A New Hope

Yes. I just blatantly stole and re-used the title of a Star Wars movie as the title of this blog. There's a reason for it though, so please bear with me.

 

We've made it to the month of December and everywhere you look you'll find year reviews. Motorsport is no stranger to that practice, but this article won't be a review. I've decided to leave the reviewing to the professional journalists. I'm not exactly a motorsport newbee and I'm sure I could say a thing or two about the goings-on of the past twelve months, but I know when other people are capable of doing a better job than me. (In case you're interested in some of those better jobs: please visit autosport.com for a cool F1 driver review – subscription only – or Racing.gt for a pretty awesome GT driver review.) But most of all, I've decided against writing a review of 2016 because I've noticed that most of the reviews are a bit sad. It seems too many bad things happened this past year; too many people died, too often the world collectively had its hopes trashed, and nobody really wants to be reminded of it all.

 

The more I became aware of that, the more I began to think: "Why would I spend the last day of the year writing a text that looks back on a year that has made everybody sad? It'll be far more fun to look ahead at a new year that hasn't harmed anyone yet. A new year in which everyone still has a new hope of better days." (See! I told you my Star Wars title thievery had a point!)

 

 

So instead of a top 10 of things/teams/drivers/races/etc. that left a mark on 2016, this 31st of December I'll leave you with a list of 10 wishes I hope will come true in 2017. I present them in no particular order:

1. I wish for someone to finally tell WRT that it's really, really, REALLY necessary to start painting their cars in different colours. I'd like 2017 to be an I-can't-tell-those-WRTs-apart-headache free year.
2. I wish for less snow during the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring. The weather gods can dump a white load on the Ring at Christmas time, but not in the middle of May. Not even if it makes for really spectacular Youtube-videos.
3. I wish for European Formula 3 to have a season in which there's less talk about who is paying who to get extra support for their child and more focus on the actual racing.
4. I wish for more rain during the 24 Hours of Spa. Only it can't be constant rain. It must be showers, like the tiny surprise shower we had at this year's edition, which shook up the whole order in the dying minutes of the race. (Oh, and of course those showers can only fall when I'm safely sheltered. I don't want a soaking. Obviously.)
5. I wish for Mick Schumacher to be given time and space to make a normal formula 3 debut, just like all the other rookies. He's not his father; he's his own person. We should accept him as such and allow him to develop his own skills at his own pace.
6. I wish for Stéphane Ratel's plans for GT3 and GT4 racing to unroll the way he wants them to. He dares to dream big and it would be so good for the GT sport if he can make his dreams come true.
7. I wish for less handbag fights at Mercedes F1. Enough said, I think.
8. I wish for DTM to climb out of its current slump. The fact that all three brands reduced their entries from eight to six cars can only be a bad sign. Whatever the problem is, I hope someone somewhere can get a grip on it.
9. I wish for more people to at last realise how much fun the Audi TT Cup is and start watching it. (Similarly, I wish for more tv channels to finally start broadcasting it.)
10. And last but not least, as always, I wish for everyone involved in motorsport to have a safe year and make it through the 2017 season without any injuries.

May it be a good year. And may the downforce be with us!

 

(Last Star Wars reference, I swear.)

A Christmas Car-ol

I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of Christmas. I struggle with the commercial grip the holiday has been in these past few years; the obligation to cook a lavish dinner for your family, the pressure of having to be 100% absolutely perfectly happy because everyone is supposed to be 100% absolutely perfectly happy, as well as the need to buy bigger and more expensive presents for your loved ones than you did the year before… it all tends to get on my nerves. I’ve been called a grump because of this more than once, but I just can’t help feeling like this.

 

Still, there’s one Christmas tradition I’ve always loved – the sending of holiday cards to friends and family. I think it ties in well with what Christmas traditionally stands for: showing kindness to the people around you and letting them know that you’re thinking of them. A few days ago I received a Christmas card that embodied this idea more than any of the other cards I’ve received this December or, indeed, the previous December.

 

 

The Christmas card itself was a humble affair. It was made of sturdy white paper and it carried a simple design of a pencil-drawn log cabin with a red door and a red chimney. Pencil-drawn snow was falling from the sky and onto the cabin’s roof. Underneath the drawing stood the words “Frohe Weihnachten” (Merry Christmas in German). Inside the card I found a short but sweet message from a dear friend.  It ended with the words: “Did you check the envelop? I extra bought a car stamp!”

 

I hadn’t really looked at the envelop, but when I did, I saw that my friend had stuck a beautiful stamp showing a Porsche 911 onto its right top corner. The little piece of paper instantly made my heart melt. I know that, according to the big commercial rules of Christmas, it isn’t much to look at. The stamp isn’t big. It’s not flashy. It’s not expensive. But to me, it means the world. Christmas card sending is a bit of a dying tradition these days. If people still send out cards at all, they usually write the same standard message on all of them. And sometimes they forego the message altogether; they just write down their names and leave it with that.

 

 

But here I was holding the card of a friend who had taken the trouble to not just write me a card, but also to personalise it. Not because Christmas demands it from her or because it’s something that makes her hip or cool. No, she did it simply because she cared. That’s a bigger gift to me than even a real Porsche 911 would have been. Thanks ever so much, P.!

 

As for you, reader, please consider the above story my Christmas carol to you. Remind yourself that tonight and tomorrow are more about the tiny gestures than about the big gifts. I hope you’ll be able to drop your holiday stress and will simply have a MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Some Cars Live in Your Heart

Last weekend I went shopping with my friends. At some point, we drifted into a pop-up mall where the ground floor was taken up by an outlet store from Audi, consisting of some fancy show cars and a tiny merchandise shop. It sold most of the stuff that Audi also sells on race tracks. T-shirts, vests, sweaters, caps, key chains, the works. But unlike race track outlets, this shop also sold toys. Amongst them, a Lego model of the #4 Audi R8 that won the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2014. I recognised it immediately, pounced on the display table, grabbed a Lego box and, to the confusion and disbelief of the shop attendant, started re-analysing half the 2014 24 Hours race.

 

If you were on twitter last weekend, you probably already know that I bought the Lego car and then spent a good two hours trying to piece it together. (If you weren’t, I’ll insert a picture of the car below so you’ll know what I’m talking about.) I know some of you may find it childish that I bought a kids’ toy and was utterly chuffed with it, but I simply couldn’t resist. You see, for various reasons that #4 Audi R8 is very dear to me.

 

 

Part of its specialness has to do with the fact I attended the Nürburgring 24 Hours that it won. It may not sound very special that I was there, since I’m known to attend a lot of races, but believe me, back in 2014, it really was. I have a chronic illness that made my life very difficult for many years, but luckily by the end of 2013 I had pulled through it really well; when the visit to the 2014 24 Hours was planned, I was stable and relatively healthy. Unfortunately, though, in March 2014 I relapsed out of the blue. For months, I struggled to get through the days and the trip to the 24 Hours was almost cancelled. Looking back I’ve no idea how I convinced the people around me that I was capable of going or where I pulled the strength from to attend. I only remember that I was determined not to let the disease beat me. So I got permission from my doctor to double my meds for the weekend, bought crutches to help me walk – and, come Green Hell or high water, I went.

 

Another part of the #4’s specialness has to do with its drivers. One of them has been my favourite driver in all of motorsport for almost ten years now. I watch most A-class GT races anyway, but when he’s in them I pay special attention; and when he’s in a B-class race, I watch that too. My friends always find it funny that, of all available racing drivers, I picked him as my favourite. I understand where they’re coming from. For one thing, in terms of personality we’re almost polar opposites. But, despite everything, he ended up my favourite driver anyway due to good timing. In 2007, he happened to compete in the very last race that I got to watch live from the track before I became too ill to leave the house. He came into the race as an underdog and somehow pulled off a performance that everybody thought was impossible to achieve. He caught my eye that day and I’ve never taken it off him since. In my worst sick days, he became one of the special things that helped to distract me from my worries and, I guess, in a way you can say that he was also one of special things that helped me get through those dark days altogether. 

