Dodgy Business: Freedom to race

It was good to see Christian Horner acknowledging something I've been thinking since the start of the season - that Red Bull Racing currently has the best driver line-up in Formula 1. And even better to hear him reiterate that, until either Sebastian Vettel or Mark Webber cannot mathematically win the world championship, they will have the freedom to race.

We all know that the most efficient way to win the world championship is to have an ace driver in the best car with the team strategy optimised around him. It's the route Ferrari went down so successfully for so long with Schumacher/Irvine and Schumacher/Barrichello. In both cases though, Michael was so clearly the star performer that nine times out of 10 the position was self regulating.

Eddie Irvine (Ferrari 399) leads the 1999 German Grand Prix at Hockenheim © LAT

The problem with that, if you have strong opposition, is when something derails your ace - such as a broken leg at Silverstone, for instance. Back in 1999 Irvine almost filled the breach but came up just short of stopping Mika Hakkinen and McLaren.

Then there was Austria 2002, when Rubens had the better of Michael pretty much all weekend. There's a long left-hander at A1-Ring and the way I heard it was that Schumacher's style put a lot of extra heat through the right front, in much the same way that Hamilton's does relative to Kovalainen at Istanbul's Turn 8.

It meant that over a race distance Rubens was in better shape. With Ferrari so dominant that year there was no earthly reason why Rubens needed to be asked to move over, but Jean Todt insisted on unflinchingly following the script. That wasn't sport and the extent of the public backlash caught even Todt off-guard.

No disrespect to Rubens, but having two ace drivers in one team is when you start to have problems. Problems say they'd love to have, but problems all the same.

You cannot 'manage' every situation - even if you want to. So much of top class sport is about perception and promotion that, get it wrong, and you can finish a guy's career almost before it starts.

Look at Amir Khan. A superb talent, undoubtedly, but who in their right mind thought it a good idea to put a tactically immature fighter with an unproven chin in with a tough Colombian, Breidis Prescott, who had stopped 18 of his 20 opponents within three rounds?

That, to me, was a bit like the Andretti naivety in sending Michael over to make his F1 debut in a McLaren team for which Ayrton Senna had won the world title in three of the last five years, and who had Mika Hakkinen in the wings as understudy. Despite Michael's IndyCar reputation you'd have thought a couple of astute phone calls would have persuaded Mario that it was the last place on earth Michael needed to be. I couldn't tell you how much was psychological damage and how much was unwillingness to embrace the European scene, but Michael's F1 career was over in six months.

Breidis Prescott is hardly boxing's answer to Ayrton Senna but stopping Khan inside a minute last September could have finished Amir's career. As it was, the psychological damage was considerable. Did he have a glass jaw? Was it all over before the first big payday? He went to the States and knocked on the door of Freddie Roach, reputedly the world's greatest trainer.

Roach said, 'okay son, I'm going to put you in with Manny Pacquiao' - reckoned to be the best pound for pound fighter in the world and the man who blew Ricky Hatton away in two rounds - 'and if you can't live with him, you're out of here. If you can, I'll train you.'

Ten months on Khan produced a great tactical performance to take the world light welterweight title from Andreas Kotelnik. Roach's instructions before the last round, with Khan a mile ahead on points, were telling. If he used the word 'focus' once, he used it a million times. 'He needs to knock you out and he's going to come at you like a train. Don't get sucked into a tear up. Do you hear? Focus! Focus! It's all about your head...'

It's all about your head. Formula 1 inter-team rivalry between two evenly-matched talents may be a little more subtle than the boxing ring but it is every bit as gladiatorial and, psychologically, even more potentially draining. The risk to market value of losing is just as in boxing. If you listen to Alan Jones, Niki Lauda didn't suddenly tire of driving round in circles in 1979, he just realised that he shouldn't be seen to be driving round in circles slower than Nelson Piquet...

Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet with Frank Williams at the 1986 Hungarian Grand Prix © LAT

Piquet himself came to know what it felt like alongside Nigel Mansell at Williams in 1986. There's some insight into that in Virginia Williams' book, A different kind of life. It was in March that year that Frank suffered the road accident that put him in a wheelchair. He'd been on the way back from a Paul Ricard and his wife remarked on the camaraderie, team spirit and support from both drivers in the aftermath of the accident.

