Dodgy Business

In a recent Autosport magazine column I put the case for driver rotation in F1 as a means of 'improving the show'. I wouldn't put money on it happening, but I think it should. Sure, there'd be problems instigating it, but I reckon the upsides would far outweigh those. Space constraints precluded too much of a rant in the mag, so here I go again ...

First off, certain drivers are contracted years ahead. So I guess you have to ask the CRB (Contracts Recognition Board) what the longest existing contract is, and start rotation the following year.

Why do I think it's a good idea? Because I hate injustice. I hate seeing talent squandered and at the moment in Formula 1 there are only two teams offering its drivers the opportunity to become world champion.

And to all those who say, "Well, it has ever been thus," or "But it wouldn't be F1," so what? Just because that's the way something has always been, doesn't make it right.

The 2008 drivers © LAT

In what other walk of life are the rewards of superstardom so huge, and yet the selection process so arbitrary?

Okay, I concede that good drivers tend to find their way into good cars, but are they the best drivers? And should they clog up the best seats for the next three, maybe five years? I hate a system that prevents Gilles Villeneuve becoming world champion and allows his son to, no disrespect to Jacques.

It was Lewis Hamilton last year who really brought it home. Don't get me wrong. In no way do I think Lewis is undeserving. He is quite obviously brilliant, but he did something that many people - ex-champions among them - thought couldn't be done. He came within a whisker of winning the championship in his rookie season.

Conventional wisdom said that a rookie would always make too many mistakes to do it in year one. Well Lewis did, we think (and I'm not going any further with that), but only just. But coming straight into McLaren meant that he only had three guys to beat. And that can't be right.

Lewis is actually a poor example because you get the feeling that he would rapidly earn a top car via his performance in lesser machinery if that was the direction his career had taken. But as I said, there aren't enough top cars.

Why is Felipe Massa in the best Grand Prix car in the field? He's no Muppet but is the pedigree that strong? If you were cynical, or Niki Lauda, you might suggest that it is to ensure the comfortable future of a certain Nicolas Todt and you might wonder why this is perfectly fine when insider trading is illegal.

Why is Heikki Kovalainen in a McLaren? Because he's good enough to be considered too much of a threat by Fernando Alonso to stay at Renault. What a tremendous slice of good fortune for both Heikki and McLaren.

And, of course, Flavio Briatore wants him earning decent dollar because FB is on a healthy slice of it. There is a case for Heikki being the best driver available to McLaren at the time Alonso self-destructed, but there's probably five or six guys who would disagree.

Many of these, like Jenson Button, were contracted elsewhere of course, and what better example than Jenson of the minefield you can find yourself embroiled in as you try to plot a decent career path.

Wouldn't it be lovely if all that was irrelevant? If every driver who made it to the pantheon that is Formula 1 knew that they would have an opportunity to perform? Just like any tennis player of golfer knows that if they make it as a tour pro they will get the chance to shoot at Federer and Woods.

David Coulthard (McLaren) and Fernando Alonso (Minardi) at the Nurburgring © LAT

Look at Alonso. The body language of every car he's ever driven tells you what a fantastic, committed driver he is. In time, I reckon, 109 points apiece with Lewis might actually come to underline his talent rather than denigrate it. Is it right that he's now an also-ran, fighting to be at the front of the midfield? Of course not, even if he played his own part in it.

Look at Webber. He blows away all his team-mates - including highly rated up-and-comers like Pizzonia and Wilson - and regularly plants his car much further up the grid than it deserves to be. Inevitably, he goes backwards a few times on Sunday as its inadequacies become more exposed. Oh look, people say, he's not a great racer ...

In a revealing pre-season interview with Autosport's Steve Cooper, you could sense the frustration oozing out of Mark as, perhaps, he sensed that time was marching on and that maybe the boat had left without him. When you're racing in the midfield you're on nobody's radar. How long can you keep training like he does, keep pushing and pushing, with no guarantee of any reward? That kind of thing does nobody any good.

Or Trulli. It's a long time since Jarno arrived in F1, 11 years, but he came with quite a reputation. Not only did he look a bit like Senna but those who watched him in karts reckoned he drove like him too. Within six months he led the Austrian GP in a Prost.

His next opportunity came in '04 when he was paired with Alonso at Renault. He regularly outqualified Fernando and he won the Monaco GP. Then he fell asleep on the last lap of the French GP, let Rubens Barrichello's Ferrari nick the last podium place and went on to fall out with Flavio Briatore.

He still regularly produces qualifying performances that belie a man in his 12th season of F1, he performs his sponsorship duties professionally, he poses with children and the handicapped. But will he ever have the opportunity to race for a championship? Maybe fulfillment will have to come through sun-drenched days on his vineyards.

In Malaysia, Honda's Nick Fry was good enough to give me his time and his thoughts on rotation.