 

 

So when the number 4 Audi R8 crossed the finish line and took the 24H-victory, I did something I’d never done before on a race track and have never done since: I absolutely cried my eyes out. Part of it was the exhaustion, part of it was the pain, part of it was the nausea caused by the meds, part of it was that I had won my own 24 Hours race, part of it was that my favourite driver had won the real 24 Hours race, and part of it was that I’d never before seen him win a race live at the track. All those parts put together made it a moment I’ll never forget.

 

When Audi released a model of the black-and-white #4, I bought one immediately. I just had to have it. And when I saw the Lego version of the #4, I had the same feeling. I just had to have it; even if the shop assistant thought I was weird for almost starting to cry all over again. Some cars just live in your heart. End of story.

Early in the Morning

Saturday, 10th December 2016 - 5.54AM

 

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen!

 

Ouch. That sounded very breakfast show-like, didn't it? I'm not sure if that is the impression I want to make right now, because breakfast shows are usually associated with cheerful, entirely awake hosts sitting at newly-painted tables paying close attention to the words of their guests. I'm nowhere near any of that at the moment.

 

I got up at 4.30AM to watch the Sepang 12 Hours. That may now be almost two hours ago, but still I'm not fully awake. Every once in a while my eyes start to droop and if I'm not careful I'm going to fall asleep and miss a considerable part of the race. (Indeed that is one of the main reasons I decided to write this blog; to help ward off sleepiness.) I'm not going to look in the mirror right now, I'm honestly smarter than that, but I have a fairly good idea what I currently look like - and that's nothing like a prepped tv show host. I'm sure I have a pale face, bags under my eyes, rings under my eyes, eyes run-through with red vains, and hair all messed up, sticking out in more random directions than you would think humanly possible.

 

I'm not sitting at a table either, let alone a newly-painted one. In fact, I haven't moved an inch since waking up. When the alarm went off, I simply turned on the light on my nightstand, reached over to the deskchair parked next to my bed and fired up the laptop sitting on its seat. Before I fell asleep I'd already pre-programmed the Sepang 12 Hours website to appear automatically at start-up, so all I had to do was click the 'play livestream'-button and I was all set to watch the race from the comfort of my bed.

 

 

It hasn't been entirely clean sailing though. It's so early that the ancient heating system in my house doesn't work yet, so every 15 minutes I start to feel cold and have to pull out an extra blanket. By now I'm covered with a tiny mountain of blankets. The height of the pile sometimes makes it difficult to peer over it and watch my computer screen unobstructedly. Still, at this time of morning nothing will make me sacrifice my warmth. I've already completed all of my assigned Freezing Cold Hours for this year during track visits to the Nürburgring, thank you very much.

 

Oops. I nearly did it again just now. I almost fell asleep.

 

Sometimes I wonder if watching the Sepang endurance race live is really a good idea. I've worked too many hours this week and the weekend would probably be better used catching up with the 10 hours of sleep I've missed out on in the past few days. But if I did that, I would miss one of the few GT races driven this winter. I would miss things like the Audi 16 starting from the pitlane and cutting its way through the field, all the way into the top 10, within the first half hour of the race. I would miss things like the three-way battle for P2 or the leader going wide and losing P1. I would miss everything. And come afternoon, I would bitterly regret it. You can blame both my love of motorsport and my overall insanity for that.

 

So if you need me in the next few hours, my bed is where I'll be; soaking up as much of this race as I can, before social obligations planned for the afternoon will drag me away from the livestream. And I know I'll be tired for the rest of the day because of this. I also know I currently look nowhere near the likes of a styled-up breakfast show presenter, but sod all that. Right now, I'm happy. :-)

Empty Weekends

I know that technically we still have a few endurance races coming in 2016, but as far as my head is concerned the race season proper ends this weekend after formula 1, the only one of the big international series that is still going, finishes its last event. After that, winter will be here. The days will be short. The weather will be cold. And the weekends will be rather like the second act of the musical Les Miserables.

 

I should probably clarify that last statement.

 

There is a song in the second act of Les Miserables called “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables”. It has always spoken to me strongly. Not just because I love Les Miserables as a story or because of the wonderful music that goes with the song, but first and foremost because of the meaning of the lyrics. They tell the story of a young man who has fought with his friends to overthrow the French government and start a social revolution. He and his friends were all filled with dreams, but as is so often the case in life, dreams don’t come true. The police came down on the revolutionaries and slaughtered almost all of them. The young man is the only person to survive the massacre. As he sings, he becomes more and more confused about how he should continue his life from here on out. All his friends are gone, which is reflected by the silent bar around him. Once his comrades filled up the whole room, but now all the chairs and tables he sees are empty. He’s all alone in the world now.

Although there have been moments in my own life when this song was much more fitting, the start of the winter stop is one of those moments when I’m irrevocably reminded of the sentiment behind it. I know that motorsport is only a hobby for me. I don’t earn my money by working in it and in that sense my future doesn’t depend on it. If it were to disappear tomorrow, drivers, engineers, journalists and series representatives would all be affected far worse than I would be. But at the same time, motorsport is more than a hobby. It dictates how I spend my weekends, how I structure my planning, and when times are bad it’s what helps me to cheer up and not let my head hang in defeat. It has also brought me many friends and acquaintances that I like to spend time with. The thing is, though, that some of those people I can only ever meet at race tracks, for example because they live in other countries. And without races, you guessed it, no track meetings either.

 

So in that sense, the winter stop is a lonely time. After months of moving around circuits that I consider home and among people whom I consider friends, all of a sudden I’m stuck at home. Alone. No one to keep me company. Cut off. Staring at a TV that refuses to show races, and an empty dinner table with empty chairs around it. This moment repeats itself every year. It’s an almost traditional ritual that last for five minutes.

 

Those five minutes are roughly the time it takes me to remember that I have a life outside of the racing season. All I need to do is pick it up off the shelf, blow the dust off it, and smile. There’s still a whole world out there to be explored. And without race cars blocking my view, I might actually see new things – and, who knows, maybe make some new friends to fill my set of empty Les Miserables chairs.

Unbelievable

I spend a good proportion of my free weekends running around race tracks, merrily tweeting about my adventures. But don’t get me wrong, I don’t simply sling everything that happens onto social media. I apply a light form of censure: I try not to post messages that lose their appropriate context when you reduce them to 140 characters and become ambiguous – or simply incomprehensible. I also deliberately don’t write about things that are so utterly ridiculous that, if I were to strip them of their details and turn them into an ultrashort tweet, readers probably wouldn’t believe they had actually happened. I was talking this practice over with a friend last week and she said it was a shame that my most bonkers stories never make it onto the web. Initially I disagreed with her, but today I’m wondering if the odd events that don’t work as tweets could perhaps work as a blog post, since a blog allows room for contextualisation. Maybe that concept is worth a test run. So I hereby present…

 

The Top Three of Odd Things That Really Happened in 2016 But Seemed Too Improbable When Written Down in 140 Characters!

 

3. Size Matters
In the spring I attended the Blancpain GT Sprint Cup at the Nürburgring. That weekend, the Sprint Cup was a support series for the Truck GP. I’d never before seen a truck race and I’d definitely never shared a race track with truck fans. I wasn’t worried about it though. What could possibly happen? It’s not as if truck racing is a big deal or anything, right? WRONG. Truck racing is HUGE. It attracts thousands of super-enthusiastic fans, who outnumbered the GT fans by far all throughout the weekend and at times made me feel a bit isolated, because they had their own fan culture which I didn’t truly understand. However, it turned out that this was a mutual sentiment. When the Blancpain GT cars first hit the track on Saturday morning, immediately after the truck practice had finished, I overheard one of the truck fans saying: “Aaaaaw, look how cute! Aren’t those GT cars SMALL?!”



