Monday 25 March 2013

Formula 1 And The Now Infamous Vettel / Webber Race.

The team engineers will want a Robot driver next...

The Formula 1 race in Malaysia yesterday really covered most bases of entertainment. Who can forget Lewis Hamilton's quick visit at his old pit ! Never mind the other little mishaps on that suddenly interesting pit-lane. Gosh, I didn't dare take a pit-stop myself.

Watching F1 is and should be nail-biting stuff. Most of us viewers have a favourite driver and follow him with great gusto throughout the season ( in fact, I don't bother too much with the type of car ). Fans expect their guy to do extraordinary stuff. Just going the distance while tamely following orders issued in their earpiece somehow makes it a tad bit boring to watch.

By the way, why do we suddenly know most of the communication between driver and engineers ? It should be need-to-know basis...and I don't need to know ! I must admit that I miss that mystique of it all. If like yesterday, the 3rd and 4th place was kind of predetermined, why should we still watch the race to the end ?

As for the Vettel manoeuvre, apart from not listening to his ear-piece, he did what he is trained to do - win ! Just imagine: a leopard in the zoo at feeding time. He is hungry and can smell the meat coming his way. The meat gets thrown into his lair but he gets told to not touch it yet ! Not going to happen, is it ? Changing a leopard's spots and all that.

I for one, take my hat off to Sebastian Vettel and have more admiration for him. We all know he didn't follow orders and thus made a ' mistake '. Yet, he apologized several times to his team mate and team. In front of millions of viewers ! We all have made mistakes and know how hard it is to admit to and apologize for it, even in private. Eh, throwing a stone in a glass house....

Do you think that in, lets say ten years time, the drivers of the F1 cars will be replaced by robots ? Robots who get programmed to do as they are told...and most importantly, will you still watch the Formula 1 season ?

Biggi

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