Frank targeted a visit to the Hungarian GP as his first foreign trip when he got out of hospital. Virginia Williams recalls: "It was another win for Nigel with Nelson taking third place. The two drivers were not such good friends by this stage of the season, which came as no surprise to anyone. They both badly wanted the championship and it wasn't easy for either of them to be fighting it out with a team mate. Privately I quite enjoyed all the in-fighting and back-biting, the aggravation and the complaints. It was all part of the sport. There wouldn't be the same edge and excitement without it."

Quite. Which is why, despite any Honda misgivings, which may even have contributed to the decision to give their engines to McLaren instead of Williams in 1988, Frank was totally right to let his men race - even if Alain Prost did pinch the championship at the last round in Adelaide.

It made for compelling sport, so much so that the BBC decided to transmit Australia live at 3am. Frank had gone to bed at 8pm on Saturday so that Virginia could drive him to Shepherd's Bush to be in the BBC studio by 2am Sunday for the crucial Adelaide Nigel/Nelson/Alain decider.

She wrote: "Above Steve Rider's head was a large photograph of Nigel. In a corner, presumably ready to be substituted if necessary, another picture lurked - this time of Nelson, who was still second favourite despite being one point behind Alain. One way or another everyone was expecting it to be a Williams night...

"Steve Rider is enormously professional and decided to rehearse the post-race interview before going on air. I pushed Frank up onto the dias and Steve interviewed him as though Nigel had already won. I felt myself shiver. The premature celebrations seemed to be tempting fate."

Tyre wear became a critical factor and after Mansell's left rear tyre exploded on lap 64, "the silence in the BBC studio was deafening. Disappointment was etched into Frank's face.

"The BBC were obviously experienced at reacting to last minute changes of schedule. Within minutes Steve Rider was planning his interviews based around a championship for Nelson, who was now leading the race. But 10 laps from the end that had to be scrapped too. Sensibly, after Nigel's accident Patrick (Head) immediately called in Nelson for a tyre change.

"It took longer than normal and Alain Prost won the race and with it the championship. The whole BBC studio was engrossed in a frantic search for suitable Alain Prost photographs and alternative post-race interviewees. We found ourselves suddenly superfluous. We took our leave, once more passing the champagne which glinted mockingly at us from its long-melted bed of ice, and drove home in the quiet early hours of dawn.

"As we reached the Hammersmith flyover I started unexpectedly to see the funny side of the debacle and begun to giggle. Frank stared at me in astonishment then gradually his own grim expression changed. Unlike me he couldn't physically laugh any more but he could still smile.

Alain Prost celebrates winning the 1986 World Championship in Adelaide © LAT

"We can't change it," he said philosophically. "So bad luck Nigel. You deserved that one." Ruefully he added, 'Congratulations Alain!'

For few could the moment have had such poignancy. But the point is that it will always be one of those "remember when" moments. For me personally, it had been an early rise with a bunch of mates to watch the race before heading for the Brands Hatch Formula Ford Festival. We all wanted different outcomes and it was pandemonium.

Interestingly, like 1973, when the Fittipaldi/Peterson Lotuses won more races but lost the championship to Jackie Stewart's Tyrrell, 1986 has come to be remembered as 'the way not to do it' if you are trying to win the championship. But in reality it wasn't mismanagement, it was cruel circumstance. Jean Todt might not agree but, for me, Frank Williams understands what sport is.

Who knows, but we may be headed for a Button/Webber/Vettel repeat in Abu Dhabi. And wouldn't it be great if, as Horner promises, they are all racing to the end. As sportsmen they'd want nothing less.

I'd venture that even Andy Roddick would rather carry the mental scars of that missed shoulder high volley into an open court with four points for a two sets to love lead, than to have won Wimbledon against an artificially impaired Roger Federer.

Sport is all about mental strength and mind management. Just ask poor Tom Watson...