As much as David Croft loves to pump up the television audience after nearly every race, the British Grand Prix this weekend proved that the sport isn’t far away from perfecting the recipe of a great race weekend.
Amidst crisis meetings and commercial rights owners looking to off-load the sport, threats from competitors like WEC offering a compelling product on and off the track, and a dwindling pool of commercial super-powers willing to sponsor the teams, Formula One hit back.
The sport demonstrated that it can still thrill the crowd and showcase the talents of the greatest drivers on the planet.
When Williams stormed to the lead everyone was stunned, most of all the Mercedes drivers, who aren’t used to watching their advantage evaporate in the opening seconds. It opened up possibilities, like Williams winning or at least holding on for a podium finish.
After the race social media was flooded with positive vibes, bemoaning anyone who judges the race by the familiarity of the podium result. Despite Lewis Hamilton’s blessed pit stop call just as the heavens opened, he had the race won in the opening stages when he undercut both Williams drivers who, it’s safe to say, were done no favours by their team strategist.
Further down the grid the rain did mix up the results, especially for Sebastian Vettel who catapulted himself into P3 and salvaged a weekend that had Ferrari considering a Total Recall-style memory wipe. Kimi Räikkönen risked taking on intermediate tyres before the conditions really called for them, a decision that sent him tumbling down the timesheets.
Nico Rosberg’s car somehow hooked up in the misty conditions, allowing him to launch past Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa in genuine overtaking moves (remember those?). Finally, the less said about Marcus Ericsson’s four pit stops, including putting on slicks at the worst possible time, the better.
Silverstone gave the fans their first look at racing in the wet after nine races into the season, yet it’s something that all drivers have to contend with and genuinely puts the audience on the edge of their seat. While nobody wants to see a race abandoned due to inclemency, nor the conditions become unsafe, a little sprinkle here and there from time to time spices things up.
Rain can change the nature of a race so fundamentally, and improves the watchability, that the proposal comes up every few years that sprinklers be installed around the tracks as a cure for stale, processional races.
It even gives an advantage to drivers like Hamilton, Jenson Button and even Will Stevens, who cut their teeth on racetracks across the UK where it more or less rains 11 months of the year.
As much as Formula One is at a crossroads and genuinely needs to embrace the notion of becoming a global sport, not just a European one that visits foreign territories, the current trend of taking the Formula One circus to places like Abu Dhabi and Bahrain, where precipitation is sparse, only homogenises the racing.
Decisions like limiting driver aids at the start of the race may increase the likelihood of jumbled results early in a race, wider tyres and the possibility of a tyre war (although, I’m not holding my breath) may also change the dynamic of the racing, but other proposed measures like refuelling are simply nonsense that illustrate a stunning lack of creativity.
The British Grand Prix proved that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Formula One; all the ingredients for exciting racing are there. Changes to the regulations and format need to be made by a light hand, with a clarity of purpose, and certainly not by the teams themselves.
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