Dogs and their owners...

Posted by Jamie Hibbard at 5:40PM on Tuesday 27 February, 2007 4 Comments

McLaren F1 The launch day of any F1 car is a big deal, and I'm not talking about for the team whose car it is, but about sweaty palmed F1 fans who - like me - need whatever F1 fix they can ingest during the dark pre-season days.

Passing judgement on whether a new car's cool or not works in much the same way as a weekly trash mag appeals to anyone with a need to praise or dismiss what's-her-chops out of Big Brother's new haircut; it's self-satisfyingly sublime.

Appraising a new F1 car also works on that other upside of living in a technological age, in that dismissing a team of clever and talented peoples' extremely expensive and lengthy work takes about .05 of a second. (Deciding if a car's good always takes half a day.)

Renault's new R27, for example, is a monstrously unappealing-looking machine and was judged as such the instant it appeared online. Does anyone out there like it? No, they don't, because all Renault has done is to take its previously accepted yellow and blue, and spaffed ING's white and orange up the sides of it with seemingly no care for the overall look. 'The new title sponsor will be happy, f**k it.'

Style doesn't appear to be a word that the Enstone boys have even heard of, let alone understood. The R27 is brash, garish, self-concerned, loud, showy... and orange.

Which sounds familiar, no?

The new Honda RA107 on the other hand is frankly genius; a map of the world that any fan will be able to become a part of.

It's forward-thinking yet understated. It speaks in volumes and what it has to say is actually worth hearing. It's behind its team - the whole world! - 110 per cent. It's almost smiling there, resigned to the fact that, despite itself, it's about to be the coolest car in the pit-lane. It'll be everyone's favourite, even if it fails to win a race.

Again, familiar...

Then there's McLaren's frowning MP4-22; bullish, stern, shiny chrome, pursed red sidepods, hunkered down low... it looks like it can do the business yet it's carrying the baggage of last season; an underlying, nagging doubt about its reliability to get the job done at every race.

A bit like McLaren's chief, Ron Dennis.

Seriously, think about it.

The McLaren looks like Ron. Delve into your mind and pull out an image of Ron sitting there on the pit wall, all pursed mouth, frowning, light reflecting off his shiny pate, shod for every race in brand new leather, knowing he can win but with last year's reliability problems gnawing away in the back of his mind. It's exactly the image that gets conjured up when you think of the MP4-22.

Then there's the Honda, which looks like their CEO, Nick Fry, the quiet man in team boss land. The people's choice if only they knew who he was, who's concern for his team outweighs that of the corporate blow-jobs and lines of multi-national back-slapping. Uncomfortable as he is in the limelight that he feels he doesn't deserve, he makes every word that he says count and smiles at everyone while he's at it.

And what about the ubiquitous Flavio Briatore? He's the loudest, most out-spoken chief on the F1 circuit. You can see what he's saying, but you don't understand a word of it.

Flav would rather be smoking and boning a supermodel than concerning himself with tyre choices and fuel loads, but what does he care? Don't you know who he is?? He has two world championships under his belt from the last two years, so f**k it. Sweating, panting, and tanorexically orange, he's the human form of the R27.

It's possible to go on down through all of the teams, but the point's been made; F1 cars - like dogs and their owners - look like their chiefs. The cars are an extension of the men in charge of them, a literal, physical manifestation of those men's hopes and dreams brought to life.

Which can only mean that Nick Fry's the new coolest man in town and that Flav's going to have to take his brash 90s excess back to Elizabeth Duke.

Jamie Hibbard is the editor of Metal Hammer magazine and an F1 freak