Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
Lando Norris led a McLaren 1-2 in Austria. Red Bull did not have a great day at the Red Bull Ring. Liam Lawson did have a great day at the Red Bull Ring. Someone got hurt in the Netherlands. Now, it is tourney time, and eight of the 16 teams that advanced in the NASCAR In-Season Challenge were in the bottom half of the seeds! IndyCar will not be going to Thermal Club next year. How long the spring break will be remains unknown. At least the Grand Prix of Arlington, has a "foundational partner" in Toyota, and of course that has led to wild speculation! Just be prepared for disappointment. However, I went to the movies, and you have been warned.
Spoiler Alert!
What if Martin Donnelly attempted a comeback?
That is what F1 The Movie asks. Rolled into an American folklore of motorsports hero, F1 takes a real-life accident and uses it for an unthinkable comeback story.
Much of the story and what we see on-track does not fit reality. It is a movie though. It is supposed to be fictional, a foot in reality but allowed to exist outside what we see on a daily basis. While a motorsport fans' stomach for creative license will be pushed beyond its limits, a savant must appreciate the cinematography and how it captures an already breathtaking sport in a more astonishing light. As immersive as a current television broadcast is with its plethora of camera angles and onboards, F1 finds a way to go a step further.
Plurids aside, oh boy! This movie is good. Comedic at times, even if it uses actual incidents as inspiration for what we see in the film, it pushes the limits on the drama. Based on reality, it is flawed, but there was something about it going beyond what is realistic that makes it entertaining. I have seen it compared to Driven. That is asinine. Though some racing sequences are ridiculous, F1 has good acting and depth to its characters. In Driven, you could see the strings while the technical advancements of F1 allows for a clean blend of a fictional race team into real race footage.
It is hard to forgive some of the liberties taken. In this film, it is a world where the stewards see nothing and do less. There are certain expectations from the real world that we must see to ground the film in reality. When you do not see those, it is disappointing. It is like if we saw a football movie and the quarterback was body-slammed in front of the referee five seconds after the whistle, and no penalty was given. There is a good chance Sonny Hayes would have earned enough penalty points in his first two races that he would not be allowed to make a third start. We were watching a Yuji Ide situation!
But Hayes isn't that bad of a driver. His years of experience, including a stint in Formula One 30 years prior, has him a step ahead of the APX GP team, and some of the competition. It is almost a step too far as we do not see drivers this intertwined in strategy to the point of manipulating a race. But Hayes is not your typical Formula One driver. He has spent decades competing everywhere, almost in a way of conquering all the summits of the motorsports world. He has raced in the top levels of NASCAR and sports cars. He probably has also run in some low-budget efforts and had to do more with less, forcing Hayes to be more cerebral than a man who just slams his foot down on the throttle with countless numbers of engineers and strategists studying telemetry.
Hayes wants to win for himself, but he can see how his role is to elevate the team. His finishing position is not the be-all, end-all even if it is what he wants the most. He can selflessly put the team ahead of himself. If the team can get a win, he will do what he was brought in to accomplish.
Can a big-budget racing film live without a spectacular crash sequence?
Regardless of what film it is, they all have it. Grand Prix, Le Mans, Driven. Even Cars had two! Rush was centered on an actual crash. That film needed it. If it didn't show it, the story would be incomplete. I didn't see Gran Turismo, but that is based on Jann Mardenborough's career, and I know he had a big accident in his career that seems like it could only be in a movie, but it actually happened. It has to be in the film at that point. I guess Ford v Ferrari doesn't have one, but that is another film centered on real events. When it comes to fictional films, the immediate instinct is to get a big accident onto the screen. F1 goes for the spectacle, but the accidents are believable because they are based ones that happened. One was practically a recreation with an aspect of a different accident added for dramatics to complete this one moment in the film.
It is hard to say it is unrealistic when it is based on something we saw. We know it is possible, but what strains the motorsports lovers in the audience is why it is necessary to include it in the story.
Motorsports is on the ragged edge enough. It does not need the spectacular each time out. It can be visually staggering but still hit hardest on the emotional anguish from a bad result. It does not require physical injuries to feel pain.
The crash doesn't need to be a car flying through the air. A driver can have a shunt while battling for the lead and break a wrist because he didn't get his hands off the wheel in time. Both are possible. One is more conceivable. It can look like a regular racing accident and have consequences. The audience would still get it. They didn't need to go to the next level to have people catching their breath.
If we remove two accidents from the film, would the motorsports audience be more accepting? It is the biggest barrier. There are other elements of the film that push expectations. Could a team of that level improve as much as it could in a short period of time? We don't see it so we would likely have a gripe with it, but it isn't inconceivable. In theory, it could happen. In practice, it never does.
If we remove two accidents from the film, would the non-motorsports audience love it as much as they do? I think so. It goes back to motorsports being naturally on the ragged edge. A slightly worse than average accident is still startling to watch. It doesn't have to be over the top to leave someone breathless.
While being a film about the biggest motorsports series in the world, F1 quietly champions other forms of motorsports, and uses Sonny Hayes as the archetype for what we want all drivers to be. The dream is Formula One, but Hayes must find a way to fill a void after an accident nearly ended his career before his prime. We meet a man who is not obsessed with the mountaintop but has come to find joy chasing the next challenge. Once he has conquered it, he can move on.
We see Hayes competing in sports cars. He grew up in IndyCar circles. The film states that he has raced in NASCAR and other sports cars. We know his eye is on Baja. For all these drivers who say they would love to compete here, there and everywhere, Hayes is doing it, and apparently he has done very well. This is a driver who will not be saying, "Aw, shucks," when it is all said and done. He has practically raced it all while most compete in barely enough to fill a thimble.
If the audience is paying attention, they understand there is a world beyond Formula One, and one that can be fulfilling. Whether that leads others to explore what is going on in different corners of the world and perhaps right under their noses is unknown, but hopefully they take away there is more beyond the glitz of a grand prix weekend, it is rewarding, and they are welcome to give it a try.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Lando Norris, but did you know...
Marc Márquez won the Dutch TT, his sixth victory of the season. Márquez also won the sprint race. Diogo Moreira won in Moto2, his first Moto2 victory. José Antonio Rueda won in Moto3, his sixth victory of the season. Andrea Mantovani and Alessandro Zaccone split the MotoE races.
Chase Elliott won the NASCAR Cup race from Atlanta. Nick Sanchez won the Grand National Series race, his first career victory. Corey Heim won the Truck Series race at Lime Rock Park, his fifth victory of the season.
The #63 GRT - Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini of Mirko Bortolotti, Jordan Pepper and Luca Engstler won the 24 Hours of Spa.
Ott Tänak won the Acropolis Rally.
Pepe Martí (sprint) and Richard Verschoo (feature) split the Formula Two races from Austria. James Wharton (sprint) and Martinius Stenshorne (feature) split the Formula Three races.
Coming Up This Weekend
IndyCar opens up July in Mid-Ohio.
NASCAR will be in Chicago.
It will be British Grand Prix weekend from Silverstone.
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters will be at the Norisring
The European Le Mans Series has a trip to Imola.
