Yesterday's French Grand Prix was a very good example of the state modern Formula One racing is in. Fernando Alonso in the Renault started on pole, with Michael Schumacher second, and was a match for Schumacher for the first half of the race, staying ahead without really being threatened. Now, the ideal thing to happen in racing would be for the guy in second place to try and pass the guy up ahead of him. Instead, however, Ferrari's strategist Ross Brawn decided it would be better to do another pit stop (making 4 total for the race that some did in two and most did in three). This put Michael about 15 seconds behind Alonso for a while, but gave him clear track with no traffic and got him out of the 'dirty air' that he would have been in had he stuck behind Alonso. At this point he pulled off a succession of unbelievably fast laps, gained about a second per lap on the leader for 10 laps. The extra pit stop also allowed Schumacher to run a looser suspension and wear his tires down more quickly, but with the advantage of better grip. Thus, after Alonso emerged from his last pit stop, heavy with fuel, Schumacher was well ahead of him and stayed there for the remainder of the race.

I've long been as impressed as anyone with Michael Schumacher's driving ability, and no one can reliably pull off near-perfect laps on cue like he can. However he seems to have a rather substantial aversion to actually racing against anyone side-by-side if he can at all help it. From a practical standpoint this makes sense, however it can make for a fairly dull race to anyone not intimately familiar with the various differences in tire properties and engine / aerodynamic characteristics between the teams and who just wants to see the best drivers in the world race against each other.

Here is a clip (.mpeg) from the 1979 French Grand Prix, showing the last couple of laps and the phenomenal duel between Gilles Villeneuve in his Ferrari and René Arnoux in the Renault. (Interesting coincidence). The two cars fight it out, with ARnoux having the clearly superior twin-turbo, but Villeneuve pulling out everything to get past the faster car.

The final race of 1997 is an often-pointed-to example of what happens to Schumacher when he is actually forced to race 'against' another driver. He messes up, and often races dirty.

Watching the race yesterday was as exciting as ever for me, but I could greatly sympathize with anyone else who actually sat through the thing.

Champ Car racing is perhaps a little better formulated to encourage real racing, with the elimination of pit-stop strategy dominated races and more equal cars, it can produce some very unexpected results, but still the best driver tends to shine through the rest.

We'll see what will happen to my second favourite sport, but I really can't imagine it going on this particular path and still have it considered a sport. As an engineering contest it stands alone, obviously, but I don't think the potential audience for such an expensive endeavour can sustain that particular path for very long.