Backstage at the Race of Champions
Posted by Jason Barlow at 10:00AM on Wednesday 19 December, 2007 0 Comments
'Scheissen!' says Sebastian Vettel. 'Scheissen!!'
This is not F1-approved language. But then this isn't really F1. This is the Race Of Champions, world motorsport's end-of-year piss-up (without the booze, obviously).
Instead of sticking their back-sides on the photo-copier or strapping on the beer goggles and copping off with the slightly chubby girl from marketing, the great and the good of motor racing - because not all of them are, strictly speaking, champions - have gathered to arse about on a chilly Sunday afternoon in Wembley Stadium.
You know the deal: first up is the Nations' Cup, in which England, Scotland, Germany, USA, France, Finland, Norway and, er, Scandinavia (that's not a nation, is it?) battle it out for the glory of their country.
Then there's the Race Of Champions itself, featuring the likes of Jenson Button, David Coulthard, Heikki Kovalainen - fresh from a visit to Woking for a seat fitting in his McLaren - DTM hero Matthias Ekstrom, Marcus Gronholm and some bloke called Michael Schumacher. They'll be battling for the glory of themselves. 'It's a good laugh,' Jenson tells me. 'Nobody's really taking it all that seriously...'
This is a big fat lie, and he knows it. Wembley is buzzing, and the area around the players' tunnel has been transformed into a temporary paddock. There are comfy sofas, plasma telly screens all over the place, and the usual retinue of elaborately coiffed hangers-on and absurdly beautiful women. The drivers loaf about, affecting an air of studied nonchalance which is immediately off-set by the overwhelming whiff of testosterone.
I've blagged a seat co-driving in one of the heats, and get teamed with Toro Rosso young gun, Sebastian Vettel. He made history back in the 2006 Turkish Grand Prix when he became the youngest ever driver to take part in an F1 meeting. (He also racked up the quickest fine: $1000 nine seconds into his career after a speeding infringement in the pit-lane).
Young certainly, and bloody cheeky.
'Grosse, huh?' he says to his mate, when I'm introduced to him as his co-driver. Now my German's rubbish, but even I get his drift. Not being built like a whippet or a mal-nourished jockey, Vettel seems to be implying that my ample frame might actually cost him a few seconds. I'm half-tempted to give him a good clip round the ear.
Vettel and that other guy Schumacher duly sew up the Nations' Cup - yes, a victory for Germany in Wembley - the sheer, jaw-dropping excellence of their car control mesmerising the 45,000-strong crowd.
This year's ROC is using Ford Focus WRC cars - bit of an advantage to Gronholm there, you'd have thought - something called a Solution F (silhouette racers, basically, dragged up to look like Vauxhall Astra touring cars), Aston Vantage N24s, Fiat Punto Abarths, and the familiar ROC buggies. None of these cars will spend much of the next six hours travelling in a straight line.
Then it's the ROC itself. Vettel and I squeeze into one of the Astras - him slightly more easily, truth be known, a situation not helped by the fact that I genuinely did have a pie at lunchtime (though not all of them) - and off we go.
Actually, we stall. But then that's one of the things I love about this event: these guys are basically jumping from one sort of racing car to another, each demanding a totally different technique. It sorts the men from the boys.
When we do get away, we don't so much leave the makeshift pit-lane as get ejected from it with all the delicacy of a bouncer ejecting an unwelcome punter from a nightclub. Like all racing cars, it's the lack of mass coupled to brutal engine and transmission that make the most immediate impression.
We slide into our lane, alongside Kovalainen, overall winner of the 2004 ROC event. The whole thing then runs on super fast-forward. Great start, epic drift out of the first corner, perfectly judged braking. After that, we lose sight of our rival, as the twin tracks loop off separately.
For a circuit specialist like Vettel, his control and rhythm at the wheel is simply extraordinary. In the entire time he makes one error - we slide wide, but the way he gathers it up is just stunning - and it's only when we leap over the bridge and arrive beside Kovalainen does it become apparent that that tiny time slip has cost Vettel victory.
The Finn beats the German over the line by a mere second. After two laps of sliding and diving in what felt like a pretty lairy car, that's a small margin. But he's still out.
'Scheissen!' he says. 'Scheissen!!' Must have been the pie...
Advertiser links
0 Comments for "Backstage at the Race of Champions"
POST A COMMENT USING THE FORM BELOW
Comments are now closed for the blog archives.
Bookmark with:
What are these?