Written by:
Peter Windsor
I was thinking of writing this piece immediately after the Santander British GP at Silverstone but then I got a little disheartened by the sport I love and distracted myself with other perspectives. I reflected on the sad and recent passing of Tony Maggs and Peter Arundell and said a prayer for my old mate Frank Gardner, that most versatile of drivers who has just suffered a stroke. I put aside my writing for a couple of days. I was sick, I have to say, of the politics.
"...I put aside my writing for a couple of days. I was sick, I have to say, of the politics..." - Peter Windsor (Photo: LAT Photographic)
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Then one day in summer – at about the time of Roger Federer’s 23rd ace at Wimbledon - my cell phone relayed a message from a friend that said merely “Yes!”.
He was referring, of course, to the historic agreement struck that day in Paris between the FIA, FOM (F1’s commercial rights holder) and the majority of the teams – FOTA. Suddenly, the Europe felt a whole lot better. Suddenly – finally – we were back in business.
Business, as in F1 again being what it was and what it is – the pinnacle of single-seat auto racing and the biggest TV sport in the world. The FIA Championship has been around since 1950 but you could argue that it really all began twenty or even thirty years before that. The Auto Unions that Tazio Nuvalari drove were as much state-of-the-art (deco!) as the Red Bull-Renaults that took Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber to a one-two at Silverstone.
For a while, though, I was worried, as I say. As I’ve said many times on air, and written several times in columns, Bernie Ecclestone’s greatest quality over the past thirty has been his ability to keep F1 together. That doesn’t mean that he is merely a great administrator or a great leader of people; it means that he understands completely the diverse politics that play between Ferrari and the rest of the F1 world. Few people could have done this for so long; few people could have delivered what Bernie delivered in the days after Silverstone.
For F1 fans like me, the Paris Agreement was the best news we’ve had all year. Yes, a breakaway series (that included Ferrari) could have survived; no, it would not have equaled anything we have seen in the past or now will see in the future. We can argue and discuss issues like cost-cutting or KERS or the qualifying regulations but none of those things amount to a hill of beans alongside the big issue of a single championship (or not).
For F1 fans in the US, this is a double-whammy. There will be no breakaway series; and now, thanks to the forces that drove the sport almost to division, there is an excellent chance that F1 will return to the US in the form of a US Grand Prix. Of course there are no promises, but I can tell you that virtually all of the major F1 teams would like to return to the US sooner rather than later.
