Andrew Reid: Curb Your Enthusiasm

The FIA knew they were breaking their own rules when they introduced the new points system, which was incidentally suggested by one Bernard Ecclestone. A crafty bespectacled genius of the highest order in my opinion.

The FOTA gaggle of united teams is bad news for the powers that be. In fact the battle between the teams and the FIA and commercial rights holders recently spilled out into Chelsea basements, with a leading F1 figure using the News of The World to expose Max Mosley’s weekend leisure persuits. Mosley subsequently hired a private detective and has admitted as much that he knows ‘for certain’ who set him up. The news on the grapevine is that this leading F1 figure will soon be exposed to the tabloids as well and possibly criminal proceedings will follow. But knowing Max, he’s probably waiting for the right moment for the great reveal.

The battle over control of F1 is nothing new, after all it was Bernie and Max themselves who came from the team’s half, and overthrew the FIA equivalent in the 1980’s.

Having done this, they’re better prepared than most to see of this new challenge from the teams.

Their method is to divide and conquer.

First of all, split off the independant teams, whom’s interests have always diverged with that of the big corporate teams and car manufacturers. The independants have been slung a few carrots, namely the budget caps and unlimited technical freedom. The car manufactrers who until recently had money to burn (and they will do so again one day) don’t like the idea of sticking to a £30 budget limit. They spend that on corporate hospitality buffet food and wheel nuts alone.

Sir Frank Williams would rather spend it on flywheel KERS. That’s the first division sorted.

It’s in Bernie’s interest to divide FOTA too. So having spoken to the independant teams, he put it to the FIA that ‘all’ the teams would really like the new points system. Of course the lower spending teams would like it - they’d snatch a few lucky wins early on (before the big spenders like McLaren could fix their crock of a car) and end up winning the drivers championship on 30 points!

The indies have also been thrown the very nice gesture of being allowed to cheat. Whilst the likes of Ferrari and McLaren have rear deffusers as flat as a super model’s bottom, Williams and Brawn have done all sorts of fancy things with their rears. It shouldn’t be forgotten that Toyota is now also an independant team in all but name, having had their budget slashed again (when the economy dived) and again (when Honda pulled out) and again (it was a windy day in Japan). Soon the survival of the team will depend on them making a profit! Who’d have thought it!

Well I am completely on the side of Max and Bernie. I know their plan may be criticised by some as making F1 unstable and giving it a bad press, but I actually love these shenanigans and political games. It adds another dimension to the weekends rather than just the racing stories.

And I am on the side of Max and Bernie because they’re completely right to divide and conquer the manufacturers.

The future of F1 lies with the independant teams, not with the large faceless corporations who cheat their way to championships with their massive budgets. Spending more on a car is the same as having a bigger engine and it’s a crying shame that the most innovative people at Williams, Red Bull (with Newey for art’s sake!) and Brawn GP will at some point this season have their winter inginuiety overtaken by a McLaren leaving a trail of burnt money from it’s rear.

I’d also like to see a relegation / promotion system in place, and you’re not going to have any fresh teams or the drama of relegation whilst the corporations have a money powered strangle hold over this great sport.

This blog is a preview of my new F1 website, starting soon at www.brawnf1blog.com

McLaren - what has gone wrong? The most resourceful F1 team on the grid, with the biggest budget has got it wrong. At least it seems for all the world that way from winter testing.

Testing comparisons are often misleading but I am reliably informed Brawn’s hot times were done with a respectable 50kg of fuel onboard. McLaren, at their best couldn’t get within a second of this. The team spent most of the winter puffing and painting around the track 2 seconds back from the front. That puts them in Force India or Super Aguri territory. Incredible.

That the clear pace setter in such a competitive field was fighting for it’s very survival just last month is even more remarkable. But it’s about time Jenson Button had a car able to portray his talent in a fresh light. Just how good is Jenson Button? This year, thanks to Brawn GP, we may well find out.

With the fuss over McLaren’s disarray and Brawn’s jubilation, it’s easy to forget the other half of the winter story - that of Renault, who found themselves in a McLaren-like position during the first few tests before turning things around very suddenly and that of Red Bull, who’s stunning looking Adrian Newey designed challenger was undoubtedly putting in Brawn style performances earlier in testing. This story is by no means over.

