Auto Racing Commentary

They say timing is everything. Sometimes timing is totally out of our control, so opportunities are lost, sublime talents wasted forever. When timing is perfect, “stars align”, things work out, talents reach fruition. The meritocracy idea that talented people always reach the top is bogus.   History is a sum of intercalated past events, in different times and places that conspire to change the present and the future. So what we see and experience today had multiple roots in the past. Thus, the fact that Ayrton Senna , a Brazilian driver, eventually made it to Europe and conquered Formula 1, inspiring future generations of drivers all over the world, took root in the timing of certain events in Brazil (and the world), back in the 70’s. The timing of such events was perfect, preceding the 1973 oil crisis and matching the height of the Brazilian “economic miracle”. The fact is, had the Brazilian racing scene remained sleepy, disorganized and stagnant until 1974, and attemp...

Most car of the world's motor racing literature is written in English. I would not dare pegging a percentage, but an educated guess is much more than 80%. Back in the 70's the percentage was  even higher, as publishing technology and markets were very restricted. As a result, much of what you read about racing in the period covers the USA (plus Canada), Western Europe, South Africa and Australia/New  Zealand. That was pretty much what the British and American specialized media was covering these days in magazines, newspapers, books and annuals. This gives a very wrong impression that racing was not taking place elsewhere in the world, especially in places where English was not spoken. When I got the idea for my book Motor Racing in the 70s - Pivoting from Romantic to Organized, I would be doing what 99% of motoring writers had done when covering the period: focusing entirely on the major racing taking place in the SA (plus Canada), Western Europe, South Africa and Austr...

Nowadays information about driver’s retainers, race earnings, the huge amounts some Formula 1 teams are paid, sponsorship deals seems public domain; $$$ are often featured in racing news stories. There are multiple reasons for that: public disclosure is required of public companies, a great part of the allure of motor racing these days seems pegged to the possibility of making large mounds of dollars, euros and pounds. Additionally, let us face it, we live in a very narcissistic world. Celebrities love to flaunt dough, and the sport has always been aligned with the idea of vast amounts of cash flying about. Buying a Ferrari to go racing in the 50s definitely cost more than buying soccer balls or swimming in lakes or buying cricket gear, after all. I have conducted extensive research on car racing in the 70s, and to be honest, locating trustworthy and plentiful data has been challenging at best. People simply did not talk much about it, for reasons you may found out later. And so...

My book Motor Racing in the 70s - Pivoting from Romantic to Organized is finally out. At present time, it can be bought through Amazon.com, but I am looking into ways to get wider distribution. Not that there are that many physical bookstores around, at least not in the USA. I am pleased with the result. It ended up with 384 pages, and a much different product than what I first envisaged. I wanted to write a much simpler year-by-year account, a shorter book. It developed into something larger, more analytical, although there are tons of statistics and interesting facts pertaining only to the 70s. In other words, you are not going to find the final results of Formula 1 races or even points tables. These can be found in lots of other places, including wikipedia The only Formula 1 statistics I have placed in the book relate specifically to the 70s, such as laps in the lead (cars and drivers), total starts during the decade, and things of the sort. There is plentiful other Formula 1 in...

Wikipedia and I have a very tense relationship. Let me explain. As a racing history researcher, I find wikipedia to be wanting. For those that do not know the English expression, it means lacking, insufficient. I began writing about racing history back in 2003, when even blogs were not yet the rage. I used to include texts on a site I had, called brazilyellowpages.com, which no longer exists as a standalone site (long story). There was no such a thing as wikipedia. And google was still a young company, looking for "partners" in the way of content builders. So, when I began building my blogs in earnest, I had the ambition of building the largest depository of race results in the internet, or at least winners. I soon found several sites that had very good information, but I found copying all laboriously compiled information a bit sneaky simply. So I understood that I could present winners and let others do what they do well. Unfortunately, Wikipedia has other thoughts...

It is an indisputable fact that winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall is one of the most highly sought after prizes in all of racing. Notwithstanding, it is very easy to concentrate on Fernando Alonso’s and Toyota’s maiden victories at the Sarthe, and Alonso’s trek to the Triple Crown of racing, and fail to see some interesting patterns. Every since the driver trio became the norm at Le Mans, in 1985, a few winning crews were formed exclusively of drivers that had at one point raced (or were active in F1) such as Alonso, Nakajima and Buemi. In fact, this happened only four other times. In 2009, David Brabham, Marc Gene and Alexander Wurz had some F1 experience behind them, none of them wildly successful. Wurz had a couple of podiums and a fastest lap to his credit, and Gene scored points. Ten years before, victors Pierluigi Martini, Yannick Dalmas and Joachim Winkelhock also had F1 experience. Martini had led a GP, started one race from the first row, but Joachim Winkelhock ne...

Formula 2 was conceived in the 40s as a steppingstone category to Grand Prix, replacing the 30’s voiturettes. In the 60’s, after some seasons in which only Formula 1 and Formula Junior existed as single seaters category in European racing, F2 came back in 1966 and an European Championship was created in 1967. This championship ran non-stop until 1984, when it was replaced by Formula 3000. Current Formula 2 only shares the name with the old 2.0 liter cars (the engine size from 1972 to 1984, before that, 1.6 liter), and have much larger engine capacities and power. Additionally, while a large number of Formula 2 participants, championship winners and point scorers, and even some non-point scorers, made it to Formula 1 in the above mentioned period, the same cannot be said of GP2 (which was recently renamed Formula 2) drivers. Making to Formula 2 at present is not really a guarantee you will ever drive a F-1 car in the world championship. In fact, generally two, tops three Formula 2 gr...