The value of F1’s last 'old school' circuit

All seemed very right with the world as we stood around, chatting, in the Osterreichring paddock that glorious Friday morning in August 1986. "Good to be back at a proper circuit, isn't it?" said Bernie Ecclestone. He spoke for all of us.

The weekend before, Formula 1 had ventured for the first time to the Hungaroring, and if these days it is apparently regarded by many drivers as something of a classic, its tortuous turns and chicanes did not sit well with that generation. "I should have brought a bloody go-kart," growled Alan Jones.

Now, though, we were back to the swooping Osterreichring, a place savoured - and feared - by all who ever raced there. In Hungary the fastest race lap, set by Nelson Piquet, had been a little over 98mph; in Austria Gerhard Berger's mark was almost 149mph, and in qualifying - turbo boost off the clock - he and Benetton-BMW team-mate Teo Fabi had lapped at 160mph.

Given that there were but seven days between the two grands prix, the contrast could hardly have been more stark, and it was just so recently, with lamentable Sochi back to back with sublime Suzuka. Lewis Hamilton, continuing his unhindered march to a fifth world championship, won both races, but if the first victory - handed to him, on team orders, by Valtteri Bottas - brought little pleasure, the second left him exultant.

"Suzuka," Hamilton said, "is the best track in the world," and none can take issue. With Spa now reduced, by today's ludicrous cars, to something close to a drag strip, the classic Japanese circuit, designed in the early 1960s by John Hugenholtz (of Zandvoort fame), stands alone.

"I don't know why they don't make tracks like this any more," Lewis went on. "I love the fact that they haven't ruined it with too many runoff areas - that's how all race tracks should be. It's easy for young kids to come in nowadays - at Pouhon they go in flat-out, and they say, 'Ooh, it didn't work' - and they go wide, and come back on..."

I hope Liberty Media people will forgive me for such heresy, but 'old school' is not entirely without its merits. Hamilton's remarks resonated with me - and, I would guess, any purist - and put me in mind of a conversation with Mark Webber.

"Even Spa has been softened off, and it's not what it was," Webber said, "so these days Suzuka is unchallenged as the best - Jesus, you earn your money round there! It's quick, it's narrow, it's got grass on the edge of the track - and if you make a mistake, generally you don't get away with it, which is how racing used to be.

"Of course we don't want people getting hurt - but we do want the guys who can't operate on that knife-edge, lap after lap, to be found out. The good guys will still do the winning, but in my opinion they need to be tested more.

"Nowadays a lot of the tracks are 'copy and paste', aren't they? I used to love the individual character of circuits - the kerbs at Interlagos, for example, were different from anywhere else. It's like golf courses - you need characteristics that are different at every circuit, and Suzuka has them in spades."

The Russian Grand Prix was an anodyne 'straight to video' affair, but Japan was a different matter

Webber then moved on to another dismaying aspect of contemporary Formula 1 - its ever-increasing complexity. "Cricket, tennis, boxing, motorbike racing, speedway... the rules haven't been changed, have they? They're still recognisably the sports they always were, but Formula 1 has changed out of sight - it's got so bloody complicated!

"Because of the crazy cost of these hybrids, there are tight restrictions not only on how many actual engines you can have in a season, but also on all the bits and pieces that go with them - go over the limit, and you lose grid positions, and it's the same with gearboxes! None of this is the driver's fault, but he's the one who takes the punishment - and so does the fan robbed of seeing his hero start from where he should.

"Something else that gets me is this constant 'investigation by the stewards'. Modern Formula 1 is hard enough to follow as it is, in terms of understanding what's going on, and now you've got all this, 'Oh, you touched another car - that's a five-second penalty or a grid penalty at the next race' or whatever...

"If someone does something really dangerous, fine, hammer him, but too often it happens after a straightforward 'racing incident', and another thing is that - inevitably - there's no consistency in the response of the stewards, because they change from race to race, and some are more 'old school', like me, than others.

"This is the way society is these days, isn't it? Everything has to have an answer, and someone must be at fault. It's the 'blame culture' - people can't accept 'human error' any more, and there's this constant push to protect people from themselves. Everyone's got to be perfect... keep your emotions in check, do your job, no more, no less - and don't even think about something like stopping on your in-lap to pick up a flag.

"Look at how it was in the time of Prost and Senna, and the things they did... as a young lad growing up, those were my best memories. It was my dream to win a grand prix, and wave my own flag on the slowing-down lap; things like that are still fine in MotoGP, but not in Formula 1 - can't have anything spontaneous or emotional, mate!"

As usual, the Russian Grand Prix was an anodyne 'straight to video' affair, but Japan was a different matter, and if Hamilton's victory was never in doubt, behind him an unusual amount of racing was going on, dispelling the traditional belief that Suzuka, while a litmus paper for driving ability, is not a place for overtaking.

