You know something? Marie Antoinette almost certainly didn’t actually say “let them eat cake”. Mice don’t actually like cheese that much. And – in one common notion that I’ve always found especially odd – Sweden doesn’t actually have a particularly high suicide rate.
But that’s the problem with myths. While they’re not necessarily false they’re not necessarily true either. Often they can take on lives of their own – everyone says them because everyone says them; the reliability or otherwise of their origination long since has been swamped.
Inevitably, it manifests in F1 also. And as is appropriate too by far F1’s most mythical team Ferrari has more myths around it than any other. But, also inevitably, just like in the world beyond the circuit’s perimeter fence those myths aren’t always borne out in actuality. Sometimes indeed, almost the polar opposite is.
We got graphic demonstration when the Scuderia against some expectation and/or hope depending on perspective announced in Silverstone that Kimi Raikkonen was being kept on for another season. Plenty opened up the box of Maranello myths for their ‘explanation’. Ferrari has ‘always’ been conservative in its driver selections, they said. Ferrari too has ‘always’ had a strict number one and number two relationship in its driver line up. And Kimi conforms with both considerations.
But the trouble is that neither of them are true. Not ‘always’ anyway. Indeed in a general sense F1 past is such a long and varied thing that perhaps the only thing that ‘always’ applies is that we should ‘always’ be sceptical if someone claims something was ‘always’ the case… This is the latest instance where our scepticism is justified.
On the strict number one status. Actually no, it’s not Ferrari’s way. Not historically anyway, it’s a relatively recent practice only. For the most part its approach has been on the contrary indeed.
First on the strict number one status. Actually no, it’s not Ferrari’s way. Not historically anyway, it’s a relatively recent practice only. For the most part its approach has been on the contrary indeed. As while back in the day it was common for competing squads to have a firm single go-to guy among their drivers (see Lotus, Vanwall, even Williams in its early days), Ferrari did things rather differently and for decades.
Reflecting this as well as the distinction with his experience elsewhere, Tony Brooks noted after joining in 1959 that “at Ferrari I always got a car which was as good as my team mate’s – which is more than I can say for the time with Vanwall”.
While seasoned Maranello-watcher Nigel Roebuck took up the story more broadly in 1983. “Drivers, not cars, have always been Ferrari’s problem” he explained. “Over the years there has been a consistent unwillingness to appoint a firm team leader, and this has led to endless problems. It is an unfathomable fact that this most disciplined of teams has rarely, if ever, applied any code of discipline to its drivers. Think back to Castellotti and Musso at Monza in 1956, changing off into the distance, fighting between themselves before an Italian crowd, destroying their tyres and very nearly themselves. Remember Villeneuve and Pironi last year.”
As Roebuck suggests with this apparent nobility things weren’t always pleasant though – indeed Ferrari drivers’ retainers used to be known for being pitiful by comparison with rivals. All in keeping with a general status as transferable and dispensable. Sometimes too intra-team rivalries touched unhealthy levels.
[Enzo] Ferrari’s reluctance to name a number one driver stems, in part, from a deep-seated conviction that his cars take their drivers to victory – and not the other way round – Nigel Roebuck
And Roebuck reckoned there was a reason for this. “[Enzo] Ferrari’s reluctance to name a number one driver stems, in part, from a deep-seated conviction that his cars take their drivers to victory – and not the other way round” he said. “He has always liked as many drivers as possible to win in Ferraris, seeing this as vindication of his belief in the products of Maranello. Therefore intense rivalry between Ferrari drivers has never been exactly discouraged. As Jackie Stewart recently remarked, ‘It’s not a place for the faint of heart…’”
Stirling Moss concurred. “He [Ferrari] doesn’t really care about his drivers – he cares about his cars”. And Stirling suspected that perhaps, erm, additional lengths were gone to with this in mind. “I reckon he always used to allow different drivers to win different races by giving them better cars sometimes” he went on, “[thus] giving the impression that the driver didn’t count for anything, that it was the car which won”.
As the adage attributed loosely to the Commendatore Enzo Ferrari went – Ferrari cars won races; Ferrari drivers lost them. But the point of change from this can be pinpointed. To 1996, eight years after Enzo’s passing, when Ferrari threw its chips in with Michael Schumacher, paying him top dollar and building everything around him, emphatically staking the team’s and not the driver’s reputation with the venture. It was a departure in more ways than one.