2. My Little Pony Rocks
During one of the VLN races, my dad and I shared a row of chairs on one of the grandstands with another father and daughter. The two dads quickly got talking about photography and that left me with the other daughter – which was slightly problematic as she was three years old and I’m absolutely horrible with toddlers. So we ended up staring at each other uncomfortably, until I decided to point out the girl’s My Little Pony vest. “That’s cool!” I said. Just then a grumpy man walked passed us, muttering that it was not cool, just “something stupid for kids”. In a reflex I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my My Little Pony travel wallet. I waved it defiantly at the man, who shrugged his shoulders and walked on. Obviously furious, the little girl then climbed on her chair and… flipped the tiniest bird ever to be flipped at a race track, right at the grumpy man’s back. I’m still disappointed he didn’t see it! (And also relieved the fathers didn’t see it either. I probably would’ve gotten blamed.)

 

1. Head to Head
I have an annoying habit of typing my tweets while walking. It’s not difficult to do, not even in a paddock, as long as you keep a wary eye on what’s beside and in front of you. You don’t want to be hit by a race car, after all. Over the past seasons I’ve pretty much perfected the technique and I never run into trouble. Well, never? Once. Last May, during the 24 Hours of Spa-weekend, I literally ran into trouble when trouble didn’t come from the side or the front (where I was watching!), but from above. I was walking and tweeting along a support series pre grid, which was located in the paddock at the foot of Eau Rouge, being perfectly aware of the exact locations of all the cars and moving engineers to my left, right and front. Unfortunately, I was also perfectly oblivious to the push-out extension of the Garage 59 team truck that was hanging level with my forehead. I walked into it with a surprisingly loud BANG, almost fell backwards due to the backlash, and saw stars for a few seconds. The moment I regained my bearings, I felt embarrassed. I was surrounded by at least 100 people. How stupid an idiot would they think I was?! And that’s when I realised. Despite the bang, the show and the drama, nobody was looking in my direction. Nobody was pointing at me. Nobody was even laughing. They were all so interested in the pre grid, THAT NOBODY HAD NOTICED. The relief I felt was enormous. (FYI: so was the bump on my forehead.)

When Fandoms Collide

Some people say coincidences don’t exist. I’m not sure what I believe when it comes to that. All I know is that, on Saturday October 22nd at around 11.35h, I found myself wandering the starting grid of the tenth and last VLN race. Normally I spend my grid walks wandering around the first starting group, which is located in front of the pitboxes and includes amongst others the SP9-class. Usually I choose to ogle the cars there because a) it’s less of a walk and b) the SP9-class includes GT3 cars and I LOVE GT3 cars.

 

However, for that particular race the first starting group was relatively small and I thought that for once it’d be fun to check out the slightly slower, but still cool, race cars in the second starting group. So I strolled along the pit building, passed it by, and entered the main straight of the Nürburgring grand prix track at the point where the pit entry catch fence ends and the stone pit wall starts. That divide is the traditional spot where the group two pole sitters get to stand.

 



Normally I could’ve told you all about the pole sitters, but as it was, I barely even noticed them. I was completely distracted by a car that stood a few rows behind them. It wasn’t like most race cars. Most race cars have one fixed base colour, like black or red, and have that covered with all kinds of sponsor names. This car, however, had a base colour (white, if you’re interested) but no sponsors whatsoever. Instead, it was covered in pretty drawings in the Japanese manga style. For a second I thought it was a Japanese team (believe it or not, VLN attracts teams all the way from Asia), but that turned out not to be the case. It was a car run by a German outfit called Kuepper Racing.

 

I instantly pulled out my phone. I have a motorsport friend who loves manga comics and I just knew she had to see this. I took some quick shots of the car and Whatsapped them to my friend. I wasn’t sure what she’d make of them. I definitely didn’t expect any kind of overly exhilarated response, I was just hoping to put a smile on her face. But even so, it was an overly exhilarated response that I got. “OH MY GOODNESS THAT CAR IS COVERED WITH CHARACTERS FROM BLEACH, THAT’S MY FAVOURITE MANGA!!! THIS IS AWESOME!!!”

 



Needless to say I instantly obliged my friend by sending her every single picture of the Kuepper Racing car that I could find on my phone. I even went and buggered my father to see if he had taken any shots of the car in action, to complete my friend’s picture collection. It turned out that he did and again I managed to make my friend very happy. Personally, I thought that would be it. But as my dad and I started our journey home later that afternoon, my phone started to beep. And beep. And beep.

 

It turned out that the Kuepper Racing car had inspired my friend to look up all the Bleach merchandise that she owned. One by one pictures rolled into my Whatsapp of plushies, big ones and small ones, t-shirts, gloves, and even a pyjama that my friend linked to the black-haired character on the right side of the #455 car: “It’s the same guy!!!” It turned out she’d also found the Kuepper Racing website and had dug through the gallery, but had unfortunately only found a few additional shots of the Bleach car – and, to her disappointment, no explanation about the origins of the manga livery.

 



It’s been a few days now, but so far that origin story has remained a mystery. But don’t think my friend has forgotten about it yet. She’s still determined to find out and I suspect it’s only a question of time before she’ll e-mail the team. All she needs first, is a bit of courage - German isn’t her strong point. Still, in this case it might prove to be worth the trouble for her. After all, to her, “this is the best race car ever. It’s such a shame the VLN season is over now. If I’d known this car was there, that livery alone would’ve been worth the trip!” So, Kuepper Racing: if you keep that livery for next season, I can guarantee that you’ll have an extremely dedicated fan for 2017!

Do You Wanna Be a Snowman?

The heating is broken. Or at least, I’m pretty sure that it is. I turned it wide open three days ago and even though the outside temperature hasn’t risen above ten degrees Celsius since then, the radiator continues to feel stone cold to the touch. I’ve put my ear against it (FREEZING!) and I can hear the water running through, so that’s not the problem. I’ve also checked the central heater in the attic, but that’s burning away quite happily at eighteen degrees. So that’s not the problem either. Still, despite the hidden cause, the heating has every appearance of *somehow* being broken.

 

Once it dawned on me that something was wrong, I alerted my father. He seemed rather sceptical about my suspicions. In his opinion, it’s probably not cold enough yet for the heating to start doing its work. I pointed out to him that his own central heating is working fine, even though where he lives the weather is exactly the same as where I live. I was quite proud of that argument, but it had little effect on him. All I got was a vague promise he’d take a look at it later this week if the problems continued.

 

So here I am, sitting behind my computer, wearing the thickest vest I own and wrapped in a thick blanket. Even though some people will undoubtedly say the current eight degrees aren’t cold enough to warrant such attire, I disagree. Eight degrees is freezing cold, especially when you’re forced to spend several hours sitting on a chair behind your desk. The lack of movement quite easily makes eight degrees feel like one. Or maybe even minus one. And that’s not nearly enough to make me a happy bunny.

 





Still, annoying as this ordeal is, it’s good training for the final race I’ll be attending this season: VLN10. Or, that is to say, that I hope to be attending. I’ve planned to go various times before, but it has always been made impossible by coldness. Not the kind of coldness a broken house heating brings, but the kind of coldness caused by the onset of German Eifel winter. The first time I planned to go, I had to stay home because VLN10 was cancelled due to snow fall. The second time I wanted to go, winter arrived so early that even attending VLN9 was impossible. It was so cold that I had to go home an hour before the finish with a stinging headache, which by midnight had developed into a case of sinusitis that would keep me in bed for a week. When temperatures dropped even lower for VLN10, I was again forced to skip it.

 

This year I’m trying again, though, in the hope that the third attempt will be lucky. So far the weather forecasts look fairly okay. There will be some rain in the early morning, but the showers should seize somewhere around 8AM. If there’s not too much fog, qualifying might even get underway at 8.30AM without much delay. Temperatures are predicted to be around 9-10 degrees. That may not be very warm, but we had the same temperatures during VLN9 two weeks ago and if you were dressed properly, it was quite doable.

 

But the biggest risk factor at the moment is snow. When I was at VLN9, a local man warned me that “it is coming. I’ll give it three more weeks at most, but you can feel it in the air. It’s turning chilly. That’s never a good sign.” So right now I’m keeping all my fingers crossed that the suspected snow won’t come just yet. It’d be a shame to have to miss the race again. However, if the snow must come and ruin VLN10, I hope it’ll come before Saturday. As I sit here, freezing despite being wrapped in a thick blanket, I can’t think of anything worse than being at the Nürburgring when the first snowflakes start coming down. You see, despite the fact I’m freezing, I’m not like the characters from Frozen. I do NOT want to build a snowman and I most definitely don’t want to become one either.

