A writer skewered the Formula One scene, then her article vanished
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
The real shame is that an article can be vanished like that. Not so long ago, once it was printed it was printed and if you had the magazine in your possession nobody could retract its contents, as far as you're concerned.
its power is not limitless though (yet) so you can't save every article
huh?
I've been an F1 fan for years, but also someone who presumably cares about the environment and has concerns over the growing wealth-gap. Those things are hard to reconcile just to be entertained.
The story was taken down because I felt it was the wrong story for our publication. No one from the brands or organizations mentioned in the story put any sort of pressure on me or anyone else. In fact, I heard nothing at all from anyone on the story. No contact whatsoever.
It was unfortunate and I can understand how people might jump to the conclusion that pressure of some sort was brought to bear. It wasn’t. Truth is, when the story was assigned, written and edited I was Executive Editor of Road & Track, not EIC. I was dealing almost exclusively with the print magazine. The story had been assigned and edited by the digital team. Had I been aware of the story I would have put a stop to it long before it ever posted.
I’m afraid this is a much more mundane situation than you might have imagined.
https://defector.com/road-track-eic-tries-to-explain-why-he-...
A gig you won't get skewering manufacturers.
The magazine's EIC was right: the article had no place in an enthusiast's magazine, well-written or not. Mother Jones or similar would be an ideal place for it. I wonder if the online editors who approved it were trying to move towards a politicized editorial tone more typified by Jalopnik [0] than Road & Track.
[0] https://jalopnik.com/cash-strapped-donald-trump-wants-the-mo...
It was a bunch of angry ramblings by a self-proclaimed socialist that knows nothing about the sport and hates people for having and spending their money in one of the most expensive sports in the world.
Her take on Red Bull's dominance is superficial at best (no comments on the Mercedes dominance over the past decade, or Red Bull's previous dominance, or when Ferrari was the one to beat).
Verstappen happens to be a phenom. While Red Bull's dominance definitely has some to do with the car (Adrian Newey is a brilliant engineer), Verstappen is walking away from his teammate in the same vehicle.
Does that sort of dominance make some aspects of the race boring? Yeah, but there's so much more to watch and there's tons of action and passing going on throughout the rest of the field. There are some really top-notch racers and teams on track and they're really battling it out.
Max is great (just like Lewis), but it's generally accepted that Red Bull's "secret sauce" is the car, and their engineering team (specifically "aero").
Only partially; Newey is a generational talent at what he does but if it were just that, Checo would be way ahead of where he is.
Unless your assertion is that he has a LACK of talent that counteracts the car's advantage?
F1 is a sport for elites + billionaires, but even the racers are all incredibly wealthy/fortunate nepo babies. It's one of the most inaccessible sports in the entire world. It takes an average of $2M+ for a person to enter F1 as a driver.
Imagine if every kid in the US alone had the privilege/fortune to race carts/cars since they were children, growing up immersed in the scene. Now imagine the equivalent of the US basketball or football system, where hundreds of thousands of kids start the sport young and are gradually filtered out all the way up to college and then pro leagues, ensuring the absolute best of the best are ultimately selected.
The F1 candidate pool represents a rounding error in comparison.
Sure, the drivers who make it are great. They started young and they worked hard to get there. But we're fundamentally BARELY penetrating the global potential here. The greatest possible drivers in the world will statistically never enter the sport. They won't even be able to afford a ticket to watch F1 in person.
Yes it still requires sacrificing a lot of time and some money, but not worse than many regular sports.
And yes, always need to be careful about making definitive statements.
People are trying to address the pipeline problem you've highlighted by scouting talented drivers from simulators, which is great, but ultimately there's a huge cost to racing a physical car/kart/motorcycle compared to basically every other sport.
I also disagree with the idea that you have to come from immense wealth to be a driver. The lower levels of racing are where you start out prove your talent are karting. I see some racing karts brand new online for about $2k. You’ve got to maybe be middle class or the low end of upper middle class to get into it, and if you’re good then the levels above that basically sponsor you.
It’s not like you have to personally own and operate the cars to drive. Look at Lewis Hamiton’s background and biography for an example.
> Now imagine the equivalent of the US basketball or football system, where hundreds of thousands of kids start the sport young and are gradually filtered out all the way up to college and then pro leagues, ensuring the absolute best of the best are ultimately selected.
The barriers to these sports are becoming higher and higher, just like there are high barrier costs associated with karting/racing.