Drivers like Vettel and Alonso clearly have more to add.

Williams & Toyota meanwhile also have potential to surprise although my source at Williams suggests internal politics and leadership issues are effecting the team. Maybe the great Sir Frank Williams does not have the single-handed control over the team’s direction any more, in the same way that Patrick Head cannot dictate the technical side as masterly as he did in more straight-forward eras.

Meanwhile BMW have had a low key winter in many respects, at least in that their pace has neither been bad nor stunningly good. The journalists seem unwilling to notice BMW, or indeed even The Red Barons, whom I suspect will more likely put a damper on the revolution come the Australian Grand Prix next weekend. The Red Barons have a habit of doing that.

But it’s worth keeping in mind that despite a few incredible times from Brawn, the majority of winter testing has been incredibly hard to call.

And it’s not the first time McLaren have sandbagged during the winter, allowing others to steal the limelight to attract sponsors.

So take this revolution with a pinch of salt. Brawn GP - more so than anyone else, need new sponsors!

This is a real moral spaghetti junction and it seems the boss of F1’s governing body the FIA is stuck in a chicane. Car companies bearing down on him left right and centre, dominatrix prostitutes bearing down on him from above.

It’s a sordid and complicated affair. Allow me to cut through the crap.

Over the past 7 years there has been a power struggle in F1 between the car manufacturers and the governors of the sport, Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone. The car companies set up a rival break away series called the GPWC which had the aim of bluffing the car companies a greater slice of the cake. Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone were the obstacles in the way of the car corporation’s take-over (on the cheap) of Formula One racing, for their own ends. Put simply, the car companies wanted Max Mosley out of the way.

Meanwhile Max Mosley has introduced rule changes which have not been beneficial for the car companies who compete in F1. His argument was that car companies come and go on a whim. F1 needs to be sustainable and accessible for new companies to join. In order to help smaller independent teams Max Mosley spent 5 years trying to cut the cost of competing in F1. It took 6 years just to persuade the car companies to stop spending ridiculous amounts of money. This was also a battle between technological progress, entertainment and safety. Mosley had the unenviable task of balancing the competitive nature of the teams who pursue greater and greater technological leaps at great expense, with the need to slow cars down for safety reasons and to make the racing closer for entertainment reasons. No team likes having a performance advantage banned or written out of the rule book especially when they have spent millions of dollars on it. Therefore Max Mosley is not a popular man among the car manufacturers.

F1 is big business, a sport as much as a business - involving billions of dollars. The car companies use F1 as a vast marketing platform and their vast budget’s are a reflection of how much they need F1. It’s no wonder they want greater control of the sport, and a greater slice of money from commercial rights (TV, media, track revenue, advertising). Max and Bernie stand in the way of greater control and a bigger slice of revenue.

This point cannot be overstated enough. Max stands in the way of millions of dollars per year.

Now the political storm which has been going on for years finally died down last year, Max Mosley was in control once more having won the battle. During this period of calm the car manufacturers publicly stated that they were happy with the new deal and the future direction of the spot, yet I somehow don’t believe that. They want one of their men in power of F1, not Max Mosley.

This is where the latest tactic (and most disgusting attack of all) comes in. The Greater London Police and sources close the French police have informed Max Mosley that a concerted effort to discredit him has been uncovered, and the result of the campaign is now very public. That Max Mosley was a willing visitor to the prostitute’s sex torture dungeon is not beyond doubt. But the cameras, fatally damaging Nazi theme and resulting inevitable press coverage are the result of the smear campaign.

I believe that the BBC for instance refused to touch the material. They figured out that it was illegally obtained and part of something that is not within the law. The BBC and many other tabloids did not publish the photos - why? They either worked this out for themselves or were informed by the police of Max Mosley’s lawyers.

For a man of 67, to be 47 years married, sleeping with a prostitute is bad - this is beyond doubt. But Max would have survived the scandal if it wasn’t for the dark forces at work. Put simply, he has been taken advantage of and set up. Maybe the perputators even paid the News of The World to run the story, rather than as commonly assumed the other way round.