The Worst Tragedy in the History of Motorsport

Does anyone here know Alex Toril?

He’s a 20-year-old race car driver from Spain. A couple of seasons ago he was a high-flyer in European Formula 3 and last year he made name for himself by claiming P2 in a soaking wet Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland race in which a submarine would’ve been a far more useful mode of transport than the four-wheeled vehicle he was stuck driving. In 2016, Alex is honing his skills in the VLN Nordschleife championship. He’s racing a Porsche R-Cup in the SP7-class and has already taken five wins, six podiums and a handful of pole-positions.



However, Alex’s results aren’t what I want to write about today. Don’t get me wrong, they’re important. Good results like that are what keep a race car driver in business; but they aren’t what make a race car driver cool. And believe me, Alex Toril is cool. Unlike many of his racing colleagues, Alex has got Style – with a capital S. He’s incredibly aware of what he’s wearing and when it comes to his racing gear, he’ll only accept the absolute best. He demands the right size, the right material and, above all, the right colour. This is why a few months ago he decided to swap his old, grey (BORING!) racing gloves for a pair of brand-new, absolutely fabulous pink ones.

On VLN8-Saturday, Alex allowed me a personal Meet & Greet with his pink gloves. (If you looked at your twitter timeline that day, you may have noticed the almost fifty pictures I uploaded of them.) Upon seeing them in real life, I was almost overawed by their sheer awesomeness. Still, despite that I couldn’t help noticing one tragic problem: Alex’s orange helmet didn’t match their radiant colour, not even in the slightest. When I asked Alex about this, it turned out that his superior sense of Style had already noticed the issue ages ago: “Yeah, I know. I really need a pink helmet to match them, but a new helmet costs 2.500 euros! And pink spray paint is another 500. That’s a lot of money.”



It is, indeed. Most people don’t just have 3.000 euros lying around. I sure don’t and neither do any of my friends – and that’s nothing short of tragic. Go figure. At last there is a driver with the superior brain capacity to recognise the importance of the colour pink for the bettering of his racing career, and then he can’t get the helmet he wishes to have because of A LACK OF MONEY. It’s one thing to not have a race seat due to a lack of money, but missing out on a pink helmet due to financial troubles is just cruel and UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE. It’s the worst piece of motorsport injustice I’ve ever seen.

Leaving Alex to suffer through this dreadful fate on his own would be inhuman. That is why we need to help him – all of us, together. I already looked into starting a crowdfunding campaign, but since I live life without a credit card that proved a bit complicated. So I’ve come up with an alternative way to help him: we need to find him a personal helmet sponsor. I suggest that next Monday everybody goes to ask his/her employer if they have the financial ability to give Alex the 3000 euros he needs to buy himself his dream helmet. (Please note that in return Alex’ll have to put the sponsoring company’s name on his helmet, but even if you work for a potentially ego-painful company like OB or Always: please don’t let that deter you from asking your bosses for help! Sacrifices must be made for great purposes and no one knows that better than Alex.)

So please, my dear readers, take action.

Do it for motorsport. Do it for justice. But, above all, do it for Alex.

(And maybe also do it a little bit for me.)

Footnote: please note that most of the content of this blog has been blown up, overdone, overdrawn, and utterly exaggerated. The entire text is to be taken with a healthy pinch of salt. ;)

We Could Be Heroes

 

“When I was young, I wanted to become a doctor.”
“I wanted to become a teacher, just like my dad. That never happened though, haha!” 
“You’re all so practical. I wanted to become a superhero. Pretty much like Superman.”
“Haha! Did you want to save people?”
“Nah. I just wanted a big red cape. It looked pretty cool on TV.”
“You’re weird... If I were to become a superhero, all I’d be interested in would be having some really cool superhero powers.”
“Such as?”
“As a child, I always wished I could fly.”
“I always really, really, really wanted to be able to do magic.”
“It was all about invisibility for me!”
“It’s funny, isn’t it? Children always want magical superpowers and when you grow up that just… disappears. Kind of.”
“Not for me. Not really. It just changed a bit. I still wish I had superpowers, even today. But now I wish I had the superpower of finishing all my paperwork on time, way before five o’clock, every single workday of the week. Then I’d never have to take it home with me ever again.”
“I’d never thought of that! That’d be cool. I would like to have that superpower too.”
“I know an even better one. I’d like to have a superpower that allows me to convince my boss to give me as many vacation days as I want. I’d only work one week a year. Maybe even less!”
“And we also need the superpower of making annoying colleagues disappear!”
“And the superpower of always maintaining enough air in the office for everyone to breathe, even on hot days! That’d be so awesome.”
“AND the superpower to take care of the garden in literally the blink of an eye. Just one blink and PRESTO. All done! Imagine all the extra free time we’ll get.”
“Haha! Can we also have a superpower that allows you to clean cars that way? My wife always make me do that on Sunday and I hate it. If I only had to blink once to clean it, I’d never have to get up again at seven. I’d be able to sleep in!”
 

*everybody looks at me*
 

“And what superpower would make your life easier?”
“Ehm… a superpower that allows me to look at a picture of the Nordschleife and instantly know what corner I’m looking at?”

Super Duper GT3 Finals Weekend

In my sheer unending brilliance, I once claimed you can never-ever-ever have too many GT3 cars. I’m not sure when I said that. Probably somewhere in 2012 or 2013. I truly believed it at the time too, but fast forward to 2016 and I’ve come to realise it’s not entirely true. It turns out there is such a thing as too many GT3 cars – although only when the cars come spread out over three racing series over the course of one and the same weekend.

 

The weekend of 1-2 October is about to prove it. Due to a small blip that occurred last winter in the department of Racing Series Calendar Planning, next weekend is filled to the brim with GT3 races. Not only is there a GT Open round planned at Monza, there’s also the grand finale of the German ADAC GT Masters taking place in Hockenheim and there’s the Blancpain GT Sprint final in Barcelona. This sudden onslaught of GT3 events has caused quite a mess over the last few weeks.

 

You see, even though GT racing requires multiple drivers per car, the pool of available GT3 drivers isn’t as big as many might think. As a result, PRO-drivers often sign multiple contracts per season and compete in two or more GT3 series simultaneously. Many combinations are possible, but for European racers the combination of Blancpain Sprint and GT Masters is an extremely common one. So with the finals of both these series clashing over the upcoming weekend, many drivers have been forced to choose between doing either the one or the other.

 



Take Christopher Haase, for example. He competes with Saintéloc Racing in Blancpain Sprint and with Land Motorsport in GT Masters, but for this weekend he’s opted to race GT Masters in Hockenheim. Consequently, Saintéloc was left with an empty seat for Blancpain Sprint Barcelona and had to find a substitute racer. Which it did. In the form of Marco Bonanomi. Yes, the very same Marco Bonanomi who normally races with Aust Motorsport in GT Masters and who will now, as a direct result, miss the Hockenheim final! In order to make up for Bonanomi’s sudden disappearance, Aust has had to beg the Audi factory to send them a replacement. Which they did – they sent them Pierre Kaffer. Of course, under normal circumstances Audi would’ve sent its main spare driver Marc Basseng, but since Car Collection had already been suffering an empty seat since August when the aforementioned Haase hopped over to Land Motorsport, Basseng had already been ordered to go and help out the Car Collection crew by the time the Aust call came in and thus wasn’t available.

 

Am I still making sense? I hope so, because the confusion’s about to get worse.

 

Both the Blancpain GT and GT Masters standings are currently being led by the same driver: Christopher Mies. Since Mies isn’t an amoebe (not as far as I can tell anyway) and can’t split himself into two separate entities to fight for both titles at the same time, over the last few weeks he saw himself forced to choose which title he would like to win the most. He could play it safe by opting for Blancpain GT, where he and Enzo Ide have an 18-point lead in the title battle. Or he could go for glory by choosing GT Masters; if he and teammate De Philippi can somehow claim the title for Audi despite the GT Masters’ extremely limiting 2016 Audi BoP, that’d be a massive coup for Ingolstadt. In fairness, there’s something to be said for both options. However, no matter what he did, Mies knew he would unavoidably have to disappoint one of the teams he’s loyal to – and in the end he decided he couldn’t do that. So he put the decision in the hands of the Audi bosses, who at length decided that he should fight for glory in GT Masters.

