Where loyalties lie
The other day, a friend and I were bringing Formula 1 to rights, wringing our fists and discussing what might be done to change things for the sake of it. It was all fairly fruitless.
I lamented the woeful McLaren team, reminding myself that they have only won the Constructors Championship once – 1998 – since the Senna-thumping days of 1991; 23 years ago. In the next sentence, I commented that I was, however, pleased to see Williams doing so well.
“Wait, what?!” said my friend as if I’d just suggested I’d like to holiday in North Korea. He said: “How can you support both McLaren and Williams?! Their fans hate each other!” His cries of despair caught me by surprise, but it turns out some Formula 1 fans are indeed as fickle and as tribal as football fans.
Apparently, supporting McLaren and Williams is like supporting both Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur. It can’t be done. You must pick your allegiance and stick with it, only resorting to Manchester City when the kids at school bully you just so.
When I was super-young, I followed Ayrton Senna, at which point he was still a McLaren driver. He then moved to Williams where his time would be cut tragically short. After he died, I simply followed his Williams replacement: David Coulthard. At the end of 1995, Coulthard moved to McLaren, leaving my other favourite driver, Damon Hill, at Williams. Hill left at the end of 1996, but still Coulthard remained the favoured son in the McLaren.
Then along came Jenson Button. I first saw Button race at the prestigious Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch in 1998, which he dominated, and then again a year later in Formula 3 at the same circuit. The following year, 2000, he was signed up by Williams and was, at the time, the sport’s youngest driver at 20 years old.
It put me in a predicament: I now had two favourite drivers, Coulthard and Button, racing for McLaren and Williams respectively.
My solution? Ignore the teams, support the drivers.
When you think about it, I have got it a bit backwards. In other sports, you pick a team and follow it from cradle to grave, accepting the peaks and troughs of form – unless you’re a soulless, brazen glory-hunter, like all Manchester United “supporters” south of Stretford in the 1990s. I support AFC Wimbledon (formerly Wimbledon FC), and I accept that players come and go. I also support – for my sins – England in football too, and accept that, again, players come and go. But F1? I’m supporting the players, not the teams.
However, thanks to my loyalty, I now find myself in a worrying position. When Coulthard retired at the end of 2008, I was left with just Button. But he is now 34 and, although is expected to remain on the grid for 2016, is in the twilight of his F1 career. Maybe by 2017 he will have moved over to sports cars. This leaves me with a massive void.
I can’t just support any old driver, I must feel that connection. I liked the cut of Button’s jib. I admired how he had got to the top “the old fashioned way”, without massive backers or exclusive scholarships. The same was true of Coulthard; I had pledged support for him before his first race. There was a certain je ne sais quoi about him that I liked.
Lewis Hamilton would be the obvious choice, and although I support him as a British driver, I don’t have that same sense of allegiance to him. Perhaps it’s because he’s too good? Or perhaps it’s his engrossment with rap music – a genre I loathe. Anyway, I prefer underdogs. So who will I follow next?
Paul di Resta was a potential candidate, but he was booted out of the sport, and I’m watching Max Verstappen’s career with interest. Daniel Ricciardo, perhaps? I like him, but he’s been in the sport for a while now and jumping to his ship would make me look like one of those wretched sports-sheep. Will Stevens? He was an excellent karter but hasn’t persuaded me in F1 yet.
I fear that I will have to turn to the junior echelons of racing to try and find an up-and-coming star with which to pledge my support. But unlike those old black-and-white Pathé-newsreel days of the 1990s, I worry that no real talent will come up to F1, and that instead we’ll be inundated with talentless pay-drivers. And that just won’t do.
Anyone know anybody good? Let me know.