I don’t for a second condone his sado-machonistic behaviour with prostitutes in private. And while this doesn’t excuse what he did, and the dirty secrets he hid from his family - he has a right to privacy. And he has a right for the truth to be presented to the public. The truth has been severely twisted. First of all I believe the Nazi theme was not Max Mosley’s idea and the video and photos I have seen don’t prove that there were Nazi elements involved. The captioning and presentation of such material is a different matter - the press has twisted a Nazi theme out of it. For all Max knew, the prostitute could have been dressed in a badge-less police uniform. It simply isn’t clear enough to prove a Nazi connotation. However the styles, actions & elements portrayed in a grainy video were just enough for the newspapers to make a story out of it and they used the link with Max Mosley’s father, a fascist dictator named Oswald (who once dined with Hitler and lead a party of fascists in the UK during the 50’s and 60’s) as proof of character.

However Max Mosley is not a fascist, a racist or a Nazi. Max Mosley is a separate man to his father and every son has the right to live their own lives free from the legacy of their parent’s misdemeanours.

So a dark force working on behalf of the enemy factions on F1 planted the cameras and set up the situation, and much to their delight Max Mosley forfilled his sexual needs right in front of their eyes - and now to everybody else’s eyes as well. He is a dead man walking. Job done. Previously he was probably stressed out and unhappy with having to play political games with corporations. No wonder he wanted his arse smacked by a naked blonde girl barking orders in German. No wonder he, as a man, fell for the honey trap. He was vulnerable and stressed - this is what men do, to hugely varying degrees, when they are unhappy.

Just last month Bernie Ecclestone joked that the only thing wrong with F1 at the moment was that there were “not enough sex scandals”. He was speaking about the drivers being too politically correct and under the thumb of their corporate sponsors and teams. But it was a joke none-the-less, not a lot more. How he will be regretting the joke now!

While Bernie has so far supported his friend Mosley, it is interesting that the first teams to distance themselves from Max Mosley’s behaviour were also the leaders of the breakaway GPWC - Toyota, Honda, Mercedes and BMW. Other teams have remained silent and got on with the business of racing.

It is just as interesting, that the Japanese teams feel the need to publicly state that they are disgusted. Japanese business men are the first people I can think of, in general, to be sexually repressed and in need of a good wack on the arse by a prostitute. Meanwhile the German teams (BMW and Mercedes) while understandably angry at the supposed World War II elements of Max Mosley’s sexual kicks are just as likely to have wealthy business men in their ranks who are no stranger to the odd prostitute or two.

A new saying, which I have just invented goes along the lines of this:

“Those who squawk loudest have most to hide”

At least BMW’s team principal had the decency to admit the truth: “Having been in F1 for nine years now, I am not surprised about anything any more,” said Theissen. “But let me add one other thing. “This entire issue is in focus now, but what shouldn’t be neglected is it certainly looks like a trap. And that is something which in our view is not acceptable either.”

In conclusion: Sadly I think that in this day and age, how people perceive you is more important than what you actually do. For me, an avid F1 fan, that Max has used his considerable talent to save the lives of racing drivers is more important than anything he does in his personal life no matter how sick it may be. But for Max Mosley to continue with his job, to stand up and control a global sport - will be impossible in a hysterical world like today’s.

 Can you think of something so typically English as this? (Apart from maybe drunk fat girls stumbling around at 3am in the morning).

The BBC has won back F1 coverage from ITV in a deal rumoured to be worth £40 million. They’ve saved the sport from the jaws of Sky and made sure the millions of passionate F1 fans in the UK can watch the sport, rich or poor. Oh, and uninterrupted by adverts.

Yet the government is having a big moan.Here in England we’re very sensitive about wasting public money. I don’t see why we’re so sensitive about it because thanks to our Dear Government we should be numb to it by now. However, because we pay £140 to watch Dale Winton and Graham Norton on the BBC we tend to get a bit upset when the BBC spends a lot of money…put simply, we don’t trust it.However, what the BBC has always done best - without a shadow of a doubt - is sport. F1 is well worth 40 Jonathan Ross’s

Put simply, there is a reason for why when there is the same World Cup football match on the BBC and ITV, 20 million choose to watch it on the BBC and seven watch it on ITV (and they’re all drunk).

