F1 Fanatic

Finally an honest perspective from one of the most outspoken former drivers – Eddie Irvine. Free from any team, he has no PR obligation to satisfy. Here it is:

http://www.autosport.com/features/article.php/id/2945

I especially liked what he told about new circuits:

“And then we’ve got all these flashy, perfect circuits that bore the shit out of everybody. Except for Singapore, which was bumpy and crazy in the first year, and they’ve even tried to anesthetize that.”

I used to watch CART races in the early 2000s and what made them exciting was the bumpy street circuits they raced in. You could watch the cars moving up and down as they raced at breakneck speeds. That’s what I liked about Singapore in its first year. You could see the up and down motion of cars. But drivers complained and it got sorted out, or as Eddie says, anesthetized.

The New Delhi(India) track is reported to be undulating with high and low points as in a hill circuit and include banked turns too. That should be interesting.

But nowadays you hardly get people who speak out so frankly. Here’s what he said about his transition from Ferrari to Jaguar. Apparently he was pleased then from getting off the No. 2 role at the Scuderia and move to a team leader figure at British equivalent of Ferrari:

“I got from my dad’s scrapyard in Ireland to fighting for the F1 world championship for Ferrari. I saw how a team should be run, then went to a team where I saw how it shouldn’t be run. Jean Todt made it seem much easier than it was, and Jaguar made it seem much harder than it was.”

What a change the team that was once the unprofessional Jaguar squad has undergone now as Red Bull! Irvine also says that Jaguar wanted to hire Adrian Newey back then but just didn’t offer him enough. Now it’s a different story. Newey wouldn’t want to leave Red Bull any time in the near future.