 

 



Audi’s decision meant that last week there were even more changes made to the GT3 driver distribution. I could tell you all about  those changes. If I wanted to, I could tell you everything I know about how WRT decided to put Robin Frijns in Mies’ empty Blancpain GT seat, how this left WRT a driver short on one of their other cars, and how they had to call on the Audi DTM squad to ask if they perhaps had any GT3-savvy drivers available for the weekend of 1-2 October.

 

But I don’t want to do that.

 

It would just make for another complicated explanation that takes up too much space on the internet and that’ll give me another ginormous headache. Instead, I’m inclined to remember the words of a man I once met in Zandvoort. He told me that the really important races shouldn’t be discussed, no matter how intriguing the factoids might seem. Instead, such races should simply be experienced. I’ve decided that that’s what I want to try and do this weekend. I want to forget about all the mix-ups and the fact that so many drivers are in the ‘wrong’ car. Instead, I just want to enjoy the action. Because I’m pretty sure it’ll be one hell of a ride.

 

Bring on #SuperDuperGT3FinalsWeekend!

In at the Deep End (with Ben Barnicoat)

I love GT racing to the point where I’ll get up for it in the middle of the night if necessary. Unfortunately, some of my friends struggle to share my enthusiasm. They prefer to stick to what they know; aka single-seaters. I’ve tried to win them over by bombarding them with GT fun facts, but the results of that method have been mixed. So last weekend, while attending the Blancpain Endurance Cup at the Nürburgring, I decided to try something new. The event didn’t just mark the end of the Blancpain Endurance season, it was also the GT debut of Formula 3 ace Ben Barnicoat. Barnicoat was confirmed for Blancpain Nürburgring only 40 hours before the start of the event and barely 24 hours after his first-ever GT test (yikes!), which makes him as new to GT racing as my sceptical friends. If my friends won’t take my word for it that GT racing is cool, then maybe they’ll take that of a single-seater racer who’s crossing over. Guys, this one’s for you!

 

Out of nowhere WRT announced you’d be driving the Blancpain Endurance final in their number 4 car, alongside Pierre Kaffer and Adrien de Leener. Can you explain how that deal came about? Because I never saw it coming!
“To be honest, I don’t know how it happened either! I just kind of found myself here… On Tuesday the 6th of September I got a phone call from the Racing Steps Foundation. They told me WRT wanted me to test with them in Barcelona, on Wednesday the 14th. I was really excited to get that opportunity, only I’d never driven a GT car before. The test was my first time driving the car and I tried to learn everything I could. I did a qualifying and a race simulation, which went well. At the end of the day the gap to regular WRT-driver Robin Frijns was only about three tenths. I was very happy with that!”  

 



 

And then they told you the drive was yours?
“No. I thought it was just a test. I had no idea there was any chance of a racing drive, so I just went back to the airport to catch my flight home. At ten o’clock that night, when I was still at the airport, I got another call from the Racing Steps Foundation. They said “okay, you’re going to the Nürburgring this weekend to race Blancpain Endurance on the 17th and 18th”, and I was like “Oh wow… OKAY!!”

 

You’re new to GT racing. What has the experience been like so far?
“It’s been a really big eye-opener. From the first I was happy about getting this opportunity, but I didn’t realise until I started my preparations how high the level of the Blancpain series is. Obviously I knew it was a strong series from back when I was racing NEC Formula Renault [=a Blancpain support series] in 2014, but I never realised just how much the manufacturers were involved and to what extent they’re pushing the cars.”

 

And was that the only surprise?
“Everything’s new for me, so there’ve been many surprises. The car, for example, is much harder to drive than I expected. I thought it’d be a little easier than a single-seater, but if anything I’m finding it harder at the moment. I’m also impressed with the high quality of the drivers. Take Robin Frijns. From what he’s done in his single-seater career I knew he was a good driver, but being his teammate and seeing his data… he’s just really, really good! This weekend I’m going to try and learn as much from him as I can. And then there’s the traffic. In single-seaters, if you want to finish well, it’s all about where you qualify; but here in GT, it’s all about who can pass the backmarkers the fastest. I’ve noticed that the bronze drivers, and some of the silver drivers too, don’t always move out of the way straight away, so for a GT newcomer like myself that’s tricky.”

 



How is the transition going from having your own car to sharing one with two teammates?
“Pierre’s an experienced driver and he’s helping me a lot this weekend. Adrien’s also very kind. It’s nice to be in a car with two such nice people. At first I thought they might be worried because this is my first GT race, but so far I’m showing strong pace and they’re happy with the job I’m doing. So no problems there. But you know, I’ve yet to do a GT-pitstop with a driver change. That’s going to be a challenge.”

 

As long as you don’t climb out of the car and fall flat on your face, I think you’ll be fine.
“A lot of the guys told me that that was what they expected me to do during my first practice, but luckily it wasn’t that bad. There’s room for improvement, but I always pull it off quickly enough. At any rate, I’m planned to do the last stint of the race so I’ll only have to climb in!” 

 

I have some GT-sceptic friends. Is there anything you’d like to say to them?
“After driving the Audi GT3, I’d say they should definitely give GT racing a chance. As an F3 driver I can say it really isn’t any easier than single-seaters. Also, GT drivers are just as talented as single-seater drivers. Again, Frijns is the perfect example. He probably should’ve been an F1 driver, but in this field he didn’t even qualify in the top two. It just shows how strong the drivers and the teams are. Come Sunday there’ll be some very good battles. It’s well worth watching – and supporting.”

 

Barnicoat and his teammates had a strong start to their Blancpain Endurance race, but ultimately finished in 29th place after suffering a puncture. If you want to see their race, click here.

Postponing the Inevitable

It’s that time of year again. That time when the season has well passed its midway point. That time when it’s become obvious who the lucky few are that can still go for the title. That time when the first champions are beginning to be crowned. (Although with some luck only in series I don’t follow too closely.) That time when it’s becoming increasingly clear that, as they say in Game of Thrones, winter is coming.

 

However, it’s also the time when the true end of the season is still just far enough away to go on denying its existence for a little while longer. After all, even if most of the racing calendar is behind us now, most championships have at least a round left to run. Some even have three or four races left to go, like DTM. That means there are still many, many weekends on the way in 2016 in which I can enjoy watching races from my comfy couch. And of course there are also still some weekends on the way in which I’ll go and attend race events live! Although… I’m getting  frighteningly close the bottom of my calendar. There’s Blancpain Endurance this weekend and then VLN8 next week, and then… nothing.

 

That’s where the list ends.

 

Or, does it?

 

My motorsport friends and I have very different characters, but there’s one thing we all have in common. The moment we’re getting signals that our string of race visits is about to end, we all fly into a frenzy. A but-what-if?! frenzy. Suddenly ideas are flying around the room left, right, and center. “Yes, I know VLN8 was the last race we had planned to attend, but the weather is still good and we still have a little bit of money left, so what if we also went to…[fill in event+venue here]?”

It’s not always easy to find races to attend so late in the season. From September onwards, championships either end or leave Europe, to race on tracks where the weather hasn’t gone into early-winter mode yet. But scarce options or no, we somehow always manage to come up with a pretty decent short list. In the last three weeks, I’ve heard many ideas, ranging from attending VLN9 and VLN10 to the GT Masters final in Hockenheim, the DTM final in Hockenheim and even the Blancpain GT Sprint final in Barcelona.

 

That last one is definitely the most bonkers idea – and probably also the most impossible one to turn into a reality. Provided I can scrape together the money for an air-plane ticket to Barcelona and back, my only option to return home on time for work on Monday morning would be to fly home on Sunday afternoon… during the main race. The other suggestions, however, might well turn out to be doable. Maybe not all of them (that’d cause financial trouble), but with some planning an extra VLN race and perhaps a Hockenheim final seem to be realistic options right now.