Verstappen, Sainz, Leclerc - fathers raced cars
Alonso - father was amateur kart racer
Norris, Stroll, Perez - wealthy families
Hamilton, Russell - middle-class parents
Like most sports, being born into it helps a lot, as done wealth. But, it's not a guarantee and there are F1 drivers from relatively normal backgrounds.
The drivers, incredibly skilled as they are, will also frequently do things like go on the radio during races and complain about their car to their team, i.e. the persons responsible for said car. Not offer any constructive input, just... complain. Often. On the other hand, that's one of the few times they actually show any emotions or say what they think, with all the media training and endless PR events and making sure the sponsor logo on their hat is clearly in view in interview after interview after interview... Yeah, I'm ranting. But it's all just so incredibly blatantly commercial. Again, like any sport once it grows big enough.
(Another commenter wrote about the interesting technical side of the sport: I agree that there would be so many more interesting stories to tell there: about car development, strategy, manufacturing... but whenever these things are touched upon, it's done in a very shallow way, to prevent people quitting their subscription in horror at having to digest some actual information. Instead we get things like PR events with drivers having to pretend they enjoy whatever ridiculous competition they're put in against their teammate as part of their contractual obligations. It seems there could be so much more there... but perhaps this way is more profitable.)
Because the barrier to entry is low, talent filters up better in many other sports. We probably know who the best hockey player in Canada is, but who would be the best dressage rider is a mystery because few kids have access.
Not to say we should never fix anything, but I need more convincing that this is a real problem.
Yes, under some counterfactual condition, there are better Olympians, but that imaginary world is not equivalent or meaningful in the real and current one. This is the basic conceit of a lot of critical theories and ideas, they aren't rooted in the real.
But moreover, so what? Why should the inaccessibility of a sport matter to a spectator's enjoyment?
The difference talent detection isn't just about money though, but general interest and how difficult it is to detect the talent. I bet there are a lot of people that could be great at baseball in Europe, but surprisingly, nobody there plays baseball. The best possible soccer players in India are probably not playing soccer either... and the issue in those two isn't money. Starting training early at the right thing is often more crucial than talent outside of, say, basketball and volleyball, and when your father is already in the sport, it's far more likely that you'll try from a young age, get good coaching and access to sponsorships. It's more that than, say Carlos Jr's father being rich because of his continued Rally driving. There's a lot of people that are more than rich enough: they just don't try.
One might have some incredible Olympic rifle shooters or kayakers or weightlifters or what have you, but because those sports are niche in many countries those talents may never surface (so Madeleine's amazing fast-twitch weightlifting nerves/muscles are 'wasted' on volleyball instead). When you really care about medal count, all sports are important, so you want to maximize your chances of finding the right kids to put on the national squads years in the future. It's really smart, but depends upon political/economic structures thankfully not present in other locations.
Sure, the cars are so wide and long that it's nearly impossible to pass on some courses (i.e. Monaco). Sure, some cars are much faster than others and you know it's very unlikely that a team like Haas will finish on the podium or even in the points. But, with the current financial regulations teams can't just spend $200m more than someone else. And if you look at the lap time differentials, the spread isn't as big as you might think.
There's always NASCAR and IndyCar if you want to watch a more 'fair' motorsport where people are driving much more similar cars. But I think there's totally a place for a sport where teams aren't on as equal of footing and there's more room for engineering creativity.
To me this seems like a necessary transition period. Once new engines and regulations come into play, some of the previous engineering work will become less relevant.
Also, some of Red Bulls current dominance is certainly due to Adrian Newey and his experience with ground effect cars.
* quick google search seems to indicate that Ferrari has roughly 1.3B in cash and Mercedes 26B. So not even a team like Ferrari, who's entire raison d'être is racing, can necessarily afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for years on end.
But, drama and humans and personality intervened, and now it's all about the drivers.
I'd speculate that the article was removed because there is so much wrong with it - things that even I know to be untrue/exaggerated, especially about Ratcliffe - and R&T was threatened with lawsuits.
People would be absolutely boggled by how much money is involved in so many aspects of life, and what that entails.
If you make $100k a year, you might pick up a dollar you see on the ground but might ignore a penny - you won't really care about that dollar or spending it.
At Red Bull's $181 million, that dollar is about $1k or more. Just not even considered.
I think The Life of a Bolt video does a really good job of illustrating just how far these teams will go for safety, performance, and reliability.