Lights, CAMRRAD, Action...
Posted by Bill Thomas at 11:15AM on Tuesday 10 April, 2007 6 Comments
May I direct your attention to a new section of this website, CAMRRAD (the Campaign for Real Racing Drivers).
If you're like me, you're probably sick of the media-trained, corporate-friendly, careful-not-to-say-anything-controversial -or-I-might-get-sacked sponsor-puppets that masquerade as F1 drivers these days.
I asked Jenson Button about this and he was keen not to get involved, even though he's a bloke with an opinion and the ability to express it fairly eloquently.
"Drivers are in it for themselves these days," he told me. "You can't blame them for that. Yes, I have opinions, but I don't want to get involved in shooting my mouth off. There's nothing to be gained."
Nothing except the respect of people who remember what real racing drivers were like - hard-headed, opinionated real men with plenty to say and to hell with corporate dollars.
Do a search for 'Ayrton Senna Interview Jackie Stewart' on Youtube and try to imagine one of the modern say-what-the-sponsors-will-like drivers having a go at Stewart like this...
Anyway, Top Gear has started a campaign for the return of real racing drivers and it starts with Dario Franchitti, a bloke who is never worried about expressing his opinion and drives very, very hard in any car he's given.
There'll be more to follow, from today and the past, racers who measure up to what we think racers should be.
Hope you enjoy them.
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6 Comments for "Lights, CAMRRAD, Action..."
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I don't remember any proper racing drivers, I'm too young, but these days Formula 1 is incredibly boring.
It would be much better if there were more proper racing drivers, like in the old days, then maybe the racing itself wouldn't be so boring, and even if it was, at least everything after the race would be worth watching.
Too true mate. F1 Is being drowned by PR nonsense and we no longer have anyone with enough guts to say it like it is. We're still lacking some good old fashioned Senna vs. Prost venom.
I think it will come some day, all you need is someone with enough talent to come through that despite best efforts to shut him up he becomes a peoples favorite and so the Corp world has to begrudgingly put up with him - a bit like Clarkson and the current TG team...
I think Mark Webber could be up for this award, he's the only man in the current pre-scripted answer world of F1 who is happy to give his own opinion.
I am too young to remember the days when real men raced, but I still love reading about the heroes from yesteryear. I very much doubt people will remember the Kimi/Fernando rivalry in 15 years to the extent that we remember the Senna/Prost battles from the late 80s-90s. The sport seemed so much more interesting when there were real personalities behind the wheel, rather than businessman.
Freddie Hunt is coming through in a couple of years and hopefully he will be like his dad, but you have a point.
All drivers talk about today is what pressure they're going to use in their tyres, instead of what girl he slept with last night.
It's hard to image an Salazar/Piquet type confrontation (or Eddie Irvine/Ayrton Senna - although the cameras didn't get that one) occurring these days.
Bring back the fueds! Prost/Senna, Prost/Mansell, Piquet vs pretty much anybody. Alan Jones telling anyone in earshot that the tyres he was using were crap. Prost comparing his Ferrari to a truck (unfavourably).
Even Jacques Villeneuve was fun to listen to, but the current drivers (robots/clones?) are killing F1. Don't get me started on Raikonnen...
If you search for 'Senna + Erik Comas' on Youtube -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuB1f0JMjEM
Now that is a great bit of CAMRRAD action. :)