None of this was of any concern to Lewis, who was in charge from the start. It seems an age now since Spa, where Sebastian Vettel powered past him with what seemed like contemptuous ease; while Mercedes has predictably responded in the last couple of months, Ferrari has regressed into yet another late-season collapse. On the one hand, the power advantage has mysteriously evaporated; on the other, there have been way too many mistakes, by both team and driver.

Enzo's team is in a very jittery state just now, and at Suzuka Maurizio Arrivabene came out with an extraordinary outburst about its shortcomings. Created quite an impression, this did, for the barely audible Arrivabene is normally one to avoid saying anything controversial. Or interesting, come to that.

In the era of Stefano Domenicali, there was a good-natured openness about Ferrari, but since his departure in 2014 the regime has been very different, operating what amounts to a lock-down policy towards the press. This has infuriated one and all, and just may have added vinegar to the odd journalist's pen: in recent days the Scuderia, not least its number-one driver, has been savaged in the Italian papers, their gist that - yet again - when the pressure's on, Ferrari falters. With Sergio Marchionne gone, rumours abound of a debilitating power struggle between Arrivabene and technical director Martino Binotto.

Through the four years since he left the team, Fernando Alonso has continued resolutely to put a brave face on it, to insist that he has no regrets: "Ferrari never won a world championship while I was there, and it's still the same now..." True enough, but many will agree with Martin Brundle's contention that Alonso in a Ferrari would have won the title in 2017: "Sebastian's a great driver," a team insider murmured at Monza, "but he's not Fernando..."

Perhaps Ecclestone was right - perhaps, if Ferrari had been really serious about taking on Mercedes, they would have got Alonso back. As it is, at season's end Fernando leaves Formula 1, and Ferrari people must look to Charles Leclerc as the team's potential saviour.

At Suzuka it was hardly Vettel's fault that at the start of Q3 - when every other driver was on slicks, looking to set a time before the looming rain materialised - he and Kimi Raikkonen were sent out on intermediates. Instantly realising the team's strategic error, they dashed in for slicks, but now time was short, and if Kimi did well in the circumstances to qualify fourth, Seb messed up his lap, and was only ninth.

That of course created additional pressure in the race, but he began it superbly, cleanly making up places - until he got to Verstappen, running third. Yes, on the approach to Spoon he was way quicker than Max - but why he risked putting a move on him at the ultra-quick left-hander only he knows. For one thing, the Ferrari was anyway going to stroll by the Red Bull in the next DRS zone; for another, he knew from team radio that Verstappen had incurred a five-second penalty. Yet again impatience cost Vettel dear.

Following their coming-together, both cars were able to continue and, even with damage to the Red Bull's floor and the Ferrari's bargeboard, their positions in the scheme of things were unaffected: yet again the top six finishers were two Mercedes, two Ferraris, two red Bulls.

For numbing predictability, I can remember nothing like this period of Formula 1. At different times teams have occasionally produced a discernibly faster car - Mercedes W196, Lotus 25 and 79, Williams FW14B, sundry Ferraris in the early noughties - allowing one to predict with some confidence who would win a given race, but at present you can pretty much do that with the first six. "These days," a friend recently remarked, "a grand prix is a bit like watching Only Fools - in a matter of seconds, you know you've seen it before..."

There have always been haves and have-nots in Formula 1, but never before to this degree

It has long been said, not without historical justification, that major rule changes - by definition costly - inevitably favour teams with financial muscle, that stability in the regulations leads over time to a closing up of the field. Not so in this benighted hybrid age: with every passing year the gulf between Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and the rest only widens, to the point that best of the rest - seventh place - has become a coveted achievement in itself.

It is startling now to remember that in the opening race of 2014, the first hybrid season, McLarens finished second and third (positions the team has not approached since), and in the course of the year Williams drivers achieved nine podiums, Force India another.

The following year three teams - Williams, Force India, Lotus - outside the current Big Three had podium visits, but the number was down to six. In 2016 it was two teams and three podiums, in '17 one team, and a single podium, and so far that's been the way of it this year, too. Not good.

As I write, we are 97 grands prix into the hybrid era, with Mercedes taking 72 victories, Ferrari 14 and Red Bull 11. As the fifth season nears its end, only seven drivers - Hamilton (49), Nico Rosberg (20), Bottas (3), Vettel (13), Daniel Ricciardo (7), Verstappen (4), Raikkonen (1) - have won races. All the rest are in Division Two - and another point worth making is that every other podium finisher has had a Mercedes engine at his back.

"For sure," Niki Lauda said to me in Canada, "it's boring if Mercedes wins every championship - when it's like that, you lose people, and that's normal. Now, though, with three teams fighting, we're back to a more competitive situation, and I hope people will start to come back..."