 

My friends and I would really love to extend our race-visit calendars a bit. It would mean getting to see this-and-that driver racing once more in his current car before he/she moves up to another series. It would also mean getting to support our favourite teams one more time. And of course it would mean getting to breathe in one more whiff of gasoline aroma before we’ll have to go without for a whole winter. I guess that’s what all this late-season buzz is really about, when it comes down to it. We’re simply trying to postpone the season’s end; to postpone the coming of the big W and the empty weekends it brings; and, most importantly, to postpone the inevitable. Forever, if we can.
 

And if we can’t, then at least until the middle of October.

The Grid Girl Garments

Last week I wrote a blog about grid girls. I fully expected to be lynched for it, as the few tweets I posted about grid girls in the past triggered rather extreme replies. However, even though the response to that blog was larger than usual, people on the whole were fairly positive about what I had to say. That has given me the courage to write this second blog about grid girls, to address the other thing about them that I dislike: their clothes.

 

Before the pitchforks come out, I should quickly say that I’m not writing this blog to criticise the design of the clothes the girls are given to wear. Okay, fine. I’ll admit that personally I see no appeal in girls (or, for that matter, men) who are clad in scantily-designed outfits that leave half their bodies uncovered, but I know everyone is different. Just because I personally would sooner buy a product when it’s promoted by a fluffy puppy than a fashion model, it doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who prefer to see a model – and as long as that model is willing to do the job and is paid properly for doing it, there’s no reason these people shouldn’t get the visuals they want. Also, there undoubtedly are models who find wearing such outfits empowering. And if so, all power to them.

 

But what enrages me time and again, is that in motorsport grid girl/promo girl outfits are hardly ever matched with the weather. When an event organiser has decided that their girls should wear heels, a mini skirt and an upper-body garment that holds the middle ground between a tank top and a bra, that is exactly what they will wear. Even if the series races at a track like the Nürburgring, where it’s sometimes 5 degrees Celsius with a storm wind rolling in from the North East.

 

Too many times I’ve sat on a grandstand, wrapped in six layers of clothing and still freezing, while watching a grid full of girls who are braving the cold in their bare skin, with red knees, pale hands, frozen fingers, and blue lips. I know grid girls are paid a good salary for the work they do, but somehow I can’t imagine they knowingly sign up for such dreadful working conditions. Surely they expect better than that – and, moreover, deserve better than that?

 

I’ll never forget the pitwalk I did at Zandvoort a few years ago. It was below ten degrees and the sea wind was howling around the pit building. The promo girls that day were clad in cat suits so thin that I couldn’t just tell the form and model of their underpants, in one case I could even tell the colour. All of them were shivering like mad. As the pitwalk went on, the girls suffered more and more from hypothermia. After fifteen minutes one dropped the sign she was holding and walked away. Her neighbour decided on a different tactic. She turned to the mechanics in the garage behind her and begged them for a coat. Nobody even bothered to look up. So she turned to another garage for aid, but got the same response there. In the end one of the fans pulled a vest out of his bag and handed it to her. I’ve rarely seen such gratitude on a race track.

 

I know for a fact that I’m not the only one bothered by this mismatch of weather and clothing. Last year, while attending an event I won’t name here, I was walking through the paddock and came across a member of the organisation who was having a huge row with a furious woman. She was shouting abuse at the top of her lungs. “How dare you?! This is not what we signed up for! My girls are getting ill this way, IT’S FREEZING COLD! I will not stand for this! You either come up with decent clothes or we will never, EVER, work with you again! This is sick!!!” I don’t know who she was, but the girls who work for her should be proud to have someone like her fighting for their rights. I honestly hope that the woman made good on her threats too. Unless agencies stop accepting that their employees are made to work in tough weather conditions in unsuitable clothing, I fear the practice will continue for a long time to come.

The Grid Girl Comparison

Grid girls. A long time ago I made a conscious decision to avoid the topic of grid girls as much as possible on @girltalksracing. The reason is not that I’m oblivious to their presence, but because even the smallest comment about them usually evokes rather extreme commentary.

 

To give you an example, I was spending the weekend at a friend’s house once and she’s a motorbike fan so on Sunday morning we were watching a motorbike race. I can’t quite remember which one. MotoGP, I think. Anyhow, at some point I saw an umbrella girl that was rather minimally dressed. So I took a picture of the tv and in an attempt to be funny, I tweeted something along the lines of “fashion conundrum: can we still classify this outfit as ‘clothes’ or is this already in the ‘bikini’-range?” I didn’t realise until later that if you read that tweet in a particular way, it could be seen as having a critical undertone – although that was never my intention. Nonetheless, I’m not sure I deserved the barrage of ‘GRID GIRLS MUST STAY’, ‘KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OUR TRADITION’ and ‘YOU ******* FEMINIST’ that I received.

 

After all, never in all the time that I’ve been running @girltalksracing have I called for the tradition to be abolished.

 

If you were wondering why that line is standing on its own: that’s in case I’ve re-enraged some people by mentioning that old tweet. Maybe the counter-comment’ll stand out more that way. But where was I? Ah yes, the tradition of grid girls. I’ve never asked for the tradition to be abolished, because I know it’s tied in with the sport’s history and I can respect it if people wish to maintain the girls for that reason. That doesn’t mean, however, that I’ve never had any struggles with the grid girl phenomenon...

 

The grid girls often represent (Western) society’s underlying ideals of femininity: beautiful, professional hairdo, perfect make up, prominent cleavage, high heels, dressed provocatively, quiet, smiling, and decorative. These are ideals I’m not able to live up to, not even on the best of my days, let alone on a race track. My hair is usually one big wind-caused explosion, I’ve never worn make up in my life, I’ll never be more than an A-Cup, I’ve a problem with my feet so I wear flat shoes only, I’m usually dressed to withstand -45 degrees and snow (aka I look like an eskimo), I’m probably not quiet, I only smile when my favourite drivers do well, and on the whole I’m nowhere near decorative. And you know: that’s okay. If people think that makes me unattractive, they are free to think so.

 

But somehow there’s something about grid girls that gives a certain type of person the feeling they can suddenly say their thoughts out loud. Too often I’ve heard groups of bystanders comparing grid girls to each other, choosing the one that has the best ‘assets’. I’ve also heard unknown people compare me to grid girls. The low-point example of that is definitely the time at a VLN race that I was sitting on my own on a grandstand and a man some distance off suddenly yelled: “HEY! THE BOOBS OF THE GRID GIRL AT *TEAMNAMEICANTREMEMBER* ARE MUCH BIGGER THAN YOURS!” Yes, well. Thanks for demonstrating your comparison skills?

 

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I don’t mind if race track visitors look at grid girls. They choose to be grid girls and they receive a good salary to be eye candy. But at the same time I wish that everyone would remember that they represent social beauty ideals – and in the real world no woman, not even a grid girl, can be 100% perfect and ideal all the time. So please don’t pass judgment when you see discrepancies. It’s quite simply unkind.

 

And if saying that makes me a ‘******* feminist’, then: guilty as charged.

The Quiet Kind

For a while I always stayed at the same hotel whenever I went to the Nürburgring. This hotel came with its own pub, which was frequented by hotel guests and locals alike.  An evening in the hotel pub was always a small adventure. Behind the bar would be one of the owners, Jürgen, a bold man who spoke German and very little else but believed that if you shouted loud enough you’d always get your message across, even in a foreign language. His wife Janna ran the kitchen and was only ever seen in the pub when serving out her home-cooked meals.

 

About four years ago, I walked into the pub on a quiet Friday night. All the tables were empty and there were only three bar stools taken; one by Jürgen, one by the local he was talking to, and one by an older man I’d never seen before. He was sitting in silence, staring at his pint of beer, presumably listening to Jürgen’s wild story of reversing a truck onto a busy crossroads in the middle of Cologne during rush hour. When Jürgen saw me, he shouted at me to get myself a bar stool. “IT’S SO EMPTY TONIGHT THAT SITTING AT A TABLE’S STUPID. GO TALK TO ARNOLD HERE.” He pointed at the older man. “HE’S HAVING ONE OF HIS QUIET DAYS.”