"The big downside of rotating comes from a marketing perspective," he said. "Some teams and drivers put a lot more effort into the package that they offer sponsors. As an example, Jenson is personally sponsored by Seiko and the team is sponsored by Seiko. Those are different deals but Seiko specifically wanted Jenson because they feel his age and profile and his demeanour is appropriate.

"Jenson is a good example in that he has worked with Honda for a number of years and consequently he is very attuned to the Honda way of doing things. He's used in Honda advertising in some countries in the world. He was in Japan just before the Australian GP specifically to make a Honda TV advertisement.

Lewis Hamilton at a Tag Heuer function in London © LAT

"The driver and the team are one and the same from a marketing perspective and to have a prime asset rotating with a different guy, I think, would be a calamity for both sponsors and the team marketing."

These things get quite involved. 'Brand alignment' is the buzz phrase and it's why Seiko sees Honda as 'a good fit.' If it was Rolex, they'd want an involvement with Ferrari or Mercedes-Benz, presumably. At Ferrari they'd also get Kimi, of course, and some marketing whizz would have to come up with something like the fact that Rolexes are silent, and so is the world champion ...

I can see all this, of course I can. But should it be shaping the sport? No. Marketing should be incidental. If the playing field changes, sponsorship will adapt.

How much better would it be, I said to Fry perhaps a little naively, if sponsors could contract with any driver they wished, not just ones contracted to their team. Like in the old days when Ferrari drivers fought contractually for 'freedom of their overalls.'

"Sponsors don't want to use any of them, and that's the issue," Nick said. "They want to use specific drivers because they fit with their brand. If a driver is monosyllabic, which some of them are, and has got poor manners, for many of the teams he'd be a disaster area.

"Frankly I don't want a driver who is not going to behave properly at our sponsors events. We've put a lot of efforts into making sure our drivers represent the brands we represent and some have got a deal of talent at that anyway.

"Alex (Wurz) is a good example. He's someone who speaks very freely. That's unusual, most people need some formal training and we do give it to the drivers. The sponsors have made the investment in the individual and I don't want random drivers in our car or representing our brand."

Fair enough. So what you do is, you pay Wurz a handsome retainer to test your car and represent you at your sponsor functions. You still have access to genus racing driver and a personable bloke with a brain.

What's the problem if he's not the guy in your car on a Sunday afternoon? After all, Rolex is still paying Jackie Stewart 35 years after he last drove a Grand Prix. I'd even suggest that if he didn't have to concentrate on being a full-time racing driver as well, whoever your Alex Wurz was would do an even better job for you.

When we got onto the subject of purity and tradition, Fry admitted he thought that rotation would be harmful.

"I just don't agree with it. You don't change the size of tennis players' racquets or change the brand every time they play."

Perhaps you don't. But who would care if you did? Neither do you ask someone to take on Federer with a Dunlop Maxply either. Which is what it's like asking someone to race Kimi Raikkonen or Lewis Hamilton in a Super Aguri, again no disrespect.

Renault, Williams, and Ferrari mechanics at Silverstone © XPB/LAT

"Why not make it completely random and rotate the mechanics and the team management and then you can have a real circus?" Fry smiled.

Because mechanics and management are part of the the team championship, which you'd still have, except on a much fairer basis, if you had driver rotation.

"On top of the marketing I think the practical difficulties are immense," Fry went on. "You would have to standardise huge amounts. I mean, we are still working on Jenson's seating position and he's still not entirely comfortable. And that's taken all of winter and a couple of races.

"Look at the clutch controls, very sophisticated, all the different adjustments - you'd have to standardise the whole lot and then you get back to, what is F1?"

So what? Who cares about clutch adjustments? And don't all the teams test ad infinitum anyway?

"It's relatively easy to sit in a cockpit without outside pressures and go through sequences, but you try and do it on the grid when the lights are about to go green. Sometimes practiced drivers who have done it many times, have a mental block."

See above. Who cares about sequences. Simplify it. And if the dim ones stall on the grid, tough luck. Go home safe in the knowledge that they'll probably stall the Ferrari next week and get relegated from F1 at the end of the year.

"I don't like the idea of rotation," Ross Brawn added, "because I think of the driver as part of the spirit and the character of the team.

"I like developing relationships with drivers so it wouldn't get my vote. It would be a totally different philosophy and one that wouldn't be very exciting for me. I know Max liked the idea of Schumacher in a Minardi but, for me, that's not F1. The fact that sometimes drivers win championships who shouldn't doesn't matter to me."

Well it does to me. If you want to develop relationships with drivers, fine, but let it be your test driver, the bloke responsible for keeping you a step ahead of the competition and allowing you to win the teams championship.

With rotation, you'd get a proper drivers championship and a proper teams championship - they don't have to be mutually exclusive.