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When the Champions Reunited to Celebrate F1’s 60th
In all honesty the 2010 Bahrain GP was not exactly one for the memory banks. A lack of on-track action and Ferrari domination combined to make it a rather dreary affair. However, it has been almost four months since Sebastian Vettel crossed the line to steal an unbelievable championship title from right under the nose of Fernando Alonso in Abu Dhabi last year, and many fans are in need of their F1 fix. We therefore take this opportunity to look back on a part of the Bahrain GP 2010 which did not disappoint.
A little bit of history
From Farina to Vettel, there have been thirty-two different winners of the Formula One World Championship since the sports inception. Twenty-one of these champions are still alive and all of them (with the exception of Nelson Piquet and Kimi Raikkonen) were in attendance at the Bahrain GP in 2010 for a very special event to commemorate the sports beginnings in Silverstone on the 13th May 1950.
Eighteen champions took to the track during the build up to the race showcasing some of the classic cars which have stood out during the sports history. Brazil’s double World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi commented: “It's like a time machine. We've never had this group together in the same place before - it's a great honour.” Indeed, many people were talking about the cost of travel insurance for these classic vehicles. Of course, this was all taken care of by F1’s perennial ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone who has made billions off the sport having attended many of the sports early races in the 1950s as a below par racing driver funding his F1 exploits with his second hand car dealership.
Classic Lotus, Williams, Mclaren, Ferrari and Tyrrell cars were driven around the Bahrain International circuit by the drivers with which they achieved so much in the past. Even 76 year old John Surtees- who tragically lost his son in an accident in a F2 race in 2009- showed that he had lost none of his skills driving his 1964 championship winning Ferrari 156. Other British champions in attendance included Jackie Stewart, Damon Hill, Nigel Mansell, and of course contemporary stars Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.
The venue
It was a somewhat ironic clash of cultures- with classic cars from the sports history speeding around one of the latest Middle Eastern F1 circuits which has been funded with an alleged $150 million of government money. The days of hay stacks and concrete walls instead of endless miles of run off area and safety barriers was highlighted by the appearance of these classic cars, which we have been accustomed to seeing in pictures showing cheap and unsophisticated circuit surroundings.
This change of cultures was not greeted altogether positively by F1 stalwart Jackie Stewart, who claimed that the new Middle Eastern circuits were all “carbon copies of each other”. Stewart has been a long time campaigner for safety improvements in Formula One having seen many of his friends killed in competition. However, he claimed that the sport had now become too preoccupied with safety at the expense of testing driver skills: “It is nearly 17 years since a life was lost in an F1 car. But we have now gone too far the other way. Circuits should not permit liberties to be abused without a penalty that can be instantly recognised by spectators or TV viewers. Safety is one thing; abuse of privilege is another.”
Stewart’s comments along with recent political events in the country have served to bring into question the sports migration into such regions and away from its traditional homeland of Europe. Perhaps Silverstone isn’t so bad after all.