 

I dutifully sat down next to Arnold, who didn’t say much at first. It wasn’t until Janna had brought me an apple juice that we struck up a conversation about how similar in colour our separate drinks were. After that, I ventured to ask Arnold where he was from. He said he’d been born and raised in a village down the road. Then he asked me why I was staying in the hotel. When I told him I was there to visit the Nürburgring, he smiled. “I’ve been going to the Ring since I was a boy. I love that place. These days I often work there as a volunteer.” Soon after he finished his beer and left the pub. I didn’t think much of the conversation.

 

On Saturday night I returned to the pub and found it very crowded. I had just sat down at the last empty table with one of Janna’s home-cooked meals, when out of nowhere somebody sat down next to me. It was Arnold. “I’m glad I found you. I wanted to show you this.” He placed an old photo album on the table. “I was a marshall at the Nürburgring in the sixties and seventies. Have you ever seen the Ring in those days?” He opened the album and revealed a wonderful collections of black-and-white, slightly faded photographs.

 

Some pictured people, Arnold’s friends and fellow marshalls, of whom Arnold dutifully told me their life stories. Others showed a small tent next to the Nordschleife. “This was our marshall post. It gave us good shelter from the rain, but it wasn’t very stable. One day the wind was so strong it got blown into the forest and up a tree!” He burst out laughing. “We had to climb up and get it!” The album also contained photos of concrete buildings. With Arnold’s help I managed to recognise the pit building and some other Nürburgring landmarks. It seemed he had a funny story to tell about all of them. He did so with much gusto, too.

 

The final photograph in the album was a shot of an empty medical stretcher. When I asked Arnold what the story behind the picture was, his face turned grey. The light in his eyes faded and then disappeared altogether. “I thought I’d thrown that away,” he muttered. “That was taken in 1976. We were marshalling on the Nordschleife when we suddenly heard a lot of noise. I’ve never forgotten what I saw that day. We tried to help, but it was so difficult. Poor Niki. No one deserves to have such an accident. I’ve never marshalled again after that. Some of my friends tried to go on, but I just couldn’t do it anymore.. Nowadays I try to make myself useful for the Ring as a volunteer, even though it’s not the same.” Arnold closed the photo album and bid me goodnight again.

 

I saw him a few more times after that, but he was never again as talkative as that Saturday night. Some locals later told me he lived alone with two cats and didn’t go out much. They also said he’d been suffering from depression for over fourty years, which would put the starting point of his struggle somewhere in the 1970s. I’m not sure how much Lauda’s accident had to do with Arnold’s fall into sadness, but if it was the cause of it then marshalls run even greater risks than I thought they did.

Looks Can Be Deceiving

Last GT Masters weekend, there was some commotion about how long it took for the marshalls to pull away the #3 Bonaldi car after it had been punted off the Nürburgring by the Bentley #8. When I got home from watching the race live at the track, I found the residue of the hubbub in my timeline. Some people claimed the marshalls had been “incompetent”, “moronic”, and even “lazy”.

 

I didn’t understand where these comments came from until I saw the TV footage of the race. In it, you first see a brief shot of the marshalls pulling the stranded Bonaldi towards the barriers. The footage then cuts back to the remaining race cars cruising behind the safety car. Some minutes later, the director again shows a brief shot of the stranded Bonaldi. It hasn’t moved one bit and everything around the car looks quiet. Cue online outrage and verbal abuse by fans who would dearly like to see the race continue.

 

But you know, TV footage – especially when cut into brief shots – can be deceiving.

 

As I said before, I was at the Nürburgring to watch the GT Masters event live and during race 1 I happened to be sitting on a grandstand near the corner where the Bonaldi went off. This gave me an excellent view of the “incompetent”, “moronic”, and “lazy” marshalls in action. 

 

I’m not entirely sure what the damage to the Lamborghini was after the crash, but from where I was sitting it looked like the right front suspension had broken. The car was hanging crookedly at an awkward angle, at any rate. The marshalls quickly approached the car, checked if the driver was okay (physically he was fine, in terms of mood; not so much) and went to work on the Lambo. They called out a tractor and attached a pulling line to the rear of the car. Very slowly they started pulling it towards the barriers. The slow speed was deliberate, because the odd angle at which the car was hanging meant that the right front tended to dig itself into the gravel.

 

Just before reaching the safety of the barriers, where the gravel made way for asphalt, the front dug itself in so deeply that the Lamborghini landed flat on its stomach. The marshalls tried, but it was impossible to continue pulling the car backwards without seriously damaging it. This must’ve been the moment when the first brief shot appeared on TV.

 

The marshalls tried to dig the Lamborghini out, but it was impossible. They then tried to push it forwards again, back into the gravel pit and up the gulley the front had dug, but this couldn’t be done with just 3-4 people. Some other marshalls saw the trouble and instantly came running. All together, they managed to free the car. While all this was happening, yet another marshall was shouting into a radio. It looked like he was trying to call for a crane, but it apparently couldn’t get there on time. (It didn’t arrive until 15 minutes later.)

 

Suddenly one of the marshalls had an idea. He told the tractor to drive into the gravel pit and park itself literally against the rear end of the Lamborghini. The marshall then took the pulling line and wrapped it so tightly and ingeniously around the rear of the Bonaldi and the front of the tractor that the trolley could pull the car upwards before driving backwards – making it impossible for the Lambo to dig itself in again. While the marshalls were doing this, hidden largely from view of the cameras, the second brief shot aired. Barely a minute later, the car had been pulled safely behind the barriers.

 

Now, I know that I’m not the number one all-out expert on marshalling practices, but I wouldn’t call this performance “incompetent”. I wouldn’t call it “lazy” either. Personally, I would call it “inventive” and “much better than anything I could’ve come up with that quickly”.

A Pirate Code for Race Fans

I’ve been a race fan for most of my life. I’m proud of that and I strongly feel the motorsport fan community has a good thing going. In all the years I’ve followed the sport I’ve never encountered a motorsport hooligan; and up until this day I’ve never had any of my belongings stolen at a race track. *knocks on wood* I also like that the fan community feels like a big family, especially when it’s cold and rainy and you’re all together huddled beneath a grandstand to wait out a weather-induced red flag.

 



 

However, human beings are never perfect and neither is the motorsport fan community. I’ve encountered situations over the years that left me thinking: “Is this really necessary?” One of the most poignant happened last weekend, during the final hour of the 24 Hours of Spa. A rain shower had unexpectedly hit the track and was causing chaos. Cars on slicks were sliding off the asphalt left, right, and centre. At some point it became evident that the utterly out-of-control Konrad Lamborghini was going to hit the beached Black Falcon #57. Several seconds before it happened many people on my grandstand were already cheering and when the crash finally took place they screamed their lungs out and even danced. Seeing as the crash was big enough to hurt someone, I found this rather appalling behaviour.

 

The incident left me rueing the fact that there is no Code of Conduct for Race Fans, a bit like the Pirate Code featured in Pirates of the Caribbean. I know the rules in that code are “more like guidelines” than actual laws, but to me the codex always seemed a neat thing to have. So on the way home last Sunday night I came up with a list of ten rules that I think race fans should follow to make the fan community even better. No doubt there’ll be people who disagree with these rules, but that’s the beauty of democracy, isn’t it? Anyways, here are my ten cents.

