Every week there are at least three or four headlines I see and I have an immediate reaction to. After all, that is what a headline is supposed to do. But I don't always read the article. Sometimes a headline has said enough and I have to respond to it. Instead of keeping those observation internal I have decided to collect those headlines over the course of a month and at the end of each month create a compilation of the best (or worse) of the month.
Before I start let me reiterate all these responses are just off the headline. My gut reaction and the questions or gripes I have might be answer in the article, which I did not read prior to writing my response.
Let's see how this go and let's start with an IndyCar headline I saw last week.
Really? Now? Now is when getting results is all that matter? Really Marco?
You have been in IndyCar for over ten years. This makes sense if you were in year three or four and had to learn circuits and a new car and gain your footing in the series. This season marks your 13th in IndyCar. Most of these circuits you know and yes there will be a new aero kit but between the original Dallara, the initial DW12 and the Honda aero kit you have plenty experience with different Indy cars that the universal aero kit shouldn't be a big deal. Add on top of that Indy Lights experience, A1GP and a smidge of sports car experience and you are a veteran race car driver. Results should have been the only think that mattered ten years ago.
To be fair to Marco Andretti, because everyone loves picking on him and I think he is a good guy, I think I can understand where he is coming from and there is more to life than racing. You can be the most successful race car driver in the world and still be the most miserable person. Winning only solves so much and the professional success does not matter if you are not happy in you personal life. Andretti was recently married and if he has reached a point in his life where off-track he is happy and personal anxieties have been ease and it can allow him to focus more as a driver than good for him. I am happy he has reached that point. Sometimes the things away from the racetrack matter more than the things that do and can dictate your success.
Let's try another IndyCar headline.
Give it time Matheus, give it time. Foyt finds a way for it all to go wrong. Remember how bright a start Takuma Sato had? He led the championship entering the Indianapolis 500 in 2013. How did that turn out? Jack Hawksworth even had a good start with the team. Where is he again? And did you not see what happened to Carlos Muñoz and Conor Daly even though they both ended on a high note?
Tell how things are going after St. Petersburg and then after Long Beach and then after Indianapolis and then let us know how things are when we reach Sonoma. The season is longer than two tests and this won't be like BRDC British Formula Three or Indy Lights. How will things be when you aren't lighting the world on fire?
Let's more to Formula One...
I will give Motorsport.com credit for this headline as it puts quote around young driver.
How the hell are you appointed as a young driver? Was Felipe Massa appointed the team's "grizzled veteran" in 2018? If Williams finds a 16-year-old Formula Four driver and "signs" him or her to a development deal are they now the "young driver?" What would that make Rowland, the "medium driver?" The "properly aged driver?"
How old can a "young driver" be? Oliver Rowland is 25 years old. He is older than both of Williams F1's race drivers for 2018 and not by a few months. He has over three years on Sergey Sirotkin. So if Rowland is the "young driver" are Lance Stroll and Sirotkin not young drivers despite being younger than Rowland?
Are Formula One teams running out of superlatives for drivers that aren't race drivers? We have had test drivers, development drivers, simulator drivers, affiliated drivers, academy drivers and now "young driver." What is next? Soon each team will have a driver for different nationalities. Somebody will become Force India's official "British driver" and Sauber will have the official "Scandinavian driver." Teams will do anything for a paycheck even if it is for a driver to stand at the back of the garage wearing a polo shirt and a headset.
Let's go to Russia for the next headline.
Wow. What do they have in mind? After all, it is not like the track has a long front straightaway and a long back straightaway and two DRS zones... oh wait... Sochi has all those things... and it still needs to evaluate changes to the track to boost overtaking? Terrific.
Sochi might not be my cup a tea and if the racetrack were to fall off the schedule and be completely abandoned I wouldn't shed a tear over it but what else is the pseudo-street course going to do to make it better for Formula One cars to overtake? It has nothing to do with the circuit but the downforce levels of the cars. Formula One isn't addressing that. We haven't seen a big chunk of downforce taken away from the cars. If anything, Formula One should mandate the DRS flap remain open for the entire lap at these circuits and then we might see some racing. Drivers would be braking earlier than they ever imagined. You would have wide-eyed drivers pushing the limits and taking risks up the inside of a fellow competitor. Some would get it wrong and blow the corner but there is six miles of run over in every corner so they would get to continue on but would likely not only have failed to complete the pass initiated but have lost a position or two for running so wide.
That is the change that needs to be made in Formula One to increase overtaking.
Let's try a NASCAR headline.
Mailbag: Should NASCAR regulate celebratory burnouts?
That is what NASCAR needs, more rules on things that don't matter. I understand drivers could manipulate a burnout to cover up for something illegal. The last thing NASCAR needs is to do another unpopular thing and make the series appear more constricting. How did NFL do when it came to regulating touchdown celebrations? Fans loved that. No, no they didn't.
I know it is a mailbag and writers answering questions from fans but let's use common sense. If NASCAR regulated burnouts it would only lead to more people being pissed off and more fans tuning out. NASCAR doesn't need that.
Finally, we will end with Formula E.
New Formula E car capable of more than 300km/h
Where? What circuit on the Formula E schedule is a car going to break 186 MPH? Let's get the new car produced and just completing test laps without breaking down every five minutes and then we can worry about top speed and if the car can't reach top speed at any of the circuits than what the hell is the point of promoting the cars possibilities?
Those were six headlines. Let me know what you think about this concept and I will make adjustments when it comes time to do it in March.