The point of change can be pinpointed. To 1996, eight years after Enzo’s passing, when Ferrari threw its chips in with Michael Schumacher.
And while the Commendatore you suspect strongly would have adored the stunningly fast, brave and imperturbable German, you suspect about as strongly he would have been less enamoured with what was built around him at Maranello. In Enzo’s time there were exceptions, at least in practice, such as with Alberto Ascari and Niki Lauda in effect being lead drivers (possibly not in a big coincidence the two periods in history, in addition to Schumi’s pomp, in which Ferrari has done most of its winning). But pre-1996 they were but exceptions.
As for the other claim, on Ferrari always signing conservative, well we can debate what is meant by ‘conservative’ but the consensus appears to be that Italian team wants finished articles in the drivers it picks. A few have noted in this regard that the squad hasn’t signed a driver without any F1 wins since Felipe Massa in 2006. Well, ignoring that (discounting the mid-season stop-gap appointments of 2009) the team has only made four driver signings in total since – so it’s a low and therefore volatile base – and that of those three of them – Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel – were signed as clear lead drivers and the other – Raikkonen again – was signed in large part as the team thought Alonso might be about to leave… In other words this trend might not tell us much in the round.
We can add too that Massa’s two predecessors – Rubens Barrichello and Eddie Irvine – also had no wins prior to joining the Scuderia. Neither did Jean Alesi just before them; neither did one of the French-Sicilian’s early team mates Ivan Capelli. So it wasn’t like Felipe’s signing was a grand shift in approach.
But it goes deeper. Again, for much of Ferrari history things were on the contrary of what is being assumed now.
Ferrari’s way for decades was to create champions rather than sign them. Almost without exception drivers brought in were young and on the way up, their peak still ahead of them.
Ferrari’s way for decades was to create champions rather than sign them. Almost without exception drivers brought in were young and on the way up, their peak still ahead of them. This wasn’t especially turned on its head in itself by Schumi’s signing (as he of course was still young and prior to his peak in 1996), but it may seem hard to believe that he was only the third former F1 world champion driver that Ferrari had signed ever. While the previous two – Juan Manuel Fangio and Alain Prost – lasted not even three years in total between them at Maranello. Since there have been plenty of champions signed of course, with in the shape of Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel the number in the team’s history doubling since just 2010. And the structure of at least a de facto master and servant relationship in the driver pairing has lingered too. Since Schumi’s Ferrari spell began only really when Kimi and Felipe were together in 2007 to 2009 was there not an obvious kingpin.
No one has made their F1 debut in a Ferrari since Arturo Merzario in the early 1970s, but equally this isn’t a wider indicator. Even revered names in Maranello folklore were signed early. We can start with a few of its champions indeed – Phil Hill had participated in but one Grande Epreuve when he arrived at Maranello. Mike Hawthorn just five. Niki Lauda came into the team for 1974 with a grand total of two points in two seasons to his name. John Surtees sounds almost seasoned by comparison – with three podium places in three years (as well as a glittering motorcycle career of course) his lot prior to arriving at the Ferrari factory gates.
Plenty of other famous names from Scuderia past fit the pattern – Gilles Villeneuve had but one Grand Prix under his belt when Ferrari employed him; Jacky Ickx just four. A handful snapped up were fairly established front-runners with a handful of wins – one thinks of Carlos Reutemann, Jody Scheckter, Nigel Mansell indeed. But that was as far as the team would push the boat out. More common as we entered the 1980s was to pick an up-and-comer with a win or two – Didier Pironi, Michele Alboreto, Gerhard Berger… It’s very difficult to cite veteran stop-gaps parachuted in throughout Ferrari’s previous.
Rather than dubious claims of Ferrari’s time-honoured ways, explanations for Kimi’s retention are likely more humdrum.