Likewise, I am very glad the greatest sport in the world is coming back to the BBC. After 12 years of domination by German and Spanish drivers on ITV the sport is now on the verge of Lewis Hamilton becoming the most dominant driver in F1’s history, ITV have decided to give it up. That says as much about the logic which goes on behind the scenes at ITV as it does about Bernie Ecclestone’s desire to keep the sport out of the hands of Sky. The lifeblood of F1 is the television exposure granted to sponsors - Bernie Ecclestone does not want audiences of 1.2 million on Sky Box Office.

F1 is also a motorsport business and is the crown jewels of one of the few global industries that the UK dominates. Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire are the carbon-fibre valley of the motorsport industry. The governments of emmerging supernations such as India, China and Singapore want to pay billions to be part of it, and pay millions to an already cash-rich sport for the privilage of holding grand prixs in their cities. It puts their country on the map.

When the government is asked to cough up 50p to keep the ferris wheel at Silverstone oiled, it coughs and splutters with indignation not seen since the US was asked to stop killing people in Iraq. To the UK government, to pay an already cash-rich sport actual money to ‘bail it out’ (as it uniquely sees the situation) is the height of cheek. It thinks the grand prix can pay for itself and it thinks ITV can afford to show F1 for as long as it likes.

The reality is - the demand and the benefit to the countries it graces is so high, the market rate for F1 coverage and races is as high as Bernie wants it to be. Why should the UK have something for free, when there are many other countries trying to snatch the crown jewels of motorsport away from us? If the English government would finally wake up to the fact that in order to keep something precious it has to be treated well, we might yet see a future for the British Grand Prix and a celebratory stance towards the BBC’s brave decision to take up the F1 television rights by the horns, creating a innovative schedule involving unparraelled internet coverage, interactive digital TV coverage and the kind of commentary and uninterrupted live race footage Murray Walker would have been proud about.

Dear Government. £40 million is less than £1 per person for 4 years of F1 coverage. I am much less angry about this £1 which allows me to follow the sport I love closer than ever before, than I am about the £400 you take out of my pay packet every single month of the year, for the rest of my life.Dear Government F1 is not free, F1 feeds a multi-billion pound motorsport industry of which England is at the centre of - if you want to keep it (and the tax) then fucking shut up.

And to all those MP’s who have as much foresight as a jewish willy (or am I thinking of something else? When it comes to MP’s its hard not to think of dicks) - try thinking about the £400 a month I hand over just to live and breath, before threatening by enjoyment of the greatest passion of my life for the sake of £1 over 4 years.

Dear Government know your place. You have bigger things to get right than castrating the BBC’s spending - how about removing the chavs from our street and fixing our hospitals and schools for a start.

Andy and I woke up on the morning of the race a little hung over. In fact we woke up on the afternoon of the race and didn’t even have time for breakfast. We reached the race track and got changed into our overalls.

4 overalls later, I was given one that fitted and we entered the briefing room. Karting is dangerous.

Gone are the days at Daytona Manchester when the briefing video featured Shane Richie being rather politically incorrect about Michael Schumacher. The new one is a lot slicker. Martin Brundle - since retiring from Formula One, up for anything to get back on the track it seems! - talked us through the safety briefing and demonstrated how to behave on track and to take notice when the marshals show you a black flag for aggressive driving. This track is really well organised and the facilities are first class. We were to race 3 heats each out of a total of 21 heats of 8 cars each, there were around 54 drivers competing for a place in the top 10 Grand Final. But first we had to qualify for the semi-final - two races of 10 cars.

Now suited up with our overalls, gloves and my own custom paint job helmet which I am very fond of, we got into the karts. My underwear was on fire with anticipation and excitement.

The commentator said - ‘and they’re off!’, and with that I overtook some drivers who better remain nameless, for I humiliated them, knocking them into the dust! Andy and I didn’t ever race in the same heat unfortunately - I was looking forward to a good wheel bashing with ‘the small Richard Hammond look-a-like manchild’.

The first heat I raced up from 7th on the grid to take 3rd, then I won my next two heats to line up in pole position for the semi-final. Andy lined up for his semi-final after winning one of his heats, but then DISASTER. He lost ground on the first lap and ended up 5th - drawing with another driver in 11th place on points - one place away from qualifying for the Grand Final. I had lined up 2nd in the overall championship after winning the semi-final and would start from 2nd on the grid for the Grand Final - this was lucky, because I had the best line down to the first and 2nd corners from the 2nd grid slot position.

