F1: Bored Billionaires Sport

If you're a regular reader of my blog, it might come as a surprise to you that I love Formula 1. In fact, I love MotoGP too: the faster, the better, and these are the two fastest sports on four and two wheels.

_{Count Albert de Dion at 1894 Paris-Rouen race - source: Wikimedia Commons}

Okay, at the core of my adulation for the sport lies the adrenaline rush that's released when going fast. It's the same kind of rush I got when I long ago jumped out of an airplane, with a parachute of course. It's the sensation you get when going on a roller-coaster ride; it's knowing that the drivers are constantly pushing their machines and themselves to the very edge of what's possible. A good race means that I'm on the edge of my seat for one and a half to two hours,at the end of which I feel exhausted and happy or exhausted and frustrated. Same as any other sport I guess, so no surprises here.

What might be surprising though is the fact that Formula 1 literally is a game of billionaires. I think Formula 1 is not only a competition between fast cars and fast drivers, it's a symbol of capitalism's huge success and a stark reminder of how seamlessly the aristocracy of old has transformed into the plutocracy of today. You see, the first automobile races were nothing more than a competition between some extremely rich men who decided to compete between themselves, to determine who was able to build the fastest car and who had the guts to drive these cars as fast as possible. While in the early days some manufacturers drove their cars themselves, it increasingly became custom for these elites to hire someone to drive their cars for them. Already in the early 1900s, the manufacturers recognized the power of racing, as they gave a boost to the sales-figures of their brands.

The birthplace of motor racing is France, and the first driver to win a race was Marquis Jules Félix Philippe Albert de Dion de Wandonne. De Dion had a passion for anything mechanical and took up the challenge to build a steam powered vehicle and in 1887 his first steam tricycle. He entered one of them in a 1887 trial, in which his was the only participating vehicle. The first organized event was the race from Paris to Rouen in 1894. The entry rules were simple, but vague: the winning "horseless carriage" had to be "safe, easily controllable and reasonably economical to run." Of the twenty one entries, De Dion was the first to cross the finish line, driving a steam driven De Dion tractor in a race that had an enthralling average speed of 17 km/h.

Unfortunately for him, the jury ruled that his "horseless carriage" was not a practical road vehicle and awarded the price to a Peugeot and a Panhard-Levassor driven by Rene Panhard, who also won Paris-Bordeaux-Paris in 1895 and the Tour de France Automobile of 1899. Panhard cars dominated racing everywhere until 1900. In fact, early racing was very much a French affair, but dominance later moved to Germany, Italy, England with manufacturers Daimler, Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, Ford and so on; it never stopped being a predominantly European affair. And it never stopped being a game for rich men.

_{source: Wikimedia Commons}

Nowadays it's still Ferrari and Mercedes at the top with Renault occasionally recording some successes. Of course we've had, and still have Japanese manufacturers to contend with; for us Dutch fans it would be great if Honda builds the fastest motor this year because Dutch talent Max Verstappen is driving a Honda powered Red Bull Racing car. Formula 1 is not only the epitome of fast driving, it's also the epitome of, and huge advertisement banner for capitalism. It is the dream of progress through competition made real, as well as the evidence that riches await anyone who comes out on top of this technological warfare...

As much as I love the sport, I hate it that it does such a great job advertising one of the core ideas and largest misconceptions about our failing socio-economic reality. Competition is good in sports and games, it's a natural remnant of our evolution, but a rational mind can in no way believe it's good for progress or for humankind's general well-being. And the proof is given in Formula 1 itself. Well, maybe not exactly proof, but strong "circumstantial evidence" for sure, which can be heard regularly during racing-, qualifying- and training-sessions.

Every track is split up into three or four sectors; add up the time of each sector to get the total lap-time. Commentators often talk about how the cars' strengths differ in each section of the lap; the Ferrari has amazing straight line speed this year, the Mercedes has a great all-round aerodynamic package and the Red Bulls are traditionally the fastest in sectors with many fast corners. Often you'll hear the commentator say something like "if only the Red Bull had the power of the Mercedes drive-train", or "the fastest aggregate possible lap-time is if we add Ferrari's first and last sectors to Mercedes' middle sector". Need I say more? Competition between the teams gives us great sport, heroic drives, but also a continues attitude of "how far can we bend the rules, what can we just get away with", and a true spying game and scandals about teams "stealing" patented secrets from each other. There can be no doubt that the fastest possible car can be built only by combining the strengths of ALL teams. Cooperation, not competition gives us the best product.

My apologies for skipping a huge part of motor racing history here: I just abused my favorite sport to make a point. But if you're really interested in this history (and why wouldn't you: it's full of heroic names and drives and wonderful controversies and rivalries), please visit Grand Prix History. I used this site as the main source for the first part of this article. Also I can't help but conclude with a tribute Ayrton Senna, still my favorite driver of all time... Also it's kinda good to see Lewis Hamilton, the current 5 time world champion humbled, and giddy as a schoolboy when given the chance to drive the beast that Senna used to drive :-)

_{Ayrton Senna | Top Gear Tribute}

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