Therefore rather than dubious claims of Ferrari’s time-honoured ways, explanations for Kimi’s retention are likely more humdrum. That he’s done perfectly fine this year. That he brings home points reliably. That with big rule changes for next year the team probably is minded to keep as much stability elsewhere as it can, plus Kimi’s experience then will come in handy. That he comes with a Sebastian Vettel Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval (and perhaps Toto Wolff could tell you the benefits of a harmonious atmosphere between the drivers). That, according to Mark Hughes, Ferrari’s senior management is aiming high with its eyes on Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo, and that for as long as the team can’t get any of that trio it sees no need to chase others, particularly when these options involve buying out contracts which many of them did this time. That Kimi can be kept ticking along with one year deals in the meantime helps too.
Yet there is one thing present that is more regrettable, and that Kimi being kept on at least runs parallel with, which is the more general stagnation of the F1 driver market in recent years. And I’m pretty sure this one isn’t a myth. Unlike the other debunked points this one can be supported in fact. Of the 20 race seat occupants from last season, at the start of this campaign an astonishing 16 of them were occupied by the same people. That wasn’t entirely a one-off either, as between the start of 2010 and the end of 2012 none of the ‘big four’ line-ups of Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes changed at all. This stasis may even have continued yet longer had Lewis not surprised everyone including perhaps himself by taking a punt with Merc rather than hang around at McLaren.
The tumultuous Vettel and Mark Webber pairing lasted five seasons, Alonso and Massa four, while with Nico Rosberg’s recent Merc contract extension his hardly-harmonious coupling with Lewis is set to stand for six campaigns at least. It never used to be this way – or at least was so only extremely rarely.
Yet there is one thing present that is more regrettable, which is the more general stagnation of the F1 driver market in recent years. And I’m pretty sure this one isn’t a myth. Of the 20 race seat occupants from last season, at the start of this campaign an astonishing 16 of them were occupied by the same people.
In Monza last year after Williams became but the latest team to announce an unchanged line-up for the following season I asked around a few drivers and team principals why things apparently were so stale these days. But almost all played it with a straight bat – using familiar arguments like stability is preferable in of itself and that there’s no point changing drivers that are doing well. Toto Wolff said similar, albeit colourfully, when confirming in Hungary yesterday that Rosberg was staying on for another couple of years too: “I am in for long-term stability…if it functions well with your wife you need to stay with your wife”. It’s all true in of itself, but it’s always been true presumably. So it doesn’t explain why there’s been a change over time.
The most obvious factor is the heavy restriction on testing. For one thing this at a stroke closed off what had become by the 2000s the most fruitful avenue for those on the way up to get a good drive, as exploited by Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, Robert Kubica and others. For another it makes the risks of getting a new driver up to speed more acute – possibly the struggles in 2009, the first season of the ban, of those two in-season Ferrari stand-ins touched upon, Luca Badoer and Giancarlo Fisichella, cast a long shadow. Fisi indeed lamented at the time that a simple day of testing would have solved a lot of his problems. Add to this the oft-cited ‘complexity’ of the modern F1 car.
Other things likely have contributed too – that there are fewer F1 seats these days generally meaning fewer opportunities for pretenders to impress, and that many of the gigs further down the order are filled by pay drivers squeezed the more meritocratic opportunities even more as well as perhaps made other teams less keen to look that way for budding talent. That modern F1 perhaps has been less competitive than before, certainly has been one of extended spells of single team dominance – Ferrari then Red Bull then Merc with little pauses between – has made it yet more difficult for drivers to prove themselves.
There perhaps are longer-term shifts too. Other series used to be considered far closer to F1 than now – F2, sportscars… – and indeed a few F1 teams used to enter cars in them, as well as in non-championship F1 races, which again gave opportunities for drivers knocking on the door to impress right under the noses of the big bosses. The sport is of course much safer than it used to be, and to be blunt every driver’s death or injury created an opportunity for another. Some furthermore – including Jackie Stewart and James Hunt – retired early for an admitted reason of self-preservation, and this also created vacancies for others. Now such a consideration scarcely enters drivers’ considerations it seems.
If we’re to be cynical too perhaps it shows the increasing influence of the car and with it less potential for a driver to make a difference – which in turns means less incentive to take on the risk and bother of changing them. Or what with most pilots being intensively groomed from early years there now is possibly less to choose between them?
It’s likely any and all of these. And, as outlined, it’s one thing at least that we lament about modern F1 that doesn’t appear to be entirely a myth.
