very smooth driver and am notoriously gentle on the car. This, I think, will be my advantage when it comes to the one tire per race and two race per engine rule change," Fisico speaks with a mouthful of confidence in his tone only 24 hours before celebrating his very first victory on the top spot of the podium. (Although he won Brazil, he wasn’t allowed up on the podium because of a controversy with Kimi. He was handed the win by an FIA decision much later.)
Interviews tend to happen in about five minute spasms, but the well prepared journo can cover a lot of ground in that time. If I could only find one... The thing about waltzing around the paddock with a team pass is that you are mingling with all the teams and drivers in their natural habitat. This is their office, so you won’t see any entourages or security personnel insulating them from the "common folk". You are free to immerse yourself in the electrifying atmosphere, but there is still an etiquette as to how you go about your business. Just because Giancarlo or Fernando pull up a chair next to you to eat their lunch, you shouldn’t abuse the privilege by bombarding them with questions or merchandise to sign while they enjoy their tuna and fennel pasta. Just as you wouldn’t walk into somebody’s office and expect to see them without an appointment, the same can be said in the paddock. Asking him to pass the salt is acceptable. Asking him to sign it and then pocketing it, however, is not. Take it from me.
But there are still some that just don’t get it. While the FIA continue to drown themselves in finding solutions to problems with as much depth as parking lot puddles, F1, as a spectator sport, is facing a crisis; a vast bulk of the fans watch the sport for the spectacle and the extravagance of it all and are beginning to feel cheated. Many couldn’t care less about testing and race engines that last for two races; they complain that F1 has lost the pizazz, and has become devoid of real suspense. Thankfully, they are not alone. Flavio Briatore, the expensively tanned, flamboyant team principal with impeccable taste in women, agrees. "F1 is supposed to be the greatest show on earth," he says looking straight at me through his blue tinted glasses. He takes them off, and continues. "Formula One is about technology, but also communication. I try to bring the two things together. The racing is only a small part of the dream. We are selling people." He is very vocal about the sport becoming sterile. Boring, in fact. And how the driver’s are now sounding like robots. I quickly draw a parallel to Kimi’s recent controversy during a drunken stupor on the off season. "Yes, that’s right! Let the guy have fun! If it was any other 24-year-old getting drunk in a bar, nobody would blink an eye." "If it were one of your drivers?" I ask sharply. "As long as it wasn’t a race weekend, I say, enjoy!" Live the lifestyle, so to speak? "Exactly," he punctuates his point by banging his fist into his open palm.
Those words carry a lot more weight when you take into account that, pound for pound, this guy has delivered more than any other team principal on the paddock. He first set foot in an F1 paddock in Adelaide in 1988, back when he could barely even spell F1. Being free of any preconceptions, though, he attacked his role with unseen vigor and changed the landscape of team management. In his tenure, Benetton won three world titles (two drivers’ crowns and one constructors) between 1994 and 1995. "Was your lack of experience an advantage?" I ask, unsure as to whether my question, or my position to even ask it, would be received with any offense. "Yes," he says, bringing a sigh of relief to my side of the table. "I am able to think out of the box. I am not sentimental when it comes to F1," he explains. "It is a tough world. From the outside, it is just cars racing on a Sunday and grid girls. But in reality, you must be committed at every moment. I run an F1 team like any other business — the passionate side of F1 doesn’t come into the equation when you are making decisions."
We’re off to a great start. Before this meeting, I was led to believe that Flavio has young journalists for breakfast. Thankfully, it looks as though he may have already eaten. I decide to press on and try my luck. If this were Black Jack, I should just stand at 19. But I still decided to draw one last card before leaving anyway.
"Was it a mistake to hire Jacques Villeneuve late last year? You were that close to BAR and the fight for second. From the grandstand, and armchairs around the globe, it seemed like one giant mistake of Enron proportions. Or, did the former world champion assume a role that has benefited the team in an area not immediately perceivable to the audience?" He pauses. A far too long one for my liking. He draws breath and measures his words carefully, "Jarno had done some things and the team had lost confidence with him. Vice versa." (Read: He didn’t want to sign under my management company) "In that kind of situation, Jarno would not have been able to deliver anyway. My choice to hire Jacques was simple. Under the circumstances, the result would have been the same regardless of who we got, but we got a lot more media exposure because of it. Simple. For me, drivers are not superstars," he added, putting a little more sprite in his tone. "They are the final link in the chain, but we entrust them with the work of nearly a thousand people every time they are in the car. They need to be aware of that responsibility, and perform accordingly."
The impressive thing about the Mild Seven Renault F1 Team is that it operates on one of the smaller budgets in the paddock. As a manufacturer and as a team, they look for cost effective solutions to real world problems. Considering that the consumer is always the main benefactor of all this technology, it makes perfect sense to resist the common temptation of simply throwing money at the problem. If Flavio and his boys can take this all the way, then it is a huge win for the end users of all their sponsor’s products; a victory of greater substance.
The next day was race day. And surprisingly, I hadn’t been stripped off my pit pass. The mood was remarkably different. All of a sudden, the circus had arrived. Celebrities filled the outdoor tables of the team’s garages, while beautiful women sipped wine and lunched on very hard to pronounce salads. TV cameras watched every movement of the who’s who and beamed those images around the world. Fisichella sat on pole but those in any other color other than blue and yellow, blamed it on the weather. "He won’t hold it ’til the first corner," said one blinded Ferrari supporter. This was it. The main event. Everything up until this point had just been a press release and a psyche war. The collective work of around seven thousand people all came down to this moment, and you could hear the gnawing of their teeth as far away as Enstone.
The pits is an eerie place to watch the race from. Despite the ear shattering whine of the race engines that scream past at 18,000 rpm, you could almost hear a tire valve cover drop. Its almost as if time is suspended. Now would be a good time to steal a salt shaker. Or an ashtray. Not that I did, of course. Fernando Alonso got caught up in Mother Nature during the qualifying and sat in an unfamiliar 13th place. Danni Minogue chose to watch the race with us and provided a much needed distraction. As the five lights went out, so did etiquette. Some wolf whistled while others just randomly chanted, "We love you, Danni!" A see saw of emotions swept through the pits. There was visible restraint in the reactions of the team. Nobody wanted to jinx it with premature celebrations despite the fact that Fisi was on his last pit stop and leading the race with a hard charging Alonso breathing down Rubens from third.
When that checkered flag was waived, it was as if it signaled and end to reason and decorum. I have never seen so many grown men weeping since the last auditions of American Idol. Euphoria, as a word, just doesn’t cut it. I worked my way through the hysterical pit crew and couldn’t shoot pictures fast enough. It was human emotion in its rawest form. It is one thing for a driver to win the first GP of the season on his first day back on the job, it is another thing entirely when his team mate joins him on the podium after clawing his way up from 13th up to third. The Mild Seven Renault F1 team had stamped their authority all over the first race. You would expect one giant party to end all parties. Instead, while the beautiful people drank champagne, the air freight boxes were out and the team began packing up.
Welcome to life on the edge, where your right to breathe the same hi octane air at the summit of motor sport is measured solely by championship points. In the end, long after the effervescence of the winners’ champagne fades, only statistics will remain. And nobody here races for second. Welcome to the Mild Seven Renault Formula One Team.