 

1. At a track you’ll be surrounded by a myriad of people who support different teams and/or drivers than you do. Accept this. Don’t pick fights with them or yell things at them.
2. Never boo a driver/team who makes a public appearance in the fan area or the pitlane. It’s insulting and they won’t be able to defend themselves against a crowd.
3. Never boo a driver/team who stands on the podium. This is possibly even more insulting than 2, because not only are they unable to defend themselves against a crowd, they can’t even leave the podium if they wanted to.
4. Never cheer when you see a crash, regardless of who is in the car or what you think of them. Accidents are part of this sport, but they’re also what makes this sport dangerous. Even if the cars are safer than ever now, even the most innocent-looking crash can still kill a driver. So if you must cheer, do so when the crashed driver gets out of the car unharmed.
5. If a sign says “team personnel only”, don’t try to sneak in regardless. This’ll only put teams on their guard and ultimately make them more strict.
6. Similarly, don’t try to sneak into a pitlane or onto a race grid when you have no permission to be there. This’ll only make organisers more strict and less likely to organise pit/gridwalks.
7. Never insult track marshalls. They may not always be perfect. They may not always be right. They may sometimes tell you to get out of an area where you’re allowed to be. But always remember that without them there would be no racing at all. Reason with them if you must or find a second marshall to prove the first one wrong, but don’t call them names.
8. Treat grid/promo girls with respect. It’s hard for me to understand why they evoke the responses in male fans that they do, as I see no appeal in the presence of scantily-clad women (or scantily clad men, for that matter) on a race track. But if you’re inclined to look at them, please treat them as you would any other woman. Don’t stand in front of them and loudly comment on who is prettiest/ugliest. Don’t take pictures up their skirts. Don’t touch them unless they’ve given you permission.
9. Don’t compare a female driver with a grid or promo girl. This is the 21st century. Girls are capable of fulfilling any role in motorsport that they want and there’s no need to revert them to the role they played historically.
10. Obviously 9 also goes for female team managers, engineers, mechanics, communication employees, catering workers, etc.

No Pressure

Dear 24 Hours of Spa,

How are you doing? I’m fine and I hope you are too. I know we haven’t spoken in a while. It must have been about a year. I guess the silence has been mostly my fault. I wasn’t very nice to you in 2015, when it rained heavily during all the days of your event. I can particularly remember the Saturday. By the time I got back to the hotel, my socks were soaked, there was a centimetre of water in my backpack, and even my skin was wet. I know I used some very choice words then, especially as I was wringing out my backpack, but I hope you know I didn’t mean them. I was just very tired. That was all. I swear!

Right now it’s my biggest wish that things between us can go back to how they were before. Not just because I genuinely want to rekindle our friendship, but also because I need your help. (And when I say ‘I’, I technically mean ‘me and all endurance fans everywhere’). You see, it’s been a tough season for 24-hour racing.

At the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring, the weather was deplorable. Hail balls cannoned from the skies; and at one point there was even snow! But the real hitch of the event was the finish. Some fifteen minutes before the end of the race various strange things happened within the Mercedes camp, which lead to the two frontrunners switching places on the last lap and the eventual number two-finishers accusing the winners of ignoring team orders and claiming they’d been robbed off the victory. One of the drivers of the number two-car even refused to go on the podium and only one of them showed up for the press conference. The mud-throwing went on for days afterwards, tainting the entire race.

At the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the finish wasn’t a much more cheerful affair. Toyota had looked set to claim their first victory – at last, after all those decades of trying! – but a lousy three minutes before the clock hit zero their car broke down. The looks of the Toyota crew as they were watching it happen on tv were heart-breaking, especially if you know that this wasn’t the first time this happened to them. (In 1994 a transmission problem ended their victory dreams 90 minutes before the finish.) I’m one of those nerds who frequently cries at the end of a 24-hour race, but I swear this is the one and only time I cried for sheer sadness.

And all that, my dearest 24 Hours of Spa, is what brings me to you. You’re the only remaining European around-the-clock endurance race left in 2016. After the anger of the Nürburgring and the heartache of Le Mans, my fellow race fans and I could honestly do with a dose of proper racing topped off with some no-nonsense, unmitigated happiness at the finish line. I know the proper racing-bit probably won’t be too difficult for you. However, I am hereby officially begging you: please try – really try – to give us a nice finish, without fights, without heart-rending drama, and with a winning car that has deserved the victory without a single doubt. I don’t want to put pressure on you, but me and the other endurance fans around the world are putting all our hopes on you. Please, please make it work. Please?

Kind regards,

Girl Talks Racing

How to Show Affection in Motorsport

I don’t like bullies. This is partially because of principles, but also largely because I was bullied myself as a child, by a boy at my primary school. He taught me how to hate recess. Every day he would come after me, kick me, hit me, spit on me or at one point even push me off a climbing frame. I tried to tell people of authority. Of course I did. But the teachers said they couldn’t do anything until they actually saw the boy bullying me, which they never did because he wasn’t so stupid as to do anything when school staff was around. My mother also laughed at my complaints. She said the boy was probably just teasing me because he ‘liked’ me. In the end the bullying went on for a year, until the boy moved schools, and in all that time nobody ever came to my aid.

I’ve never had cause to connect my experiences with bullying to motorsport. Of course motorsport has always encased political tricks, intimidation and mind games, but somehow I’ve never really classed those as ‘bullying’. It’s not that I approve of any of those behaviours. It’s more that that self-centered way of dealing with the world seems to be so interconnected with professional sports that it has transcended common bullying and become a culture, an athlete’s way of life. All behaviour spawned by this culture serves to help achieve a goal; the goal of winning. For example, a driver who is verbally intimidating an opponent is doing so in the hope that his words will result in a beneficial mistake on-track. In that sense, the behaviour isn’t even personal. It’s just a means to a selfish end.



When I think of ‘bullying’, however, I imagine a type of behaviour that’s not aimed at achieving a specific goal, but that stems from internal frustration and is taken out on another person for the express purpose of putting him/her down and causing pain; all to make the bully feel better about him/herself. As far as I’m able to tell, such bullying is relatively rare in motorsport, even if I did hear rumours last year about Formula 3’s Maxi Günther being bullied out of Mücke by his teammates. The story was never fleshed out though and no official action was ever taken. Who knows, maybe that ruined some of the series’ karma.

Off-track driver behaviour has been questionable in formula 3 this season. In the past weeks there were two major incidents that have given me cause to genuinely worry. The first one happened in Hungary, when Nikita Mazepin thought it was justified to rough up Callum Ilott for blocking him in free practice. Mazepin was called to the stewards and handed a whopping one-race suspension. Various people, myself included, felt the punishment was too light. A three-race ban for the whole weekend would’ve sent a far stronger signal about where the uncrossable line between good and simply unacceptable lies. Now, however, it feels like Mazepin got a very-nearly-free pass out of trouble. And I can’t help but wonder: is that a possible reason we saw a second incident at the Norisring?

In the third Norisring race, Mücke-drivers Beckmann and Jensen crashed into each other, both retiring as a result of the clash. During live coverage, Jensen (21) was shown hanging over Beckmann’s cockpit to have a good shout at his 16-year-old teammate. Later on, the duo was shown standing side by side behind the barriers, with Jensen shouting some more at Beckmann and deliberately invading his personal space to make him uncomfortable. If that wasn’t enough, the last few seconds of the highlights reel showed a shot of Jensen in which it very much seems like he’s grabbing Beckmann by the hair.

Click here to view.



I’m not sure what to make of the footage. As far as I know, Beckmann didn’t file any assault charges and the stewards didn’t get involved either, even though they had an obvious reason to do so, especially given the precedent of the Mazepin incident. It would’ve been a fantastic opportunity for them to make up for the mediocre way in which they handled that indiscretion. But all there was after Norisring, was silence. Utter silence. And no clarity.

Ever since I’ve often found myself thinking of my school bully. I’ll never forget how lonely I felt when I realised no one of authority was going to help me. I can imagine that Ilott and Beckmann (if the scene pictured above is indeed what it looks like) have also become familiar with the feeling. After the stewards’ questionable responses to their respective incidents, who can they turn to now for protection? In fact, who can anyone in formula 3 turn to for protection if something like this were to happen again? And why wouldn’t it happen again, if the punishment is practically non-existent? I’ve always believed that, despite the culture of mind games and intimidation, sportsmanlike behaviour existed in motorsport and that it was championed by those in charge. But maybe I was wrong and naive. Or maybe sportsmanlike behaviour has started to die off. Or perhaps this is simply how Formula 3-drivers show they ‘like’ each other. Don’t people say boys will always be boys?