The guy I’d raced hard to win the semi-final from his 2nd place, was a friendly chap - but warned me that if I tried the ‘inside line’ trick on him again at the 2nd corner, I’d be in trouble!

Suddenly it was time for the Grand Final and the lights dimmed, Eye of The Tiger came on, and the spotlights shone onto the grid of karts awaiting their drivers.

Reid stepped into the ring, walking to the kart while waving enthusiastically the crowd. #Just a man and his will to survive# #Its the eye of the tiger!#

Then the commentator piped up with much fan-fair - ‘AND NOW…A BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR ANTHONY REID!’…confusing me with the touring car driver Anthony. Thanks for that.

I settled into the kart, my visor slightly open to let in some cool air. My hands gripped the wheel like my life depended on it - it did.

“3,2,1 and its GOOOO! GOOO! GOOO!!!”

I wrestled for the lead, and took it!! I had to hold on…but oh no, whats this?!

A guy in a dark black helmet edged up the outside of a tight corner and overtook me into the long fast straight round the back of the circuit. The crowd squealed in excitement.

“I’ll have in back on the next lap, I have the legs on him” I thought to myself.

But he pulled away slightly, until the gap rested at around 4 seconds. I was pushing to the limit and in the zone - suddenly time seemed to slow down and I became the pilot of my own destiny. I was closing in on the lead!

Then some back markers were to be lapped, and YES YES!! The leader was stuck behind them. I closed the gap down to 2.5 seconds but it was just not enough to beat ‘Neil’.

He crossed the line victorious - seconds later I came in 2nd place - I felt gracious in defeat and shuck his hand.

“There is always ONE who gets in the way!” I thought.

This was a great day out - next time I will win. However my sister is coming and when she drove a kart as a 5 year old she drove like a devil thundering down from the outer atmosphere in a spaceship.

Thankfully, the barmaid took pitty on Andy and gave him a trophy to borrow for this photos with new McLaren F1 driver A Reid. Mine however, will go in the trophy cabinet at Reid head quarters in Manchester - a momentum of a momentous 2nd place out of 54 drivers. Anyway, enough from me now - I’m off to celebrate with the pit girls and a nice bottle of champaign.

Another season, another rant. The moaning Spaniard is at it again, biting the hand that feeds him - the many hands in fact, which slog away in the factory and design offices to provide him with the fastest car on the grid. So what does the McLaren team get in return? Well, snide comments like this mainly:

“I was expecting a lot more, we all were,” Alonso said. “From the outside, the team had a different image: serious, but very professional. And I arrived here after two titles; I improved the car as much as I could.”

“Last year they were fighting to make it into Q3 and this year they are going to win the championship, and the truth is that the treatment has not been very good.”

When asked if the treatment he received was that deserved by a two-time champion, Alonso said: “Not a double champion, but a normal person.”

“…all the lies that they leak to the press, both British and German, to go against me. That, inside my own team…They have to do something to improve the situation.”

To say Alonso and McLaren have not really got on would be like saying Bin Laden has had a few disagreements over the West. Such is the break down in the relationship between Alonso and team boss Ron Dennis, Fernando might as well be living silently in a cave. In fact, such has been the civil war in McLaren this season it has resulted in the team being fined $100 million after Alonso threatened to reveal his emails to test driver De La Rosa regarding stolen Ferrari information to the governing body. In the end, team boss Ron Dennis had to ring the FIA and come clean. Fair enough you might say…but Alonso’s agenda was never exactly whiter than white (some may call it blackmail) - it was hardly an apolitical approach or what you might call ‘team spirit’.

So Alonso may want to go back to his beloved Renault for whom he won his 2 world championships in 2005 and 2006. But wait a minute…who said this after last year’s Chinese grand prix when he stood on the brink of his second title?

“For sure, it is like you are in the Tour de France in the mountain, you have a puncture, and your team and your rival go uphill and don’t stop. That was a little bit difficult to understand…I felt lonely and unsupported”

Alonso’s constant moaning puts my back up, because none of it is justified.

If Lewis Hamilton wins the title at the final race in 2 weeks time, he would have done so purely on merit and off the back of his hard working team. Alonso has already been outclassed by a rookie, and rather than admit as much he just blames his team.

COME ON LEWIS!!