That, indeed, was how it looked back in June. Vettel duly won at Montreal, then at Silverstone, then at Spa, but six of the last eight grands prix have gone the way of Hamilton's Mercedes. As things stand, since the hybrids came to town one driver has won more than half the races, and his team three-quarters of them. Of course there have always been haves and have-nots in Formula 1, but never before to this degree. Mercedes can hardly be blamed for surpassing excellence, but as Ross Brawn doesn't need telling, whatever the wishes of Mercedes and Ferrari, come 2021 radical surgery is required: seven teams aspiring to seventh place is not how the sport should be.

As I watched the early laps of the US Grand Prix, the impression was that no two cars were within a quarter of a mile of each other, but fortunately a somewhat sleepy race woke up in the closing stages, and Raikkonen - closely followed by Verstappen and Hamilton - came in for his first win since returning to Ferrari five years ago. In the spectator areas - and the press room - this went down extremely well, with Kimi as close to jovial as he can muster.

At Austin Ferrari was back on the pace, while Mercedes, in Lewis's opinion, underperformed.

Still he was cheerful enough afterwards, having increased his points lead, but others had little cause to smile, including Vettel, who made yet another unforced error, spinning his Ferrari in the early going. Given the gulf in performance between the top teams and the rest, he had no problem in working back to fourth place, but this latest slip will not have pleased his masters, and one report in Italy suggests that if Seb continues in this vein next year, Ferrari may consider terminating his contract ahead of time. Maranello, as we said, is a tense place at the moment.

Elsewhere, Alonso was anything but amused by being turfed off by Lance Stroll on the opening lap, and the same was true of Kevin Magnussen, whose fine race into the points for Haas ended in disqualification, after his car was found to have consumed more than the 105kg of fuel permitted by the regulations.

In the course of a chat earlier in the weekend, I asked Kev for his impressions of the Circuit of the Americas, a track about which many drivers rave. "It's OK," he said, "and I like the first part, with the quick swerves, but... there's too much runoff everywhere - it's a bit too safe for my liking..."

It has been said before, but let's say it again: Magnussen is not your typical 21st century Formula 1 driver; for one thing, like his hero Stirling Moss, he believes that the relentless quest for greater safety has fundamentally changed the nature of the sport.

"It's very difficult for me," he said, "not to say what I think... These days everyone is so politically correct - it's not popular to say you don't care about safety. Of course I'm not saying that I want us to get hurt - but the fact is that when it's dangerous it gets me going, and that's just my honest response.

Like the drivers of 30 and 40 years ago, I fancy Magnussen would have adored the Osterreichring

"A while ago there was an article published about me, with a headline saying, 'Kevin wants to die in a racing car'. The actual story was fine - if maybe a bit aggressive - but someone else stuck that headline on it. What I meant was very different from how they made it look: of course I didn't say I wanted to die in the car - all I said was that I would risk that. If the sport was still as dangerous as it was in the '70s I would still do it, that was my point. It's not that I want to die, but I would risk it, because I love it."

Unsurprisingly, Magnussen was among the most vociferous critics of the halo, but admits he has now got used to it. "I still hate it, but I don't think about it anymore. Believe me, a lot of the drivers didn't want it, but no-one was interested in our opinions - some of the big names wanted it, so that was the end of it. Some drivers didn't want to say, 'I don't like the halo', because they knew it wouldn't go down well with all those sensible people sitting on the sidelines."

Says what he thinks, our Kev, which is why conversation with him is always a pleasure: "I just try to be honest...

"There's so much talk about what's wrong with Formula 1 these days, but for me the biggest problem is the tracks. Here in the States, for example, there are some fantastic circuits. I've just been to Road Atlanta to watch my dad [Jan, pictured above driving for Corvette], and that place is just amazing - put a wheel wrong, and you're off, and it's the same at Elkhart Lake, Watkins Glen, Laguna Seca...

"I hope one day I can go and race on these tracks. When I was in Formula 3, I loved Brands Hatch and, most of all, Oulton Park, and I miss racing on 'old school' circuits. People talk about the safety aspect of all the runoff areas, but today we've been driving here in the wet, and they've painted the runoffs in some sponsor's colours - and it's so slippery that you might as well put the wall right next to the track! Hit that stuff, and you don't decelerate at all.

"In the drivers' briefings at every race you get people complaining that there's a bump somewhere - I mean, come on! Who gives a toss if it's bumpy? Think of all those pictures of cars off the ground at the Nurburgring, when they were nothing like as strong as they are today. We need to have quirks in the tracks - it just adds to the challenge."

A flavour of K Magnussen, whom many like to call the 'bad boy' of Formula 1. We'll return to him - and his racing philosophy - at a later date. Like the drivers of 30 and 40 years ago, I fancy he'd have adored the Osterreichring.